Clara Butt (1872-1936)
Clara Butt (1872-1936)
(Black and White [London, UK] - 19th Feb, 1898)
A MORNING WITH CLARA BUTT
"And it has been arranged for you to meet Miss Butt." Therefore it was that upon the day and hour named I waited for the world's great contralto at her own dainty flat, in a room that was radiant with bygone trophies of art, and of love well-won. As one waited one noted a basket of flowers tied with "ribbons rare," for it seemed as if those very flowers were putting forth their might that they should live past their hour, and thus honour a song. There were photographs here and there, nay almost everywhere, of well-known men and women; and being a woman surely it was natural that one realised from the tender greetings many a picture bore, how greatly Miss Butt is beloved of women? Then even whilst one "stood there wondering" came the softest rustle of a gown, and the singer was with you. As I put my hand into hers I wondered anew, as I have so often wondered, what it was in Miss Butt's walk that so stamped her individuality. Taller than most women - yes, let that be granted her; and yet she has, both on the platform and in the room, a way of appearing that is suggestive of graceful, rhythmical movement. I hardly know how to express it, but often whilst one has eagerly awaited her coming, she has appeared in the moment one was not expectant.
(The Star [Christchurch, NZ] - 2nd November, 1907)
MADAME CLARA BUTT AND HER CHILDREN
One of Mdme Clara Butt's visitors in Sydney describes her introduction to the great contralto's children. The children were asked for as the visitor was leaving, and a maid was at once sent to find them. "I'm afraid they're very grubby," remarked their father apprehensively," they're playing in the garden. However, on appearance, they were found to be no grubbier than healthy children should be. There are three - Joy, aged six, a slim girlie with beautiful deep brown eyes and long dark hair; Roy, aged three, whose chief occupation at present is falling down and grazing his knees; and Victor, fifteen months, a curly-headed, sturdy little chap, encased in a blue linen crawling suit and sandals. They were romping about with great enjoyment, but quite ready, at least Joy was (Roy was rather self-absorbed over his knee troubles), to talk.
"They don't seem to mind the heat much," the nurse said, "and on the voyage out they were not a bit upset. "Have you ever been to a concert, Joy?" "No: but I'm going to when I'm bigger," declared Clara Butt's daughter. "Have you ever heard your mother sing?" "Oh, yes, lots of times," said the small maiden rather scornfully; "I love listening to her."
The writer of the women's column in the Sydney "Daily Telegraph" describes the dress in which Mdme Clara Butt (Mrs Rumford) received her first callers in the New South Wales capital. "Mrs Rumford," she says, "was wearing a gown in which she had some effective photographs done in Melbourne. It falls softly round the feet, and has a deep hem of fine cloth of the same colour, with some ornaments of silk cord; the bodice was elaborately finished with Limerick lace. An artist makes all Mdme Butt's gowns, and this one is built to emphasise her great height (6ft 2in), without unduly exaggerating it."
I jocosely informed Miss Butt my object was to interview her, and to present to "an eager, listening world" as many of her vices as I could possibly discover in one morning. Her ready acquiescence was tempered by a touch of humorous resentment at the methods of the ordinary interviewer, whose notions of time and place defy the laws of courtesy, and who, as a rule, manages to reproduce in some distorted shape things better left unsaid, and misses the material points. As, for instance, on the occasion of a recent trip to Dublin, where at six in the morning, with the vengeance of an angry Irish sea upon her, she found two reporters waiting in cold blood to be told "everything that had happened from her death backwards," as one of these Hibernians put it. I fancy that my method must have been more humane, for I had no difficulty in discovering her birthplace - "Near Brighton;" her first appearance - "Golden Legend, at the Royal Albert Hall;" her next - "Orpheus, at the Lyceum." And then, I fear, the interview, as far as an interview went, ended. Then we talked, as women might, of many things. I don't think anyone could interview Miss Butt in the ordinary sense of the word; or, if they did, they would get neither artist nor woman, nor the soul that lives within both, for she has a rare personality; you see things as she sees them, feel things as she feels them, and her enthusiasms carry you whither she listeth, to other lands, where at the sound of her voice men and women lose control of their emotions, and are insatiable in their demand for more; or at home here, where because it is her own country, every meed of praise is doubly precious.
Her very simplicity makes the glass bright in which you see reflected that which a song can do, that is not sung of an empty day. I have heard it said by people who are better judges than I can hope to be, that her voice is one of the finest of the century. Someone trying to describe it spoke of it as "a complete orchestra, into which there never crept an imperfect note"; but to me, it is not only her voice nor the gracious presence, but the feeling, the deep intense feeling held within every note, until one thinks of a singer living her song. I touched upon her exquisite rendering of "Abide with me" the other day, and of how I have heard it said that even strong men were moved to tears. She herself has great love for it, as indeed for all that is sad and spiritual in song, and she recalled with a touch of tender emotion the scene in the cottage where Liddle died, as, lying in bed, he watched the darkness deepen over the sea, and became inspired with the last syllable of his life to translate the faith and hope of a suffering saint.
I asked of her times abroad, and learnt how differently the strange singer is received there from in our own country. Here, however little known to us the singers, we greet them with a clap of hands in token of our welcome and attention. The song ended, we thank them, much or little, or not at all, as it has pleased us, in the same way. But in Germany, for instance, it is different quite. Miss Butt told me how, at her first appearance in Berlin, she went on to the platform amidst a deadly silence: no word, no welcome. She sang three Italian airs, and beyond nods and nudges, and "Ach Gotts," there was no response. Their crucial test was a song in their own language. Then it was that their enthusiasm knew no bounds, and they rent the place with their delight. At the close of her twelve songs they crowded on the platform to demand yet another. Miss Butt by gesture signified that there was no music - no one left to play. They cared nothing for accompaniment; they but wanted her to give just one more song in their own tongue, and then right from the back of that large hall, over the Babel and through the din of many voices, came one saying, "Sing Home, Sweet Home." One could better imagine than describe the singer's feelings. She, a stranger in a strange land, had still heard the English tongue, the people's song. In speaking of the Germans as a people, Miss Butt said that once they have approved of you, they give you royal welcome, and you live in their hearts.
