, was of
first-class importance compared with the women singers.

[Sidenote: _Grisi._]

[Sidenote: _Jenny Lind._]

[Sidenote: _Lilli Lehmann._]

Nearly all of these singers, even those still living and remembered by
the younger generation of to-day, exploited their gifts in the operas
of Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, the early Verdi, and Meyerbeer. Grisi
was acclaimed a great dramatic singer, and it is told of her that once
in "Norma" she frightened the tenor who sang the part of _Pollio_ by
the fury of her acting. But measured by the standards of to-day, say
that set by Calve's _Carmen_, it must have been a simple age that
could be impressed by the tragic power of anyone acting the part of
Bellini's Druidical priestess. The surmise is strengthened by the
circumstance that Madame Grisi created a sensation in "Il Trovatore"
by showing signs of agitation in the tower scene, walking about the
stage during _Manrico's_ "_Ah! che la morte ognora_," as if she would
fain discover the part of the castle where her lover was imprisoned.
The chief charm of Jenny Lind in the memory of the older generation is
the pathos with which she sang simple songs. Mendelssohn esteemed her
greatly as a woman and artist, but he is quoted as once remarking to
Chorley: "I cannot think why she always prefers to be in a bad
theatre." Moscheles, recording his impressions of her in Meyerbeer's
"Camp of Silesia" (now "L'Etoile du Nord"), reached the climax of his
praise in the words: "Her song with the two concertante flutes is
perhaps the most incredible feat in the way of bravura singing that
can possibly be heard." She was credited, too, with fine powers as an
actress; and that she possessed them can easily be believed, for few
of the singers whom I have mentioned had so early and intimate an
association with the theatre as she. Her repugnance to it in later
life she attributed to a prejudice inherited from her mother. A vastly
different heritage is disclosed by Madame Lehmann's devotion to the
drama, a devotion almost akin to religion. I have known her to go into
the scene-room of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York and search
for mimic stumps and rocks with which to fit out a scene in
"Siegfried," in which she was not even to appear. That, like her
super-human work at rehearsals, was "for the good of the cause," as
she expressed it.

[Sidenote: _Sontag._]

Most amiable are the memories that cluster around the name of Sontag,
whose care