Metropolitan Company, Publishers New York, 1909....

In offering this work to the public the publishers wish to lay before those who sing or who are about to study singing, the simple, fundamental rules of the art based on common sense. The two greatest living exponents of the art of singing—Luisa Tetrazzini and Enrico Caruso—have been chosen as examples, and their talks on singing have additional weight from the fact that what they have to say has been printed exactly as it was uttered, the truths they expound are driven home forcefully, and what

Luisa Tetrazzini...

Luisa Tetrazzini, the most famous Italian coloratura soprano of the day, declares that she began to sing before she learned to talk. Her parents were not musical, but her elder sister, now the wife of the eminent conductor Cleofante Campanini, was a public singer of established reputation, and her success roused her young sister's ambition to become a great artist. Her parents were well to do, her father having a large army furnishing store in Florence, and they did not encourage her in her dete

There is only one way to sing correctly, and that is to sing naturally, easily, comfortably. The height of vocal art is to have no apparent method, but to be able to sing with perfect facility from one end of the voice to the other, emitting all the notes clearly and yet with power and having each note of the scale sound the same in quality and tonal beauty as the ones before and after. There are many methods which lead to the goal of natural singing—that is to say, the production of the voice w

The tongue is a veritable stumbling block in the path of the singer. The tongue is an enormous muscle compared with the other parts of the throat and mouth, and its roots particularly can by a slight movement block the passage of the throat pressing against the larynx. This accounts for much of the pinched singing we hear. When the tongue forms a mountain in the back part of the mouth the singer produces what you call in English slang "a hot potato tone"—that is to say, a tone that sounds as if

In my first talk I said a few words, but not half enough, on the subject of breath control. My second talk was the physiological aspect of the throat, head and tongue, for it is necessary to become thoroughly acquainted with the mechanism with which you are to work before you can really sing. Today I'm going to take up the subject of tone emission and the attack. A great many singers suffer from the defect called "throatiness" of the emission—that is to say, they attack or start the note in the

In studying a new rôle I am in the habit of practicing in front of a mirror in order to get an idea of the effect of a facial expression and to see that it does not take away from the correct position of the mouth. The young singer should practice constantly in front of a mirror as soon as she begins to sing songs or to express emotions in her music, for the girl with the expressive face is likely to contort her mouth so that the correct emission of tones is impossible. The dramatic artist depen

There is nothing so beneficial to the young artist as the kindly and just criticism of a person who knows and nothing so stimulating as his praise. Among my most priceless possessions I treasure the words of encouragement given me by Patti and Sembrich, those wonderful artists, when I was beginning my career. Mme. Patti is a splendid example of the many sidedness necessary to artistic perfection. Her wonderful voice was always supplemented by complete knowledge of the art of singing, and her mas

Enrico Caruso...

Enrico Caruso enjoys the reputation of being the greatest tenor since Italo Campanini. The latter was the legitimate successor of Brignoli, an artist whose wonderful singing made his uncouth stage presence a matter of little moment. Caruso's voice at its best recalls Brignoli to the veteran opera habitué. It possesses something of the dead tenor's sweetness and clarity in the upper register, but it lacks the delicacy and artistic finish of Campanini's supreme effort, although it is vastly more m

Of the thousands of people who visit the opera during the season few outside of the small proportion of the initiated realize how much the performance of the singer whom they see and hear on the stage is dependent on previous rehearsal, constant practice and watchfulness over the physical conditions that preserve that most precious of our assets, the voice. Nor does this same great public in general know of what the singer often suffers in the way of nervousness or stage fright before appearing

The question, "How is it done?" as applied to the art of singing brings up so many different points that it is difficult to know where to begin or how to give the layman in any kind of limited space a concise idea of the principles controlling the production of the voice and their application to vocal art. Every singer or singing master is popularly supposed to have a method by following out which he has come to fame. Yet if asked to describe this method many an artist would be at a loss to do s

I have previously mentioned mezza voce and will now say a word on this subject, for the artistic use of the "half voice" is a very valuable adjunct in all singing. It may be defined simply as the natural voice produced softly, but with an extra strength of breath. It is this breathy quality, however—which one must be careful never to exaggerate or the tone will not carry—that gives that velvety effect to the tone that is so delightful. Mezza voce is just a concentration of the full voice, and it

Good diction, or the art of pronouncing the words of a song or opera properly and intelligently, is a matter sadly neglected by many singers, and indeed is not considered important by a large proportion of the audiences in this country, who do not understand foreign language, at any rate. And in an opera sung in a language unknown to most of the audience it is apparently unimportant whether the words are understood or not as long as there is a general knowledge of the plot, and the main consider

The most visible phase of the opera singer's life when he or she is in view of the public on the stage is naturally the one most intimately connected in the minds of the majority of people with the singer's personality, and yet there are many happenings, amusing or tragic, from the artist's point of view, which, though often seen, are as often not realized in their true significance by the audience in front of the orchestra. One might naturally think that a singer who has been appearing for year