une, as it were, are to be recommended. The great
Italian singers of other days followed this rule, and it still holds
good.

If the singer gives much of himself as well as of his voice to the
public he should still hold his breathing supply in, so to speak, as he
would guard the capital from which comes his income. Failure should thus
be impossible if there is always a reserve to draw on. So the more one
sings with good breath support the more beautiful the voice becomes. On
the other hand, those who sing haphazard sometimes begin the evening
well, but deteriorate more and more as the performance advances and at
the end are uttering mere raucous sounds. They are like a man unable to
swim who is in a deep river--their voices control them in place of they
controlling their voices. They struggle vainly against obstacles, but
are carried away by the flood and are finally engulfed in the waters.

Many too ambitious students are their own worst enemies in the culture
of their voices. Because they have a large vocal power they want to
shout all the time in spite of the repeated admonitions of their
masters, who beg them to sing piano. But they hear nothing except the
noise they make themselves. Such headstrong ones will never make a
career, even with the finest voices in the world. Their teachers should
give up trying to make them listen to reason and devote their attention
to those who merit it and want to study seriously. Singing as an art is
usually not considered with enough earnestness. One should go to a
singing master as one goes to a specialist for a consultation and follow
with the greatest care his directions. If one does not have the same
respect and confidence one places in a physician it must be because the
singing master does not really merit it, and it would be much better to
make a change at once.

In general it is better not to stick entirely to one teacher, for it is
easy to get into a rut in this way, and someone else may have a quite
different and more enlightening way of setting forth his ideas.

In taking up operatic work it is understood, of course, that the singer
must have mastered most of the technical difficulties, so as not to be
troubled with them when they are encountered in some aria.

It is a most excellent thing to secure an engagement in one of the small
theatres abroad, where one may get a large experience before trying to
effect an entrance into the bigger organizations of the great cap