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[Illustration: Signature; Clara Louise Kellogg Strakosch]
Memoirs of an
American Prima Donna
By
Clara Louise Kellogg
(Mme. Strakosch)
_With 40 Illustrations_
G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York and London
The Knickerbocker Press
1913
COPYRIGHT, 1913
BY
CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG STRAKOSCH
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
WITH AFFECTION AND DEEPEST APPRECIATION OF HER WORTH
AS BOTH A RARE WOMAN AND A RARER FRIEND
I INSCRIBE THIS RECORD OF MY
PUBLIC LIFE TO
JEANNETTE L. GILDER
FOREWORD
The name of Clara Louise Kellogg is known to the immediate generation
chiefly as an echo of the past. Yet only thirty years ago it was written
of her, enthusiastically but truthfully, that "no living singer needs a
biography less than Miss Clara Louise Kellogg; and nowhere in the world
would a biography of her be so superfluous as in America, where her name
is a household word and her illustrious career is familiar in all its
triumphant details to the whole people."
The past to which she belongs is therefore recent; it is the past of
yesterday only, thought of tenderly by our fathers and mothers, spoken
of reverently as a poignant phase of their own ephemeral youth, one of
their sweet lavender memories. The pity is (although this is itself part
of the evanescent charm), that the singer's best creations can live but
in the hearts of a people, and the fame of sound is as fugitive as life
itself.
A record of such creations is, however, possible and also enduring;
while it is also necessary for a just estimate of the development of
civilisations. As such, this record of her musical past--presented by
Clara Louise Kellogg herself--will have a place in the annals of the
evolution of musical art on the North American continent long after
every vestige of fluttering personal reminiscence has vanished down the
ages. A word of appreciation with regard to the preparation of this
record is due to John Jay Whitehead, Jr., whose diligent chronological
labours have materially assisted the editor.
Clara Louise Kellogg came from New England stock of English heritage.
She was named after Clara Novello. Her father, George Kellogg, was an
inventor of various machines and instruments and, at the time of her
birth, was principal of Sumter Academy, Sumterville, S. C. Thus the
famous singer was acclaimed in later years not only as the Star of the
North (the _role_ of Catherine in Meyerbeer's opera of that name being
one of her achievements) but also as "the lone star of the South in the
operatic world." She first sang publicly in New York in 1861 at an
evening party given by Mr. Edward Cooper, the brother of Mrs. Abram
Hewitt. This was the year of her _debut_ as Gilda in Verdi's opera of
_Rigoletto_ at the Academy of Music in New York City. When she came
before her countrymen as a singer, she was several decades ahead of her
musical public, for she was a lyric artist as well as a singer. America
was not then producing either singers or lyric artists; and in fact we
were, as a nation, but just getting over the notion that America could
not produce great voices. We held a very firm contempt for our own
facilities, our knowledge, and our taste in musical matters. If we did
discover a rough diamond, we had to send it to Italy to find out if it
were of the first water and to have it polished and set. Nothing was so
absolutely necessary for our self-respect as that some American woman
should arise with sufficient American talent and bravery to prove beyond
all cavil that the country was able to produce both singers and artists.
For rather more than twenty-five years, from her appearance as Gilda
until she quietly withdrew from public life, when it seemed to her that
the appropriate moment for so doing had come, Clara Louise Kellogg
filled this need and maintained her contention. She was educated in
America, and her career, both in America and abroad, was remarkable in
its consistent triumphs. When Gounod's _Faust_ was a musical and an
operatic innovation, she broke through the Italian traditions of her
training and created the _role_ of Marguerite according to her own
beliefs; and throughout her later characterisations in Italian opera,
she sustained a wonderfully poised attitude of independence and of
observance with regard to these same traditions. In London, in St.
Petersburg, in Vienna, as well as in the length and breadth of the
United States, she gained a recognition and an appreciation in opera,
oratorio, and concert, second to none: and when, later, she organised an
English Opera Company and successfully piloted it on a course of
unprecedented popularity, her personal laurels were equally supreme.
