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Show TH'E iCITlZEN 12 I- - tient tempeitiment, but 'r8' was .al-ways patient with her singing pupils and' she "had the Inestimable ' gift of a 5 J which remtads the tact, - ?'i i4:p. iiiiiiiiiMiiiiiiiiMUiiiiiiiiiiiiMiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiMmriimiiiMiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiHitMNiriHiiiiiiiinimiiiiiiililiHViiiiiiiiHiiiiiiiirHi'iiiiilrtiiiiuii .iiNiniiuiHuujiiiiiiMiii Jf TH Ec LIFE uzaLehmann;.& - good-Story;.- tains, where- he kept his pianbr hid-den. He explained to us tliathfe wfis so tormented with- people who wanted-- By - iHerself; Wih many ' illustrations. . button A1 Co. New Yorks E.-P- diej:-- . .'j.? An, - to sing to hini'or toplay to hini-thhe was driven to this device! He in- that I :must;siiig to"r ,' sisted, however, . him, and, after much pressure, Ivre- - ' luctantly did so; and I" hope exercised discretion in that' I made no attempt ' at' liis own florid music, but merely' confined myself to a few old Scotch" songs which he had never heard; and which seemed to interest him greatly. . about' two 1 J r weeks after. Completing' her full of ' a magnificent courage' says I c j an in Tand her husband afterword, ' . f ,i ' with the perfect' serenity of 'onfc.al- - . ' ; ' i , t : i - . " , ready, quit of the dross of this world, Mme, ,Iiza Lehmann tells .us that she was Wn in ijondon. , Her" father was When her mothers health had so far a naturalized British subject and',he e improved as to make possible a came from Hamburg. ;Hefr mother was in London the famlyt took a Scotch, :the daughter nfLi)r. Robert house in Cromwell Road and later on . Chambers. Mme. Lehmann was taken in St. Johns Wood, where they conto Italy as soon as she ras old enough tinued to live until I abandoned my to; travel and shie spent the first years career as a singer, became human, and of her life there,' speaking Italian beHere it was that she met married. fore any other language. Liszt, was a Bret Harte and received ' Rubinstein as friend of bier parents, often dropping a frequent visitor: in j for his1 favorite dish of bacon and . eggs, and; while 'this was being, preIt was at. Aberporn Place. that. .we. comnewest his. .would .he play pared saw a good deal of Bret Harte, who an or in the same neighborhood, and inspired positions, rhapsodized who formed the habit of dropping in manner. The author tells us that her, father tea on Sundays. I remember that: he affected very tight patent leather was anxious that she should become a shoes, but they in no way interfered painted.. But it was music that lured .. with the brilliant banter he exchanged with my mother, who. never failed in her the more strongly: . resi-denc- . . : . repartee. An incident occurred while we were still in Cromwell Road, by which I shall always remember that house. My parents gave one. of their celebrated music parties, of which Rubinstein, an old friend of their, was to be the ' Stanley, of bright particular star. Darkest Africa, was also present, rather smileless, but paying much attention to a pretty widow; and the Oscar Wilde, then at the height of his popularity, was among the guests. After dinner Rubinstein played divinely, and Several distinguished sinkers of the day- sang. Then, by a kindly meant, but evil inspiration, Rubinstein, who knew I had .been studying, asked me to sing! Knowing perfectly well, as I did, that I was still far from being ready for such an ordeal before the cream of artistic London, and prompted by my mother, who, seized with, panic,, whispered something to the effect of, Refuse and dont give way! I did refuse, with such grace as I could muster. Poor papa! It was I suppose he too much for him! be a case of was to going thought it my mothers lack of courage all over again with me all study and no results and instantly he made up to make a firm stand. In an ominous undertone he declared: Unless, you sing, I go to bed. This was, of course, in an aside to me, and it never entered our heads, that he would dream of carrying out his threat and leave his guests. But as I, quite limp by now, still' hiing back I suppose he thought that, having threatened me, he left the room1 to it; must act and walked upstairs! ; lessons, however, were a source of pure' misery to me at this time in, fact, I was given up by. one of my first teachqr.s, dear old Henry Bird, as a hopeless case, in after years at .how many, many classical concerts have I not sung to his. sympathetic accompaniment!.