almost invariably
included in the contract. Now-a-days your engagement is settled after
you have successfully made these trial appearances, and you then remain
in that engagement for a full season; and the management must let you
know before February first (sometimes January first) whether you are to
be re-engaged or not. This is in order to give the singer time to make
arrangements for the coming season. When I was engaged in Metz the
management of a theatre had the right to dismiss any singer after three
weeks, whether he had made his guest appearances beforehand or not, if
he had failed in that time to make good with the public. He was also
liable to dismissal after his first appearance, if he proved quite
impossible. This was what they were expecting in my case. The
arrangement was most unfair to the poor singer, leaving him stranded
(with practically no chance of work that year) after he had moved all
his possessions and thought himself established for the season. The big
artists' society, the _Genossenschaft_, which is the only protective
institution for singers in Germany, has at last succeeded in abolishing
this unjust condition of affairs. There was a flagrant case of this kind
in the theatre during the first three weeks of my engagement. The "high
dramatic" soprano had finished the first three weeks of her engagement,
during which she had had to learn two new parts, providing costumes, at
her own expense, for a role which she had not expected to have to sing.
She had had a fair success and thought herself secure. In the meantime,
the management had had no idea of keeping her on permanently, but had
merely engaged her to fill in the time, while they were waiting for
another singer, who was filling an out-of-season engagement elsewhere,
and could not report for three weeks. When she was free, they told the
first one that she had not pleased sufficiently and dismissed her. The
good theatres did not take advantage of this privilege of course, even
while it still existed.

My second role was a very small one, one of the court ladies of "Les
Huguenots." A native first contralto would probably not have been asked
to do such a small part, but there being no regular part for my voice in
the opera, I think they were glad to use my good stage appearance, and
of course, as a beginner I made no protest, being glad of every chance
to become more used to the stage. The part was sprung upon me suddenly,
and I had no dress fo