they were not considering any one else and really
wanted to hear me. I sang there with one of the biggest personal
successes I have ever made, the _Buergermeister_ and all the Committee
(it was a municipal theatre managed by a Committee with the Mayor at the
head) came on the stage to congratulate me, and I had to take nine
curtain calls alone after the last act. I was not engaged, however, and
found out that they had already decided to engage a contralto who had
sung one _Gastspiel_ before me and the other directly afterwards. This
sort of thing happens even to the most experienced native-born singer.
One tenor in D. sang a guest performance _auf Engagement_, and learned
that he was the seventh who had tried for that position in the same
part, and they kept on their original one after all! Of course, these
performances are paid, but the fact that one has sung without being
engaged becomes known everywhere through the weekly theatrical paper,
which gives the repertoire and singers in each opera, of all the
reputable opera houses in Germany. But the fact that the management
never intended to engage you is not generally known. If you have bad
luck like this three or four times, it injures your standing as an
artist. The _Genossenschaft_ or stage society is trying to make each
theatre confine itself to issuing only one contract at a time to fill
any vacancy they may have, which will largely prevent this evil.

A second disappointment followed right on the heels of the first one. I
had a second string to my bow, as there was a vacancy in a very good
_Stadttheater_ for which I was anxious to try. I opened negotiations
with them through my agent, and after the usual delay arranged the
_Gastspiels_. Their contralto was also leaving voluntarily. I was to
sing the two _Erdas_ and _Ulrica_ in the "Masked Ball." When I got
there, I found this changed to the _Erdas_ and _Fricka_, which I had not
sung for a year. Then they demanded _Frau Reich_ in "Merry Wives"
without a rehearsal instead of the "Siegfried" _Erda_. I was very
unhappy, for I knew from this that things were going badly, and that
they had no intention of engaging me, no matter how or what I sang. The
Direction wrote me that, in spite of my great talents, my voice was not
quite large enough for their house. The truth was that their contralto,
who was a Jewess and therefore of the same religion as most of the
committee, had been offered an increase of salary to remain, an