Let us rejoice in
the gain, by all means; but not without some consciousness of the loss,
not with too ready a belief that the final solution of the problem has
been found.
An attempt at some solution is, at this moment, being made in Paris by a
singer who is not content to be Carmen or Charlotte Corday, but who
wants to invent a method of her own for singing and acting at the same
time, not as a character in an opera, but as a private interpreter
between poetry and the world.
Imagine a woman who suggests at the same time Sarah Bernhardt and Mrs.
Brown-Potter, without being really like either; she is small,
exuberantly blonde, her head is surrounded by masses of loosely twisted
blonde hair; she has large grey eyes, that can be grave, or mocking, or
passionate, or cruel, or watchful; a large nose, an intent, eloquent
mouth. She wears a trailing dress that follows the lines of the figure
vaguely, supple to every movement. When she sings, she has an old,
high-backed chair in which she can sit, or on which she can lean. When I
heard her, there was a mirror on the other side of the room, opposite to
her; she saw no one else in the room, once she had surrendered herself
to the possession of the song, but she was always conscious of that
image of herself which came back to her out of the mirror: it was
herself watching herself, in a kind of delight at the beauty which she
was evoking out of words, notes, and expressive movement.
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