beginning must almost have unnerved the singer, who walked slowly towards the front of the platform as the storm burst and then bowed her head again and again. Her program on this occasion was not one of her best. She had not chosen familiar songs in which to return to her public. This may in a measure account for her lack of success in always calling forth steady tones. However, on the whole, her voice sounded amazingly fresh. Her high notes especially rang true and resonant as ever. Her middle voice showed wear. Her style remained impeccable, unrivalled.... She announced, following this concert, a series of four recitals in a small hall and actually appeared at one of them. This time I did not hear her, but I am told that her voice refused to respond to her wishes. Nor was the hall filled. The remaining concerts were abandoned. "Mme. Sembrich has never been a failure and she is too old to begin now!" she is reported to have said to a friend. Emma Calve's date of birth is recorded as 1864 in some of the musical dictionaries. This would make her 53 years old. Her singing of the _Marseillaise_ a year ago at the Allies Bazaar at the Grand Central Palace proved to me that her retirement from the Opera was premature. Her performances at the Manhattan Opera House in 1906-7 were memorable, vocally superb. Her Carmen was out of drawing dramatically, but her Anita and her Santuzza remained triumphs of stage craft. Emma Eames, born August 13, 1867, is three years younger than Mme. Calve. She made her debut as Juliette, March 13, 1889. She retired from the opera stage in 1907-8, although she has sung since then a few times in concert. Her last appearances at the Opera were made in dramatic roles, Donna Anna, Leonora (in _Trovatore_), and Tosca, in contradistinction to the lyric parts in which she gained her early fame. That she was entirely successful in compassing the breach cannot be said in all justice. Yet there was a certain distinction in her manner, a certain acid quality in her voice, that gave force to these characterizations. Certainly, however, no one would ever have compared her Donna Anna favourably with her Countess in _Figaro_. Her performance of _Or sai chi l'onore_ was deficient in breadth of style and her lack of breath control at this period gave uncertainty to her execution.