hat
he may have himself well in hand by evening. How often one feels
indisposed in the morning! Any physical reason is sufficient to make
singing difficult, or even impossible; it need not be connected
necessarily with the vocal organs; in fact, I believe it very rarely
is. For this reason, in two hours everything may have changed.

I remember a charming incident in New York. Albert Niemann, our heroic
tenor, who was to sing _Lohengrin_ in the evening, complained to me in
the morning of severe hoarseness. To give up a role in America costs
the singer, as well as the director, much money. My advice was to
wait.

_Niemann._ What do you do, then, when you are hoarse?

_I._ Oh, I practise and see whether it still troubles me.

_Niem._ Indeed; and what do you practise?

_I._ Long, slow scales.

_Niem._ Even if you are hoarse?

_I._ Yes; if I want to sing, or have to, I try it.

_Niem._ Well, what are they? Show me.

_The great scale, the infallible cure._

I showed them to him; he sang them, with words of abuse in the
meantime; but gradually his hoarseness grew better. He did not send
word of his inability to appear in the evening, but sang, and better
than ever, with enormous success.

I myself had to sing _Norma_ in Vienna some years ago, and got up in
the morning quite hoarse. By nine o'clock I tried my infallible
remedy, but could not sing above A flat, though in the evening I
should have to reach high D flat and E flat. I was on the point of
giving up, because the case seemed to me so desperate. Nevertheless, I
practised till eleven o'clock, half an hour at a time, and noticed
that I was gradually getting better. In the evening I had my D flat
and E flat at my command and was in brilliant form. People said they
had seldom heard me sing so well.

I could give numberless instances, all going to show that you never
can tell early in the day how you are going to feel in the evening. I
much prefer, for instance, not to feel so very well early in the day,
because it may easily happen that the opposite may be the case later
on, which is much less agreeable. If you wish to sing only when you
are in good form, you must excuse yourself ninety-nine times out of a
hundred. You must learn to know your own vocal organs thoroughly and
be able to sing; must do everything that is calculated to keep you in
good condition. This includes chiefly rest for the nerves, care of the
body, and gymnastics of the voice, that you ma