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Why Great Sinbers Are SoFickle;
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*The vibration* of tie singer s wonder fui voice have precisely the same emo’.'onal consequences as the cecophorf
ot a boiler makers nvet. The vibrations numb tho higher -nental centres and powers tllv stimulate the emo
uc Ihe blood recedes fro tho former t under the vibrations and floods the latter.”
THE illness of a famous and
beautiful prima donna has
turned the eyes of the world
upon the operatic stage and its
thoughts upon the erratic hearts of
grand opera singers. <
Geraldine Farrar, the American
prima donna whom all the world ad
mires, not alone for her voice, nor
yet her youthful beauty, but for her
line American spirit that conquered
the German court and revolutionized
customs and costumes in royal
opera at Berlin, is sulking because a
man whom she jilted a year ago has
sought comfort in a new affection
and is about to be married to Miss
Charlotte Ives, the actress. Miss
Farrar, her head held high and her
neck stiffened by Yankee pride, once
said:
"1 shall never marry, because
there is no complete man. If I mar
ried a European he could make love
beautifully, but he wouldn’t know
how to earn a living for me. If I
married an American he could earn
• living for me, but be wouldn't
A Brief Record of Inconstancies
Among the Great Stars of Opera
GERALDINE FARRAR broke the heart of the
Crown Prince of Germany—temporarily. Then
considered for three years the possibility of
marrying Scotti, the great Italian baritone. A year
later, hearing that he Is to marry Charlotte Ives, an
actress, she becomes ill and cancels her engagements
for next season.
LILLIAN NORDICA has been married thrice. Her
first husband went up in a balloon and was never
seen again Her second husband wa» divorced.
Her third marriage quickly followed.
Lina Cavalieri tired of marriage after three months
and has recently been divorced.
EMMA EAMES divorced Artist Ctorey to marry the
Musician Gorgoza, whose wife already had
charged that the Prima Donna had alienated his
affections. Madame Eames paid sl-50,000 to secure a
clear title to Gorgoza.
MME. Schumann-Heink married again after she
was the mother of eight children, and rapidly
secured a divorce.
, Melba deserted her husband for the stage.
Mme. Trentini jilted Caruso.
Emma Juch lias divorced Francis Wellman, for whom
she left the stage.
PERUGINI, the tenor, was declared by Lillian Rus
sell to be impossible, either as third husband or
a husband of any other rank.
-^-—< *2 »> -•■r.—. r ~ "S\?-‘*_
know how to make love. Since I
don’t want to commit bigamy, 1 shall
remain single.”
Every one, inchiding herself, be
lieved Miss Farrar; every one save
the renowned baritone Scotti. .Ke
lying upon the traditional woman s
right to "change her mind,” he be
gan a suit for her heart and hand.
Patiently as Jacob served for Rachel
he waited upon the whims aud moods
of the beautiful young prima donna.
In one respect his suit was suc
cessful. She permitted him to guide
her footsteps along the path of
music. "There are two persons who
help me greatly,” she has often said
“My mother *nd one other. They
tell me first how well 1 have sung a
part, then how badly. That is, they
point out the good work, then tell
me how to avoid the bad. lam in
tensely grateful to them both. I
don’t know how 1 could get on with
out them.”
Every one In the world of grand
opera knew that the “other” critic,
besides her mother, was Scotti.
Scotti naturally and optimistically
reasoned that from "intense grati
tude” it is but a step to love. He
believed, as do most of his sex, that
there is a mood In which any woman
can be won. If he but wail for that
lime man will be lhe conqueror,
woman the conquered. Scotti
ed —waited faithfully and hopefully
for three years. Miss Farrar, her
mother and Scotti dined together,
supped together, drove together,
went to the opera together, when
the singers were to sing or when
they as part of the audience listened
to the singing of their brothers and
sisters of the grand opera stage.,,
"Will Geraldine marry Scotti?" a
woman friend of theirs asked a man
friend.
Scornfully the lordly male replied
"Os course she will. A woman won t
let a man sit around all the time if
she doesn’t intend to marry him."
But she didn’t. Prima donnas are
a species of human that never does
quite what, it is expected to do. A
difference came Scotti w’ent about
looking sullen. Miss Farrar accept
ed Campanini, the great conductor,
i uMr,...,. ~_a never married, uuC admits that
she is often in love. Nearly every season she
announces an engagement, which later in ths
season she declares has been broken.
Sibyl Sanderson was an Incorrigible flirt
Fritzl Scheff divorced the German baron whom she
wedded and has remarried.
Olive Fremstad secured a divorce after a brief mar
riage.
ENRICO CARUSO has been engaged many times,
married or said to be married several times, ar
‘ rested for lavishing unwelcome attentions upon a
woman In a crowd, sued for breach o! promise and fol
lowed to this country by a woman who claimed to be
Signora Caruso, and whom he repudiated and paid to
leave the country.
Mascagni recently fled from his home with a chorus
girl.
MME EMMA CALVE has kept European gossips
busy with her successive love affairs, one of
these being with Henry Cain, the famous French
philosopher, who would have married her except that
he already had «. wife.
Mme. Patti was married three times.
CARL JOHN'S married life was stormy, his wife fol
lowing him to this country to secure money for
herself and second husband, his successor.
DAVID BISPHAM, the baritone, lives apart from
his wife, who refuses to divorce him lest he marry
her reputed rival. Kitty Cheatham.
as her musical mentor. Scotti was
eliminated. So far so good, if all
accepted the conditions. But Scotti
didn’t He was* no nun to go into
a convent. He met a charming girl,
made love to her, was accepted, and
announced their engagement.
Then it was that Miss Farrar fell
ill. Quite unreasonably, declare the
old friends of Miss Farrar and Scotti.
