Leaving out of consideration the instructions which they personally
received from Wagner, the greatest dramatic singers of the time may be
regarded as self-made men and women. Experience taught them their art,
other teacher they had none; for it is only within a few years that a
few teachers have begun to realize that the old methods of instruction
are partly incorrect, and partly insufficient for the demands of
contemporary art. Such teachers as Mme. Viardot-Garcia and Mme.
Marchesi have done much good, and trained many excellent lyric
vocalists; but Mme. Marchesi herself admits that the great demand
to-day is for dramatic, and not for lyric, singers. Formerly, it was
the _bravura_ singer who bought dukedoms with his shekels; to-day,
with the solitary exception of Patti, it is the _dramatic_ soprano or
tenor that gets from $500 to $1,000 a night. When will teachers and
pupils wake up and recognize the new situation? When will American
girls cease flocking by the hundreds to Milan to learn such roles as
_Lucia_ or _Amina_, for which there is now no demand, either in Europe
or America, if we except the wild Western audiences to which Emma
Abbott caters.
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