THE author of these reminiscences is asso- ciated in the
minds of operatic connbisseurs with one part, that of Melisande, which she created. Of the other French and Italian operas that were her particular pro- vince—Massenet's Thais, Jongleur de Notre Dame and Cherubin, Charpentier's Louise, Erlanger's Aphrodite, Fevrier's Monna Vanna and Alfano's Risurrezione—hardly one is familiar to present-day opera-goers ; and her one major excursion into German opera was the role of Salome. Her memoirs are those of a highly individual personality for whom the operatic stage was the natural and essential scene and jhe centre of life. She is at great pains to insist that she was a " singing actress " rather than a singer, that she indentified herself entirely with the role that she was studying or singing, and that in this identification she found the greatest happiness of her life. Her American publishers insisted, she says, on the romantic element in her life-story being given at least due importance, although she frankly and repeatedly declares that personal relation- ships of this description were always wholly secondary to her artistic career and never brought her either the interest or the happi- ness that she found in her work. The book contains interesting personal impressions of Messager and Debussy and amusing gossip about operatic personalities—singers, im- presarios and conductors—in France and America during the first quarter of the present century. Among " ghosted " memoirs of prima dolmas and actresses it may rank as a minor classic, and Louis Biancolli is to be congratulated on the skill with which he has transmitted the very personal flavour of Miss Garden's temperament. M. C.
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