-- .Blit piano technique did not interest me until iny imagination was appealed to. As it fell out, the day I Was pronounced hopeless my parents were dining out and my father happened to sit next to the well known pianist and teacher, Mme. Alma Haas.! To her: he unbur dened his .parents1 chagrin, and she sympathetically offered to hear me. A last chance! My mother cast aside the careworn copies: of Clementi and the like, with which I had been .wrestling for months, and instead taught me a romantic litle piece by Schumann. On the appoinied day we presented ourselves for the ordeal. Mme. Haas made me play the Schumann piece twice, and then I heard her slow dic turn, and the Delphic oracle was never listened to with keener anxiety: No pianoforte My . , - While the author was quite young she was taken to sing before Jenny Lind, whose usual manner, she says was by no means affable. Her Puri tanism was of tho stern and unbending kind, and she was deeply religious al-- . most to the point of bigotry. ,Once: she made the young Liza put her hand orither chest to note her power of brqath control. Lt was phenomenal. Her chest seemed like an iron safe. Another early acquaintance was Verdi, who once invited the Lehmann family. to dinner and ;ho roared with laughter when Alma Lehmann refused a glass of wine on 'the ground that it made her cold down the back: liis-min- d , v . . After the .gorgeous .repast; Verdi took iis into his bedroom, a cosy little apartment hung with green rep cur: . . - : I should not call her unmusical. so-h- ' s iilor w, - ,ed He bd6krof words btelng sol'd , theatre, ;.fmd .ha hindered ther prod, i aspiring yqqng, difllqpiat was ing questioned. as to his suitability roy . tion of the play. , I went to' the bo'afid'toM sonidr position' withiH-hgift1 of theMi. Foreign OfficO; l'AskedHb'std'te1!hif'ek,IJ, e perience and qualifications, hid-- : kaid.:-- A e The author tells us tliat her mother was always desperately critical of her singing. Sometimes she would come home from ,a concert after . meeting with.a rapturous reception to find her, mother, sitting up. to. receive her with:-Wellif thatfl the way you. are going to sing, my advice is give it up! The . , elder lady was naturally of . an.-lmpa- - 1 intimated ,that he did. not leave; entirely ignoring he was here as my guest; - Wi A I ti a intend ti f-- r,,.tfce .price-- . less( gift of tact. Allow me tQ give you,, an example. Last week-enT was',. 0ut qualification, I have., d ; stopping1 at a country house' 'add, when I went into-thbathroom, j imagine ?my discomfiture at 'finding a lady already, in the bath! She. had forgotten to lock the door. Did I lose my head? I did nothing of the kind.'' I - . ' t varioe American concert tours, by which & means recitals of her composition sung, by a quartet of singers accou panied. .by .herself. She spent an in San Francisco and was much ii ested in th eremains of the fire, whift were still in evidence. Then came fit trip to Florida: Pinner,-wheryears of her married life-a.her heaviest duty was to comb .cat and: to keep house for a perpetually pleased . husband, who, ' even forgave the homemade teacake on Which he broke ah eyetooth. At Pinner she was Hear Her sister; Mrs. Barry Pain, of the W. S; 'Gilberts,' and of Maude Valerie White, in whose company she first learned to cycle: e a - By,, an : error of .management, .said te be unavoidable, we .visited Florida it ! a rather inauspicious .time, : .At Pinner, by five minutes to I said, adding somethin? to BhS I was.