Page:Anecdotes of Great Musicians.djvu/79

Rh with some one she did not like, or by being entirely omitted from the cast, peculiar as it may seem, this circumstance had an immediate effect on Ronconi's throat,—it would be impossible for him to sing.

On one occasion the manager, after receiving a note to the effect that it would be impossible for the singer to appear, took a physician with him and called on the invalid. Ronconi expressed his regrets in a hollow whisper; but the impresario, knowing the tenor's consummate powers as an actor, doubted the genuineness of this whispering performance. So he simply expressed his sympathy and proceeded to converse on certain topics that he knew would interest the singer.

In a few moments Ronconi forgot his assumption of vocal inability, and was talking in his full natural voice. When his attention was called to the fact he ascribed his wonderful recovery to the mere presence of so excellent a physician. He sang that night and with more than usual energy.  

Composers are not always keen to tell stories at their own expense or at that of their compositions, but the following related by Leoncavallo, the prominent young composer of the modern Italian school, he deemed too good to keep, though at the time it put him in the light of a first-class plagiarist.

Being one day in the town of Forli, he heard that his opera "Paggliacci," that work which has given him so much fame, was to be produced, and he decided to hear it incognito. That the rising young composer was in town, was not generally known.

At the opera his seat was beside a bright-eyed and enthusiastic young lady, who, when she saw the composer did not join in the general applause, but remained quiet, turned to him with the question:— 