ADVENTURES ON TOUR

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 131, 1 December 1930, Page 13

ADVENTURES ON TOUR

A SI/.7KE IN THE BEDROOM

"Life has presented nic with a generous share of time-tables and maps. My concert tours in America alone cover each season some 10,000 miles. Then there aro foreign tours, such as my recent ones in the Philippines, China, Japan, and the Antipodes," writes Amelita Galli-Curci in the "Daily Mail." "First, years ago, I sang throughout tho length of Italy, then in Egypt, South America, Russia, Spain. ' L first reached the United States intent only on sightseeing. I was engaged for threo guest-performances at the Chicago Opera, and the first of them resultod in my singing for nine consecutive years in. the United States. Daily exercise and tho refusal of all social invitations during tours are the two 'musts' of the singer who would keep fresh. Courage is needed at ono's debut in a strange land. Concentration takes wings and one has to trust to instinct to do the right thing, until an outburst of applause tolls that one is facing friends. "Only once have I experienced real danger on tho stage. During the war I was singing in 'Dinorah' at Chicago. A fiend had put a bomb in tho orchestra. There was. a flash of flame, but the bomb did not explode. The orchestra stopped and panic started in the audience. The conductor, Campanini, rapped his desk, and said to the orchestra, 'Play the "Star-spangled Banner"!' aud to me, 'Sing it!' They played, I sang, and the panic was over. "Iv years gone by I was once engaged to sing small parts at tho Buenos Aires Opera. A prima-donna fell ill, and I was asked at an hour's notice to sing Gilda in 'Eigoletto.' I faced a disappointed audience who had never heard me or of me. Never did I need concentration more. I had to malce my reputation before a strange public, and make it in five minutes or not at all. At such times only serenity will conquer. I had to sing 'Caro Nome' three times that night. For tho rest of-the season I sang leading parts. "Once I was at Santiago in Chile when a 'prophet' foretold an earthquake. The population turned out into the park and spent the night there. I preferred to stay indoors. There was no earthquake, but it rained' in torrents. There was, however, an earthquako that day somo five or six hours away. "Another travelling expevieneo wns a sandstorm at sea, three days out from Yokohama. I could scarcely breathe, and it took me days to get back into good voice. And yet another experience was finding a snake in my bedroom at Rio de Janeiro."