The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, November 10, 1901, Page 19

- THE SUNDAY CALL. v ; | 17 Ame Durenw o, PROTU. CIRYRGNTRE he very middle of the center of Paris Emma Calve, the great prima donna of the Maurice Grau Opera Company, has a charming apartment, acces- e and prettily furnished in a Parisian sort of = to color and divans, with five Buddhas of as sizes and materials, to emphasize the Oriental on ough brought up as 2 most devout Catholic in ance, she is occult, esoteric, Buddhistic and su- us to a degree. She consults fortune tellers, seli something of 2 medium, believes in reincar- and rds.death as but a change of existence. Semebody has said: “You never think of any one cise when Calve 1s on the stage” It is the same in room. Every one seems tame and commonplace, and ke every one else It not only that she i€ very handsome, but that r type and her personality are so pronounced. She 1s a typical gypsy, and her proper draperies are shawls and kerchiets, sashes, big earrings, bangles and a rag or two. No matter how elegantly she is dressed s picture forms a double about her that cannot be shaken off. As if in confirmation of this idea, her favorite posi- and that into which she drops with a little chuckle ief the moment the door is shut on the last of r “grand guests,” is that of crouching on the floor front of a wood fire, which by choice she has burn- ng on the hearth instead of in a grate. Ah, now for comfort,” she cries, dropping down with that mobile grace of a young savage, her bare a crossed over her knees, indolent content envelop- g her whole attitude, the firelight painting Murillo tiashes over the rugged mass of dense black hair tum- biing about her round cheeks, the flesh tints of face, s and the large white throat, the dark glints of eves hali closed, the marked brows, the full, red lips, the sweet, womanly chin and the black and gilt fram- r dress. Oh, how I wish I had something to he says, poking the embers with a little branch. How I love to roast raw things in a fire!” No one would ever mistake the picture for that of a Fiith avenue belle. Anything more like 2 “Bo- F " never breathed. he lives alone here with her maid, “Jenny,” a pious, n maid, who regards the Buddhas and fetiches s with eyes askance, the sign of the cross peal to a saint. her company manners on, Calve is a strange d and woman, now surprising by well- and ideas that are forceful, true and ing into the most childlike ex- 1d moody, she can pay the most i the subject or person inter- m one thing and one person the air of a good-natured child than of a lady who is entertaining le the same peculiarities prevail. A nat- a good-natured desire to have peo- he conventional society lady. Cordial, frank, d ed, easy-going, she seems say or do anything ling that if she felt 1 would prevent her from doing t doing or saying, anything that she she bought in America. She is er tired to it, singing and talking into r ends try their voices. She is so ted to find that no one can recog- vice, but that all can recognize the voices fi too, that all local faults are ex- ed many hints from her tands the practical make-up “wheels go round,” and She has many celebrated her musical box. does she talk and think about? Oh, well, and anything that is suggested, with a strong nt toward the stage. Not talk about her- ng, but about plays and characters and ac- n tell a good story with both tears and and she seeks suggestion and help in e is much concerned as to the ventional Ophelia she finds flat and insipid and unbroken plaintiveness, which does her according to nature. She says no mat- eet and gentle persons may be, lunacy ter and makes them do the very op- ral bent. The most modest and timid be all that is opposite, and the most gentle t to fits of frantic violence. an ®he wvisited the lunatic asylum in pursuit 2 paid special attention to the young love affairs. She found her theory to carried out in fact. Now she wants to lia representation by those sudden and or outbursts, but is afraid of shocking the who often hold much more by tradition f these unhappy girls, the tears came to as she remarked that all of them were Is or making the motion of rocking babies ns. She did not know whether it was the oi childhood that was alive or the maternal feeling for such subjects, as some years ago passed through a very fierce love experience, arks of which will bear on her temperament life. rts very gravely that she will never ma-ry. rricd woman being on the stage, she has nd very straight ideas. “Never, never on earth,” “should a woman show such disrespect to vand as going upon the stage while his wife. his name, offends him in all his tastes, preju- ings. It makes him an object of ridicule, Is it or not. If rich, why should he per- wife to gain her own money? If poor, so much Le worse. She is on the stage subjecting herself to 1l corts of possibilities to make money for him to live Disgusting, impossible! I could not play es, a woman who loves aright cannot ary atteation to a stage life. are the jealousies which abound—jeal- e attentions, jealousy of each other’s gifts, are on the stage,” and she laughs and makes artily at the memory of the poor tenor who wonths actually restrained his voice one half however, he began to see the selfishness of e r; he sang out, swept the glory and granted divorce. One delightful trait about Calve, she never bores her Iisteners with her triumphs, public or social. Such a re th: 3 g of the immense revenue which she receives and is to receive for engagements for the coming years, Czlve remarks upon the pity