following year at age eighty-three; his son, Adélard, Curé of St. Monique des Deux Montagnes, officiated at the funeral. Shortly afterwards, Emma learned that Ernest Frederick's hopes had been realized: he had been hired by the British Foreign Office.
Inveterate performer that she was, Emma recorded arias and songs for the phonograph, and set off on a tour of South Africa. Later, she would tour Australia, New Zealand, India, and Ceylon. Now in her late fifties, she was beginning to be exhausted by her frequent voyages.
Albani made her farewell tour of Canada in 1906. Cornélia, realizing that it might be the last time she would see her country, came along with her sister. Emma sang in Toronto, Ottawa, Sherbrooke, and Sorel. In Montreal, she sang in the Salle Ludger Duvernay of the Monument national3 and at the Mount Royal Arena. She appeared there with Éva Gauthier, a young Ottawa-born mezzo-soprano and a protégée of Sir Wilfrid Laurier. Instrumentalists and choral singers completed the touring company.
Emma travelled by paddlewheeler from Montreal to Chambly, where she sang for the farmers and their families returning from market. It was an emotional moment, against the backdrop of the setting sun and the calm waters of the Richelieu River. In her home town, every visit by Emma Albani was an occasion for festivities, and every day she spent there comprised a veritable ritual. The diva would wake up at one o'clock in the afternoon and have breakfast in bed. At three o'clock, she would rise and don a satin and lace peignoir to receive her intimate friends. Towards the end of the afternoon, she would leave the house. Very elegantly dressed, with the lower half of her face covered by a black scarf to protect her throat, she would walk along the banks of the river.
In Ottawa, Governor General Earl Grey and Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier attended an Albani recital. Emma and Ernest were invited several times to the prime minister's residence.
One evening, as they returned to their hotel room, Emma asked her husband: “Don't you find it odd that in a conquered country, a French Canadian is prime minister and rallies the two peoples together?”
“My darling, this harmony is obviously due to the complete freedom given to the French by their English brothers, so that all live together as one large and happy family,” was Ernest's complacent reply.
“Nelly would say that the French Canadians have the large families and the English have all the power. Don't you think that's the case?”
“I think it's time you went to bed, my dear!”
The canopied bed was inviting, and the discussion ended there.
Ernest spent his days taking photographs with his Brownie camera. He was like a delighted little boy playing with a new toy. No more cumbersome glass plates, heavy camera body, and unwieldy tripod: the Kodak film was light and practical.
Emma found it much more difficult to leave her homeland this time; she felt as if she were leaving part of her heart there.
Back in London, Albani resumed her usual round of singing engagements, letter-writing, fittings at the dressmaker's, dinner out followed by the opera or the theatre. One such evening in 1906 was memorable: it was Adelina's Patti's farewell recital, after fifty-six years as a performer.
In a letter from the Canadian landscape painter Maurice Cullen, Emma learned that the Ouimetoscope, the first moving picture theatre in North America, had been inaugurated on January 1, 1906. “Sometimes, I leave my studio in the Rue Richelieu in Chambly to treat myself to an evening at the cinema in Montreal,” he wrote.
The years were passing quickly, and the soprano's voice showed signs of increasing deterioration. On October 14, 1911, Albani regretfully retired from an active career. Her farewell performance took place at the Albert Hall in London, to a full house that included Sir Arthur Sullivan, Matilde Marchesi, Adelina Patti, Nellie Melba, Emma Calvé, and numerous other notables of the opera world. Emotions ran high; thousands of Albani's fans wept as they listened to her sing Tosti's aria, Goodbye. When Emma finally left the stage after repeated ovations by her well-wishers, Cornélia was there to wipe her brow with her handkerchief; Ernest kissed her, and Ernest Frederick embraced his mother, who was trembling like a leaf. The next day's newspapers gave the event the respect Albani was due, reiterating the general opinion that “Madame Albani remains one of the most brilliant musical figures of the nineteenth century.”
Emma's nostalgic sadness that year was augmented by the unveiling of Victoria's great funeral monument. In his invitation to her to attend the ceremony, the King reminded Emma, “Her Majesty enjoyed your company very much, and loved your beautiful voice.”
Although the occasional newspaper article would mention that the retired opera star “was living quietly in her house in Kensington, giving the odd public recital for the aid of charity,” the hidden reality was more difficult. The bare fact was that money was short in the Gye household. Emma acted to replenish the coffers by writing her memoirs in collaboration with a young journalist, Harold Simpson. Forty Years of Song, published in London and Toronto in 1911, relates the singer's struggle for perfection and recognition, her rise to prominence, and her glory days at the top of her profession, combined with sketches of many of the great singers, conductors, and composers she had known during her career. Although it is invaluable as a personal chronicle of Albani's life, it reveals a failing memory; inaccuracies in dates and places mar the total effect.
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