But when was a prima donna
reasonable? That is for mere hu
man clods who cannot sing or who
only ma..e grotesque attempts at it.
But Miss Farrar’s indignant ill
ness has opened the question of why
great opera singers are unhappy in
their domestic lives and unhappy
out of them; why, in short, they are
inconsistent In iove.
The list of the inconsistencies of
famous opera singers Is appallingly
long. Beginning with Mario, of
whom Meredith exclaimed.
“Mario could sooth with a tenor note
A soul in purgatory,”
but who broke as many hearts as he
soothed; with Malibran, who tossed
organs of affection away as easily
as enthralling tones; to Farrar and
Scotti of the present, the ways of
love for grand opera singers have
been checkered ones.
“Signora Carusos” by the score
are scattered about. Europe, yet the
greatest tenor laughs, squints, blows
kisses from his finger tips and says,
“But lam not married.” He met a
hoo girl ln P aiis wll ° fascinated
him H e asked to meet her parents.
When he saw the stalk upon which
the lovely flower of his infatuation
oloomed his fastidious tastes revolt
ed He decamped Silence swal
lowed him up. Result, a breach of
nromise Buit - He encountered in
jhe monkey house of the Zoological
Gardena in New York a woman
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•n the rlight-Hand Comer-Olive Fremstad; in the Centre Geraldine Farrar; Below, Caruso. Three Great Sin
Whose Emotions Have Interested the World.
A
whom he admired. She says he
manifested his admiration in ardent
fashion. He says he didn’t. Some
believed him. The case was even
tually dismissed because the woman
said her modesty would not permit
her to face a crowd in court. One of
the alleged Signora Carusos followed
the singer to this country. He de
nied her. There was a settlement.
She departed.
A story or stories of attachment
follow him annually from Italy to
this country. At some of them he
laughs aua shrugs ins shoulders. At
others ho looks romantic and remi
niscent.
Lillian Nordica has had as many
husbands as Lillian Russell, save
one. Her first spouse, the American
Fred Gower, after a troublous mar
ried life, went up in a balloon. Pre
sumably he came down again, but
no .ne has ever appeared who found
him. Her second husband, Zoltan
Doehme, she divorced. Soon followed
her third marriage, to George W.
Young, a capitalist, who shortly be
fore secured a divorce.
Melba left her home and husband
and child to follow the lure of the
stage. A divorce followed and she
and the son were reconciled after
he reached manhood and presented
her a daughter-in-law.
Mme. Emma Eames is charged by
rumor with having purchased her
second husband from his first wife,
by the payment of $l5O and with the
aid of the divorce courts—But else
where on this page will be found
brief details of this and sir.iilar
instances.
On this page an eminent German
scientist, physician to many grand
opera singers, explains the physiol
ogy and psychology, the reason for
this trait of great singers, whose
hearts are not so true as their tones.
How Music Makes Heart-Breakers
By Prof. Heinrich Mollendorf, M. D., of Heidelberg University.
MY long experience in treating neurosis among eminent singers has
taught me that, because of their hlgniy organized nervous sys
tem and their inevitable manner of life, we wrong them by ex
pecting constancy from them. They cannot help being fickle.
All life is vibration. Heat is vibration. Light is vibration. Sound
is vibration. The world will presently know that every phenomenon is
merely a greater or smaller number of vibrations. The poor singer lives
in a continuous storm of vibrations. She opens her mouth. She forms
a tone and what happens? A tremendous vibration is set up. The nerves
in her head, these tense, most highly sensitive nerves, quiver from the
impact of the sound waves, the vibrations. They communicate with tbs
brain. They jar and shock it. It reels from the nerve blows showered
upon it and sends strange, incoherent messages back along thhe nervs
paths of the body.
The mechanism of the phenomenon is this. Tn the brain are man’s
comparatively newly acquired centres of high intellectual control. Be
low then are the emotional centres. Any nervous centre is dependent
for its strength upon its supply of blood. The tone vibrations of the
singer drive the blood away from the h.gh centres, starving them. It
draws the blood into the emotional centres, strengthening them. Thus
control is lost when emotions and what we call fickleness ensues
The same thing takes place in boiler making. The strident vibra
tions of the riveter have precisely the same consequences as the de
licious vibrations of the prima donna! This is Why men who work in
the constant cacophony of the boiler works are subject to fits of emo
tionalism that sometimes finds vent in the use of alcohol They are
"driven to drink” —as the singer is driven to a new love.
The teeth are also agents in this topsy turvy condition The teeth
are exceedingly sensitive to sounds uttered by their owner Form and
hold a musical tone uttered with the vowel sound of "oo." Note how it
jars your teeth.
The singer is always disturbing the dental nerves. Have vou ever
had the toothache? Then you know now what a nerve tumult one poor
aching nerve in one tooth can set up in the body. A singer is continuallv
in such a state of tempest of the nerves as is caused by the toothache
Nerves, not principles, govern the heart. If the nerves are erratic the
heart cannot be the sound, loyal, stanch organ our ethics would have it.
Another physiological reason for the inconstancy of singers is the
hypnotism of the lips. Poets have said much of the hypnotic influence
of the eye. Physicians know that the hypnosis of the lips is a greater
power. The lips of singers are the most mobile in the human race. They
are as plastic as putty, as obedient to the will of the singer as an echo
to the voice.
Third, and worthy of much pondering. Is the truth that there is no
such thing as constancy of the senses. The soul may hold to one ideal
be laithful to one standard, one individual, throughout life. But tha
senses are vagabonds. They roam the fields of desire. They know no
law. Music is a handmaid and an interpreter of the senses. And nos
only are the singer's senses played upon, but the listener's also. Os
all the senses powerfully stimulated by music—especially by song—«
that of tender emotions toward the opposite sex heads the list.