marvellous is Puccini's feeling for
atmosphere that with them he has given us all the bleak squalor of his
story. You feel a chill at your heart as you hear them, and before the
curtain rises you know that it must rise on something miserable and
outcast. The stage is in semi-darkness. The garret is low-pitched, with
a sloping roof ending abruptly in a window looking over Paris. There is
a stove, a table, two chairs, and a bed. Nothing more. Two people are
on. One stands at the window, looking, with a light air of challenge, at
Paris. Down stage, almost on the footlights, is an easel, at which an
artist sits. The artist is Scotti, the baritone, as Marcello. The
orchestra shudders with a few chords. The man at the window turns. He is
a dumpy little man in black wearing a golden wig. What a figure it is!
What a make-up! What a tousled-haired, down-at-heel, out-at-elbows
Clerkenwell exile! The yellow wig, the white-out moustache, the broken
collar.... But a few more brusque bars are tossed from Campanini's
baton, and the funny little man throws off, cursorily, over his
shoulder, a short passage explaining how cold he is. The house thrills.
That short passage, throbbing with tears and laughter, has rushed, like
a stream of molten gold, to the utmost reaches of the auditorium, and
not an ear that has not jumped for joy of it. For he is Rudolfo, the
poet; in private life, Enrico Caruso, Knight of the Order of San
Giovanni, Member of the Victorian Order, Cavalier of the Order of Santa
Maria, and many other things.

As the opera proceeds, so does the marvel grow. You think he can have
nothing more to give than he has just given; the next moment he deceives
you. Towards the end of the first Act, Melba enters. You hear her voice,
fragile and firm as fluted china, before she enters. Then comes the
wonderful love-duet--"Che gelida manina" for Caruso and "Mi chiamano
Mimi" for Melba. Gold swathed in velvet is his voice. Like all true
geniuses, he is prodigal of his powers; he flings his lyrical fury over
the house. He gives all, yet somehow conveys that thrilling suggestion
of great things in reserve. Again and again he recaptures his first fine
careless rapture. His voice dances forth like a little girl on a sunlit
road, wayward, captivating, never fatigued, leaping where others
stumble, tripping many miles, with fresh laughter and bright quick
blood. There never were such warmth and profusion and display. Not only
is it a voice of