Stars of the Opera. Mabel Wagnalls

      A distant bell sounds the hour of twelve. Fierce winds arise, and we see the muffled figure of a woman struggling her way against the gale. The tempest is again heard in the orchestra. Breathlessly we watch the heroine's slow progress, and wonder if she will be too late.

      The scene changes to a little room strewn with books and papers. A lamp on the wooden table casts sickly rays upon the surroundings, but we can plainly see a figure reclining on a chair near the open window. It is Werther, pale and unconscious. Charlotte rushes in, and at sight of the dying man is beside herself with grief. She calls him by name, and the sound of her voice revives him. He asks her faintly to stay near him, to pardon him and love him. While he speaks there arises from the orchestra, like the dim visions of a dying man, that first love-theme so full of summer gladness. Charlotte sings to him the words he has longed to hear. This last love-song ends in a whisper. The instruments, too, seem hushed with that mysterious silence of Christmas night. We can see through the window the bright moonlight, for the storm has abated.

      Suddenly the dying man looks up as sweet music greets his ear—

      "Noël! Noël! Noël! Proclaim the wondrous birth! Christ the Lord has come to earth!"

      It is the happy children's voices singing their Christmas song in the church. A merry carillon of the instruments accompanies the familiar tones of Sophia's high, bright voice in the distance—

      This startling contrast of life and death has never been more beautifully portrayed.

      Werther sadly smiles, murmuring that it is his song of deliverance. He dies in Charlotte's arms. She cries out, despairing, inconsolable, "It is finished!" Death is in the orchestra, in the darkness, in the ensuing silence. But suddenly, like "the morning in the bright light," those far-away voices again sing—

      CALVÉ AND "CARMEN"

      "Hear Calvé in 'Carmen'—and die," is the motto which heralded this singer's first visit to America. Our curiosity was greatly aroused, for we thought we knew all about "Carmen." We clung to the traditions of our own Minnie Hauk who had created the rôle, and could imagine nothing better than a trim, dainty Carmen with high-heeled slippers, short skirts, and a Spanish mantilla.

      Great was our amazement on that memorable night in 1894 when we beheld for the first time a real cigarette girl of modern Spain. Here was a daring innovation that at once aroused attention and new interest in the opera. This Carmen wore high-heeled slippers, 'tis true, but somewhat worn down and scuffed, as they must be if she was in the habit of running over the cobblestones of Seville as she ran to the footlights on her first entrance. And her skirts, far from being well-setting and so short as to reveal shapely ankles and a suspicion of lace petticoats, were of that sloppy, half-short length, which even the street girls of London wear to-day. But most astounding of all departures was the absence of any sign of a mantilla! How could one be Spanish without a mantilla—any more than one could be Russian without fur! But this Carmen had an eye to color—she could hardly otherwise be a coquette—and in her hair at the nape of her neck was deftly tucked a large crimson flower. Her hair, however, was carelessly pinned, and even tumbled quite down later on—a stroke of realism which was added to by the way she coiled it up and jabbed it into place again. A strange performance to behold in a grand opera setting; and we might have resented such defiance of the code had we not been forced to admit that it was all absolutely correct, and this Carmen was more truly Spanish than any impersonation we had seen. Even her voice seemed tropical; such richness of tone, warmth, and color had never before been combined in the singing of Bizet's opera. Had Bizet only lived to this day he might have died happily, for Carmen, the child of his brain, found no favor with the public when first introduced.

      After the surprise of Madame Calvé's costume and then of her voice, New Yorkers awoke to the fact that Carmen had never before been acted. This performance was a revelation, a character study of a creature who recklessly holds that it is right to get all the pleasure you can, and wrong not to have what you want.

      It was the evening after one of these great Carmen performances when a knock at the prima-donna's door elicited the Parisian response—"Entrez." Mme. Calvé's salon was brilliantly lighted and richly furnished, but it seemed only a sombre setting to the singer's radiant self. Not that she was gaudily gowned; on the contrary, her dress was simple, but her personality, her smile, her animation, are a constant delight and surprise.

      Mme. Calvé is thoroughly French, and thoroughly handsome, and appears even younger off the stage than on. She is tall and of splendid figure; her complexion is fresh and clear, with an interesting tinge of olive, and her eyes are black as her hair, which was arranged very pompadour.