Page:Women of distinction.djvu/126

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WOMEN OF DISTINCTION.

ciation, with a voice of wonderful compass, clearness and flexibility. She renders the compositions of some of the best masters in a style which would be perfectly satisfactory to the authors themselves. Her low or properly bass notes are wonderful, especially for a female voice, and in these she far excels any singing we have ever heard.


The Daily State Register, of Albany, N. Y., speaks as follows:

The "Black Swan's" Concert.—Miss Greenfield made her debut in this city on Saturday evening before a large and brilliant audience in the lecture-room of the Young Men's Association. The concert was a complete triumph for her; won, too, from a discriminating auditory not likely to be caught with chaff, and none too willing to suffer admiration to get the better of prejudice. Her singing more than met the expectations of her hearers, and elicited the heartiest applause and frequent encores. She possesses a truly wonderful voice, and, considering the poverty of her advantages, she uses it with surprising taste and effect. In sweetness, power, compass and flexibility it nearly equals any of the foreign vocalists who have visited our country and it needs only the training and education theirs have received to outstrip them all. The compass of her marvelous voice embraces twenty-seven notes, reaching from the sonorous bass of a baritone to a few notes above even Jenny Lind's highest.

A New York paper speaks of her thus:

Miss Greenfield's Singing.—We yesterday had the pleasure of hearing the singer who is advertised in our columns as the "Black Swan." She is a person of lady-like manners, elegant form and not unpleasing though decidedly African features. Of her marvelous powers she owes none to any tincture of European blood. Her voice is truly wonderful, both in its compass and truth. A more correct intonation, so far as our ear can decide, there could not be. She strikes every note on the exact center with unhesitating decision. She is a nondescript, an original. We cannot think any common destiny awaits her.