It’s no easy matter making one’s début at the Opéra, even for a young singer of recognised talent with a beautiful voice who has been engaged in advance and handsomely paid by the theatre management, so that she may reasonably count on the goodwill of the Director and his desire to present her to the public as soon and as favourably as possible. The first necessity, whose importance can readily be grasped, is to choose the role in which she will appear. As soon as the subject comes up for discussion, a variety of voices make themselves heard, with more or less authority and force, giving the artist all sorts of contradictory advice:

“Sing this piece of mine!”

“Don’t sing that piece!”

“You’ll make a success of it, I guarantee.”

“You’ll come a cropper, I swear.”

“All my press and my claque will be for you.”

“All the public will be against you. But if you sing my piece you’ll have the public on your side.

“Yes, but you’ll have all my press and all my claque to contend with, and me into the bargain.”

So the alarmed débutante turns to her Director for guidance. Dear me! What naïveté, asking a Director for direction! The poor man doesn’t know himself which devil to please. He knows full well that these dealers in dud scores—popularly known as “bears”—do indeed wield the influence they claim, and how important it is to humour them, particularly for a débutante. But one can’t after all satisfy both white and black bears at once, so a decision is eventually reached in favour of the bear that growls loudest, and the piece for the début is announced.

The débutante knows her part, but since she has never yet sung it on stage, she needs at least one rehearsal, for which the orchestra, the chorus and the principal members of the cast must all be assembled. This marks the start of a series of intrigues, spitefulnesses, sillinesses, betrayals and acts of idleness and indifference fit to try the patience of a saint. One day the orchestra cannot be mustered, another day the chorus.