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Education 1914 How to Sing: My Title to Write on the Art of Song Rarely are so many desirable and neces-sary antecedents united as in my case. The child of two singers, my mother being gifted musically quite out of the common, and active for many years not only as a dra-matic singer, but also as a harp virtuoso, I, with my sister Marie, received a very careful musical education, and later a notable course of in-struction in singing from her. From my fifth year on I listened daily to singing lessons; from my ninth year I played accompaniments on the pianoforte, sang all the missing parts, in French, Italian, German, and Bohemian; got thoroughly familiar with all the operas, and very soon knew how to tell good singing from bad. Our mother took care, too, that we should hear all the visiting notabilities of that time in opera as well as in concert; and there were many of them ever year at the Deutsches Landestheater in Prague. She herself had found a remarkable singing teacher in the Frankfort basso, Foppel; and kept her voice noble, beautiful, young, and strong to the end of her life, - that is, till her seventy-seventh year, - notwithstanding enormous demands upon it and many a blow of fate. She could diagnose a voice infalli-bly; but required a probation of three to four months to test talent and power of making progress. I have been on the stage since my eighteenth year; that is, for thirty-four years. In Prague I took part every day in operas, operettas, plays, and farces. Thereafter in Danzig I sang from eighteen to twenty times a month in coloratura and soubrette parts; also in Leipzig, and later, fifteen years in Berlin. In addition I sang in very many oratorios and concerts, and gave lessons now and then. As long as my mother lived she was my severest critic, never satisfied. Finally I be-came such for myself. Now fifteen years more have passed, of which I spent eight very exacting ones as a dramatic singer in America, afterward fulfilling engagements as a star, in all languages, in Germany, Austria, Hungary, France, England, and Sweden. Nevertheless my study of singing experienced no retrogres-sion. I kept it up more and more zealously by myself, learned something from everybody, learned to hear myself and others. For many years I have been devoting my-self to the important questions relating to singing, and believe that I have finally found what I have been seeking. It has been my endeavor to set down as clearly as possible all that I have learned through zealous, conscien-tious study by myself and with others, and thereby to offer to my colleagues something that will bring order into the chaos of their methods of singing; something based on sci-ence as well as on sensations in singing; some-thing that will bring expressions often mis-understood into clear relation with the exact functions of the vocal organs. In what I have just said I wish to give a sketch of my career only to show what my voice has endured, and why, notwithstanding the enormous demands I have made upon it, it has lasted so well. One who has sung for a short time, and then has lost his voice, and for this reason becomes a singing teacher, has never sung consciously; it has simply been an accident, and this accident will be repeated, for good or for ill, in his pupils. The talent in which all the requirements of an artist are united is very rare. Real tal-ent will get along, even with an inferior teacher, in some way or another; while the best teacher cannot produce talent where there is none. Such a teacher, however, will not beguile people with promises that cannot be kept. My chief attention
I devote to artists, whom I can, perhaps, assist in their diffi-cult,
but glorious, profession. One is never done with learning; and that
is especially true of singers. I earnestly hope that I may leave
them something, in my researches, ex-periences, and studies, that
will be of use. I regard it as my duty; and I confide it to all
who are striving earnestly for improvement. Oct. 31, 1900.
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