_La Sonnambula_ very possibly, but if young singers sit about saving
their voices for performances of these operas they are more than
likely to die unheard. It is a fact that good singing in the
old-fashioned sense will help nobody out in _Elektra_, _Ariane et
Barbe-Bleue_, _Pelleas et Melisande_, or _The Nightingale_. These
works are written in new styles and they demand a new technique. Put
Mme. Melba, Mme. Destinn, Mme. Sembrich, or Mme. Galli-Curci to work
on these scores and you will simply have a sad mess.

We have, I think, but a faint glimmering of what vocal expressiveness
may become. Such torch-bearers as Mariette Mazarin and Feodor
Chaliapine have been procaciously excoriated by the critics. Until
recently Mary Garden, who of all artists on the lyric stage, is the
most nearly in touch with the singing of the future, has been treated
as a charlatan and a fraud. W. J. Henderson once called her the "Queen
of Unsong." Well, perhaps she is, but she is certainly better able to
cope artistically with the problems of the modern music drama than
such Queens of Song as Marcella Sembrich and Adelina Patti would be.
Perhaps Unsong is the name of the new art.

I do not think I have ever been backward in expressing my appreciation
of this artist. My essay devoted to her in "Interpreters and
Interpretations" will certainly testify eloquently as to my previous
attitude in regard to her. But it has not always been so with some of
my colleagues. Since she has been away from us they have learned
something; they have watched and listened to others and so when Mary
Garden came back to New York in _Monna Vanna_ in January, 1918, they
were ready to sing choruses of praise in her honour. They have been
encomiastic even in regard to her voice and her manner of singing.

Even my own opinion of this artist's work has undergone a change. I
have always regarded her as one of the few great interpreters, but in
the light of recent experience I now feel assured that she is the
greatest artist on the contemporary lyric stage. It is not, I would
insist, Mary Garden that has changed so much as we ourselves. She has,
it is true, polished her interpretations until they seem incredibly
perfect, but has there ever been a time when she gave anything but
perfect impersonations of Melisande or Thais? Has she ever been
careless before the public? I doubt it.

The fact of the matter is that when Mary Garden first came to New York
only a few of us