es Landestheater in Prague.

She herself had found a remarkable singing teacher in the Frankfort
basso, Foeppel; and kept her voice noble, beautiful, young, and strong
to the end of her life,--that is, till her seventy-seventh
year,--notwithstanding enormous demands upon it and many a blow of
fate. She could diagnose a voice infallibly; but required a probation
of three to four months to test talent and power of making progress.

I have been on the stage since my eighteenth year; that is, for
thirty-four years. In Prague I took part every day in operas,
operettas, plays, and farces. Thereafter in Danzig I sang from
eighteen to twenty times a month in coloratura and soubrette parts;
also in Leipzig, and later, fifteen years in Berlin. In addition I
sang in very many oratorios and concerts, and gave lessons now and
then.

As long as my mother lived she was my severest critic, never
satisfied. Finally I became such for myself. Now fifteen years more
have passed, of which I spent eight very exacting ones as a dramatic
singer in America, afterward fulfilling engagements as a star, in all
languages, in Germany, Austria, Hungary, France, England, and Sweden.
My study of singing, nevertheless, was not relaxed. I kept it up more
and more zealously by myself, learned something from everybody,
learned to _hear_ myself and others.

For many years I have been devoting myself to the important questions
relating to singing, and believe that I have finally found what I have
been seeking. It has been my endeavor to set down as clearly as
possible all that I have learned through zealous, conscientious study
by myself and with others, and thereby to offer to my colleagues
something that will bring order into the chaos of their methods of
singing; something based on science as well as on sensations in
singing; something that will bring expressions often misunderstood
into clear relation with the exact functions of the vocal organs.

In what I have just said I wish to give a sketch of my career only to
show what my voice has endured, and why, notwithstanding the enormous
demands I have made upon it, it has lasted so well. One who has sung
for a short time, and then has lost his voice, and for this reason
becomes a singing teacher, has never sung consciously; it has simply
been an accident, and this accident will be repeated, for good or for
ill, in his pupils.

The talent in which all the requirements of an artist are united is
very