a performance of _Madama Butterfly_ a
Japanese once asked why the singers were producing those nice round
tones in moments of passion; why not ugly sounds?

Will any composer arise with the courage to write an opera which
_cannot_ be sung? Stravinsky almost did this in _The Nightingale_ but
the break must be more complete. Think of the range of sounds made by
the Japanese, the gipsy, the Chinese, the Spanish folk-singers. The
newest composer may ask for shrieks, squeaks, groans, screams, a
thousand delicate shades of guttural and falsetto vocal tones from his
interpreters. Why should the gamut of expression on our opera stage be
so much more limited than it is in our music halls? Why should the
Hottentots be able to make so many delightful noises that we are
incapable of producing? Composers up to date have taken into account a
singer's apparent inability to bridge difficult intervals. It is only
by ignoring all such limitations that the new music will definitely
emerge, the new art of the singer be born. What marvellous effects
might be achieved by skipping from octave to octave in the human
voice! When will the obfusc pundits stop shouting for what Avery
Hopwood calls "ascending and descending tetrarchs!"

But, some one will argue, with the passing of _bel canto_ what will
become of the operas of Mozart, Bellini, Rossini, and Donizetti? Who
will sing them? Fear not, lover of the golden age of song, _bel canto_
is not passing as swiftly as that. Singers will continue to be born
into this world who are able to cope with the floridity of this music,
for they are born, not made. Amelita Galli-Curci will have her
successors, just as Adelina Patti had hers. Singers of this kind begin
to sing naturally in their infancy and they continue to sing, just
sing.... One touch of drama or emotion and their voices disappear.
Remember Nellie Melba's sad experience with _Siegfried_. The great
Mario had scarcely studied singing (one authority says that he had
taken a few lessons of Meyerbeer!) when he made his debut in _Robert,
le Diable_ and there is no evidence that he studied very much
afterwards. Melba, herself, spent less than a year with Mme. Marchesi
in preparation for her opera career. Mme. Galli-Curci asserts that she
has had very little to do with professors and I do not think Mme.
Tetrazzini passed her youth in mastering _vocalizzi_. As a matter of
fact she studied singing only six months. Adelina Patti told Dr.
Hanslick t