James Francis Cooke

“ Art is so great, so all-consuming, that any one with a deep reverence for its beauties, its grandeur, can have but little time for the lower things of life. All that an artist calls for in his soul is to be permitted to work at his best in his art. Then, and then only, is he happiest. Because of my mother's opposition, and because I felt I was strong enough to resist the temptations which she knew I might encounter, I virtually eloped with a copy of Rigoletto under my arm and made my way for the Teatro Constanzi, the leading Opera House of Rome. ”

“ Surely we can not say that music is a monopoly of the few who have schooled their ears to enjoy outlandish disonances with delight. Music is perhaps the most universal of all the arts and with the gradual evolution of those who love it, a natural audience is provided for music of the more complicated sort. We learn to like our musical caviar with surprising rapidity. It was only yesterday that we were objecting to the delightful piano pieces of Debussy, who can generate an atmosphere with a single chord just as Murillo could inspire an emotion with a stroke of the brush. ”

“ The real artist has no idea that he is sacrificing himself for art. He does what he does for one reason and one reason only—he can't help doing it. Just as the bird sings or the butterfly soars, because it is his natural characteristic, so the artist works.
Time and again a student will send me an urgent appeal to hear her, saying she is poor and wants my advice as to whether it is worth while to continue her studies. I invariably refuse such requests, saying that if the student could give up her work on my advice she had better give it up without it. One does not study for a goal. ”

“ Is it not better to learn the profession of opera singing in its one great school, and learn it so thoroughly that one can advance in the profession, just as one may advance in every other profession? The singer in the small opera company who, night after night, says to herself, "To-morrow it must be better," is the one who will be the Lilli Lehmann, the Galli-Curci, or the Schumann-Heink of to-morrow; not the important person who insists upon postponing her début until she can appear at the Metropolitan or at Covent Garden. ”

“ An hour devoted to the minute needs of one pupil is not too much time to devote to so delicate a subject. An intelligent taskmaster will let his pupil demonstrate ten or fifteen minutes and during the same period of rest will discuss and awaken the pupil's interest from an intelligent point of view, that some degree of individuality may color even the drudgery of the classroom. A word of counsel from such a mistress of song as Lehmann or Sembrich is priceless, but the sums that pour into greedy pockets of vocal mechanics, not to say a harsher word, is a regretable proceeding. ”

“ There is only one way to sing, that is the right way, the way that is founded upon natural conditions. So much has been said in print about breathing, and placing the voice, and resonance, that anything new might seem redundant at this time. The whole thing in a nutshell is simply to make an effort to get the breath under such excellent control that it will obey the will so easily and fluently that the singer is almost unconscious of any means he may employ to this end. This can come only through long practice and careful observation. ”

“ The difference between a small room and one seating several hundred is far greater than the average auditor realizes. If the mere rattling of silver and china will eclipse this vocal effort in speech I leave to your imagination what must transpire when the singer is called upon to dominate with one thread of song the tremendous onslaught of an orchestra and to rise triumphant above it in a theater so large that the faithful gatherers in the gallery tell me we all look like pigmies, and half the time are barely heard. ”

“ From the very start the singer, particularly the one who aspires to become an operatic singer, should endeavor to discard fear entirely. Think that if you fail in your efforts, thousands of singers have failed in a similar manner in their student days. Success in singing is at the end of a tall ladder, the rungs of which are repeated failures. We climb up over our failures to success. Learn to fear nothing, the public least of all. If the singer gives the audience the least suspicion that she is in fear of their verdict, the audience will detect it at once and the verdict will be bad. ”

“ Every concert is adequately reviewed by able writers; and singers are continually on their mettle. It therefore follows that while there are opportunities for concert and oratorio singers, there is no room for the inefficient, the talentless, brainless aspirants who imagine that a great vocal career awaits them simply because they have a few good tones and a pleasing stage presence.
This is the age of the brain. In singing, the voice is only a detail. It is the mentality, the artistic feeling, the skill in interpretation that counts. ”

“ In my own case I was extremely ambitious to be a singer. Night after night I played 'cello in the orchestra at La Scala, in Milan, always wishing and praying that I might some day be one of the actors in the wonderful world behind the footlights. I listened to the famous singers in the great opera house with the minutest attention, making mental notes of their manner of placing their voices—their method of interpretation, their stage business, and everything that I thought might be of any possible use to me in the career of the singer, which was dearest to my heart. ”

“ The singer oversings and has nothing in reserve. When I am singing I feel as though the farther away from the throat, the deeper down I can control the breath stream, the better and freer the tone becomes. Furthermore, I can sing the long, difficult Wagnerian rôles, with their tremendous demands upon the vocal organs, without the least sensation of fatigue. Some singers, after such performances, are "all in." No wonder they lose their voices when they should be in their prime. ”

“ Many composers are hopelessly disappointing in their appearance, but when one saw Gounod, it was easy to realize whence come the beautiful musical colors which make Romeo et Juliette, Faust and The Redemption so rich and individual. His whole artistic character is revealed in a splendid word of advice he gave to me when I first went to him: "Anyone who is called to any form of musical expression must reveal himself only in the language that God has given him to speak with. Find this language yourself and try, above all things, to be sincere—never singing down to your public." ”