Miss Butt told me a pretty story of the English and German Courts that it seems well worth while others should share in, and remember also. She had been singing at Windsor, and someone whom she had not recognised had been exceeding kind to her, and had said, "Should you ever visit my country, you must come and have a quiet time with me." Afterwards, upon asking who the lady was, she found she had been talking to the Empress Frederick. The incident passed from her mind until, when next in Germany, someone pointed out to her the Empress's home. Then she went back and wrote a little note in fulfilment of her promise. Unfortunately, the Empress was away, but some of her ladies-in-waiting received Miss Butt. She sang herself into their hearts, and it became the custom for her to go to them or they to her almost daily until it reached the ears of the Emperor and Empress themselves, and they asked that she should sing to them in their own home. I liked to hear Miss Butt speak of the beauty and simplicity of the home-life of the German Court.
She seems to have sung song after song, and tells a most exquisite joke against herself that had caused the Emperor infinite amusement, in-so-much that whilst singing her German accent was perfect, yet she could not pronounce the title of one of the very songs she sang. After that the Emperor held the book whilst Miss Butt pointed out each ballad she knew. Some days previously one of the ladies of the Court had said how much she would like to hear Miss Butt sing "Light and Darkness." It was a strange coincidence - for she had not sung that song since she was fourteen or fifteen - that she found it amongst the music she had taken with her that night. Miss Butt's own words are better than any I can coin: "I had not sung it for many years, and it is so sad that at the end of the song I found myself crying bitterly; and when the Empress spoke to me I could only tell her that I was sorry, but that I had not sung it for a long time, and that I felt it greatly." With tears in her own eyes, she said, "Keep that feeling, my child; keep it for always, and God bless you." Could aught have been more womanly, more gracious than this?
There was a grandly simple touch of nature in Miss Butt's narrative of her singing to the children of the Emperor in their play-hour, and by way of amusement mimicking with her marvellous voice various trumpet sounds which the little ones were trying to imitate, when the Empress, overhearing, entered and jocularly remarked what a terrible torture these trumpet solos would inflict upon "the happy home."
I took heart of grace to inquire from Miss Butt her greatest ambition, and it must be great indeed, for she answered me so frankly, as she said: "I want to sing in an opera that has been written expressly for me, that I myself shall create and make of it what I may." "And the part?" "Cleopatra; Rider Haggard's Cleopatra, which is, as you know, very powerful, and whilst still preserving the story, is more suitable to our times. Sir Arthur Sullivan will, I think, write the music." "And the libretto?" "That has not been decided." "Whilst the Antony?" I queried. "O, the Antony," she replied; "of course he will be found." I did not contradict, but I had my doubts, as I watched her, of the easiness of finding an Antony to mate with such a Cleopatra.
I feel that I have said all too little of this singer's power. But then, her voice is the world's and it knows it even as I, whilst she herself says: "I want to sing; I love to sing; I could not help singing. It isn't the people, nor the honour, nor the success, though one is grateful for all three, but it is that one may sing. "To me, Miss Butt seemed a woman, wholly womanly, utterly unspoiled, whom it would be honour indeed to call "friend" for that which she held within herself. As she spoke of the love for her work, of all that was beautiful in art, one thought of a soul that had been taught somewhere to sing, and then granted bodily form that it might sing on and still the aching in many human hearts. As I said "Good-bye" I could think only of an almost forgotten quotation: "God sends His singers upon earth."
EMMIE AVERY KEDDELL.
(The Hawera and Normanby Star [Hawera, NZ] - 9th Sep, 1907)
A SINGER'S EXPERIENCES
Madame Clara Butt tells the Strand Magazine that the violent physical exercises of the day are fatal to voice culture. Mild open-air exercise is all very well, but the "road to the concert platform does not pass through the gymnasium." Another word of warning to young singers is against cultivating the tendency to weep over their own pathetic solos, "platform hysteric's" being disliked by the average audience.
Upon that audience, however, in town after town, some song will often have a particular effect. "Thus, almost invariably after I have sung,'Abide with me,' I get letters, odd requests, and not infrequently presents of jewellery." The jewellery, we are assured, is always sent back when the address of the sender can be discovered. The letters received by a famous singer are often themselves pathetic, or,in any case, may be valued as compliments. When the intended tour to Australia was made known, Madame Clara's English admirers rose in protest. "Every post brought me numerous epistles begging me to alter my arrangements." Fortunately for Antipodes, such a scheme is not easily to be thrown over, and also fortunately, she was able to resist the proposals of one correspodent, who offered to accompany her, and supply a slight relief, suitable in the colonies, by giving skirt dances and "attractive exhibitions as a contortionist."
Amongst the "odd requests," the most memorable was that of a mother, who entreated Clara Butt to sing in private to her invalid child. It appears that the boy, supposed hopelessly idiotic, had been taken to a concert, and there had shown his first signs of intelligence in response to this particular voice. The experiment was tried again, with good results. The kind-hearted singer gave him a daily ditty for four weeks, by which time things so improved that doctors once more took up the case, and the child gradually developed fair mental rowers. But ever since, Clara Butt has had to receive countless letters from parents with defective children, begging for a healing course of song. She modestly believes the spell might not work in-another case, and, anyhow, can hardly give her whole time to charities. Consequently, though to her great regret, it has had to be announced in various towns visited that the great contralto will not sing in private to the most responsive idiot boy.