RIVAL QUEENS OF SONG.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XV, Issue 218, 5 November 1880, Page 4

RIVAL QUEENS OF SONG.

The Berlin Borsenzeitungj says the London Globe, relates a pleasant story of an artistic duet, we may even say duel, by which the present favourite prima donna, Marie Wilt, first made the acquaintance of her friend and rival, Frau Marie Schroder-Haufstange'. Both ladies are romarkable for what fleine called *" colossal womanliness," and a malicious journalist has rudely described the Norma and Adalgisa of the two songstresses -aB " a pair of elephantine figures. It is reported that when Fraii Wilt was waited upon in Stutgart with the request that she would make a professional journey to Paris, she replied good-humoredly, in her Vienna dialect, " I shall not go to Paris, They have told me so often in Germany that I am a fat Trutshl that J have lost all ambition to learn how that uncomplimentary expression is rendered in Ifrencb.'' Frau Haufstangel was spending a summer holiday on the shore of the Lake of Como. One evening she waß out on the lake by moonlight in a boat, accompanied by a few friecds, and the witchery of the scene inspired her to trill out a song of Schubert's. She had scarcely ceased wben the same song was started at a little distance, in a female voice of wonderful sweetness, but sung a tone higher than Frau Haufstangel's rendering. The emulation of the first "songstress, already a favourite with the German public, was stirred at this provocation by Borne unknown challenger. She repeated a etrophe of the Schubert " Lied," but a tone higher than her unseen rival. The defiant echo was also not without ambition. The second strophe was taken by the invisible songstress, and again a tone higher than its predecessor. Meanwhile the boat touched the Bhore, aud the prima donna had no sooner put her foot upon the land than a very stout lady greeted her, and complimented her upon the song which had floated so agreeably over the water, and to 'which she had attempted a reply. A walk in company to the hotel and an exchange, first of compliments and next of names and cards, were the immediate result. But the abiding result has been a rare artistic fraternisation — we have no feminine equivalent for the more appropriate German V.evichwesterung. It was thus that Norma and Adalgisa learned to know one another, and commenced a close friendship which haß never been interrupted. — «—■■— ■■■—■■■■[■■■l— «_■»