med
like some luxuriant tropical blossom herself.

Claudia Muzio, who was just about to take her place among the personnel
of the Metropolitan, is truly to the manner born,--a real child of the
opera. She has lived in opera all her life, has imbibed the operatic
atmosphere from her earliest remembrance. It must be as necessary for a
singer who aspires to fill a high place in this field of artistic
endeavor, to live amid congenial surroundings, as for a pianist,
violinist or composer to be environed by musical influences.

"Yes, I am an Italian," she began, "for I was born in Italy; but when I
was two years old I was taken to London, and my childhood was passed in
that great city. My father was stage manager at Covent Garden, and has
also held the same post at the Manhattan and Metropolitan Opera Houses
in New York. So I have grown up in the theater. I have always listened
to opera--daily, and my childish imagination was fired by seeing the art
of the great singers. I always hoped I should one day become a singer,
so I always watched the artists in action, noting how they did
everything. As a result, I do not now have to study acting as a separate
branch of the work, for acting comes to me naturally. I am very
temperamental; I feel intuitively how the role should be enacted.

"All tiny children learn to sing little songs, and I was no exception. I
acquired quite a number, and at the age of six, exhibited my
accomplishments at a little recital. But I never had singing lessons
until I began to study seriously at about the age of sixteen. Although I
did not study the voice till I reached that age, I was always occupied
with music, for I learned as a little girl to play both harp and piano.

"We lived in London, of which city I am very fond, from the time I was
two, till I was fourteen, then we came to America. After residing here a
couple of years, it was decided I should make a career, and we went to
Italy. I was taken to Madame Anna Casaloni at Turino. She was quite
elderly at that time, but she had been a great singer. When she tried my
voice, she told me it was quite properly placed--so I had none of that
drudgery to go through.

"At first my voice was a very light soprano, hardly yet a coloratura. It
became so a little later, however, and then gradually developed into a
dramatic soprano. I am very happy about this fact, for I love to portray
tears as well as laughter--sorrow and tragedy as well as lightness and
ga