that she was following the orchestra. I became so interested in our
conversation, for Mme. Farrar invariably talks well, that I did not even
hear the orchestra. But her mind was quite capable of taking care of two
things at once. She interrupted a sentence to sing her phrase off stage,
and then smilingly continued the conversation. I shall never forget this
moment. To me it signified in an instant what Mme. Farrar has taken the
pains to explain in pages of her autobiography and which is all summed
up in her own comment, written at the time on the programme of the
concert of her Boston debut, May 26, 1896: "This is what I made my debut
in, very calm and sedate, not the least nervous."

But Mme. Farrar's vocal method is not God-given, although her voice and
her assurance may be, and she sometimes has trouble in producing her
upper tones. Instead of opening like a fan, her high voice is frequently
pinched, and she has difficulty in singing above the staff. I have never
heard her sing Butterfly's entrance with correct intonation, although I
have heard her in the part many times. Her Carmen, on the whole, is a
most successful performance vocally, and so is (or was) her Elisabeth,
especially in the second act. The tessitura of Butterfly is very high,
and the role is a strain for her. She has frequently said that she finds
it easier to sing any two other roles in her repertoire, and refuses to
appear for two days before or after a performance of this Puccini opera.

Mme. Farrar is a fine linguist. She speaks and sings French like a
Frenchwoman (I have expert testimony on this point), German like a
German, and Italian like an Italian; her enunciation of English is also
very clear (she has never sung in opera in English, but has often sung
English songs in concert). Her enunciation of Maeterlinck's text in
_Ariane et Barbe-Bleue_ was a joy, about the only one she contributed to
this performance. And in _Koenigskinder_ and _Le Donne Curiose_ she was
equally distinct. In fact there is never any difficulty about following
the text of an opera when Geraldine Farrar is singing.

The roles in which Mme. Farrar achieves her best results, according to
my taste, are Manon, the Goosegirl, Margherita (in _Mefistofele_),
Elisabeth, Rosaura, Suzanna, and Violetta. Cio-Cio-San, of course, is
her most popular creation, and it deserves to some extent the applause
of the populace, although I do not think it should be put in the above
list. It i