e Ilma de Murska and Pauline Lucca) made many
farewell tours of this country ... one too many in 1903-4, when she
displayed the _beaux restes_ of her voice. She is living at present in
retirement at Craig-y-Nos in Wales. Her greatest rival, Etelka
Gerster, too, is alive, I believe.

Lilli Lehmann, one of the oldest of the living great singers, was
born May 13, 1848. She was a member of the famous casts which
introduced many of the Wagner works to New York. Her last appearances
in opera here were made, I think, in the late Nineties, but she has
sung here since in concert and in Germany she has frequently assisted
at the performances of the Mozart festivals at Salzburg and has even
sung in _Norma_ and _Gotterdammerung_ within recent years! Her head is
now crowned with white hair and her noble appearance and magnificent
style in singing have doubtless stood her in good stead at these
belated performances, which probably were disappointing, judged as
vocal exhibitions.

Lillian Nordica had a long career. She was born May 12, 1859, and made
her operatic debut in Brescia in _La Traviata_ in 1879. She continued
to sing up to the time of her death in Batavia, Java, May 10, 1914.
Indeed she was then undertaking a concert tour of the world at the age
of 55! But the artist, who in the Nineties had held the Metropolitan
Opera House stage with honour in the great dramatic roles, had very
little to offer in her last years. Never a great musician, defects in
style began to make themselves evident as her vocal powers decreased.
Her season at the Manhattan Opera House in 1907-8 was quickly and
unpleasantly terminated. A subsequent single appearance as Isolde at
the Metropolitan in the winter of 1909-10 was even less successful.
The voice had lost its resonance, the singer her appeal. Her
magnificent courage and indomitable ambition urged her on to the end.

Two singers whose voices have been miraculously preserved, who have
indeed suffered little from the ravages of time, are Marcella Sembrich
and Nellie Melba. Both of these singers, however, have consistently
refrained from misusing their voices (if one may except the one
occasion on which Mme. Melba attempted to sing Brunnhilde in
_Siegfried_ with disastrous results). Mme. Melba (according to Grove's
Dictionary, which, like all other books devoted to the subject of
music, is frequently inaccurate) was born in Australia, May 19, 1859.
Therefore she was 28 years old when she made her