Emma Calvé

(Emma Calvé (August 15, 1858 – January 6, 1942) was probably the most famous French female opera singer.)

One year when Swami Vivekananda happened to be lecturing in Chicago, Emma Calvé also happened to be in the same city. At that time she was greatly depressed in mind and body. She had heard about Swami Vivekananda and had seen how he had helped some of her friends. So she decided to meet him.

When she arrived at Swami Vivekananda’s house, she was ushered into his study. Before she went in she was told not to speak until he addressed her. When she entered the room she stood in silence before him. Calvé describes Vivekananda thus, “He was seated in a noble attitude of meditation, his robe of saffron yellow falling in straight lines to the floor, his head swathed in a turban bent forward, his eyes on the ground. After a brief pause he spoke without looking up. "My child," he said, "what a troubled atmosphere you have about you! Be calm! It is essential!" Then in a quiet voice, untroubled and aloof, this man, who did not even know my name, talked to me of my secret problems and anxieties. He spoke of things that I thought were unknown even to my nearest friends. It seemed miraculous, supernatural! "How do you know all this?" I asked at last. "Who has talked of me to you?" He looked at me with his quiet smile as though I were a child who had asked a foolish question. "No one has talked to me," he answered gently. "Do you think that is necessary? I read in you as in an open book.""

Finally when the meeting came to a close, Vivekananda asked her to be happy and cheerful. He said, "Build up your health. Do not dwell in silence upon your sorrows. Transmute your emotions into some form of external expression. Your spiritual health requires it. Your art demands it."

Calvé was deeply impressed by Swami Vivekananda’s words and personality. To her it seemed as if he had emptied her brain of all its feverish complexities and placed there instead his clear and calming thoughts. Calvé said, “I became once again vivacious and cheerful, thanks to the effect of his powerful will. He did not use any of the ordinary hypnotic or mesmeric influences. It was the strength of his character, the purity and intensity of his purpose that carried conviction. It seemed to me, when I came to know him better that he lulled one's chaotic thoughts into a state of peaceful acquiescence, so that one could give complete and undivided attention to his words.”

In her autobiography, My Life, Emma Calvé said of Swami Vivekananda, “It has been my good fortune and my joy to know a man who truly "walked with God", a noble being, a saint, a philosopher, and a true friend. His influence upon my spiritual life was profound. He opened up new horizons before me; enlarging and vivifying my religious ideas and ideals; teaching me a broader understanding of truth. My soul will bear him eternal gratitude. This extraordinary man was a Hindu monk of the order of the Vedantas. He was called the Swami Vivekananda…”