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[Illustration: Photo of Kathleen Howard, Autographed]
CONFESSIONS OF
AN OPERA SINGER
BY KATHLEEN HOWARD
NEW YORK MCMXVIII
ALFRED A. KNOPF
COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY
KATHLEEN HOWARD BAIRD
_Published September 1918_
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
_To
Marjorie_
FOREWORD
So many fantastic tales have come to us of students' life abroad, of
their temptations, trials, finances, successes and failures, that I have
attempted to give here the true story of the preparation for an operatic
career, and its fruition. My road leads from New York to Paris, to
Germany and thence to London, and back to the Metropolitan Opera House.
My operatic experiences in Germany are inalienably associated with the
lives of the people, particularly with the German officer class, viewed
publicly and privately; in fact in the town where I was first engaged,
Metz, I found they were as vital a part of the Opera house life as the
singers themselves. Their arrogance tainted the town life as well, and
here I first became acquainted with the pitiful attempt at swagger and
brilliancy which often covered a state of grinding poverty, or the
thwarted natural domestic instincts which were ruthlessly sacrificed to
the "uniform"--the all-desirable entree to society, for which no price
was too high to pay. I hope this book will be of interest not only to
those whose goal is the operatic or concert stage, but to those to whom
"human documents" appeal. It is a story of real people, real obstacles
overcome, and contains much intimate talk of back-stage life in opera
houses.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I THE WAY IT ALL HAPPENED 13
II A STRUGGLE AND A SOLUTION 21
III PARIS AT LAST 30
IV PENSION PERSONALITIES 39
V OPERATIC FRANCE VERSUS OPERATIC GERMANY 50
VI PREPARING ROLES IN BERLIN 59
VII MY FIRST OPERATIC CONTRACT SIGNED 67
VIII MY ONE LONE IMPROPOSITION 76
IX THE MAKINGS OF A SMALL MUNICIPAL OPERA HOUSE 85
X MY DEBUT AND BREAKING INTO HARNESS 100
XI SOME STAGE DELIGHTS 110
XII MISPLACED MOISTURE AND THE STORY OF A COURT-LADY 123
XIII HUMAN PASSIONS AND SMALLPOX 139
XIV DISCOURAGEMENTS THAT LED TO A COURT THEATRE 153
XV SALARIES AND A TENOR'S GENIUS 164
XVI THE ART OF MARIE MUELLE 172
XVII THE NON-MILITARY SIDE OF A GERMAN OFFICER'S LIFE 184
XVIII GEESE AND GUESTS 199
XIX RUSSIANS, COMMON AND PREFERRED 206
XX THE GRANDMOTHERS' BALLET 220
XXI STAGE FASHIONS AND THE GLORY OF COLOUR 230
XXII ROYAL HUMOUR 242
XXIII COVENT GARDEN AND--AMERICA 257
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Kathleen Howard _Frontispiece_
I Carmen as I Used to Dress It 76
II Carmen as I Now Dress It 84
I Amneris as I Used to Dress It 126
II Amneris as I Now Dress It 134
I Dalila as I Used to Dress It 172
II Dalila as I Now Dress It 180
Caruso's Caricature of Kathleen Howard 260
CHAPTER I
THE WAY IT ALL HAPPENED
I was very young and I was engaged to be married. We had just lost our
money in rather dramatic fashion, and we were all doing what we could to
supply the sudden deficit. My sister began to prepare herself to be a
teacher, my brother left his boarding school and came home to go into a
friend's office, and I--well, I accepted the hand and heart of the young
man in our set with whom I had had most pleasure in dancing in winter
and sailing in summer.
My heart didn't lose a beat and turn over when I saw him coming as did
those of the heroines in Marion Crawford's novels, but we were the best
friends in the world, and I thought that anything else must be a
literary exaggeration, put in to make the story more exciting; just as
the heroine's eyelashes were usually exaggerated to the abnormal length
of an inch to make her more beautiful, though none of the girls I knew
had them like that.
He was a young business man, just starting as assistant to his father
whose business was an old established, comfortable sort of family
affair, big enough to supply, in time, an extra income for an
unambitious young couple like ourselves. Every one congratulated us
heartily, and I began to embroider towels and hem table napkins and to
dream about patterns of flat silver.
The whole arrangement was satisfactory to the point of banality, and I
might be quite an old married woman by this time, but--I had a voice.
Nine-tenths of me, at this age, were the normal, rational
characteristics of a well-brought up, bright, good looking girl. But the
last tenth was an unknown quantity, a great big powerful something which
I vaguely felt, even then, to be the master of all the other tenths, a
force which was capable of having its own way with the rest of me if I
should ever give it a chance. My voice, the agent of this vague power,
had developed rather late. It is true that our whole childhood had been
coloured by music, that we read notes before we could read letters, and
that music was our earliest and most natural mode of expression.
My father's greatest joy in life was music, and he always played
imaginative musical games with us in the evenings. The earliest one I
remember was when we were tiny tots. He used to improvise on the small
organ we had and ask us questions which we had to answer, singing to
his accompaniment. I was Admiral Seymour and Marjorie was General
Wolsey.
I remember his singing,
"And how would you get your ships along, Admiral,
If your sails and oars were shot overboard?"
I sang solemnly,
"I'd shubble them along with shubbles."
