MUSICAL CHARLATANISM IN MILAN.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 2, Issue 259, 8 September 1879, Page 2

MUSICAL CHARLATANISM IN MILAN.

(From the London Figaro.)

_ To send a giil to Italy is not only possible moral ruin, but curtain loss of time and money. In Milan, which the detractors of our country tell us is the great art centre, there are. more than 400 young men and women who have paid, under ridiculous misrepresentation, large sums of money to one or other of the celebrated Italian singing musters, and who are now chiefly employed cooling their heels around the square of the Domo, waiting in vain for the engagements which never come. Of the two leading teachers of singing in this Milan, one is an uneducated peasant of nearly eighty, who speaks very bad ■ Italian and whose sagacious theory is that the breath comes not from the lungs but the bones, while the other is also an octogenarian, who gives his lessons in bed, who is visited by short spasms at irregular intervals, and whose theory is that the breath comes not from the bones but the lungs. Your young lady student who goes to Milan can take hei selection between these two old gentlemen, can brave the social demoralisation of Milanese artistic society and the extraordinary changes of a Lombard climate, and when she emerges from the two years of tuition at an extravagant price she will (it is well to speak plainly) be compelled to pay the impressario for her debut and there are- but few Italian critics who will praise an artist without being paid in hard cash. And when the first appearance is passed and the laudatory notices are gained what is the use of them 1 Did I chose to collect them, my desk would be filled with laudatory notices of these artists whose names are unknown, and are never likely to be known here. The Milanese mania, is, in fact purely moonshine. The successful artist depends onhernatural gifts, which can be cultivated by the art of masters in London or any other capital, better than they can be in Milan. After all, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and a rapid glance through the list of great artists of modem times will soon dissipate the idea that at Milan alone is true art found. Mme. Patti was educated at Philadelphia, Mme, Neilson at Paris, M'Ue Titiens in Vienna, Mme. Trebelli in Paris, Mme. Albani in America, Mme. Edith Wynne, Mme, Patey, and innumerable others in England, Mr Santley in Italy, Mme, Gerster in Vienna, and Go on. The fact is that Italy is, for average vocalists, a simple fraud, while phenomenal vocalists will get better instruction in England than they can in any other country in the world, simply because we can better afford to pay for it.