The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, February 24, 1901, Page 2

(4] A\ ADAME. QE;K\BR\CH 1 AE B e o—— HER, OPERA CaxPAMNy once and singer. mfortable T of the profession s the sign ness that has reached its possessor takes violen 4 shuns sweets as if they £he is more expensively etinst than'a @ ght for ar S before— long fano studies. she savs, two g with him in concerts. both ht of singir but it ne T y consultation it 4 go to er a well-known teac N ed Stengel. Nobody ever thought ne would become my husband. ut I was t00 young then to think of hus- bands of any kind. I was a child that had to be sent away from the family to study. Lemberg was selected as the best place, and Herr Stengel as the best teacher for me “My father took me to Lemberg and introduced me to the teacher he.had se- lected. I played for him, end he con- wented to take me for a pupil. My se- rious work as ¢ musician began then. I hoped some day to be a great planist, or if not that, a teacher possibly. The last future possible seemed to me the life ©of a prima donna.” Herr Stengel had listened to this story h nods of mpproval. Mme. Sembrich looked at him quizzically at this stage of it “Wilhelm,” ®=atd his wife, “you tell 0 > Epstein.” T 1d tell nothing. He with delight at the an- Mme. Sem- I had been in Lem- est to tell th b st pu knew m as the her. Wilhelm wrote to my father he had taught me all he K - i recommende Epste! of Vi- enna to father, and we went there to e fessor Epstein. He heard me play &r x0on became one of his pupils. for three year er Eiven g e violin, alt ended Taks the m Two ears af 1 discov- ere had a voice, took the advice f and gave up the violin and T adied first under Hans Roki t Ky, » was then a per Op v er e cou ory But T soon wer nd began my studies there v for several years with Lam- Mme pe Sembrich said, when the his- t of her work as an Instrumentajist hnd been a came ques- tie d to sing in ltal tan at was impos for known singer in Germany. The > of the Italian Opera in Athens the time that I thought heard me sing at Lam- pert!'s studlo, and we decided that Athens would be the place for my debut. So I made a tentative first appearance as El- vira in 7T Puritani.’ I sang for a short time, and among my roles was Lucla But T retired for nearly two vears after that time. I was etfil 0 young that there was plenty of time to complete my educa- tion in & way that should be satisfa v to me and my teacher den and when I sang Opera-hc for years 1 bave es as a singer. 1 =till hour every day at the ; same amount of time to singing. T! B 1t ved my nd devote hour, however, T divide intc nd sing for only f me. That is the } s‘udies. 1t is almost imp when they began. My fingers were on tha. plano keys long before I could stretch an octave. My studies have not ended yet and I ca ev will. Tt person who would « ko 3 place in usic avs strugegle impre is keep up 1o o ard. Ther 1st be « st something better “One thing which seems strange to me this country.” Mme. Sembrich said, that the ma or e here see in know of only two a-houses Europe. Those Covent Garden and Bayreuth. As the Covent Garden seagon only continues for a month or two the summer, I have wondered what became of the Eu iring the rest of the time. th the perform- ances are not « ry vear. Only » Wagner singer re as a general Yet sever 1 persons have asked me, “Where have you been, madam, for the past ten years? T say in St. Petersburg, which is, of course, a long distance away fro ew York, at the Imperfal Opera in Vienna, in Be: in Madrid. Yet of those places An ns gay nothing anl ard of them. I have not sung in London for three years. After s he Continent I was usually so tired that the trip from my home in Dresden to London never seemed worth the while for the few performances that the artists usually give there. The gingers rarely appear oftener than threo nd that is not worth a trip from Dresden to London and back again. “It is n Russia that the purely Italian opera is kept up in better fashion than in other place. The impresario gives a season of about two months' rarely geem long seasons or or four times, any duration. The best of the Ttalian singers are brought re and the productions are he most elaborate made anywhere ‘n Burope. Wagner's works have not taken the same hold there with the public that they have In the other European coun tries. Some of them are sung in Italian, but the season 1s devoted chiefly to the old classic Itallan