Americans in Europe

This is the day of American success in Europe. Readers may have noted several recent instances of American artists doing well abroad. Musical art on the older continent has run down disastrously. In Central Europe, favorite field of the muse, all singers and musicians who are so fortunate as to be able to do so take themselves to countries with decent exchange rates--above all to the golden U. S. Spain and South America get their share of them, too. Thus the best talents in Germany and Austria are not to be heard in their native lands, and in France and Italy the same thing is true--though to a smaller extent. And inferior voices prevail in the opera houses. The opportunity for the moderately good American artist--the one not good enough for the high musical standards that now prevail in the U. S.--is obvious. The native artist cannot live on the prices paid to musicians, which, though enormous in figures, are drowned by the unfavorable exchange. But the American with a few dollars can live cheaply and afford to sing for next to nothing. Thus you will find Americans in nearly all the opera houses. They shine mightily in the absence of the good native artists who have been driven into foreign lands.