g dickering to
arrange the guest performances which should decide my fate. They finally
asked me to sing _Azucena_ at an afternoon performance. It had taken so
long to find a date which suited us both, that a good deal of time had
elapsed between the signing of the contract and their letter. I, of
course, refused to sing an afternoon performance, and it was finally
arranged that I should sing _Carmen_ on a certain date. There is a sort
of unwritten law that they shall choose one part, and you another, but
it is not always observed. This difficulty over the role should have
warned me that there was something wrong. Such a disagreement is a
pretty good indication that your contract will not be made _perfekt_.

I travelled all night, and arrived to find a rehearsal on the same day
as the performance. It was what is called an _Arrangier Probe fuer den
Gast_, rehearsal without orchestra, of the scenes in which the "Guest"
takes part. All the colleagues were nice to me, but I saw the contralto
watching from the wings, and she gave me a dagger glare; so I thought
that there was "something rotten in the state of Denmark," as she was
supposed to be leaving voluntarily. I sang well that night, and had a
real success with the audience, and with my colleagues. They all said to
me, "Oh, you are certainly engaged after a hit like that." But I felt a
premonition which increased to a certainty when I heard that the
Director had not troubled to watch my performance, but had left the
theatre in the middle of the first act.

I left the next morning, and in a day I received a letter from the
Director saying that I had not had quite enough experience to sing their
repertoire. I learned some time afterwards that their contralto had
sung one of her guest-performances before I went there, had failed to
make a sufficient impression, and had decided to remain where she was.
This had been settled between her and the Direction before I sang at
all; still they had let me sing with no prospect of an engagement, and
allowed it to appear to be my fault that I was not engaged. Legally, of
course, they were quite within their rights, as I could have sued them
if they had not given me a chance to sing the _Gastspiel_ called for in
my contract. But any singer, in such circumstances, would infinitely
prefer to be told the facts. Later, I once begged a director to tell me
if it were really worth while to _gastieren_ in his opera house. He
said, certainly,