"MUSIC , not just opera, is what I wish to talk about,” said Dorothy Jardon. Seated in the lounge of her hotel, the singer of operatic music disclosed none of the imperiousness which now and again attaches to the prima donna. “Music ought to be presented where it will be heard, and in such a way that it will be listened to.” Exactly the same thing is alleged about religion, one thought! And in the earnestness with which Miss Jardon spoke of the aim of her art, one perceived that music may have a sort of gospel of its own.

“The first thing that is necessary in conveying a message is to gain the attention of the auditor. This can often be done by means of the eye, which is, after all, the keenest sense of the five. To say that the appeal to the eye is inferior to that of the ear, is to condemn a whole family of arts in order to vindicate one. And I have found audiences most sensitive to the sort of curtain, the color of the gown, used in a musical program. Doesn’t this show that in most people the aesthetic judgments are pretty wide-awake?

“For this reason I have used a curtain that suggests an old tapestry, and have so lighted it that it is gradually disclosed. I hope in this way to suggest an atmosphere quite different from that of my auditors’ daily lives. I aim to transport these from the theater to the land of art. Last season I wore a gown of a very rare shade, blending geranium, tangerine and coral. Nothing holds the attention so well as something that is hard to classify, you know. Yet I always avoid the flagrantly bizarre, the ‘queer.’ The successful artist must be, first of all, human. That is the great condition of success with an audience made up of many kinds of persons.”

Humanizing Music

The sartorial was soon left behind, however, in Miss Jardon’s discussion of melody and its adjuncts. “Humanity must be in the music, too,” said she. “Surely none will be interested in just a succession of strange sounds. The reason why the majority of people say they do not like good opera, well given, is because they do not know what it is all about. Their sympathies must be aroused in the characters, the emotions presented. For this reason I have used sensible translations in the excerpts presented in my vaudeville programs, and have attempted to sing them with intelligible diction. Why have words, if they are not to be heard? Usually I have given one aria in the original tongue, for I find even the unappreciative dissatisfied if they are not subjected to the authentic sensation of ‘grand opera.’ In this case, however, I preface the number with a tactful explanation of the circumstances which prompt Santuzza to voice the Romanza, and I use all the pantomime accompanying the aria. Intelligence is a word often misused; I have never found an audience so lacking in it that they could not understand the feelings of the jilted girl.”

Not only are settings and melodies presented simply and directly, but they are presented to vast numbers of persons with a wide catholicity of tastes by Miss Jardon through the medium of the vaudeville theater. “The concert, or the operatic, stage has a very special class to which it appeals,” the singer continued. “The thousand or five thousand persons who come to each of the fourteen weekly performances of the vaudeville theater are just so many persons willing to be presented with good music—or bad music, if nobody will be bothered to give them the better. They must be made to experience good music, else what is the good of writing and lecturing about it till all the pens and throats are dry? It does much more good to help persons to feel and live music than to give a hallful of specialists new musical material to quarrel about as an intellectual exercise. For this reason, I think that the presidents and executives of the vaudeville circuits are in a position to hasten or to retard the demand for municipal opera, which is looked forward to most eagerly by those in each city who happen already to be converted to the better music. The more often operatic excerpts are interestingly presented on programs that appeal to everybody in some way, the more will the people of the United States expect to find serious emotions, and not frivolous rhythms only, in music. The orchestras in the vaudeville houses might be improved, by the way; for in respect of completeness and skill they are inferior to the new motion picture theaters. These now have their musical programs of merit.”

Last of all, the singer gave a sincere estimate of the demands made upon the character of the artist who would undertake to further music’s cause. “The best interpreter of music of worth will be the one with the greatest soul,” she said, or “the ‘biggest heart,’ if you prefer, The artist must be without conceit. Any snobberv will be detected by his audiences. Such a one must not think that the interest is in himself; no, it is in what he can do, what it is his duty to do. No one figure is big enough to be conceited about his worth. There are far too many curtains going up nightly all over the world in too many auditoriums. And, as for there being grades of auditoriums in which to sing, the only significant classification is according to the degree of service which each performs.” —R. M.K.