FINDING THE MELBA OF TODAY

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 18, 20 July 1935, Page 25

FINDING THE MELBA OF TODAY

Melba and Patti are dead, and to-1 day it is the Garbos, the Hepburns, and the Gracie Fieldses who occupy the limelight which once was the unquestioned property of the spectacular and ■brilliant opera stars, Writes1 Glyn Roberts in the "Daily Mail." Yet very cosmopolitan and very varied in temperament, in appearance, and in gifts are the great prime donne of today. ■•'... Poland supplies the regal and beautiful Maria Olsczewska, a consummate Wagnerian singer; Hungary the dazzling beauty, Maria Jeritza, whose excellent voice and overwhelming personality are backed up by flrst-rate ■ acting ability. The Scandinavian countries, not content with Jenny Lind, and the gift to the talkies of thei incomparable Garbo, are well to the fore with Gota Ljungberg, who has to her name a list of sensational first appearances—she is a woman of exceptional beauty—in different opera houses which none of her can surpass; Eldc Norena, whose pure soprano voice has made her the idol of Paris; and Kirsten Flagstad,: whose recent work in New York has excited critics enormously. Both the two last-named are Norwegians. ■ ■• • , Two Spanish singers stand glaringly to the fore, one on' each side of < the Atlantic. In America there is the beautiful and popular Lucrczia Bori, who lately surprised New York, which . knew her only aa a delightful delinea-

tor of light florid roles, by taking a leading part in saving the Metropolitan Opera House of New York from finan-cial-collapse. In Europe there is the ebullient Conchita Supervia, a beautiful woman, an excellent actress, and a singer without an equal in her own particular province. She has macje London her home. Great German singers are.Frlda Leider, Gertrude Kappel, Erna Berger —a brilliant newcomer, this—Emmy BGttendorf, Elena Gerhardt, Frieda Hempel. Grace Moore is America's newest and best. The most famous Italian prima donna of the day is Rosa Ponscye, who was born of Italian parents in America." To France goes the'distinction Of providing the newest sensation—Lily Pons, frail and diminutive, still only in her twenties, yet the possessor, say the doctors, of the most powerful throat since Caruso. , Where stands England? Not badly. Eva Turner is a star of European reputation, and there are some young performers, at the Old Vie and elsewhere, who may shortly attain international celebrity—Ruth, Naylor, Thea Phillips, Joan Cross, Elena Danieli, for example. One great singer remains ; unmentioned. I have left her to the last because it seems fair to name her p". all in all, the finest musical artist, the greatest woman singer, of the day.1 I mean Lotte I.ehmann, for many years now an idol on the Continent, in Chicago, and New York, and at Covent Garden, where she is singing now.