Geraldine Farrar Part 1

Geraldine Farrar.

by Geraldine Farrar.

A DEDICATION

In offering these little sketches of some of the interesting events that have helped shape a career now fairly familiar to the general public, it has not been my intention to weary the indulgent reader with a lengthy dissertation of literary pretension, or tiresome data resulting from the obvious and oft-recurring "I."

From out the storehouse of memory, impressions crystallized into form without regard to time or place, and it was more than a pa.s.sing pleasure to jot them down at haphazard; in the quiet of my library, on the flying train, or again, beneath the witchery of California skies, I scribbled as the mood prompted, as I would converse with an interested and congenial listener.

It is not, perhaps, a New England characteristic to expand in affectionate eulogy for the satisfaction of a curious public, but the threads of these recollections are so closely interwoven with maternal love and devotion, that this volume would be incomplete without its rightful dedication to

MY MOTHER

G. F.

GERALDINE FARRAR

THE STORY OF AN AMERICAN SINGER

CHAPTER I

MY LIFE AS A CHILD

I believe that a benevolent Fate has had watch over me. Some have called it luck; some have spoken of the hard work and the many years of study; others have cited my career as an instance of American pluck and perseverance. But deep down in my heart I feel much has been directed by Fate. This G.o.d-sent gift of song was bestowed upon me for some purpose, I know not what. It may fail me to-morrow, to-night; at any moment something may mar the delicate instrument, and then all the perseverance, pluck, study, and luck in the world will not restore it to me. If early in life I dimly sensed this insecurity, yet always have I gone onward and onward, eager for that which Fate had in store for me, and accepting gladly those rewards and opportunities which in the course of my career have been popularly referred to as "Farrar's luck."

Yet do not think that I waited in idleness to see what Fate would bring.

From the days of my earliest recollection I have labored unceasingly to attain the goal which I believed and hope Destiny had marked out for me.

My mother tells me that before I was five I had already shown strong musical tendencies. By the time I was ten I had visions of studying abroad. At the age of twelve I had heard the music of almost the entire grand opera repertoire. By the time I was sixteen I was studying in Paris.

My earliest memories take me back to my home town, Melrose, Ma.s.sachusetts, a small but very attractive city not far from Boston. I can recall a large room with an open fireplace and flames flas.h.i.+ng from a log fire into which I spent many hours gazing, trying to conjure up strange and fanciful shapes and figures. From the fireplace, so my mother tells me, I would stroll to the great, old-fas.h.i.+oned square piano in the corner, and, standing on tiptoe, would strum upon the keys. I suppose I was two or three years old at the time, yet it seems to me that I was striving to give expression musically to the strange shapes and figures suggested by the fire and by my vivid imagination.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A LITTLE GIRL IN MELROSE]

Hereditary influences must have helped to shape my musical career. My mother and father both sang in the First Universalist Church of Melrose.

Mother's father, Dennis Barnes, of Melrose, had been a musician, and had organized a little orchestra which played on special occasions. He gave violin lessons and composed, and there is a tradition that in his boyhood days he learned to play the violin from an Italian fiddler, and afterward constructed his own instrument, pulling hairs from the tail of an old white horse to make the bow.

My father, Sydney D. Farrar, owned a store in Melrose when I was born.

In the summer time he played baseball with a local amateur team with such success that, when I was two years old, he was engaged by the Philadelphia National League Baseball Club as first baseman. He was a professional ball-player with the Philadelphia team for several years.

Yet during the winters he was always in Melrose, looking after business.

Both he and my mother were very fond of music, singing every week in the church quartet and sometimes at concerts.

The house in which I was born is still standing, a large, old-fas.h.i.+oned building on Mount Vernon Street, Melrose, which my father rented from the Houghton estate. It is next door to the Blake house, a well-known local landmark. Most of my early life was spent in this house, although subsequently we moved twice to occupy other houses in the neighborhood.

My mother says that I was a happy baby, crooning and humming to myself, singing when other babies usually cry. She says that the familiar airs of the barrel organs, which were played in the street every day, were all added to my repertoire in due time, correct as to melody, although I was too young to enunciate properly. My mother did not think it out of the ordinary for her baby to be so musically inclined, young as I was. I was her first and only child.

