"If I have any message to the young singer, it would be: Stick to your
work and study systematically, whole-heartedly. If you do not love your
work enough to give it your best thought, to make sacrifices for it,
there is something wrong with you. Then choose some other line of work,
to which you can give undivided attention and devotion. For music
requires this. As for sacrifices, they really do not exist, if they
promote the thing you honestly love most.
"Do not fancy you can properly prepare yourself in a short time to
undertake a musical career, for the path is a long and arduous one. You
must never stop studying, for there is always so much to learn. If I
have sung a rôle a hundred times, I always find places that can be
improved; indeed I never sing a rôle twice exactly in the same way. So,
from whatever side you consider the singer's work and career, both are
of absorbing interest.
"Another thing; do not worry, for that is bad for your voice. If you
have not made this tone correctly, or sung that phrase to suit yourself,
pass it over for the moment with a wave of the hand or a smile; but
don't become discouraged. Go right on! I knew a beautiful American in
Paris who possessed a lovely voice. But she had a very sensitive nature,
which could not endure hard knocks. She began to worry over little
failures and disappointments, with the result that in three years her
voice was quite gone. We must not give way to disappointments, but
conquer them, and keep right along the path we have started on.