MUSICIANS AND COMPOSERS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2892, 18 August 1909, Page 90

MUSICIANS AND COMPOSERS.

A QUEEN OF SONG.

Madame Calve, who is about to .visit New Zealand and Australia under the manae - ment of the Messrs Tait, attributes h- •• wonderful success to almost incessant haul ■work. She believes that there are many people with really fine voices who will never know fame because they are too lazy to develop their powers. To illustrate her point, she once told an amusing story about a farmer. Looking up from a paper he was reading a certain farmer said to" his wife: "Do you know what I'd have done if. l'd 1 been Napoleon?" "Yes"/' she answered; "you'd have settled down in Corsica, and spent your life grumbling about bad iuck and hard times."

Madame Calve is- universally admired for her kindness of heart. Everyone remembers how she sang to a dying doctor some time ago, and many are the stories told of her goodness. Once when she was in New York, busy writing in her apartment at tho hotel, the door opened and two little girls looked in. Madame Calve had never seen them before, but she welcomed them cordially and asked what they wanted 1 . . "Oh," they replied, "we want to hear you sing?" The famous prima donna put aside her work, went instantly to tho piano, and sang to them some of her most famous songs, for which, in opera, she would have received hundreds of pounds. When she had finished, she ordered tea and cakes, and, Shaving regaled her little visitors to : their hearts' content, sent them away delighted.

— A Strange Story. —

Like most artistic people, Madame Calve is somewhat superstitious, and she carrieswith her a little charm— a email box, aJways kept filled with rose leaves— which was given to her by a Bohemian fortuneteller, who told her that so long as she wore it, no opera she played in would ever be hissed. The prima donna tells a story about her superstition which, call it coincidence or what you will, is decidedly curious. She was travelling by train on the Continent when she dropped ' her handmirror on 'the floor, and it 'was shattered 1 f tp pieces. Madame. Calve was greatly distressed, as she felt ewe that it meant misfortune. So perturbed was she at the incident that she got out of the train at the next station, although it was 'many males from her destination. Remerkable as it may appear,- tho- train she had quitted came into collision further along the line, . and many passengers were killed and wounded. As has been' said above, Madame Calve * is a greet believer in hard work, and she will leave no stone unturned in order to achieve success. When she was studying the part of Ophelia in Ambroieo Thomas's opera of "Hamlet," she asked a doctor to take her .over aa asylum. While there she met a poor young girl who was not at all unlike Madame's conception of Ophelia. Madame, Calve was very interested in this girl, and watched her carefully. Suddenly the patient stooped, picked up something, and handed it to the diva, but just a 6 the latter was about to take it the mad girl attempted to rush at Madame Calve, anA was only restrained with difficulty. The sight of this girl's affliction made a great impression on the famous singer, and she has declared that whenever she plays Ophelia the image of the mad girl rises before her.

— Trials of an Artist. —

A well-known French newspaper one© published an interesting series of answer* from well-known artistes to the- question, "Are you 'happy?" Madame Calve* reply was to the effect that the artistic life is by no means all delightful. "I know nothing in the world so melancholy aa the day after a 'first night,' " she said. "For weeks, for months, one lives in a fever, with one's nerves strung to the utmost. Then when it is all over the deadly feeling comes that the end was not worth striving for. No, I would not for the world liva the life of an artist again." • "When I am at work," she remarked .on another occasion, "I don't live. I want to .have plenty of exercise, to see all the museums and picture galleries, and to enjoy myself; and all these things are impossible if I am to sing and act well."