When I was three years old I sang in my first church concert. My childish voice rose up bravely; and my mother distinctly remembers that I had perfect self-possession and never showed the slightest sign of stage fright. When my song was finished, and the kind applause had subsided, I stepped to the edge of the platform and spoke to her down in the front row.

"Did I do it well, mamma?" I asked, not at all disconcerted while every one laughed.

I cannot remember the time when I did not intend to sing and act. As soon as I was a little older it was decided that I should take piano lessons.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MR. AND MRS. SYDNEY D. FARRAR]

But at once I made strenuous objection to the necessary restraint, an objection which in after years manifested itself in much that I attempted. I could not force myself to study according to rule or tradition. I wanted to try out things my own way, according to impulse, just when and how the spirit within me moved. I could not drudge at scales, and therefore found the lessons irksome. I preferred to improvise upon the piano, and I had a strange fondness for playing everything upon the black keys.

"Why do you use only the black keys?" my mother asked me once.

"Because the white keys seem like angels and the black keys like devils, and I like devils best," I replied. It was the soft half-tones of the black keys which fascinated me, and to this day I prefer their sensuous harmony to that of the more brilliant "angels."

My mother offered me a tricycle--one of those weird three-wheeled vehicles in vogue at the time--if I would learn my piano lessons according to rule; but I had all too little patience and my father gave me the tricycle anyhow, as well as a pony later. These were some of my few amus.e.m.e.nts. In fact, I cared little for child's play at any time in my early youth, and nothing for outdoor sports. I spent most of my time with books and music, or playing with animals.

Among my animal friends was a large Newfoundland dog. One day my mother came into the back yard and found me trying to make him act as a horse, attached by a rough harness to an improvised plough I had made of wood to dig up the back garden. I loved dogs, and once my mother had me photographed seated on a large painted wooden dog.

Another childish amus.e.m.e.nt was to put fantastic costumes on the cats and pretend that they were actors or actresses. In time there were added to the cats and dog a chameleon, a pair of small alligators, guinea-pigs, rabbits, a bullfinch, and a robin with a broken wing. I was pa.s.sionately fond of flowers as well, and my own small garden was a source of pride and pleasure.

The world of make-believe was becoming very real to me by this time. I dramatized everything. I had the utmost confidence in my choice to become a great singer, for at all times I was busy with music, either alone or with my mother. It did not occur to me that I could possibly fail in achieving my object, and yet I was so sincere and felt so impelled to try to "touch the stars" that I do not believe it could be called conceit. Young as I was, I felt that with my song I could soar to another world and revel in poetry and music.

CHAPTER II

THE DRAMATIC IMPULSE

At five I was sent to school. Among my teachers in the Grove Street School, Melrose, was Miss Alice Swett, who remains a dear, good friend to this day. She was ever kind and sympathetic to me, and I always loved her, although I was often rebellious and unmanageable. My own reckless nature, impatient at restraint, could never endure the order and confinement of the cla.s.sroom.

The dynamic energy, which has suffered little curb in the pa.s.sing of years, was even then a characteristic to be reckoned with; displays of lively temper were not infrequent, but the method of punishment at an isolated desk in view of the entire cla.s.s was far too enjoyable to serve as a correction for my ebullient spirits and was abruptly discontinued.

Miss Swett was my teacher for several years. While her affection and trust never wavered, I doubt if she ever quite understood the harum-scarum girl in her charge.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MISS FARRAR AND MRS. LONG, HER FIRST SINGING TEACHER]

Only the other day, visiting me in my New York home and commenting upon some unconventional act of mine, she sighed and said: "Geraldine, where are you going to end?"

"Well, I may brush the gallows in the wild flight of my career," I replied laughingly, "but I'll never be really hanged."

Those years at the Grove Street School, when I was developing from childhood into young girlhood, were full of excitement, romance, and expectations. But I looked upon them as a trying period which had to be endured before I could devote myself entirely to my ambition. I was full of both temper and temperament, and an unlimited supply of high spirits which manifested themselves in various unusual ways--singing and acting, idealizing myself as many of the heroines whose gracious images intoxicated my imagination. At times I walked on air, and always my head was filled with dreams and hopes of this marvelous career.

It was at this time that I wrote a play, "Rapunzel of the Golden Hair,"

based upon an old fairy story. As usual I wished always to be the heroine, yet Fate had not bestowed the necessary golden locks upon me.