ice is able to enter the range
of another, it cannot do the same things with the same ease as the one
which naturally belongs there. An alto of extraordinary range, like
Schumann-Heink, may be able to achieve high soprano in the head
register. It is a valuable accomplishment, insuring ease in singing of
roles that lie in the balance between high alto and mezzo-soprano, but
it does not make the singer a soprano. A dramatic soprano may be able
to sing florid roles, but never with the success of the soprano whose
natural gifts are of the florid order. A Wagner singer rarely succeeds
in the traditional Italian roles, nor a singer of these in Wagner roles.
Lilli Lehmann always insisted that Norma was one of her great roles,
and craved the opportunity to sing it here. At last the opportunity
came, but it is not on record that the public clamored for its
repetition or ranked her _Casta diva_ with her singing of Isolde's
Liebestod. Melba, one of the most exquisite of florid sopranos, once
attempted Bruennhilde in _Siegfried_. One performance, and her good
judgment came to her rescue. It is to Sembrich's credit that she always
has remained within her genre and for this reason never, so far as I
know, has made a failure. The sign-post that stands at the entrance to
the path leading to vocal success might read as follows: "Find out what
your voice is, and remain strictly within it."

The voice which, because of its great range, best illustrates the
three-register division of the vocal scale, is the soprano. The average
soprano ranges from [Music: C4-A5]; but combining the three types of soprano
voices, the soprano compass is as given in the previous chapter, the
extremes being, of course, exceptional.

Among types of sopranos, the dramatic averages the greatest compass. The
voice is heavier than florid soprano and incapable of being handled with
the same agility. But it contains more low notes and almost as many
high ones, unless in the latter respect one compares it with florid
soprano voices of the phenomenal order. Otherwise, so far as the high
notes are concerned, the difference lies in quality rather than in
compass. The Inflammatus in Rossini's _Stabat Mater_, which is written
for dramatic soprano, contains the high C, and no one who has heard
Nordica sing it need be told of the noble effect a great dramatic soprano
can produce with it.

It is possible to sing the three highest notes of the chest register of
dramatic sopr