The years 1896 and 1897 were years of much financial depression in the United States, a fact which does not seem to have been fully appreciated by opera singers, for the collapse of the season seems to have given rise to considerable bitterness of feeling. Madame Nordica took unto herself Madame Scalchi, the contralto, and Barron Berthald, a young tenor, who in a night achieved fame, and toured the country giving concerts, but with little success. Whatever truth there may have been in the reported coolness between Madame Nordica and Jean de Reszke, either diplomacy or the exigencies of the opera singer's hard lot brought about an ostensible reconciliation; for in London, during the opera season of 1898, Jean de Reszke sang Tristan with Madame Nordica as Isolde, when a critic wrote, "We have so often been told that this music cannot be sung, and we have so often heard it shouted and declaimed by Tristans who could not sing, and by Isoldes without a voice, that it was a double joy, not only to hear it sung, but to hear it superbly sung, with all the confidence and apparent ease one is accustomed to in a Schubert song, or a Massenet romance." Madame Nordica is now in her prime. What new honors she may win we cannot foresee, but she now stands high in the front rank of the great singers of the day. In 1896 she married Mr. Zoltan Doehme. The engagement, which had been once broken off, came to a sudden climax while Nordica was in Indianapolis. Mr. Doehme suddenly appeared, having travelled from Germany, and in a few hours they were married without any display or previous announcement. Madame Nordica wins many friends by frank, engaging cordiality of manner, while her impulsive nature and enthusiasm help her over many difficulties. One may imagine the consternation caused in the Boston Symphony Orchestra by her startling declaration, at a rehearsal, that they were like a Kalamazoo band. Perhaps the sore is still open, but her winning manners will close it the next time that she comes among them. One of the most brilliant singers among the number of Americans who have, during the latter half of this century, won distinction on the operatic stage, is Emma Nevada. She is the daughter of a physician named William Wallace Wixom, of Nevada City, Cal.