“ The singer who lives a narrow and bigoted existence rarely meets with wide popular approval. The public wants to hear in a voice that wonderful something that tells them that it has had opportunities to know and to understand the human side of song, not giving parrot-like versions of some teacher's way of singing, but that the understanding comes from the very center of the mind, heart and soul. ”

“ I believe that all should understand the art of singing, if only to become amateurs.
That music makes the soul more beautiful I have not the least doubt. Because some musicians have led questionable lives does not prove the contrary. What might these men have been had they not been under the benign influence of music?
One has only to watch people who are under the magic spell of beautiful music to understand what a power it has for the good. I believe that good vocal music should be a part of all progressive educational work. ”

“ Audiences are as sensitive as individuals. Italy is known as "the home of the opera"; but I find that, as far as manifesting enthusiasm goes, the world is getting pretty much the same. If the public is pleased, it applauds no matter whether it be in Vienna, Paris, Rome, Buenos Aires, New York, or Oshkosh. An artist feels his bond with his audience very quickly. He knows whether his auditors are delighted, whether they are merely interested or whether they are indifferent a few seconds after he has been upon the stage. I can judge my own work at once by the attitude of the audience. ”

“ The music of the older Italian composers, from Scarlatti or Carissimi to Donizetti and Bellini, despite the absurd libretti of their operas, demanded first of all dulcet tones and limpid fluency. The singers who turned their noses up at the florid arabesques of old Italy for the more rugged pageantry of modern Germany are destined to suffer the consequences. Let us have the masterpieces of the heroic Teutons, by all means, but let them be sung by vocalists trained as vocalists and not merely by actors who have only taken a few steps in vocal art. ”

“ I can think of nothing greater than opposition. The early opposition from my family made me more and more determined to prove to them that I would be successful. If I heard some singer who sang successfully the rôles I essayed, then I would immediately make up my mind to excel that singer. This is a human trait I know; but I always profited by it. Never be afraid of competition or opposition. The more you overcome, the greater will be your ultimate triumph. ”

“ By this I mean that the singer will work out some plan for bringing her physical condition to the standard that fine singing demands. I believe most emphatically that the right spirit will conquer obstacles that often seem impassable. One might safely say that nine-tenths of the successes in all branches of artistic work are due to the inextinguishable fire that burns in the heart and mind of the art worker and incites him to pass through any ordeal in order to deliver his message to the world. ”

“ The American people, with their wonderful thirst for self-betterment, which has brought about the prodigious success of the educational papers, the schools and the Chautauquas, like to have the beautiful things in art served to them with inspiriting amusement. We, as a people, have been becoming more and more refined in our tastes. We want better and better things, not merely in music, but in everything. ”

“ Technic in acting is more likely to suppress than to inspire. If acting is not inspired, it is nothing. I study the human emotions that would naturally underlie the scene in which I am placed—then I think what one would be most likely to do under such conditions. When the actual time of appearance on the stage arrives, I forget all about this and make myself the person of the rôle.
This is the Italian method rather than the French. There are, to my mind, no greater actors living than Duse and Zacchona, and they are both exponents of the natural method that I employ. ”

“ The singer must listen to other singers with minute care and patience, and then try to learn how to improve herself by self-study and intelligent comparison. Just as the great actor studies everything that pertains to his rôle, so the great singer knows the history of the epoch of the opera in which he is to appear, he knows the customs, he may know something of the literature of the time. In other words, he must live and think in another atmosphere before he can walk upon the stage and make the audience feel that he is really a part of the picture. ”

“ The eternal question, "At what age shall I commence to study singing?" is always more or less amusing to the experienced singer. If the singer's spirit is in the child, nothing will stop his singing. He will sing from morning until night, and seems to be guided in most cases by an all-providing Nature that makes its untutored efforts the very best kind of practice. Unless the child is brought into contact with very bad music he is not likely to be injured. Children seem to be trying their best to prove the Darwinian theory by showing us that they can mimic quite as well as monkeys. ”

“ Take every opportunity, and treat it as though it were the greatest thing in your life. It pays.
Everything that amounts to anything in my entire career has come through struggle. At first a horrible struggle with poverty. No girl student in a hall bedroom to-day (and my heart goes out to them now) endures more than I went through. It was work, work, work, from morning to night, with domestic cares and worries enough all the time to drive a woman mad. Keep up your spirits, girls. If you have the right kind of fight in you, success will surely come. ”

“ The first performance of a debutante at the Grand Opéra is a great ordeal, and it is easy to imagine that the strain upon a young singer might deprive her of her natural powers of expression. The outcome of mine was most fortuitous and with success behind me I found my road very different indeed. However, if I had not had a friend at court, in the splendid person of Charles Gounod, I might have been obliged to wait years longer, and perhaps never have had an opportunity to appear in Paris, where only a few foreigners in a generation get such a privilege. ”