A SINGER ON HIS ART.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1983, 13 February 1914, Page 7

A SINGER ON HIS ART.

PAUL DUFAULT INTERVIEWED.

VALUE OF PERFECT HEALTH

"It would surprise many to know the quiet orderly lines vocal artists nre compelled to livo to do justice to thomsclves and the public." The remark came from Mi - . Paul Dufault, the cultured FrenchCanadian tenor, comfortably ensconced in a well-upholstered arm-chair in his room on the fifth floor of the Grand Hotel yesterday afternoon. • It led tho 6ihger, whoso power to charm and firo aiiuionces is so freely admitted by all who ■ have heard him, into a train of thought which induced , a flow of fact and philosophy. . •

, You sing every night ? • ■ '"Yes, there are others who do nofr— but it is not because they could not . sing just as easily as I do if they led as quiet a life. I consider that I owo it to myself and to the public to keep in condition physically—that cannot be done if one accepted every invitation to drink and so ninue oneself a good fellow, to go out to late suppers, or play cards more than half tho night. An artist ' cannot afford to do it. Many do. I know, but ; db they last? I could tell you of dozons of pfine singers, admirably equipped in every respect, who havefollowed the rosy path, only to be pulled up short when they should have been at their best. It is no strain for anartist to sirtg once in twenty-four hours —the strain is in tho preparation for the work to bo done during the concert.. The voice is such a delicate organ that you have to watch it and nurture it unceasingly. You may _be in good voice'one minute, and by sitting' in a draught it may be gone the next. At 7 o'clock of an evening you might' feel like singing' before Royalty, and at 8 you might have developed a huskiness from ono of a thousand causes.. Still, you have to go;on—you-sing, : badly, and then you set. 'biffed on the head' by the critics. That anxiety is a mental ordeal—that is what tears at the nerves. So one has to keep in perfect health—always to do oneself justice. As the hour of a concert draws near, I find myself examining my voice, as an operator watches the development of a photographic plate. Travelling rapidly from point to point one has to guard against I climatic changes, and, in particular, to see that tho stomach is always' in order. A disordered stomach affects the vocal chords almost immediately, 60 you see hoiv careful one must bo in their living if they, wish to be in perfect vocal condition." • '.-■■ ■■.■'' ■'.: •' ;

"People say sometimes: "Oh', what a lovely Jifo it must be—to- sing for an hour, receive tho adulation of the public, and have all tho day to oneself. The adulation is very nice, and we all like to have' it, but the artistic life really is one of thja hardest in the whole range of the professions. It is not the actual singing that bothers one, but it is the constant care of the voice and the study that is unending that makes play on tho nervous sys- [ tern. - People who do not take their art seriously in such matters are not artists at all. If they neglect themselves by ovcr-oating.and drinking/too , muoh they lose their power to create, and when they loso that they lose status, and become—well, gramaphones. ' Professional teachers of singing-in New York have come to me and asked me to sing a song to them— to soe how I interpret it. I say to them—'What is. the use? . You don't waiit to do it as Ido it. Cannot you think it out for yourself?'. Such people aro not. artiats-TT-they ,are only mimics, .izphey-.ififb likoUhoso , ! people, who live in , the-picture galleries of Europe: painting■ copies of ~tho .great masters. Some people .who are not connoisseurs of nru commission 1 them to-' paint copies of Rosa Bonhcur, Corot, or others, and they turn them out in a week or so, sometimes so perfect that . they can scarcely be distinguished from the original: But those pcoplo arc not artists—they are ojily clever painters. They create nothing 1" v ' ■ .