but, or whether I
had better study more. I went to the manager's office and, appealing to
his business sense, told him that, as I was a young unknown singer, he
could secure my services for little money, and begged for permission to
sing for him. I knew he was beset by such requests, but he immediately
gave me a hearing, and I was engaged for one performance of
_Rigoletto_. The night of the debut came, and I was obliged to sing
_Caro Nome_ again in response to a vociferous encore. This was followed
by other successes, and I was engaged for two years for a South American
tour, under the direction of my good friend and adviser, the great
operatic director, Mugnone. In South America there was enthusiasm
everywhere, but all the time I kept working constantly with my voice,
striving to perfect details.

At the end of the South American tour I desired to visit New York and
find out what America was like. Because of the war Europe was
operatically impossible (it was 1916), but I had not the slightest idea
of singing in the United States just then. By merest accident I ran into
an American friend (Mr. Thorner) on Broadway. He had heard me sing in
Italy, and immediately took me to Maestro Campanini, who was looking
then for a coloratura soprano to sing for only two performances in
Chicago, as the remainder of his program was filled for the year. This
was in the springtime, and it meant that I was to remain in New York
until October and November. The opportunity seemed like an unusual
accident of fate, and I resolved to stay, studying my own voice all the
while to improve it more and more. October and the debut in _Rigoletto_
came. The applause astounded me; it was electric, like a thunderstorm.
No one was more astonished than I. Engagements and offers came from
everywhere, but not enough, I hope, to ever induce me not to believe
that in the vocal art one must continually strive for higher and higher
goals. Laziness, indifference and lassitude which come with success are
the ruin of Art and the artist. The normal healthy artist with the right
ideals never reaches his Zenith. If he did, or if he thought he did, his
career would come to a sudden end.

[Illustration: MARY GARDEN.

(C) Mishkin.]

MARY GARDEN

BIOGRAPHICAL

Mary Garden was born February 20th, 1877, in Aberdeen, Scotland. She
came to America with her parents when she was eight years of age and was
brought up in Chicopee, Massachusetts, Hartford, Connect