ontinue to do it. I leave mere singing to the
warblers. I am more interested in acting myself."

There is much that is sound sense in these remarks, but it is a pity
that Mme. Farrar carries her theories out literally. To me, and to many
another, there is something a little sad in the acceptance of easily won
victory. If she would, Mme. Farrar might improve her singing and acting
in certain roles in which she has already appeared, and she might
enlarge her repertoire to include more of the roles which have a deeper
significance in operatic and musical history. At present her activity is
too consistent to allow time for much reflection. It would afford me the
greatest pleasure to learn that this singer had decided to retire for a
few months to devote herself to study and introspection, so that she
might return to the stage with a new and brighter fire and a more
lasting message.

_Farrar fara--forse._

_July 14, 1916._

Mary Garden

"_Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose._"

Gertrude Stein.

The influence of Ibsen on our stage has been most subtle. The dramas of
the sly Norwegian are infrequently performed, but almost all the plays
of the epoch bear his mark. And he has done away with the actor, for
nowadays emotions are considered rude on the stage. Our best playwrights
have striven for an intellectual monotone. So it happens that for the
Henry Irvings, the Sarah Bernhardts, and the Edwin Booths of a younger
generation we must turn to the operatic stage, and there we find them:
Maurice Renaud, Olive Fremstad--and Mary Garden.

There is nothing casual about the art of Mary Garden. Her achievements
on the lyric stage are not the result of happy accident. Each detail of
her impersonations, indeed, is a carefully studied and selected effect,
chosen after a review of possible alternatives. Occasionally, after a
trial, Miss Garden even rejects the instinctive. This does not mean that
there is no feeling behind her performances. The deep burning flame of
poetic imagination illuminates and warms into life the conception
wrought in the study chamber. Nothing is left to chance, and it is
seldom, and always for some good reason, that this artist permits
herself to alter particulars of a characterization during the course of
a representation.

I have watched her many times in the same role without detecting any
great variance in the arrangement of details, and almost as many times I
have been blinded by the force