-iearnest, and, concluded St Curzon, that was his cue for the Mme. Lehmann undertook Mme. Lehmann spent the first two her-Angor- Til give you n merely bowed and said, Sorry; sir and vanished. . uajneij, during Christmas week, when. the. hotels were practically empty, and thing was in a state of preparatia for the influx of .visitors, duetp $rrm in the first weeks of the New Yeair. S in these parts our audiences consists to an unusual, extent of darkief whose high spirits had to be kept h check by; white policemen! That tin conditions werp somewhat, rough may be gathered from the following notia ; the way, she and I tried-tbecome expert cyclists. I remember her telling me that the great tip was to have the saddle so low. thta when you fell off you hadnt far to go- - But, in spite of this precaution, I am afraid neither of us made a great success of it. I was "always nervous of meeting cattle in the. road. In fact, my husband used to sa. that the appearance of a. single cow in the landscape sufficed to send me arid "my bicycle into the ditch. o which was conspicuously displayed the walls and in the .wings of the th atre where our entertainment tort place : PERFORMERS TAKE NOTICE. We are' playing to ladies and cM dren and you will do the management a favor by cutting out any doubled tenders, the word damrotten or anything suggestive. and this was folsic for H lowed by a romantic light opera, The David Bispham Vicar of Wakefield. had confided to her his ardent desire to portray, the Vicar in song, and so the work was produced with the. aid of B.-Irvin- - i ,H Mme. Lehmann wrote incidental mu- ill-starr- ed . ylA , ! S . , " at ;Mme. Lehmann, was aware thkt it was Mr. Housman in the box "until re ' by reference that itw as thev coiiji , a ticket for whtci mentary-bbxthof'ofa, had dent him; Mr.'Housman,-v ,u rrv: I had, never met before has pre7? g, It is natural that the author . should have something to say about the American woman. The climate, she remarks Is dry and it is therefore difficult vr NT preserve the complexion, but when n to ture gives out art steps in, not crude the to Laurence Housman, the librettist; and Arthur Boosey, the publisher. This led to an unfortunate' dispute with Mr. Housman, who had been too busy to undertake any excisions or revisions and who had therefore given his carte blanche to do anything that was found to be necessary. None the less he was intensely annoyed when he found what had been done, even threatening an to restrain the performance. But the tthreat was disregarded and much' the opera was produced-witsuccess. The Daily. Chronicle printed' the following description: ly, but with much discrimination i -- judgment, generally quite defying de tection: cha of w ic VI! This art may, of course, be pursued tttt to extremes. I remember an American teb woman once coming into the train which I and my party were traveling-- it Eft was somewhere in the Middle W She appeared a perfect vision, with ft rose leaf complexion, exquisite baj and the figure of a goddess a fejj wit for weary eyes. However, when nipj Vft! came she proceeded in public, cel without embarrassment, to divert' W1 MI ' self of her beauty. First her entJJ the head of luxuriant tresses was removed 11 and laid on a seat of the carriai tec Not only has .the. production of, the new light opera, The .Vicar of Wake- ., f next the aforesaid rose leaf ompi' voi ion was transferred with 'fac-3. erw Ui field, been marked by the disavowal on to a handkerchief; and lastf,,i of authorship by the writer,' Mr;' Laur-- ' con of the figun1 siderable portion cnee Housman, but' it has been yeni dered unique by an episode which Is happily rare in theatrical history" the W expulsion of its author from his .prithe vate box on the first night., s'i JP. The story as related by Afri Frank .interest in, the proceedings, ' them atl her secrets' with tlv Curzon to a Daily Chronicle represeri-'VI tative last night was'to the effect tlistt good nature, explafning:exactl n secretary came to him to'complain was done, and fumishingth' rto the .addresses of the .various of a gentleman in one;of.the boxes, ti who had laughed. derisively during from, which,. they could, for tfi ono of the moments pf sentiment- in. many dollars, obtain the wher-?' t0 become "goddesses, should dm? 4 the first act. ' Neither he hor I, said Mr. Curzon, desire. She told us she had feen to n . . . f of-- , 44 ... -- v now-his- , |