In 1887, Miss Kellogg married Carl Strakosch, who had for some time been
her manager. Mr. Strakosch is the nephew of the two well-known
impresarios, Maurice and Max Strakosch. After her marriage, the public
career of Clara Louise Kellogg virtually ended. The Strakosch home is in
New Hartford, Connecticut, and Mrs. Strakosch gave to it the name of
"Elpstone" because of a large rock shaped like an elephant that is the
most conspicuous feature as one enters the grounds through the
poplar-guarded gate. Mr. and Mrs. Strakosch are very fond of their New
Hartford home, but, the Litchfield County climate in winter being
severe, they usually spend their winters in Rome. They have also
travelled largely in Oriental countries.
In 1912, Mr. and Mrs. Strakosch celebrated their Silver Wedding at
Elpstone. On this occasion, the whole village of New Hartford was given
up to festivities, and friends came from miles away to offer their
congratulations. Perhaps the most pleasant incident of the celebration
was the presentation of a silver loving cup to Mr. and Mrs. Strakosch by
the people of New Hartford in token of the affectionate esteem in which
they are both held.
The woman, Clara Louise Kellogg, is quite as distinct a personality as
was the _prima donna_. So thoroughly, indeed, so fundamentally, is she a
musician that her knowledge of life itself is as much a matter of
harmony as is her music. She lives her melody; applying the basic
principle that Carlyle has expressed so admirably when he says: "See
deeply enough and you see musically."
ISABEL MOORE.
WOODSTOCK, N. Y.
August, 1913
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. MY FIRST NOTES 1
II. GIRLHOOD 11
III. "LIKE A PICKED CHICKEN!" 22
IV. A YOUTHFUL REALIST 33
V. LITERARY BOSTON 43
VI. WAR TIMES 55
VII. STEPS OF THE LADDER 62
VIII. MARGUERITE 77
IX. OPERA COMIQUE 90
X. ANOTHER SEASON AND A LITTLE MORE SUCCESS 99
XI. THE END OF THE WAR 110
XII. AND SO--TO ENGLAND! 119
XIII. AT HER MAJESTY'S 129
XIV. ACROSS THE CHANNEL 139
XV. MY FIRST HOLIDAY ON THE CONTINENT 152
XVI. FELLOW-ARTISTS 163
XVII. THE ROYAL CONCERTS AT BUCKINGHAM PALACE 177
XVIII. THE LONDON SEASON 188
XIX. HOME AGAIN 200
XX. "YOUR SINCERE ADMIRER" 212
XXI. ON THE ROAD 227
XXII. LONDON AGAIN 235
XXIII. THE SEASON WITH LUCCA 245
XXIV. ENGLISH OPERA 254
XXV. ENGLISH OPERA--_Continued_ 266
XXVI. AMATEURS AND OTHERS 276
XXVII. "THE THREE GRACES" 289
XXVIII. ACROSS THE SEAS AGAIN 300
XXIX. TEACHING AND THE HALF-TALENTED 309
XXX. THE WANDERLUST, AND WHERE IT LED ME 324
XXXI. SAINT PETERSBURG 334
XXXII. GOOD-BYE TO RUSSIA--AND THEN? 346
XXXIII. THE LAST YEARS OF MY PROFESSIONAL CAREER 357
XXXIV. _CODA_ 370
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG STRAKOSCH _Frontispiece_
LYDIA ATWOOD 2
Maternal Grandmother of Clara Louise Kellogg
CHARLES ATWOOD 4
Maternal Grandfather of Clara Louise Kellogg
From a Daguerreotype
GEORGE KELLOGG 10
Father of Clara Louise Kellogg
From a photograph by Gurney & Son
CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG, AGED THREE 12
From a photograph by Black & Case
CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG, AGED SEVEN 14
From a photograph by Black & Case
CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG AS A GIRL 20
From a photograph by Sarony
CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG AS A YOUNG LADY 28
From a photograph by Black & Case
BRIGNOLI, 1865 42
From a photograph by C. Silvy
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, IN 1861 46
From a photograph by Brady
CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN, 1861 52
From a photograph by Silabee, Case & Co.
CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG AS FIGLIA 56
From a photograph by Black & Case
GENERAL HORACE PORTER 58
From a photograph by Pach Bros.
MUZIO 66
From a photograph by Gurney & Son
CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG AS LUCIA 72
From a photograph by Elliott & Fry
CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG AS MARTHA 74
From a photograph by Turner
CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG AS MARGUERITE, 1865 82
From a photograph by Sarony
CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG AS MARGUERITE, 1864 88
From a silhouette by Ida Waugh
GOTTSCHALK 106
From a photograph by Case & Getchell
JANE ELIZABETH CROSBY 108
Mother of Clara Louise Kellogg
From a tintype
GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN, 1877 116
From a photograph by Mora
HENRY G. STEBBINS 122
From a photograph by Grillet & Co.
ADELINA PATTI 130
From a photograph by Fredericks
CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG AS LINDA, 1868 134
From a photograph by Stereoscopic Co.
MR. JAMES MCHENRY 138
From a photograph by Brady
CHRISTINE NILSSON, AS QUEEN OF THE NIGHT 146
From a photograph by Pierre Petit
DUKE OF NEWCASTLE 188
From a photograph by John Burton & Sons
CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG AS CARMEN 230
From a photograph
SIR HENRY IRVING AND ELLEN TERRY AS THE VICAR
AND OLIVIA 234
From a photograph by Window & Grove
FIRST EDITION OF THE "FAUST" SCORE, PUBLISHED
IN 1859 BY CHOUSENS OF PARIS, NOW IN THE
BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY 240
NEWSPAPER PRINT OF THE KELLOGG-LUCCA SEASON 250
Drawn by Jos. Keppler
CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG IN _MIGNON_ 252
From a photograph by Mora
ELLEN TERRY 284
From a photograph by Sarony
COLONEL HENRY MAPLESON 290
From a photograph by Downey
CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG AS AIDA 292
From a photograph by Mora
FAUST BROOCH PRESENTED TO CLARA LOUISE
KELLOGG 298
CARL STRAKOSCH 364
From a photograph by H. W. Barnett
LETTER FROM EDWIN BOOTH TO CLARA LOUISE
KELLOGG 366
"ELPSTONE," NEW HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT 370
Memoirs of An American Prima Donna
CHAPTER I
MY FIRST NOTES
I was born in Sumterville, South Carolina, and had a negro mammy to take
care of me, one of the real old-fashioned kind, of a type now almost
gone. She used to hold me in her arms and rock me back and forth, and as
she rocked she sang. I don't know the name of the song she crooned; but
I still know the melody, and have an impression that the words were:
"Hey, Jim along,--Jim along Josy;
Hey, Jim along,--Jim along Joe!"
She used to sing these two lines over and over, so that I slept and
waked to them. And my first musical efforts, when I was just ten months
old, were to try to sing this ditty in imitation of my negro mammy.
When my mother first heard me she became apprehensive. Yet I kept at it;
and by the time I was a year old I could sing it so that it was quite
recognisable. I do not remember this period, of course, but my mother
often told me about it later, and I am sure she was not telling a fairy
story.
There is, after all, nothing incredible or miraculous about the fact,
extraordinary as it certainly is. We are not surprised when the young
thrush practises a trill. And in some people the need for music and the
power to make it are just as instinctive as they are in the birds. What
effects I have achieved and what success I have found must be laid to
this big, living fact: music was in me, and it had to find expression.