Afterwards when I began to sing from printed music with him I remember
saying one evening as he was playing hymns and unfamiliar English
ballads for me to sing,
"Papa, please let me look at the music and follow the notes up and
down."
I really began reading music at four years old. We played and sang all
our childhood. When Marjorie was seven and I was six we sang Even-song
at the village church, as the members of the regular choir were ill or
absent. Marjorie had a heavenly childish soprano and I a heavy
nondescript voice. But I always pleased my father by singing real
"second voice" and not just following the soprano in thirds.
He used to give us a note, and we then had to run round our rather large
house humming it. It was the deepest disgrace we ever knew if we had
sharped or flatted when we got back to the starting point. He taught us
musical terms by making us dance to different rhythms he played, and
would call out "Allegro," "Vivace," "Adagio," "Molto allegro," "Legato,"
and so forth, to which we had to change instantly. Whenever any one came
to the house, we played and sang for them, and though it might have been
rather awful for the visitors it was very good for us to get used to an
audience.
He used to arrange fairy tales like "Bluebeard" in doggerel verses and
write accompaniments to them, and we then learned them by heart and
rehearsed them, and some grand night played them for all the neighbours.
I remember the way we showed Bluebeard's chamber where the heads of his
wives were kept. We hung a sheet on the wall and Marjorie and I stood in
front of it, with pale faces, closed eyes and open mouths, and our long
hair pinned up high above our heads on the sheet. Another sheet was then
stretched across us, just below our chins, and the effect was rather
ghastly in a dim light. I remember we sang at the last:
"Oh, Bluebeard, oh, Bluebeard,
Frustrated, checkmated,
Dissipated, agitated,
Castigated, lacerated,
Bluebeard!"
When school was over we always gave a dramatic performance; if the
weather was fine enough we held them in the big garden that was our
childhood's playground. We dressed behind a huge flowering-currant bush,
and I can remember a performance of an act of "Twelfth Night," in which
I, aged about seven, was _Malvolio_, Lal, my brother, _Maria_, and
Marjorie, _Olivia_.
I had always been able to sing, but the sudden growth of my voice was a
surprise. One day, in school, we were asked to write a composition on
our favourite wish. All the other girls said they wished for curly hair,
for pretty dresses, for as much candy as they could eat, for any other
frivolous thing that came into their heads. But I took it seriously and
told my dearest wish in all the world--a great voice, a voice with which
I could make audiences cry or laugh at my will. And, strangely enough,
from that time my girlish voice began to grow stronger and stronger,
until I could proudly make more noise with it than any other girl in
school. Then it grew louder and higher, until it was impossible to
ignore such a big possession any longer, and the family decreed that I
must have singing lessons.
I took lessons accordingly from an excellent local teacher, practised
scales and exercises and later studied the classic songs and arias as
seriously as I could, but it was so fatally easy to be interrupted. We
were all out of school for the first time and enjoying our freedom. It
was so much more chic to go down to Huyler's in the mornings, when the
girls only a year younger were hard at their lessons, than in the
afternoon when the whole girl world was at liberty. I would just begin a
morning's work when some one would call me on the telephone to go to the
dressmaker's with her, or help arrange the flowers for a dinner party. I
loved both flowers and dresses, and it was easy to think, "Oh! I'll
practise this afternoon!" and fly off to be gone all day. In the evening
there was my fiance who had to tell me all the absorbing details of his
office, or there was a dance, or a theatre party, and I took everything
that came my way and enjoyed it all equally. But all the time my voice
was really first in my thoughts, and I longed to study seriously and
intensely, to arrange my whole life for it and its proper development.
The family, it seemed to me, was more interested in my trousseau than in
anything else. They had scraped together five hundred dollars, and I was
to have it all, incredible as it sounded, to buy clothes with.
Subconsciously all day, and compellingly in bed at night, the thought of
what I could do for my voice with that five hundred dollars was with me.
I saw myself only as a singer, and knew that I could never be happy
unless I were allowed first to get my instrument in thorough working
order and then to use it. The phrases, "working out your own salvation,"
"fulfilling your own destiny," "the necessity of self-development," and
all those other nicely turned expressions which most students have at
their tongues' end, were unknown to me. I just _felt_, inarticulately.
But my feeling was strong enough to carry me into action, the step which
phrasemakers, who find complete satisfaction in their phrases, often
omit.
New York was my Mecca. I talked it all over with my fiance, told him
what a year there would do for me, making it clear that I expected to
sing professionally after our marriage. He agreed to everything and
promised that I should do as I wished. His possible objection disposed
of, only the financial difficulty remained, looming large before me.
Deeply and more deeply I was convinced in my own mind that I might marry
in old clothes, but not with my voice untrained. I finally summoned
courage to propose to my family that I should use the precious five
hundred for a year's study in New York instead of a trousseau.
Miraculous to relate they agreed, and I was boundlessly happy and saw my
path golden ahead of me.
We all spoke and thought of my future as that of a concert singer. My
intention of marrying seemed to make anything else out of the question.
Indeed, at that time, the Metropolitan in New York formed the only
oasis in the operatic desert of America. There were spasmodic attempts
at travelling companies in English, but no other sign of a permanent
institution throughout the length and breadth of the country. I must
confess, however, that the operatic bee buzzed considerably at times in
the less conspicuous portions of my bonnet. One or two musicians of
standing, who heard me sing, pronounced mine "an operatic voice," and
strange longings stirred inside me when I saw the Metropolitan singers
on the boards.