description of it. Her voice, of unequaled beauty, was no more a gift
of nature than the ability to assimilate without effort the things
which cost ordinary mortals years of labor and vexation of soul. It was
perpetually amazing how her singing made the best efforts of the best of
her contemporaries pale, especially those who depended on vocal agility
for their triumphs. Each performance of hers made it plainer than it had
been before that her genius penetrated the mere outward glitter of the
music and looked upon the ornament as so much means to the attainment of
an end; that end, a beautiful interpretation of the composer's thought.
No artist of her time was so perfect an exponent as she of the quality
of repose. So far as appearances went it was as easy for her to burden
the air with trills and roulades as it was to talk. She sang as the
lark sings; the outpouring of an ecstasy of tones of almost infinite
number and beauty seemed in her to be a natural means of expression.
Her ideas of art were the highest, and it was a singular testimony
of her earnestness that, while educated in the old Italian school of
vocalization and holding her most exalted supremacy as a singer of
Rossini's music, her warmest love, by her own confession, was given, not
to its glittering confections, but to the serious efforts of the most
dramatic writers. This must be remembered in the list of her astonishing
merits now when her voice can no longer call up more than "the tender
grace of a day that is dead"; mine was the proud privilege and great
happiness of having heard her often in her prime. But I must get down
to the real business of this chapter.

The first German performance at the Metropolitan took place on November
17, 1884. The opera was "Tannhäuser" and the distribution of parts
as follows: Elizabeth, Mme. Krauss; Venus, Fräulein Slach; a Young
Shepherd, Fräulein Stern; the Landgrave, Josef Koegel; Tannhäuser, Anton
Schott; Wolfram, Adolf Robinson; Walther von der Vogelweide, Emil