Abstract

Women in Music To-day

Recently, there has been a passionate debate by two famous prima donnas of the question whether there are any more great singers. Singer Nellie Melba, who, at the age of fifty-nine, still sings beautifully, intimated that the real art of song was dying out with artists of her generation. This aroused the ire of singer Geraldine Farrar, who boasts only thirty-six summers. She pointed at Amelita Gall-Curci as a recent exemplar of real bel canto, and wrote an article for the "Evening Post" in which she explained that this generation, has, moreover, developed a new and most interesting type of operatic artist which is "what the present-day audiences appear to enjoy the most," a combination actor-singer with from fifty to eighty per cent, dramatic talent.