Chaliapin[1] have been procaciously excoriated by the critics. Until recently, Mary Garden, who of all artists on the lyric stage is the most nearly in touch with the singing of the future, has been regarded by those who sit in high places as a charlatan and a fraud. W. J. Henderson once called her the "Queen of Unsong." Well, perhaps she is, but she is certainly far better fitted to cope with the artistic problems of the modern music drama than such Queens of Song as Marcella Sembrich and Adelina Patti would be. It has occurred to me that Unsong may be the name of the new art.
April 18, 1918.
- ↑ When he visited this country in his prime in 1907-8. When he returned in 1921, he was unanimously saluted as the greatest living lyric artist.
