GRAND OPERA STAR

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 36, 11 August 1923, Page 20

GRAND OPERA STAR

The star, outside of the diva herself in the Melba Grand Opera Company which is to tour Australia and. New Zealand early next year, will be Mine. Dalmonte, an outstanding lyric soprano of Italy, whom Melba heard in "Lucia" at La Scala, where her success was said to have beeD phenomenal. The season will not open before about March next. There will be some costly voices in this great company. Even a decade ago, when Melba secured a number of fine, singers for a moderate outlay, M'Cormick drew £150 a week, but it is stated that in the 1924 company more than that will be paid .'to the - second tenor. Altogether, the company's salary will run into-£2OOO a''week more-than the old. The contracts all stipulate in respect to the.principals that they, shall be; paid in the " current value of .exchange in lire,: the, lire being worth in exchange, ordinarily,- about B|d in English money.- ■ Thus there will be the problem of millions of lire, when the pay . envelopes are being ■ sorted out. Fastidious persons, these "heavies" in the opera world. They have not only set a problem for financiers, but they will probably want their own favourite vegetables, and a laboratory for producing artificial sunshine for their voices if they strike a wet and cold snap. Mme. Dalmonte will avoid the "dreaded sea voyage' considerably, we are told, by starring in South America and New York and coming across the Pacific. It certainly pays to be a prima donna of the same constellation as Melba.