on the stage, she shook with such evident trepidation and nervousness that her little remaining power of voice threatened to be destroyed.  Perhaps the passion and anxiety under which she was laboring wrought the miracle.  She sang the aria allotted her with such power and precision, and the notes of her voice burst forth with such beauty and fullness of tone, that the audience were carried away with admiration.  The recently despised young vocalist became the heroine of the evening.  Berg, the director of the music, was amazed, and on the next day acquainted Jenny Lind that he had selected her to undertake the role of Agatha in Weber’s “Der Freischutz.”

This was the first character which had awakened our young singer’s artistic sympathies, and toward it her secret ambition had long set.  She studied with the labor of love, and all the Maytide of her young enthusiasm poured itself into her impersonation of Weber’s beautiful creation.  At the last rehearsal before performance, she sang with such intense ardor and feeling that the members of the orchestra laid aside their instruments and broke into the most cordial applause.  “I saw her at the evening representation,” says Fredrika Bremer.  “She was then in the spring of life—­fresh, bright, and serene as a morning in May; perfect in form; her hands and her arms peculiarly graceful, and lovely in her whole appearance.  She seemed to move, speak, and sing without effort or art.  All was nature and harmony.  Her singing was distinguished especially by its purity and the power of soul which seemed to swell in her tones.  Her ‘mezzo voice’ was delightful.  In the night-scene where Agatha, seeing her lover coming, breathes out her joy in rapturous song, our young singer, on turning from the window at the back of the stage to the spectators again, was pale for joy; and in that pale joyousness she sang with a burst of outflowing love and life that called forth not the mirth, but the tears of the auditors.”

Jenny Lind has always regarded the character of Agatha as the keystone of her fame.  From the night of this performance she was the declared favorite of the Swedish public, and continued for a year and a half the star of the opera of Stockholm, performing in “Euryanthe,” “Robert le Diable,” “La Vestale,” of Spontini, and other operas.  She labored meanwhile with indefatigable industry to remedy certain natural deficiencies in her voice.  Always pure and melodious in tone, it was originally wanting in elasticity.  She could neither hold her notes to any considerable extent, nor increase nor diminish their volume with sufficient effect; and she could scarcely utter the slightest cadence.  But, undaunted by difficulties, she persevered, and ultimately achieved that brilliant and facile execution which, it is difficult to believe, was partially denied her by nature.