My music was honestly come by, from both sides of the house. When the
family moved north to New England and settled in Birmingham,
Connecticut,--it is called Derby now--my father and mother played in the
little town choir, he a flute and she the organ. They were both
thoroughly musical people, and always kept up with musical affairs,
making a great many sacrifices all their lives to hear good singers
whenever any sort of opportunity offered. As for my maternal
grandmother--she was a woman with a man's brain. A widow at
twenty-three, with no money and three children, she chose, of all ways
to support them, the business of cotton weaving; going about Connecticut
and Massachusetts, setting up looms--cotton gins they were called--and
being very successful. She was a good musician also, and, in later
years, after she had married my grandfather and was comfortably off,
people begged her to give lessons; so she taught _thorough-base_, in
that day and generation! Pause for a moment to consider what that meant,
in a time when the activity of women was very limited and unrecognised.
Is it any wonder that the granddaughter of a woman who could master and
teach the science of _thorough-base_ at such a period should be born
with music in her blood?
[Illustration: =Lydia Atwood=
Maternal Grandmother of Clara Louise Kellogg]
My other grandmother, my father's mother, was musical, too. She had a
sweet voice, and was the soprano of the church choir.
Everyone knew I was naturally musical from my constant attempts to sing,
and from my deep attention when anyone performed on any instrument, even
when I was so little that I could not reach the key-board of the piano
on tip-toe. That particular piano, I remember, was very
old-fashioned--one of the square box-shaped sort--and stood extremely
high.
One day my grandmother said to my mother:
"I do believe, Jane, if we lifted that baby up to the piano, she could
play!"
Mother said: "Oh, pshaw!"
But they did lift me up, and I did play. I played not only with my right
hand but also with my left hand; and I made harmonies. Probably they
were not in any way elaborate chords, but they _were_ chords, and they
harmonised. I have known some grown-up musicians whose chords didn't!
I was three then, and a persistent baby, already detesting failure. I
never liked to try to do anything, even at that age, in which I might be
unsuccessful, and so learned to do what I wanted to do as soon as
possible.
My mother was gifted in many ways. She used to paint charmingly; and has
told me that when she was a young girl and could not get paint brushes,
she made her own of hairs pulled from their old horse's tail.
My maternal grandfather was not at all musical. He used to say that to
him the sweetest note on the piano was when the cover went down! Yet it
was he who accidentally discovered a fortunate possession of
mine--something that has remained in my keeping ever since, and, like
many fortunate gifts, has at times troubled as much as it has consoled
me.
One day he was standing by the piano in one room and I was playing on
the floor in another. He idly struck a note and asked my mother:
"What note is that I am striking? Guess!"
"How can I tell?" said my mother. "No one could tell that."
"Why, mother!" I cried from the next room, "don't you know what note
that is?"
"I do not," said my mother, "and neither do you."
"I do, too," I declared. "It's the first of the three black keys going
up!"
It was, in fact, F sharp, and in this manner it was discovered that I
had what we musicians call "absolute pitch"; the ability to place and
name a note the moment it is heard. As I have said, this has often
proved to be a very trying gift, for it is, and always has been
impossible for me to decipher a song in a different key from that in
which it is written. If it is written in C, I hear it in C; and conceive
the hideous discord in my brain while the orchestra or the pianist
renders it in D flat! When I see a "Do," I want to sing it as a "Do,"
and not as a "Re."
This episode must have been when I was about five years old, and soon
afterward I began taking regular piano lessons. I remember my teacher
quite well. He used to come out from New Haven by the Naugatuck
railway--that had just been completed and was a great curiosity--for the
purpose of instructing a class of which I was a member.
[Illustration: =Charles Atwood=
Maternal Grandfather of Clara Louise Kellogg
From a daguerreotype]
I had the most absurd difficulty in learning my notes. I could play
anything by ear, but to read a piece of music and find the notes on
the piano was another matter. My teacher struggled with this odd
incapacity; but I used to cheat him shockingly.
"_Do_ play this for me!" I would beg. "Just once, so I can tell how it
goes."
