Memoirs of an American Prima DonnaKellogg, Clara Louise
General
Memoirs of an American Prima Donna
Kellogg, Clara Louise
Kellogg, Clara Louise, 1842-1916; Singers -- United States -- Biography
Never, in this country, has English opera been so creditably
produced and so energetically managed as by the present
Kellogg-Hess combination. All the business details being supervised
by Mr. Hess, one of the longest-headed and hardest-working men of
business to be found in even this age and nation, are thoroughly,
systematically and promptly attended to; while all the artistic
details, being under the direct personal care of Miss Clara Louise
Kellogg, confessedly the best as well as the most popular singer
America has produced, are brought to and preserved at the highest
attainable musical standard. The performers embraced in the
Hess-Kellogg English Opera Company comprise several artists of the
first rank. The names of Castle, Maas, Peakes, Mrs. Seguin, Mrs.
Van Zandt, and Miss Montague are familiar as household words to the
musical world, while the _répertoire_ embraces not only all the old
established favourites of the public, but many of the most recent
or _recherche_ novelties, such as _Mignon_, and _The Star of the
North_, in addition to such genuine English operas as _The Rose of
Castille_.
During the three seasons of our English Opera Company, we put on a great
number of operas of all schools, from _The Bohemian Girl_ to _The Flying
Dutchman_. The former is pretty poor stuff--cheap and insipid--I never
liked to sing it. But--the houses it drew! People loved it. I believe
there would be a large and sentimental public ready for it to-day. Its
extraneous matter, the two or three popular ballads that had been
introduced, formed a part of its attraction, perhaps. Our Devil's Hoof
in _The Bohemian Girl_ was Ted Seguin who became quite famous in the
part. His wife Zelda Seguin was our contralto and they were among the
earliest people to travel with _The Beggar's Opera_ and other primitive
performances. George A. Conly was our basso and a fine one. He was a
printer by trade and he had his first chance with us at the Globe
Theatre in Boston. He was our Deland, too, in _The Flying Dutchman_.
Eventually, he was drowned; and I gave a benefit for his widow. Maurice
Grau and Hess had gone to London to engage singers for my English Opera
Company and had selected, among others, Wilfred Morgan for first tenor
and Joseph Maas for second tenor. Morgan had been singing secondary
_rôles_ for some time at Covent Garden. On our opening night of _Faust_
he gave out with a sore throat, and Maas took his place successfully.
William Carlton once told me that when he was just starting out he
bought the theatrical wardrobe of Alberto Lawrence, a baritone, and was
looking at himself in a mirror, dressed in one of his second costumes,
in the green room of the Academy of Music early during our English
season, when Morgan came up to him and said:
"Are you going on in those old rags?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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