med lost (wasted, too, it may be added),
although the entrance of the proud African girl was made with some
effect, and the death scene was carried through with beauty of purpose.
But has any one ever characterized Selika? Her Santuzza, one of the two
roles which she has sung in Paris, must be considered a failure when
judged by the side of such a performance as that given by Emma
Calve--and who would judge Olive Fremstad by any but the highest
standards? The Swedish singer's Santuzza was as elemental, in its way,
as that of the Frenchwoman, but its implications were too tragic, too
massive in their noble beauty, for the correct interpretation of a
sordid melodrama. It was as though some one had engaged the Victory of
Samothrace to enact the part. Munich adored the Fremstad Carmen (was it
not her characterization of the Bizet heroine which caused Heinrich
Conried to engage her for America?) and Franz von Stuck painted her
twice in the role. Even in New York she was appreciated in the part. The
critics awarded her fervent adulation, but she never stirred the public
pulse. The principal fault of this very Northern Carmen was her lack of
humour, a quality the singer herself is deficient in. For a season or
two in America Mme. Fremstad appeared in the role, singing it, indeed,
in San Francisco the night of the memorable earthquake, and then it
disappeared from her repertoire. Maria Gay was the next Metropolitan
Carmen, but it was Geraldine Farrar who made the opera again as popular
as it had been in Emma Calve's day.

Mme. Fremstad is one of those rare singers on the lyric stage who is
able to suggest the meaning of the dramatic situation through the colour
of her voice. This tone-colour she achieves stroke by stroke, devoting
many days to the study of important phrases. To go over in detail the
instances in which she has developed effects through the use of
tone-colour would make it necessary to review, note by note, the operas
in which she has appeared. I have no such intention. It may be
sufficient to recall to the reader--who, in remembering, may recapture
the thrill--the effect she produces with the poignant lines beginning
_Amour, puissant amour_ at the close of the third act of _Armide_, the
dull, spent quality of the voice emitted over the words _Ich habe deinen
Mund gekuesst_ from the final scene of _Salome_, and the subtle, dreamy
rapture of the _Liebestod_ in _Tristan und Isolde_. Has any one else
achieved this e