Even the passionate Schroeder-Devrient seldom made an exception
to this rule, although she was not independent of the theatres.
These questions should be an urgent warning to our young female singers
not to sacrifice themselves to any of the modern screaming operas,
unsuited for singing; but to preserve and watch over their voices, and
to guard them from immoderate, continued, and often inartistic exertion;
in fact, to sing always in the voice-register with which nature has
endowed them, and never to shriek; to renounce the present, fashionable,
so-called "singing effects," and the modern scene-screaming, as Jenny
Lind and Henrietta Sontag have always done. Then their voices would
remain useful for the opera, as was formerly the case, from ten to
twenty years; and they would not have to mourn, as is too common, after
a very short time, a feeble, broken voice and departed health.
Let Jenny Lind and Henrietta Sontag be placed as the finest models
before our young, gifted, ambitious singers.
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