of it coming so late, \h, the pity of it,” she says, in her expressive way; “the pity that success comes so late. I never dreamed of so much money. When twenty-one, two or three, one-third of it wowld have been royalty. Oh, what plans and projects I made for when I should be rich! by there are many things I do not want or cannot Calve is very generous with her money. She is at supporting wholly some eight or ten persons; ome of them families. She is very kind to her parents, She spends two weeks with them now before making ¢ Spanish tour. She gives much in charity also, and me appears in the fund books of the Blind Asylum other praiseworthy trait of this Carmen is her grat- it for service or love rendered. The people who were kind to her when poor, the nurse who was de- toy is an Edison phonograph, which ¢ to outshine his jealous soprano wife. After voted to her when sick, her maid, her manager—she is never too hurried or engaged to say a kind word or do a good turn for any of them, and she would just as soon have them in her parlors as the most titled people. Her singing teacher, Mme. Rosina Laborde of Paris, is the special object of her veneration. She has taken lessons of her some ten years, and still studies roles under her direction. Her attachment to this lady, whe was herself a great prima donna, is very touching. Calve loves cats. ‘She finds them the most independ- ent and coquettish of created things and«ull of occult influence. She does not care for jewelry. She is fond of a slender- bracelet with heart locket attached, tur- quoise on one side, diamond on the other.' She wears little, tiny combs about the width of postage stamps in her shaggy hair. No one knows what for, and the wonder is they ‘do mot fall out. * She wears no rings at present; her hands are plump, with very pointed finzg: t1ps, a type that has been characterized as “idle hands’ by some writer. Wild verbena is her perfume, the car- nation her flower, autumn her season. 3 L She laughs much that people are deceived in the size of her hands when on the stage, where they re_ally dg lock quite small. She shows how she “manipulates tliem. A certain suppleness saves her from being a very large woman; she has an illusive way thn_)\lgl‘lout;b and she has a limping sort of walk that is fascinating. The esateric people tell her that she was a lover of Rem- brandt in_another creation and that she was very cruel to him, These people coaxed her to stop eating meat. “I trembled—I could not sing. A singer must have meat.” She has a great horror of being stifled, or of being held or restrained in any way; the idea of hands being held over her ears or mouth is terrible. Being drowned is to her the most horrible of deaths. On the ocean she goes into fits when she reflects that there is “nothing but water” all around. The thought of the cold, the wet, the depth, the creatures at the bottom—eternity there—ugh! 2 “Give me fire, give me heat, give me flames, burn me up; but oh, the waves!” ey v E It is needless to say that she-insists on cremation in- stead of burial. If buried, she wants to be in Spain, where “they put people into little houses and leave the doors open.” She likes Spain; it is so cheap down there, and everything so easy, and the sky so clear. She likes it better than Italy. They do not like “Carmen” down there, she says. They tell her no Spanish womaa could act like that. But/then Carmen was not Spanish; she was Bohemian, just what Calve is. She is more tired after Carmen than after any other role, and says it is a constant tension. Managers keep her playing Carmen because it is so profitable, but she has a dozen other roles at command, some of which she infinitely prefers. For example, Santuzza, in “Cavalleria Rusticana,” and Ophelia, which are her favorite roles. She is frightened and nervous until she begins to play. - She likes the climate of America very much, much better than that of England, where sunless skies give her ‘the blues. She cannot spéak a word of English, however, which she mourns, as she cannot, without a language, get a just estimate of individual intelligence. It was by chance—which, properly spelled, means Providenf{e—that Emn:’ uCaldvg geqmo an e singer. Her parents, w! ved in Spain, near at the time she was born, shortly afterward returned to JFrance, to a village called Aveyron. Emma, a sweet and beautiful child, was not thought to possess especial musical talent. When twelve years of age she was sent to a musical school at Auriac. - One day, about three years later, a famous musician from Paris happened to visit the school. While inspect- irg the chapel he heard Calve sing. He was captivated by her sweet voice and childish grace. He saw the pos- sibility of a.great singer. He talked with her and her mother about a musical career. As the result of this enthusiastic encouragement she abandoned the convent school, going at once to Paris to study music. _The stage seemed to offer the largest opportunity. From the critical period of her first debut until she became a star of international renown Calve relates in her own inimitable way the story of her failures and triumphs. She says: “I shrank from the idea of going upon the lyric stage, but temperament was too strong for me. I was 16 then. I studied first with Mme. Laborde and then with Mme. Marchesi. Oh, how I pined for ireedom! I, who lived among the mountains, shut up like a caged bird in the walls of a city. I thought I should die, but I did not. and by and by I ceased to beat my wings. Then came my debut at the Theatre de la Monnaie, in Brussels, in 1882, “Marguerite, in ‘Faust,’ was my first role, and I fol- lowed it with Cherubine in ‘The Marriage Figaro.” 