works. When I say Italian 1 mean of the Italian school as well. Meyerbeer and Gounod are, of course, popular. The enormous prices paid in St burg and Moscow enable the impre s to obtain the very beat singers from 1 In the smaller towns, too, the ns to a popular singer are very it one must be known and liked. ere is more wealth for them in than in any other country ia Mme. Sembrich is one of the three Polish musical people known to this coun- try he others are Jean de Reszke and Paderewskl. She is & loyal Pole, although she does not spend much of her time 'n her native land. There is a little story told which ehows her loyalty better than any assurances on her part ever could. She sang last year at the first Gewand- haus concert in Lelpsic as a favor to Ar- thur Nikisch, the conductor, who is an in- timate friend of her and her husband. While at Bayreuth she saw & newspaper which aonounced that the concert was to Aim 7 COPYRIGHT. be in memory of Bismarck. That shocked her so that she telegraphed to Leipsic te discover If it were really so. The answer came back that iv was perfectly correct— that the concert was intended as a memo- rial of Bismarck. Mme. Sembrich was an- nounced to sing the “Casta Diva” from “Norma,” and the letter written from Letpsic to confirm the telegram contatned the information that the slow movement in.that was thought to be especially sult- ed to such a concert. “I had no desire to join in any memorial to honor Bismarck,” Mme. Sembrich sald, “and I knew that my own people would never forgive me if my name appeared on the programme of the Gewandhaue as the soloist of a concert given In his memory. I immediately t<legraphed fromBayreuth, where I was then stopping, that it would be out of the question for me to appear. I begged them to engage another sololst, and telegraphed to my husband at Dres- den to get him 1o inform the management of the Gewandhaus that nothing could persuade me to take part in a Blsmarck memorial of any kind. “The end of it a1l was that before I left reuth it was settled that the concert 1s not to be in Bismarck’s honor. That promise was made positively. When I went to Leipsic I was anxious to see how the programme would be printed. I was still determined not to appear if the con=- cert was announced as in Bismarck's honor. I sent for one of the programmes as goon as ['arrived. On it was only one mention of Bismarck's name. After the announcement of Beethoven's ‘Erofca’ symphony appeared the phrase ‘In honor of Bismarck.’” The rest of the concert had nothing to do with Bismarck, and I felt that my countrymen would feel that I had acted just as a loyal Pole should.” She sang the first song in the Polish lan- guage that had been heard for many years in St. Petersburg. She sang as an encore once a song of Chopin’s, and to her astonishment the audience in the opera- house heard it with great enthusiasm. It was after this that she went to the im- perial palace to sing for Alexander IL He asked her to sing some of Chopin's songs. “But, your Majesty, I can sing Chopin only in Polish,” she answered. “Why, sing it in Polish, of course,” he rejoined. Mme. Sembrich did o, and after that her Polish songs were a regular feature of her appearances in St. Petersburg. But in other parts of Russia they weré not so well received. On her way back to Dresden from St. Petersburg in that year Mme. Sembrich sang at Vilna, one of the former Polish /y/./ THE SUNDAY CALL capitals. She has sung there regularly every year during the ten which have passed since she began to go yearly to St. Petersburg. But that first visit was different in one important particular from any other. 8 “To this day,” Mme. Sembrich sald in telling the story, “children who speak Pol- ish on the streets of Vilna are punished and performances of any kind in the Pol- ish language are forbidden. Polish is not allowed anywhere, and the police are still as strict as ever in trying to prevent its use. The first night I sang in Vilna I was wild to sing a song in Polish. I spoke to the manager about it and he implored me on his knees \not to think of such a thing. But 1 was determined to do o it I could, £0 at the end of the performance, when the audience kept demanding encores, I prepared for it by singing & song in Rus- slan. Then I sang one of Choplin's songs in Polish. ‘“When I finished there was a moment of absolute sllence. Then came such an outburst as I have mever Neard in my life. 1 seized my husband’'s arm and stood waiting to see what the result would be. All that I could do to bring about quiet was to sing again. Then I sang in Rus- slan. Then again I sang in Palish. I had never seed Such A alght before. The next morning the Chief of Ponhce came to my hotel. I had one more concert to give. “ ‘I have come to say,’ he told me, ‘that you must not sing again in Polish here.’ “ ‘But I sang before the Czar in Polish,’ I sald, ‘and his Majesty d!d not object.” “I had to sign a paper, however, prom- ising that I would never sing in Polish again in Vilna, and at my second concert I left out the Chopin songs. Every year I have gone to Vilna and every time the Chief of Police comes to me with the same paper to sign, and every time I have to sign the promise that I will not I have got to know the Gavernor very we|l and he calls to see me as soon as I get to Vilna. But he has got into the habit of asking me what my sacores will be. Only last April, when I sing in Polish. appeared tn Vilna, ke came to my hotsl and when De was leaving he asked me what I would sing. I had already signed the paper and told him so. “‘But I will come into your dressing- room to-night, he sald, ‘and see what your music is,’ He did come. But my RO husDana Naa taxen a great prie of musia to the theater and it would have taken alm too long a time to get through tha Thank hegven, we have not that kind sf a Government. Marcella Sembrich thall sing before us in Volapuk, and it leaseth her, and we shall rejoice In the rolce with which she sings and give her eeway to do as she likes. Are the Eskimos Doomed %o Starvation? ESSELS are going into the north- vem waters of the Western world every year, and the larger repre- sentatives of animal life in the far north are rapidly diminishing in number. The right whale has been nearly exter- minated, a falling off in the supply of the oll seal is noticeable, and, according to good authorities, the walrus is also in @anger of being wiped out. .The exter- mination of the walrus would be particu- larly deplorable, as it is the chief food of the Arctic highlanders Northwest Greenland and of the Indians along the coasts of Northern Alaska. An Arctic explorer of this country recently said with regard to the slaughter of walrus in Greenland waters: ‘“Any one who is familiar with the con- ditions of life among the Eskimos living north of Cape York, Greenland, mus' for the fate of these natives, numbering only about 500 souls. They are shut in by the ice of Melville Bay from Intercourse with any other people in the world except that the whites come to them nearly every Thelr food resources afe al- most fined to walrus and sea mainly walrus. The attention to hunting their crude weapons. paratively ab t, but plays a small part in the domestic economy of the Arctic highlande: “Now, for ten or twelve years p white men have been visiting the North Water and the region of Littleton Island nearly every summer. They have killed large numbers of walrus In order to take their skins and skeletons back home to the museums. No attention whatever, apparently, has been pald to the fact that the main source of food for the natives was thus being endangered. I belleve it is the general opinfon among theose who know that the wholesale inroads that are being made upon the walrus of Northwest Greenland should be stopped in the Inter- ests of humanity and to avert starvation from the handful of Eskimos who eke out & bare existence under the most diffcult circumstances in that region.” The Treasury Department issued in- structions last menth to the Collector of Customs at Port Townsend, Wash., to urge the captains of vessels going to - of year. wholly co Eskimos pay lttle reindeer with The anfmal s cor very JMmasRa to prevent the Killing of walruy by persons on board of their ships. Many of the Indians along the northetn coasts are sald to be in a nearly starving condi- tlon, and these orders were | sued with a Vview to protecting their main food supply Hundreds of passengers on the steamers to St. Michael and Cape Nome are said to make a practice of firing into the hérds of walrus that they see drifting on the fee floes. A great many of the animals are killed and wounded, and their bodies are seen floating in Bering Sea and the Aretle Ocean. This destruction is purely wan- ton, for no good comes of it, as the pas- sengers cannot possibly recover the ivery or the valuable hide of the walrus. They shoot merely for the excitement of Mill- ing.