suggests that this Sunday Night Concert was orginally planned to include Yvette Guilbert as a guest

together with artists from the Metropolitan Opera Company.

YVETTE GUILBERT ON AMERICANS

Their Country is More Like France Than Any Other She Knows - Her Impressions of Melba and Others

From Le Figaro, Paris

Yvette Guilbert has returned to Paris. I found her kneeling on the carpet, listening to a marvelous phonograph which she got in the land of Edison, and wherein are sung many strange things which she will, soon, explain to us.

"Superb my voyage; adorable the Americans," says the divette. But the artists, the women artists especially, what bores! No, you cannot imagine it; listen. It isn't a joke, you know; if you could read English I would show you the newspaper articles.

"In the first place, I had an enormous success at the Olympia in New York. Then a similar success at Chicago, Boston, and Philadelphia. Sarah Bernhardt arrived there several days after me, and was at once informed of my success by the reporters, who throw themselves on the passing celebrities and promise long panegyrics to them.

"In France, said one of these excellent journalists to me, 'small articles, short, short; no bigger than that, and he showed me the length of his finger. Here, a column, a page, eight pages!' They went to interview Sarah Bernhardt, and they talked to her about me. 'Yvette Guilbert?' said Sarah, 'I don't know her.' And she declared that she had never heard me and that she hardly knew my name. But everybody laughed at her, because I showed to several journalists, a few days later, a fan which Sarah gave me in thankfulness for an evening entertainment which I gave at her house, where I was an invited guest. Then several articles appeared in the American sheets, beginning as follows: 'Mlle. Yvette Guilbert, whom Mme. Sarah Bernhardt says she does not know how enraged she was, the great tragedian.

"Anyhow, she was having an enormous success with 'Ivey,' and the press covered her with praise. She was younger and more talented than ever. I, to punish her for her wickedness, enjoyed her success immensely, and talked of it everywhere, cordially, I assure you.

"A real conflict came with Mme. Melba. The battle took epic proportions. I had met in a New York home a friend of Mme. Melba, and this friend said to her the next day: You are to take breakfast with Yvette Guilbert and me tomorrow.' She rose, and said, with violent indignation: 'I take breakfast with that singer? You might, at the worst, have invited her to come at dessert and sing one of her couplets for pay.' The friend related the thing to me, and I replied simply: 'Well, that is natural. I am not of the Orleans family!' The journals reported the incident, and Melba vowed eternal hatred against me.

" M. Grau, Director of the Metropolitan Opera House, had engaged me to sing at a Sunday concert. On the programme the names of Melba, Nordica, and Plançon appeared beside mine. When Melba heard of this she asked Grau to suppress the concert, and Grau came to ask me if I would consent not to sing. I replied at once: 'My dear fellow, you have engaged me to sing at a concert for $600: you said that it would be a good thing for me, because ladies who would not go to a music hall would come to your house to hear me, and I will sing in your house. I will distribute the money among poor Frenchmen of New York, but I will sing at your concert.' And I sang. Melba. Plançon, and Nordica refused to sing with me, but the result was $2,400 in receipts, quite as much as if those precious stars had contributed their voices to the entertainment.

"They have Calvé in New York. She obtains fabulous triumphs, and makes receipts of $2,800 that neither Melba nor de Reszke can realize. In Boito's "Mephistopheles" she has superb audiences. She expressed a sympathetic feeling for me, and came to see me every morning that I might translate for her the newspaper articles that she could not read, and that covered her with flowers. A theatrical manager offers to her $60,000 for a four months' engagement, with three performances a week; this gives you an idea of the effect which she is producing in America."

" What were your profits? "

" Net $31,000. Pretty, isn't it? What is prettier is the enthusiastic welcome of the Americans. Every night six songs in French, three in English, and always recalls and plaudits. Of all the countries that I have traversed - England, Austria, Hungary, and the rest - America is the one which comes closest to ours. I shall always retain a delightful remembrance of it."

Yvette Guilbert has brought a phonograph from America. "Listen! " she says. She puts into the machine and a roll which Calvé herself prepared and the roll says:

"Thank you, dear Mademoiselle, for having offered to do errands for me in Paris. Make my compliments to H. (Let's be discreet.) You may even kiss him twice for me." Then Calvé's voice sings, with curious imitations of Yvette's, " Le Fiacre qui s'en va Trottinant," and soon interrupts itself to sigh: "Mon Dieu! How difficult it is, and how talented one has to be, to sing such things!" And then " Calvé's admirable voice sings superbly, "Love Is a Rebellious Bird."