Page:Eminent women of the age.djvu/509

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CLARA LOUISA KELLOGG.
465

Her acting and singing, in the malediction scene, in act second of this opera, are still remembered, with lively emotions of astonishment and admiration, because of their extraordinary vitality, tragic force, and glittering precision of method, in which art concealed every trace of art and wielded the magical wand of nature. In addition to these. Miss Kellogg has made signal successes in "Crispiuo e la Comare," "Fra Diavola," "Il Barbiere di Seviglia," "I Puritani," "L'Etoile du Nord," "La Sonnambula," "Martha," "Don Giovanni," "Lucia di Lammermoor," and "La Traviata." Her début in London was made on the 2d of November, 1867, as Margherita. Few triumphs so genuine and so brilliant as hers have ever been won upon the London stage, and no American musical artist has hitherto attained a reputation at all commensurate with that which Miss Kellogg now enjoys abroad. Her impersonations, indeed, and her delightful vocal powers have in a surprising manner affected both the mind and the heart of the English people. Many pages might easily be filled with thoughtful and ardent praises of the singer, from the soundest critical journals in London. A single quotation from one of these will not here be misplaced, as representative of the tone of European opinion respecting the prima donna of whom the art-public of her native America is so justly proud.

"Miss Kellogg," said the London "Review," on the Saturday subsequent to her début, "has for four or five years past enjoyed the highest renown in her own land, reports of which have long reached us here; and now we are are to bear testimony to the truth of the praise which has been bestowed on her by American critics. No ordeal could have been found more severe than a first appearance as Margherita in Gounod's 'Faust,' a part in which the London public has seen and heard some eight or more artists,—some