Secrets!

A woman (an American) who admits that she was one of the most famous and most gifted operatic stars of our generation has just written and published her memoirs.* She desires to remain anonymous and unrecognized/- at present, for her confessions, as she confesses, were set down originally for no eyes except her own.

Perhaps they reveal even more than she intended. The book teems with tales of intrigue, art and heart-rivalry, even jealousy. Certainly the authoress has no mean opinion of her own accomplishments. "I insisted upon singing the Mad Scene," she writes, "in which I amazed the critics, and astonished some of my warmest admirers." And again: "I am a greater artist for what that Winter brought me. Probably my experience helped me to sound the note of passion in my various interpretations, made me more the dramatic singer."

"Oh," she sighs, "how hard it is for us artists to admit publicly that another singer in our own particular line equals, if indeed he does not surpass us!" This apropos of someone else's jealousy. Her own comments on her own rivals run like this: "The lady was very fat, with what was described as the vocal agility of a cow."

The most thrilling episode in the book is the story of her love for an Austrian nobleman, and of her subsequent disgust when she discovers that his intentions are not of a matrimonial nature. After an idyllic friendship with this schuft, she finds herself first repelled by a wild Bohemian party at which one of the ladies actually dances on a supper table! Then the Crucial Scene:

"I hesitated, but finally followed him into a handsome entrance hall. He motioned me into a lift. We stepped out into an upper corridor. Carl took out a key, opened a door, and drew me into an anteroom, from which a curtained archway opened. Before I could draw back, he closed the door behind us, and catching me in his arms, kissed me madly.

" 'Carl, what do you mean ? Where have you brought me?' I gasped.

"He laughed, and drew me through the archway. . . . Beyond was a bedroom. By this time I had recovered myself.

" 'What does this mean, Carl ?' I asked.

" 'Darling, sweetheart, ma mignonne. . . . our home. No more hotels. You and I will be the happiest people in the world. Say you like it,' and he tried to kiss me again. ... I freed myself.

" 'You have evidently made a mistake, Captain von Zolter,' I said, although my voice shook. 'I wish to return to my hotel immediately.' ... In silence, he followed me from the apartment."

Thereafter she devotes herself strictly to her art, winning acclaim all over the world, from royalty, from the critics, from the people. Years later, with the world at her feet, she sees Carl again, and triumphs sweetly. For the hapless Carl, "already too stout," finds her, a languidly smiling, altogether superior creature, "sitting in the drawing-room of my handsome suite in Vienna's best hotel, reading a new and much discussed novel."

It is all vastly entertaining stuff, and much of it should prove to be valuable instruction and advice to aspiring young ladies. Here, at least, is one American girl's account of how she brought the music world to her feet. ^

*The Confessions of a Prima Donna--Anonymous--Strokes (2$.50). /-As she created the role of Queen Isabella in the first performance of Franchetti's Cristoforo Colombo at Genoa in 1892, her identity is easily traceable.