Sophie Cruvelli was only eight years on the operatic stage, but during that period she impressed herself on the world as one of the great singers not only of her own age, but of any age; yet far greater in her possibilities than in her attainment. She had by no means reached the zenith of her professional ability when she suddenly retired into private life. There have been many singers who have filled a more active and varied place in the operatic world; never one who was more munificently endowed with the diverse gifts which enter into the highest power for lyric drama. She had queenly beauty of face and form, the most vehement dramatic passion, a voice alike powerful, sweet, and flexible, and an energy of temperament which scorned difficulties. Had her operatic career extended itself to the time, surely foreshadowed in her last performances, when a finer art should have subdued her grand gifts into that symmetry and correlation so essential to the best attainment, it can hardly be questioned that her name would not have been surpassed, perhaps not equaled, in lyric annals. A star of the first magnitude was quenched when the passion of love subdued her professional ambition. Sophie Cruvelli, though her artistic life was far briefer than those of other great singers, has been deemed worthy of a place among these sketches, as an example of what may be called the supreme endowment of nature in the gifts of dramatic song. THERESA TITIENS. Born at Hamburg of an Hungarian Family.--Her Early Musical Training.--First Appearance in Opera in "Lucrezia Borgia."--Romance of her Youth.--Rapid Extension of her Fame.--Receives a _Conge_ from Vienna to sing in England.--Description of Mlle. Titiens, her Voice, and Artistic Style.--The Characters in which she was specially eminent.--Opinions of the Critics.--Her Relative Standing in the Operatic Profession.--Her Performances of _Semiramide_ and _Medea_--Latter Years of her Career.--Her Artistic Tour in America.--Her Death, and Estimate placed on her Genius. I.