In spite of this early slowness in music reading, or, perhaps because of
it, when I _did_ learn to read, I learned to read thoroughly. I could
really play; and I cannot over-estimate the help this has been to me all
my life. It is so essential--and so rare--for a _prima donna_ to be not
only a fine singer but also a good musician.
There was then no idea of my becoming a singer. All my time was given to
the piano and to perfecting myself in playing it. But my parents made
every effort to have me hear fine singing, for the better cultivation of
my musical taste, and I am grateful to them for doing so, as I believe
that singing is largely imitative and that, while singers need not begin
to train their voices very early, they should as soon as possible
familiarise themselves with good singing and with good music generally.
The wise artist learns from many sources, some of them quite unexpected
ones. Patti once told me that she had caught the trick of her best
"turn" from listening to Faure, the baritone.
My father and mother went to New York during the Jenny Lind _furore_ and
carried me in their arms to hear her big concert. I remember it clearly,
and just the way in which she tripped on to the stage that night with
her hair, as she always wore it, drawn down close over her ears--a
custom that gave rise to the popular report that she had no ears.
That concert is my first musical recollection. I was much amused by the
baritone who sang _Figaro la Figaro qua_ from _The Barber_. I thought
him and his song immensely funny; and everyone around us was in a great
state over me because I insisted that the drum was out of tune. I was
really dreadfully annoyed by that drum, for it _was_ out of tune! I
remember Jenny Lind sang:
"Birdling, why sing'st thou in the forest wild?
Say why,--say why,--say why!"
and one part of it sounded exactly like the call of a bird. Sir Jules
Benedict, who was always her accompanist, once told me many years later
in London that she had a "hole" in her voice. He said that he had been
obliged to play her accompaniments in such a way as to cover up certain
notes in her middle register. A curious admission to come from him, I
thought, for few people knew of the "hole."
Only once during my childhood did I sing in public, and that was in a
little school concert, a song _Come Buy My Flowers_, dressed up daintily
for the part and carrying a small basketful of posies of all kinds. When
I had finished singing, a man in the audience stepped down to the
footlights and held up a five-dollar bill.
"To buy your flowers!" said he.
That might be called my first professional performance! The local paper
said I had talent. As a matter of fact, I don't remember much about the
occasion; but I do remember only too well a dreadful incident that
occurred immediately afterward between me and the editor of the
aforesaid local paper,--Mr. Newson by name.
I had a pet kitten, and it went to sleep in a rolled up rug beside the
kitchen door one day, and the cook stepped on it. The kitten was
killed, of course, and the affair nearly killed me. I was crying my eyes
out over my poor little pet when that editor chanced along. And he made
fun of me!
I turned on him in the wildest fury. I really would have killed him if I
could.
"Laugh, will you!" I shrieked, beside myself. "Laugh! laugh! laugh!"
He said afterwards that I absolutely frightened him, I was so small and
so tragic.
"I knew then," he declared, "that that child had great emotional and
dramatic possibilities in her. Why, she nearly burned me up!"
Years later, when I was singing in St. Paul, the _Dispatch_ printed this
story in an interview with Mr. Newson himself. He made a heartless jest
of the alliteration--"Kellogg's Kitten Killed"--and referred to my
"inexpressible expression of sorrow and disgust" as I cried, "Laugh,
will you!" Said Mr. Newson in summing up:
"It was a real tragedic act!"
Mr. Newson's description of me as a child is: "A black-eyed little girl,
somewhat wayward--as she was an only child--kind-hearted, affectionate,
self-reliant, and very independent!"
Well--sight-reading became so easy to me, presently, that I could not
realise any difficulty about it. To see a note was to be able to sing
it; and I was often puzzled when people expressed surprise at my
ability. When I was about eleven, someone took me to Hartford to "show
me off" to William Babcock, a teacher and a thorough musician. He got
out some of his most difficult German songs; songs far more intricate
than anything I had ever before seen, of course, and was frankly amazed
to find that I read them just about as readily as the simple airs to
which I was accustomed.
