Wisconsin, 1921
SINGS IN MANY OPERAS
Dr. A. H. Milner, Now Visiting in This City
BUSY YEAR IN BERLIN
Finds Student Life in Germany Means Plenty of Work and Constant Self-Denial
If anyone thinks the life of musician is one long dream of pleasure, he would better try studying music in Germany.
This is the opinion, expressed with great emphasis, by Dr. Augustus H. Milner, who has just returned from a year's work in Berlin, under the instruction of Madam Schoen-Rene.
The life of a student who has real ambitions and looks forward to a career of serious work in art, means constant labor, incessant self-denial, moderate living in all ways, according to Dr. Milner.
"If you want to do society singing, that is another matter," says Dr. Milner, with a German shrug. "But if you want to be a real musician—" And then he recounted some of the many qualities that are necessary for a musician, besides the ownership of a voice. You must be first of all really musical in character and have that something that we call temperament. You must have the capacity for work and more work. You must be able to keep at it even when you feel that it isn't any use. You must be able to give up all dissipations and most pleasures, to eat and sleep in such manner and degree as will keep your physical condition at its best. In a word you must be able always to put your music first and everything else second.
Dr. Milner has been having excellent success in this his first year's work abroad. He thinks himself the luckiest of men to have become a pupil of Schoen-Rene, who he says is considered the greatest vocal teacher in the world. Madam Schoen-Rene was a pupil of Manual Garcia, the greatest vocal teacher who ever lived, who had pupils when he was 98 years old and who lived to be 102. Schoen-Rene was at first an interpreter of music and seemed destined to a great career, when she became ill. She came to Minneapolis to visit a sister and, incidentally, to die. Being disappointed in this, she took pupils, among them "Gus" Milner, then studying medicine. When her health was restored she returned to Berlin. Dr. Milner, for he had by that time secured his degree, followed her to Berlin and has been under her instruction ever since.
"Musical affairs are managed this way in Germany," said Dr. Milner. "Every city has a court theatre, under the patronage of a royal duke or some other dignitary. These theatres each have what we call stock companies attached to them, accomplished singers who give every winter a repertory of opera.
"At the head of the system is a gentleman, known as the Hofrath, or court adviser, before whom all persons desiring to sing in the court theatres must present themselves. This official, Carl Harder, is necessarily the dictator in musical affairs.
"When you sing before him and satisfy him that you have musical possibilities, he will provide that you receive an invitation to sing in some of the court theatres. These so-called 'guest performances' mean that the new singer is the guest. He must have prepared his roles and will be given a chance to sing one of them in the regular company attached to the theatre. If, in several guest performances, he makes good he may be engaged as a member of the company and thereafter his career lies ahead of him."
Dr. Milner sang in several guest performances during the past winter, one of his appearances at Prague having been noticed in the columns of this paper. He will sing at other guest performances next winter. That he has been busy during the summer is indicated by the fact that he is now prepared to sing in fourteen operas, and in some of them has committed two roles. He has also changed his voice from a bass to a baritone, on the advice of Mr. Harder.
The list of his operas is as follows: Wagner—Lohengrin and Tannhauser; Beethoven—Fidelio; Weber—Freischutz; Bizet—Carmen; Puccini— Butterfly; Mascagni—Cavalleria; Leoncavallo —Pagliacci; Flotow—Martha; Lortzing—Waffenschmeid; Gounod— Faust; Verdi—Trovatore, Traviata, Masked Ball.
Dr. Milner expects to remain several months in this country and will give a series of concerts at St. Louis, Minneapolis, Indianapolis and Chicago. He will also give a concert in this city before his return.
—The Waukesha Freeman, Waukesha, Wisconsin, November 23, 1911, page 1.
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