FOREWORD
Reading edition
THE name of Clara Louise Kellogg is known to the immediate generation chiefly as an echo of the past. Yet only thirty years ago it was written of her, enthusiastically but truthfully, that "no living singer needs a biography less than Miss Clara Louise Kellogg; and nowhere in the world would a biography of her be so superfluous as in America, where her name is a household word and her illustrious career is familiar in all its triumphant details to the whole people."
The past to which she belongs is therefore recent; it is the past of yesterday only, thought of tenderly by our fathers and mothers, spoken of reverently as a poignant phase of their own ephemeral youth, one of their sweet lavender memories. The pity is (although this is itself part of the evanescent charm), that the singer's best creations can live but in the hearts of a people, and the fame of sound is as fugitive as life itself.
A record of such creations is, however, possible and also enduring; while it is also necessary for a just estimate of the development of civilisations. As such, this record of her musical past—presented by Clara Louise Kellogg herself—will have a place in the annals of the evolution of musical art on the North American continent long after every vestige of fluttering personal reminiscence has vanished down the ages. A word of appreciation with regard to the preparation of this record is due to John Jay Whitehead, Jr., whose diligent chronological labours have materially assisted the editor.
Clara Louise Kellogg came from New England stock of English heritage. She was named after Clara Novello. Her father, George Kellogg, was an inventor of various machines and instruments and, at the time of her birth, was principal of Sumter Academy, Sumterville, S. C. Thus the famous singer was acclaimed in later years not only as the Star of the North (the rôle of Catherine in Meyerbeer's opera of that name being one of her achievements) but also as "the lone star of the South in the operatic world." She first sang publicly in New York in 1861 at an evening party given by Mr. Edward Cooper, the brother of Mrs. Abram Hewitt. This was the year of her début as Gilda in Verdi's opera of Rigoletto at the Academy of Music in New York City. When she came before her countrymen as a singer, she was several decades ahead of her musical public, for she was a lyric artist as well as a singer. America was not then producing either singers or lyric artists; and in fact we were, as a nation, but just getting over the notion that America could not produce great voices. We held a very firm contempt for our own facilities, our knowledge, and our taste in musical matters. If we did discover a rough diamond, we had to send it to Italy to find out if it were of the first water and to have it polished and set. Nothing was so absolutely necessary for our self-respect as that some American woman should arise with sufficient American talent and bravery to prove beyond all cavil that the country was able to produce both singers and artists.
For rather more than twenty-five years, from her appearance as Gilda until she quietly withdrew from public life, when it seemed to her that the appropriate moment for so doing had come, Clara Louise Kellogg filled this need and maintained her contention. She was educated in America, and her career, both in America and abroad, was remarkable in its consistent triumphs. When Gounod's Faust was a musical and an operatic innovation, she broke through the Italian traditions of her training and created the rôle of Marguerite according to her own beliefs; and throughout her later characterisations in Italian opera, she sustained a wonderfully poised attitude of independence and of observance with regard to these same traditions. In London, in St. Petersburg, in Vienna, as well as in the length and breadth of the United States, she gained a recognition and an appreciation in opera, oratorio, and concert, second to none: and when, later, she organised an English Opera Company and successfully piloted it on a course of unprecedented popularity, her personal laurels were equally supreme.
In 1887, Miss Kellogg married Carl Strakosch, who had for some time been her manager. Mr. Strakosch is the nephew of the two well-known impresarios, Maurice and Max Strakosch. After her marriage, the public career of Clara Louise Kellogg virtually ended. The Strakosch home is in New Hartford, Connecticut, and Mrs. Strakosch gave to it the name of "Elpstone" because of a large rock shaped like an elephant that is the most conspicuous feature as one enters the grounds through the poplar-guarded gate. Mr. and Mrs. Strakosch are very fond of their New Hartford home, but, the Litchfield County climate in winter being severe, they usually spend their winters in Rome. They have also travelled largely in Oriental countries.
In 1912, Mr. and Mrs. Strakosch celebrated their Silver Wedding at Elpstone. On this occasion, the whole village of New Hartford was given up to festivities, and friends came from miles away to offer their congratulations. Perhaps the most pleasant incident of the celebration was the presentation of a silver loving cup to Mr. and Mrs. Strakosch by the people of New Hartford in token of the affectionate esteem in which they are both held.
