hout changing the quality of the sound,
she passes from a high to a low note, from piano to forte, gradually
or suddenly, and all without the least sense of effort. Indeed her
notes are as spontaneous and natural as those of a nightingale; and
this, combined with their natural sweetness and purity, constitutes
their great charm." A few months later, when Patti gave one of her
innumerable farewell performances, I was again forced to admit that
she is the greatest of living lyric sopranos, but took the liberty to
express my conviction that "the charm of her voice is almost as purely
sensuous as the beauty of a dewdrop or a diamond reflecting the
prismatic colors of sunlight."

Patti, in a word, is the incarnation of the Italian style. Her voice
is flawless as regards beauty of tone, and spontaneity and agility of
execution. Moreover, she avoids the small vices common to most Italian
singers, such as taking liberties with the time and the sentiment of
the piece for the sake of prolonging a trill or a loud final high
note, and so on. At an early stage in her career she followed the
custom of the time, and lavished such an abundance of uncalled-for
scales and trills and arpeggios and staccatos on her melody, that even
Rossini entered a sarcastic protest; but in her later years she has
conscientiously followed the indications of the composers. At the same
time, she has shown more and more anxiety to win laurels as a dramatic
singer. But here the vocal style which she has exclusively cultivated
has proved an insuperable obstacle. Although free from the smaller
vices of the Italian school, she could not overcome the great and
fatal shortcoming of that school--the maltreatment of the poetic text.
She could not find the proper accents required in operas where the
words of the text are as important as the melody itself; and she has
failed therefore to give satisfaction even in such works as "Faust"
and "Aida," which are intermediate between the old-fashioned opera and
the music-drama proper. I have been often surprised to hear how
Patti, so conscientious in other respects, slights her texts,
obliterating consonants and altering vowels after the fashion of the
Italian school. Having neglected to master the more vigorous vowels
and expressive consonants, she cannot assert her art in dramatic
works. Her voice, in short, is _merely an instrument_. "Bird-like" is
an epithet commonly applied to it by admirers. Is this a compliment? A
d