The duet is long, as Margaret had often thought when studying it, but

now she was almost startled because it seemed to her so soon that she

found herself once more embracing Rigoletto and uttering a very high

note at the same time. Very vaguely she wondered whether the far-off

person who had been singing for her had not left out something, and if

so, why there had been no hitch. Then came the thunder of applause

again, not in greeting now, but in praise of her, long-drawn,

tremendous, rising and bursting and falling, like the breakers on an

ocean beach.

'Brava! brava!' yelled Rigoletto in her ear; but she could hardly hear

him for the noise.

She pressed his hand almost affectionately as she courtesied to the

audience. If she could have thought at all, she would have remembered

how Madame Bonanni had once told her that in moments of great success

everybody embraces everybody else on the stage. But she could not think

of anything. She was not frightened, but she was dazed; she felt the

tide of triumph rising round her heart, and upwards towards her throat,

like something real that was going to choke her with delight. The time

while she had been singing had seemed short; the seconds during which

the applause lasted seemed very long, but the roar sounded sweeter than

anything had ever sounded to her before that day.

It ceased presently, and Margaret heard from the house that deep-drawn

breath just after the applause ended, which tells that an audience is

in haste for more and is anticipating interest or pleasure. The

conductor's baton rose again and Margaret sang her little scene with

the maid, and the few bars of soliloquy that follow, and presently she

was launched in the great duet with the Duke, who had stolen forward to

throw himself and his high note at her feet with such an air of real

devotion, that the elderly woman of the world who admired him felt

herself turning green with jealousy in the gloom of her box, and almost

cried out at him.

He took his full share of the tremendous applause that broke out at the

end, almost before the lovers had sung the last note of their parts,

but the public made it clear enough that most of it was for Margaret,

by yelling out, 'Brava, la Cordova!' again and again. The tenor was led

off through the house by the maid at last, and Margaret was left to

sing 'Caro nome' alone. Whatever may be said of Rigoletto as a

composition--and out of Italy it was looked upon as a failure at

first--it is certainly an opera which of all others gives a lyric

soprano a chance of showing what she can do at her first appearance.




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