The expense of maintaining an opera house so nurtured at home will be at most not more than one-fourth what it would be if the artists were brought from Europe. American vocalists would be content with some few thousand dollars a year, and, if they were sought for and educated, boarded and lodged gratuitously the meanwhile, their services could be procured for several years in payment of the expenses of apprenticeship. In that way alone can the exorbitant demands of foreign artists be diminished; and the folly and extravagance of paying them from one to ten thousand dollars a night, as has been done in this city, will be forever avoided. In connection with this it may be mentioned that there are some Americans now studying for the operatic stage in Italy, and one lady of Boston has appeared in Naples with success. It may yet come to pass that art, in all its ramifications, may be as much esteemed as politics, commerce or the military profession. The dignity of American artists lies in their hands.
Mr. Fry's hopes, so far as the Academy of Music is concerned, were never realized, and after half a century his words are echoing wherever writers indulge in discussion of ways and means for promoting American music. Yet, without schools connected with opera houses American singers have made their mark, not only at home, but in the lyric theaters of Italy, France, Germany, and England. Names like Clara Louise Kellogg, Annie Louise Cary, Minnie Hauk, Alwina Valleria, Emma Nevada, Lillian Nordica, Adelaide Phillips, Emma Albani, and Josephine Yorke are connected more or less intimately with the history of the Academy of Music, but they do not exhaust the list. To them must be added those of Charles Adams, Suzanne Adams, David Bispham, Robert Blass, William Candidus, Emma Eames, Signor Foli, Geraldine Farrar, Julia Gaylord, Helen Hastreiter, Eliza Hensler (the daughter of a Boston tailor who became the morganatic wife of Dom Fernando of Portugal), Louise Homer, Emma Juch, Pauline l'Allemande, Marie Litta, Isabella McCullough, Frederick C. Packard, Jules Perkins, Signor Perugini, Mathilde Phillips, Susan Strong, Minnie Tracey, Jennie Van Zandt, Emma Abbott, Bessie Abott, Julia Wheatley, Virginia Whiting (Signora Lorini), Edyth Walker, Marion Weed, Zélie de Lussan, Clarence Whitehill, Allen Hinckley, Joseph F. Sheehan, and half a dozen or more singers now attracting attention in London and Germany.