CHAPTER I_Geraldine Farrar: The Story of an American Singer

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[Illustration: book's cover]

GERALDINE FARRAR

_THE STORY

OF AN AMERICAN SINGER_

[Illustration: _Photo by Victor Georg_

Signature of Geraldine Farrar]

GERALDINE FARRAR

THE STORY

OF AN AMERICAN SINGER

HERSELF

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

[Illustration]

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

MDCCCCXVI

_Published March 1916_

A DEDICATION

In offering these little sketches of some of the interesting events that

have helped shape a career now fairly familiar to the general public, it

has not been my intention to weary the indulgent reader with a lengthy

dissertation of literary pretension, or tiresome data resulting from the

obvious and oft-recurring "I."

From out the storehouse of memory, impressions crystallized into form

without regard to time or place, and it was more than a passing pleasure

to jot them down at haphazard; in the quiet of my library, on the flying

train, or again, beneath the witchery of California skies, I scribbled

as the mood prompted, as I would converse with an interested and

congenial listener.

It is not, perhaps, a New England characteristic to expand in

affectionate eulogy for the satisfaction of a curious public, but the

threads of these recollections are so closely interwoven with maternal

love and devotion, that this volume would be incomplete without its

rightful dedication to

MY MOTHER

G. F.

CONTENTS

I. MY LIFE AS A CHILD 1

II. THE DRAMATIC IMPULSE 8

III. I RESOLVE TO SING "CARMEN" 18

IV. MY FIRST DAYS IN MY DREAM WORLD 28

V. I REFUSE TO SING AT THE METROPOLITAN 36

VI. PARIS 42

VII. GERMANY: THE TURNING-POINT 50

VIII. IMPERIAL ENCOURAGEMENT 59

IX. ON TOUR; MONTE CARLO AND STOCKHOLM 68

X. MY FOURTH SEASON 77

XI. LEAVING BERLIN 84

XII. MY FIRST APPEARANCE IN NEW YORK 89

XIII. MISUNDERSTANDINGS 99

XIV. THE DAYS I NOW ENJOY 108

ILLUSTRATIONS

"_Columbia_"

(_From a photograph by Ira L. Hill_) _Jacket illustration_

_Geraldine Farrar_

(_From a recent photograph by Victor Georg_) _Frontispiece_

_Miss Farrar as a Little Girl in Melrose_ 2

_Mr. and Mrs. Sydney D. Farrar_ 4

_Miss Farrar and her First Singing Teacher, Mrs. Long_ 8

_A Young Girl with a Phenomenal Soprano Voice_ 12

_Growing up_ 16

_The Goose Girl and her Flock_ 22

_Calve as "Carmen"_ 24

_Jean de Reszke_ 26

_Emma Thursby_ 28

_Melba as "Marguerite"_ 30

_Miss Farrar and her Mother_ 32

_Dr. Holbrook Curtis_ 36

_Maurice Grau_ 38

_Five Well-known Parts_ 42

_Camille Saint-Saens_ 46

_"I spent the Summer in Brittany"_ 50

_The Royal Opera House, Berlin_ 52

_The Kaiser_ 54

_"My Third Season opened in 'Traviata'"_ 56

_At Frau von Rath's_ 60

_Lilli Lehmann_ 62

_The Crown Prince of Germany_ 64

_Cecile, Crown Princess of Germany, and her Children_ 66

_Massenet_ 68

_Marconi_ 70

_Caruso_ 72

_King Oscar of Sweden_ 74

_"Sans Gene"_ 80

_"La Tosca"_ 82

_Wolf-Ferrari_ 84

_Leaving Berlin_ 86

_Mark Twain_ 90

_"Madame Butterfly"_ 92

_David Belasco_ 94

_Sarah Bernhardt_ 96

_"As Pretty a Flock of Birds as one could find"_ 100

_As the Goose Girl in "Koenigskinder"_ 102

_Kate Douglas Wiggin_ 104

_Miss Farrar and Caruso in "Julian"_ 106

_As "Carmen"_ 108

_Work and play in California_ 110

_Making New Friends in the Movies_ 112

_Miss Farrar and Mr. Tellegen_ (_Photograph Reproduced by

courtesy of the International Film Service, inc._) 114

GERALDINE FARRAR

THE STORY OF AN AMERICAN SINGER

CHAPTER I

MY LIFE AS A CHILD

I believe that a benevolent Fate has had watch over me. Some have called

it luck; some have spoken of the hard work and the many years of study;

others have cited my career as an instance of American pluck and

perseverance. But deep down in my heart I feel much has been directed by

Fate. This God-sent gift of song was bestowed upon me for some purpose,

I know not what. It may fail me to-morrow, to-night; at any moment

something may mar the delicate instrument, and then all the

perseverance, pluck, study, and luck in the world will not restore it to

me. If early in life I dimly sensed this insecurity, yet always have I

gone onward and onward, eager for that which Fate had in store for me,

and accepting gladly those rewards and opportunities which in the course

of my career have been popularly referred to as "Farrar's luck."

Yet do not think that I waited in idleness to see what Fate would bring.