My childhood was very quiet and peaceful, rather commonplace in fact,
except for music. Reading was a pleasure, too, and, as my father was a
student and had a wonderful library, I had all the books I wanted. I was
literally brought up on Carlyle and Chaucer. I must have been a rather
queer child, in some ways. Even as a little thing I liked clothes. When
only nine years old I conceived a wild desire for a pair of kid gloves.
Kid gloves were a sign of great elegance in those days. At last my
clamours were successful and I was given a pair at Christmas. They were
a source of great pride, and I wore them to church, where I did my
little singing in the choir with the others. By this time I could read
any music at sight and would sit up and chirp and peep away quite
happily. As I spread my kid-gloved hands out most conspicuously, what I
had not noticed became very noticeable to everyone else: the fingers
were nearly two inches too long. And the choir laughed at me. I was
dreadfully mortified and sat there crying, until the kind contralto
comforted me.
In my young days the negro minstrels were a great diversion. They were
amusing because they were so typical. There are none left, but in the
old times they were delightful, and it is a thousand pities that they
have passed away. All the essence of slavery, and the efforts of the
slaves to amuse themselves, were in their quaint performances. The banjo
was almost unknown to us in the North, and when it found its way to New
England it was a genuine novelty. I was simply fascinated by it as a
little girl and used to go to all the minstrel shows, and sit and watch
the men play. Their banjos had five strings only and were played with
the back of the nail,--not like a guitar. This was the only way to get
the real negro twang. There was no refinement about such playing, but I
loved it. I said:
"I believe I could play that if I had one!"
My father, the dignified scholar, was horrified.
"When a banjo comes in, I go out," said he.
At last a friend gave me one, and I watched and studied the darkies
until I had picked up the trick of playing it, and soon acquired a real
negro touch. And I also acquired some genuine darky songs. One, of which
I was particularly fond, was called: _Hottes' co'n y' ever eat_.
I really believe I was the first American girl who ever played a banjo!
In a few years along came Lotta, and made the banjo a great feature.
Banjo music has natural syncopation, and its peculiarities undoubtedly
originated the "rag-time" of our present-day imitations. There was one
song that I learned from hearing a man sing it who had, in turn, caught
it from a darky, that has never to my knowledge been published and is
not to be found in any collection.
It began:
[Illustration: Musical notation; It'll set this dar-key cra-zy. I don't
know what I'll do,]
and remains with me in my _repertoire_ unto this day. I have been known
to sing it with certain effect--for when I am asked, now, to sing it, my
husband leaves the room! The last time I sang it was only a couple of
years ago in Norfolk. Herbert Witherspoon said:
"Listen to that high C!"
"Ah," said I, "that is the last remnant--the very last!"
But this chapter is to be about my first notes, not my last ones.
In 1857, my father failed, the beautiful books were sold and we went to
New York to live. Almost directly afterward occurred one of the most
important events of my career. Although I was not being trained for a
singer, but as a musician in general, I could no more help singing than
I could held breathing, or sleeping, or eating; and, one day, Colonel
Henry G. Stebbins, a well-known musical amateur, one of the directors of
the Academy of Music, was calling on my father and heard me singing to
myself in an adjoining room. Then and there he asked to be allowed to
have my voice cultivated; and so, when I was fourteen, I began to study
singing. The succeeding four years were the hardest worked years of my
life.
To young girls who are contemplating vocal study, I always say that it
is mostly a question of what one is willing to give up.
If you really are prepared to sacrifice all the fun that your youth is
entitled to; to work, and to deny yourself; to eat and sleep, not
because you are hungry or sleepy, but because your strength must be
conserved for your art; to make your music the whole interest of your
existence;--if you are willing to do all this, you may have your reward.
But music will have no half service. It has to be all or nothing.
In Rostand's play, they ask Chanticleer:
"What is your life?"
And he answers:
"My song."
"What is your song?"
"My life."
[Illustration: =George Kellogg=
Father of Clara Louise Kellogg
Photograph by Gurney & Son]