The woman, Clara Louise Kellogg, is quite as distinct a personality as was the prima donna. So thoroughly, indeed, so fundamentally, is she a musician that her knowledge of life itself is as much a matter of harmony as is her music. She lives her melody; applying the basic principle that Carlyle has expressed so admirably when he says: "See deeply enough and you see musically."
ISABEL MOORE.
WOODSTOCK, N. Y. August, 1913
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I.My First Notes1
II.Girlhood11
III."Like a Picked Chicken!"22
IV.A Youthful Realist33
V.Literary Boston43
VI.War Times55
VII.Steps of the Ladder62
VIII.Marguerite77
IX.Opéra Comique90
X.Another Season and a Little More Success99
XI.The End of the War110
XII.And so—to England!119
XIII.At Her Majesty's 129
XIV.Across the Channel139
XV.My First Holiday on the Continent152
XVI.Fellow-Artists163
XVII.The Royal Concerts at Buckingham Palace177
XVIII.The London Season188
XIX.Home Again200
XX."Your Sincere Admirer"212
XXI.On the Road227
XXII.London Again235
XXIII.The Season with Lucca245
XXIV.English Opera254
XXV.English Opera—Continued266
XXVI.Amateurs and Others276
XXVII."The Three Graces"289
XXVIII.Across the Seas Again300
XXIX.Teaching and the Half-Talented309
XXX.The Wanderlust, and Where It Led Me324
XXXI.Saint Petersburg334
XXXII.Good-bye to Russia—and then?346
XXXIII.The Last Years of my Professional Career357
XXXIV.Coda370
Index 373
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Clara Louise Kellogg StrakoschFrontispiece
Lydia Atwood2
Maternal Grandmother of Clara Louise Kellogg
Charles Atwood4
Maternal Grandfather of Clara Louise Kellogg
From a Daguerreotype
George Kellogg10
Father of Clara Louise Kellogg
From a photograph by Gurney & Son
Clara Louise Kellogg, Aged Three12
From a photograph by Black & Case
Clara Louise Kellogg, Aged Seven14
From a photograph by Black & Case
Clara Louise Kellogg as a Girl20
From a photograph by Sarony
Clara Louise Kellogg as a Young Lady28
From a photograph by Black & Case
Brignoli, 186542
From a photograph by C. Silvy
James Russell Lowell, in 186146
From a photograph by Brady
Charlotte Cushman, 186152
From a photograph by Silabee, Case & Co.
Clara Louise Kellogg as Figlia56
From a photograph by Black & Case
General Horace Porter58
From a photograph by Pach Bros.
Muzio66
From a photograph by Gurney & Son
Clara Louise Kellogg as Lucia72
From a photograph by Elliott & Fry
Clara Louise Kellogg as Martha74
From a photograph by Turner
Clara Louise Kellogg as Marguerite, 186582
From a photograph by Sarony
Clara Louise Kellogg as Marguerite, 186488
From a silhouette by Ida Waugh
Gottschalk106
From a photograph by Case & Getchell
Jane Elizabeth Crosby108
Mother of Clara Louise Kellogg
From a tintype
General William Tecumseh Sherman, 1877116
From a photograph by Mora
Henry G. Stebbins122
From a photograph by Grillet & Co.
Adelina Patti130
From a photograph by Fredericks
Clara Louise Kellogg as Linda, 1868134
From a photograph by Stereoscopic Co.
Mr. James McHenry138
From a photograph by Brady
Christine Nilsson, as Queen of the Night146
From a photograph by Pierre Petit
Duke of Newcastle188
From a photograph by John Burton & Sons
Clara Louise Kellogg as Carmen230
From a photograph
Sir Henry Irving and Ellen Terry as the Vicarand Olivia234
From a photograph by Window & Grove
First Edition of the "Faust" Score, Published in 1859 by Chousens of Paris, now in the Boston Public Library240
Newspaper Print of the Kellogg-Lucca Season250
Drawn by Jos. Keppler
Clara Louise Kellogg in Mignon252
From a photograph by Mora
Ellen Terry284
From a photograph by Sarony
Colonel Henry Mapleson290
From a photograph by Downey
Clara Louise Kellogg as Aïda292
From a photograph by Mora
Faust Brooch Presented to Clara Louise Kellogg298
Carl Strakosch364
From a photograph by H. W. Barnett
Letter from Edwin Booth to Clara Louise Kellogg366
"Elpstone," New Hartford, Connecticut370