When, in 1898, the waters of Havana Harbor were settling uncertainly over what was left of the battleship Maine and thousands of young bankers, brokers, litterateurs and demagogs abandoned their occupations to become chambermaids to mules, Mme. Ernestine Schumann-Heink, soprano, made her debut with the Metropolitan Opera Company, Manhattan. Her bosom did not tremble nor her knees quiver as she thrilled the assemblage with the resonance, flexibility and persuasion of her voice, for she was, even then, no neophyte. She had done her Azucena in Trovatore 20 years earlier in Dresden,...
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