1 succeeded, and was engaged by Victor Maurel to cre- ate the part of Bianca in an opera called ‘Aben Hamet,' at the Theatre Italiens, in Paris. I also sang with Maurel in ‘Zampa,’ at the Opera Comique. My voice was bril- liant, they said, but I could not act. I was cold and stiff and immature—I had not learned to get beyond myseli in my acting. I was 19 by this time, and I became dreadfully ill. I went back to the mountains to be healed and to learn to live. I had succeeded as a singer, it is true, but had failed as an actress, and I learned the meaning of pain—pain in mind and heart and body. “Slowly, in that dreadful time, my soul awoke. I ma- tured. From the child I became a woman. Then I read Balzac, and he opened to me the great boak, ‘Humanity.” In his pages I learned to read the secret of human souls, the hidden motives of action. Balzac had tnfluenced me greatly, and I was seized with a passion of new knowledge, the desirk to help others, to make the world better and happier. That condition, the, longing to get close to humanity and help it, comes with the knowledge of suffering. I went among the peasants; I learned to know them; I absorbed their point of view; I saw with their own eyes—eyes touched with pain. “We are blind, like kittens, in our youth; our eyes are opened by living. No longer could Nature satisfy me, though I loved her as well as ever. I took the knowledge she had given me during my childhood into the homes of the poor, and I saw that life was all a mysterious whole—mankind, mountains, pain and joy. I had recovered then sufficiently to return to the stage. 1 went to Italy and first succeeded in Ophelia and Saa- .tuzza. You see I could act now, because I had sui- feged. There is one thing I am sure oi—believe me, I know—no one can be an artist except through suffering. No one can portray suffering except by feeling it, going dewn into the depths, and no.one can shadow forth love until love has taken possession of the heart.” About Mme. Calve’s succession of triumphs during recent years all the world knows. We gasp at the small fortune paid her each time she sings; we watch her wonderful acting with bated breath; we feel uplifted by her voice and her presence. But not so much is of Calve the woman—a topic which is certainly not a whit less fascinating. Each summer is spent at her chateau—her dear cha- teau—at Cabriere, near Aveyron. There is a me ro- mance connected with this country seat. en, as a girl, she used to walk past this place each day, her most daring dream was to some time be rich enough to pur- chase it. After success came the dream was realized. To-day she spends as much time as possible there, in company with her parents and brothers and sisters. To the village folk Calve is an ideal Lady Bountiful. She visits the poor, takes the sick all sorts of tempting deli- cacies, interests herself in securing positions for the un- employed. The village children fairly worship her. Calve loves children. She will sit for hours on the lawn under the big trees surrounded by a group of admiring children, telling them strange tales of what she has seen and heard in fgseign lands, and relating legends of long ago. Calve has been criticized for wearing a petticoat of crimson satin in the first act of “Carmen.” “Perhaps you think,” she says, “that this satin petticoat is too rich for a Spanish cigarette girl. But it is actually the most realistic thing in my costume. . You know I went to Spain to study my costume, and it is absolutely correct. 1 looked up the details of the cigarette girl's costume in Seville, the city in which the scene of ‘Carmen’ is laid. Carmen, you know, is not a paragon of virtue; in fact, she is about as naughty as she can be. I watched my cigarette girls at the very doors of the fac- tories. They are .\l well awage that the refinement of a lady’s dress is as much in hbr lingerie as in her outer cestume. There are second-hand costume shops in just as there are in Paris, London and New I tracked many of my models to these second- hand costumers. I saw one of them buy just sach a skirt as the one I am wearing, which I bought at the _ very same shop. I saw her flirting with her dress to show her brilliant petticoat. It proved that she was not used to such finery and wanted people to notice her. I make precisely the same point in the first act of the opera. Then, the crimson roses which I wear in my hair—here again I follow the costume of the Spanish cigarette-girl. In ‘spring and summer these roses form the only head-covering of the cigarette-girls. In winter a bright kerchief takes their place.” Calve is not without her superstitions. One of the most fascinating points she makes in Bizet's opera, in which she will be heard here, is the coquettish glance she casts at herself in a small hand-glass. In one of he~ nces recently the glass fell from her hand to the stage. She was delighted when she picked it up to find it was not brclen. H?d it ‘l::cen she would have re- garded it as a sure sign of misfortune. When she rehearsed “‘Carmen” for the first time afithe Opera Comique, after her return from Italy, she gave the stage director much trouble. She had her own idea of the role and insisted on ignoring his suggestions. The stage director appealed to the manager, who had been watching. “Leave her alotie.” he said. “She has no idea of Carmen. and she will find it out at the first performance. It will be a good punishment for her.” The punishment has been international fame.