Geraldine Farrar Opera Prima Donna

Kindle version of vintage magazine article originally published in 1908. Contains lots of great info and illustrations seldom seen in the last 100 years.

Read excerpt -

Few have accom¬plished so much in twelve years; yet it is not diffi¬cult to understand that the admiration and adoration of those children, with their illusions and delusions, proved more formidable than any au¬dience with emperor or king; and with the reali¬zation of this sweeping over her, Miss Farrar, the prima-donna, was forced back into the role of "Gerry" Farrar, the little schoolgirl. And so she remained for days after —so sensitive and mercu-rial is the artist nature!

The Principal of the Horace Mann School had much to relate concerning her former pupil. "With Gerry it was always she would learn or she wouldn't, never could or couldn't. Bells, study hours, prescribed tasks, were seldom heeded; but when, for some reason of her own, she chose to put her mind to it, she led her classes, and we counted on her high marks to keep up the standard of the school. Her desk was directly in front of mine because she was so mischievous, but she was the best monitress we ever had. You should have seen how she made the other children keep to their books! Then she knew every march going, and the children kept together better when she played."

This reference to her playing started her first music-teacher to "reminis¬cing" in her special province. She told how Mrs. Farrar had come to her when Geraldine was seven and arranged for the child to take lessons on the piano. Never had she had such a pupil! The notes were learned in an incredibly short time, and every hour indoors was passed picking out hymns. But playing was one thing and practicing another, and practice Geraldine would not! Reasoning, bribes and threats were all in vain.

"But that's not music," she insis¬ted to her mother. "Don't you see, Mamma, this is not a piano; this is a world, and these keys are angels—white angels and black angels; and you see the white, good angels are the most, so they’ll win, and all my music will be beautiful music" —as opposed to the monotony of scales, etc.

"There was nothing gained by arguing with a child like that," Mrs. Farrar added; "so after twenty lessons, the teacher and I agreed that it was better to wait until Geraldine was old enough to appreciate her advantages. When I told the child this, she didn't say a word, but went straight to her piano, and banged out "Onward, Christian Soldiers!" with such joy and vigor that it sounded like a real battle-cry! Those were the only piano lessons she has ever had."

Miss Farrar says that it was not until she had seriously begun to have her voice trained for opera that she learned the value and necessity of concentration and routine work. As a child she could sing anything she heard, and played "opera-singer" by the hour after being taken to hear one or two operettas in Boston.