The daughter of a village musician living near Lemberg, in Galicia, Madame Sembrich received her early-music lessons from her father. Her first lessons on the piano came when she was four, and at the age of six she began the violin, on an instrument that her father made for her with his own' hands. When it was discovered that she had a voice, she went to Milan to study under Signor Lamperti, and made her debut at the . age of twenty, at Athens, in the character of Lucia. It was in America, however, that Madame Sembrich achieved her greatest triumphs, and two or three years ago she celebrated her twenty-fifth season as a member of the company at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York. With the exception of Madame Patti, she is the only singer that has ever enjoyed the honour of such long popularity in New York. It was in 1880 that Madame Sembrich made her first appearance in London at the Royal Italian Opera. Madame Sembrich has now retired, and lives for the greater part of the year at her delightful home on the shores of Lake Geneva, near the residence of her intimate friends the Paderewskis.

Madame Sembrich E. N. A.