feeling, over a great wave of sound, nay, in many instances, against a great wave of sound.[1] It is small occasion for wonder that singers began to bark. They very nearly expired, indeed, under the strain of trying successfully to mingle Porpora and passion. According to W. F. Apthorp, Max Alvary once said that, considering the emotional intensity of music and situations, the constant co-operation of the surging orchestra, and, most of all, the unconquerable feeling of the reality of it all, it was a wonder that singing actors did not go stark mad, before the very faces of the audience, in parts like Tristan or Siegfried. The critics, in this new situation, were consistently inexorable; they stood by their guns. There was but one way to sing the new music and that was the way of Bernacchi and Pistocchi. In time, by dint of persevering, talking night and day, writing day and night, they convinced the singer. The music drama developed, but the singer was held in his place. Some artists, great geniuses, of course (for example, Jean de Reszke
- ↑ It is significant, in this connection, that Wagner himself admitted that it was a singer, Mme. Schroeder-Devrient, who revealed to him the possibilities of dramatic singing. He boasted that he was the only one to learn the lesson. "She was the first artist," writes H. T. Finck, "who fully realized the fact that in a dramatic opera there may be situations where characteristic singing is of more importance than beautiful singing."
