ILDENBERG

The well known composer who has enaugerated a plan to establish
Municipal Grand Opera in New York City. Mr. Mildenberg's experience as
conductor in the Municipal Opera Houses in France and Italy has fitted
him well for this laudable undertaking which will pave the way for the
training and placing of many talented pupils in this country, who have
heretofore been compelled to go abroad in order to secure positions on
the Grand Opera Stage.]

There is no reason why a person with voice and talent who has to make
his own living, could not do so after several years of study. I have
over one hundred pupils who are making a good living by singing, and as
many more holding church positions paying them enough to enable them to
continue their studies.

Show me a pupil who has to make his own living, and who has studied with
one teacher for eight or nine years and is not making his living by
singing, and you are showing me one who =never will=.

There is, of course, no end to the study of voice culture. I have
studied more or less for over twenty years and am still studying, but if
you have to make your own living, secure whatever position may be open
to you. The church or concert position is =equally= valuable as the opera.

In Europe, where you hear grand opera all the year around, it becomes a
second nature, but here in our western cities, until recently, grand
opera was almost unknown; two or three performances a year was about all
we could hope for. This was not enough to thoroughly acquaint the people
with the operas, and not enough to create a demand.

In a western city of 200,000 inhabitants where five years ago it was
impossible to draw an audience of a hundred persons unless heralded by
spectacular advertising, I had the pleasure of witnessing this year
"Standing Room Only" during the performance of the dear old operas, Il
Trovatore, Faust and Carmen. The operas that the people have become
acquainted with through the phonographs, the orchestras and the grand
opera study clubs, organized by the more up-to-date teachers. Mr. Albert
Mildenberg is taking up a most commendable work, that of establishing
the municipal grand opera in New York City; he will eventually succeed,
and, with Herr Andreas Dippel organizing permanent grand opera in the
larger cities west of New York, it will not be long before the grand
opera positions will be plentiful. Within the next year, through the
efforts of Victor Maurel, the gr