From the days of my earliest recollection I have labored unceasingly to

attain the goal which I believed and hope Destiny had marked out for me.

My mother tells me that before I was five I had already shown strong

musical tendencies. By the time I was ten I had visions of studying

abroad. At the age of twelve I had heard the music of almost the entire

grand opera repertoire. By the time I was sixteen I was studying in

Paris.

My earliest memories take me back to my home town, Melrose,

Massachusetts, a small but very attractive city not far from Boston. I

can recall a large room with an open fireplace and flames flashing from

a log fire into which I spent many hours gazing, trying to conjure up

strange and fanciful shapes and figures. From the fireplace, so my

mother tells me, I would stroll to the great, old-fashioned square piano

in the corner, and, standing on tiptoe, would strum upon the keys. I

suppose I was two or three years old at the time, yet it seems to me

that I was striving to give expression musically to the strange shapes

and figures suggested by the fire and by my vivid imagination.

[Illustration: A LITTLE GIRL IN MELROSE]

Hereditary influences must have helped to shape my musical career. My

mother and father both sang in the First Universalist Church of Melrose.

Mother's father, Dennis Barnes, of Melrose, had been a musician, and had

organized a little orchestra which played on special occasions. He gave

violin lessons and composed, and there is a tradition that in his

boyhood days he learned to play the violin from an Italian fiddler, and

afterward constructed his own instrument, pulling hairs from the tail of

an old white horse to make the bow.

My father, Sydney D. Farrar, owned a store in Melrose when I was born.

In the summer time he played baseball with a local amateur team with

such success that, when I was two years old, he was engaged by the

Philadelphia National League Baseball Club as first baseman. He was a

professional ball-player with the Philadelphia team for several years.

Yet during the winters he was always in Melrose, looking after business.

Both he and my mother were very fond of music, singing every week in the

church quartet and sometimes at concerts.

The house in which I was born is still standing, a large, old-fashioned

building on Mount Vernon Street, Melrose, which my father rented from

the Houghton estate. It is next door to the Blake house, a well-known

local landmark. Most of my early life was spent in this house, although

subsequently we moved twice to occupy other houses in the neighborhood.

My mother says that I was a happy baby, crooning and humming to myself,

singing when other babies usually cry. She says that the familiar airs

of the barrel organs, which were played in the street every day, were

all added to my repertoire in due time, correct as to melody, although I

was too young to enunciate properly. My mother did not think it out of

the ordinary for her baby to be so musically inclined, young as I was. I

was her first and only child.

When I was three years old I sang in my first church concert. My

childish voice rose up bravely; and my mother distinctly remembers that

I had perfect self-possession and never showed the slightest sign of

stage fright. When my song was finished, and the kind applause had

subsided, I stepped to the edge of the platform and spoke to her down in

the front row.

"Did I do it well, mamma?" I asked, not at all disconcerted while every

one laughed.

I cannot remember the time when I did not intend to sing and act. As

soon as I was a little older it was decided that I should take piano

lessons.

[Illustration: MR. AND MRS. SYDNEY D. FARRAR]

But at once I made strenuous objection to the necessary restraint, an

objection which in after years manifested itself in much that I

attempted. I could not force myself to study according to rule or

tradition. I wanted to try out things my own way, according to impulse,

just when and how the spirit within me moved. I could not drudge at

scales, and therefore found the lessons irksome. I preferred to

improvise upon the piano, and I had a strange fondness for playing

everything upon the black keys.

"Why do you use only the black keys?" my mother asked me once.

"Because the white keys seem like angels and the black keys like devils,

and I like devils best," I replied. It was the soft half-tones of the

black keys which fascinated me, and to this day I prefer their sensuous

harmony to that of the more brilliant "angels."

My mother offered me a tricycle--one of those weird three-wheeled

vehicles in vogue at the time--if I would learn my piano lessons

according to rule; but I had all too little patience and my father gave

me the tricycle anyhow, as well as a pony later. These were some of my

few amusements. In fact, I cared little for child's play at any time in

my early youth, and nothing for outdoor sports. I spent most of my time

with books and music, or playing with animals.

Among my animal friends was a large Newfoundland dog. One day my mother

came into the back yard and found me trying to make him act as a horse,

attached by a rough harness to an improvised plough I had made of wood

to dig up the back garden. I loved dogs, and once my mother had me

photographed seated on a large painted wooden dog.

Another childish amusement was to put fantastic costumes on the cats and

pretend that they were actors or actresses. In time there were added to

the cats and dog a chameleon, a pair of small alligators, guinea-pigs,

rabbits, a bullfinch, and a robin with a broken wing. I was passionately

fond of flowers as well, and my own small garden was a source of pride

and pleasure.

The world of make-believe was becoming very real to me by this time. I

dramatized everything. I had the utmost confidence in my choice to

become a great singer, for at all times I was busy with music, either

alone or with my mother. It did not occur to me that I could possibly

fail in achieving my object, and yet I was so sincere and felt so

impelled to try to "touch the stars" that I do not believe it could be

called conceit. Young as I was, I felt that with my song I could soar to

another world and revel in poetry and music.