Luisa Tetrazzini, the most famous Italian coloratura soprano of the
day, declares that she began to sing before she learned to talk. Her
parents were not musical, but her elder sister, now the wife of the
eminent conductor Cleofante Campanini, was a public singer of
established reputation, and her success roused her young sister's
ambition to become a great artist. Her parents were well to do, her
father having a large army furnishing store in Florence, and they did
not encourage her in her determination to become a prima donna. One
prima donna, said her father, was enough for any family.
Luisa did not agree with him. If one prima donna is good, she argued,
why would not two be better? So she never desisted from her importunity
until she was permitted to become a pupil of Professor Coccherani, vocal
instructor at the Lycée. At this time she had committed to memory more
than a dozen grand opera rôles, and at the end of six months the
professor confessed that he could do nothing more for her voice; that
she was ready for a career.
She made her bow to the Florentine opera going public, one of the most
critical in Italy, as Inez, in Meyerbeer's "L'Africaine," and her
success was so pronounced that she was engaged at a salary of $100 a
month, a phenomenal beginning for a young singer. Queen Margherita was
present on the occasion and complimented her highly and prophesied for
her a great career. She asked the trembling débutante how old she was,
and in the embarrassment of the moment Luisa made herself six years
older than she really was. This is one noteworthy instance in which a
public singer failed to discount her age.
Fame came speedily, but for a long time it was confined to Europe and
Latin America. She sang seven seasons in St. Petersburg, three in
Mexico, two in Madrid, four in Buenos Aires, and even on the Pacific
coast of America before she appeared in New York. She had sung Lucia
more than 200 times before her first appearance at Covent Garden, and
the twenty curtain calls she received on that occasion came as the
greatest surprise of her career. She had begun to believe that she could
never be appreciated by English-speaking audiences and the ovation
almost overcame her.
It was by the merest chance that Mme. Tetrazzini ever came to the
Manhattan Opera House in New York. The diva's own account of her
engagement is as follows:
"I was in London, and for a wonder I had a week, a wet week, on my
hands. You know people will do anything in a wet week in London.
"There were contracts from all over the Continent and South America
pending. There was much discussion naturally in regard to settlements
and arrangements of one kind and another.
"Suddenly, just like that"--she makes a butterfly gesture--"M.
Hammerstein came, and just like that"--a duplicate gesture--"I made up
my mind that I would come here. If his offer to me had been seven days
later I should not have signed, and if I had not I should undoubtedly
never have come, for a contract that I might have signed to go elsewhere
would probably have been for a number of years."
Voice experts confess that they are not able to solve the mystery of
Mme. Tetrazzini's wonderful management of her breathing.
"It is perfectly natural," she says. "I breathe low down in the
diaphragm, not, as some do, high up in the upper part of the chest. I
always hold some breath in reserve for the crescendos, employing only
what is absolutely necessary, and I renew the breath wherever it is
easiest.
"In breathing I find, as in other matters pertaining to singing, that as
one goes on and practices, no matter how long one may have been singing,
there are constantly new surprises awaiting one. You may have been
accustomed for years to take a note in a certain way, and after a long
while you discover that, while it is a very good way, there is a
better."