" IL BEL CANTO." * MADAME CATArn's book is a

triumphant refutation of the supposition that the memoirs of singers are always dull. The English reader's thanks are also due to the translator, Miss Rosamond Gilder, who has performed her task so well that the fact is never once brought home to his mind that he is not reading the book in the language in which it was written. " Calve," to use the name by which she is affectionately known to so many thousands of people, has the art of making things interesting. The book, with its lively and picturesque detail, holds one's attention whether the author tells us of her childish escapades in Spain, where she ran away with a band of gipsies, of her early and temporary vocation for the life of religion, or of the patriarchal arrangements of her aunt's farm, where in the vast and smoky great hall of the oustai the women sat spinning in the flickering firelight while the old shepherd regaled them with ghost stories. In her student days her mother made a home for her on an exceedingly modest scale in Paris. They lived next door to a butcher, where the mother did her marketing. One day the butcher remarked on the beauty of Emma Calve's voice :- '" Yes, she's a fine singer,' he interrupted, but she's too thin. Much too thin. She ought to eat lots of beefsteaks and cutlets I '

My mother was taken by surprise at what appeared to be a rather crude way of increasing trade. Before she could answer, however, the astonishing man continued

I'll tell you what I'll do,' he said. To prove to you how much confidence I have in your daughter's future, I'll open an account for you at this shop. You can pay me when she makes her debut.' I have never forgotten these good people. When I was singing at the Opera Comique we always sent tickets to the musical butcher and his family. I have no doubt he sat there, telling anyone who

would listen to him

Do you see that wonderful singer ? It is entirely due to me that

she is in such fine form ! ' " Not less interesting are her accounts of her life as an artist. There is an admirable story relating to a concert at Lady de Grey's house at the height of the London season. Oscar Wilde was there and asked to be allowed to bring in a friend.

" He is very poor,' Wilde explained, and very unhappy. He is I distinguished French poet, a man of genius, but just now in great

trouble.

Our hostess, whose kind heart and generous hand were ever at

• Hy Life. By Emma Calve. Translated by Rosamond Gilder. London : Appleton. 116s. net.]

the service of the unfortunate, immediately acquiesced. Wilde left the room and returned in a moment, bringing with him—Paul Verlaine ! Their entrance was spectacular. Oscar Wilde was at the height of his glory : brilliant, dashing, bejewelled, a veritable Beau Brurrunell. With his extraordinary clothes, his tall figure and buoyant carriage, he dominated the ill-clothed, shrinking figure beside him.

Wilde was rejoicing in his recent theatrical triumphs. Verlaine was just out of prison."

Several years later Madame Calve met Oscar Wilde himself in the same circumstances as those of his friend Verlaine.

For a second he shrank from me, as though the memories that I brought were more than he could bear. Then, with an exclamation of grief and despair, he grasped my hands, murmuring in broken accents Oh, Calve ! Calve ! ' "

In a later chapter we arc told how she sang in the harem of the Sultan Abdul-Hamid. The Sultan came in and listened in an abstracted manner to her songs. One of the ladies asked for the dance in Carmen, at which the Sultan roused himself to attention.

" Meanwhile the rhythm of my dance was brin.ging me nearer and nearer the Sultan. All at once an expression of terror crossed his face. He rose from his chair precipitately and disappeared ! I never saw him again 1" Talking the matter over with one of the staff of the French Embassy, she was told that she had probably approached too near the Sultan " and it alarmed him. He is consumed with suspicion, haunted by the fear of murder ! '

`Good heavens ! ' I exclaimed. 'Afraid of my castanets, my fan ? '

Ah! ' retorted the Frenchman. ' Could you not have had Carmen's dagger in your garter ? ' "

It was probably on her return from this engagement that the present writer had the honour of being a fellow-passenger with Madame Calve in a most unseaworthy old steamer, which sailed from Constantinople en route for the Piraeus. The world would have been the poorer by the loss of a great singer had not the weather been absolutely perfect, the sky cloudless and the sea entirely calm. The boat, we were told by an old traveller, had been condemned as unseaworthy many years before and was only being used now in an emergency. Madame Calve was the centre of a group of admirers, among whom was a young French poet. As we approached the coast of Greece and saw for the first time the wonder of the columns of golden marble, which are the legacy of the great period of Hellenic art, " Calve's poet," as we all called him, was observed immersed in composition. The great singer encouraged him in his labours and called out to him, " Tiens, vous faites des notes. Continuez ! Continuez ! " But, unfortunately, the results of his efforts were not given to the world when we all disembarked for Athens.

We have given only a few samples, taken at random, of the anecdotes to be found in this book. Madame Calve is an artist who takes not only singing, but music generally, very seriously, and all young singers would do well to read the chapters on " Health and Hygiene " and " Art and Song." May it be long before she is taken from the world which she adorns so greatly. May it, too, be the fate of the present writer once more to hear that wonderful voice—produced in accordance with all the traditions of the bel canto—and to enjoy another glimpse of the inimitable art of Calve I