£2000 A SONG.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 10 December 1924, Page 4

£2OOO A SONG.

HOW GALLI CURCI WAS “DISCOVERED.

The announcement that Madame Galli Curci is coming to New Zealand recalls the fact that this queen of song is at present receiving £20,000 in fees for a six weeks’ tour of Great Britain. “Madame Galli Curci, the singer whose salary rose from £5 a week to £2OOO a song, arrived at New Plymouth yesterday on doard the liner Pans, from the United States,” stated the Birmingham Gazette of October 8. “A deputation of musical-men, headed by the Mayor, went out in a special tender to welcome Madame Galli Ouri, who received the party in her saloon, which had been converted into a floral bower by the numerous tributes of flowers sent her by friends and admirers. “To a Gazette representative the famous prima donna related how she first became a singer. “I love to tell the story,” she said with a charming smile. “It recalls such beautiful thoughts of home and my young days. “It was a Christmas Eve, when we always had a family gathering at home and a party to celebrate the ocasion. Grandmother (Madame Galli Roti) was a great singer. She rendered some of her opera arias. How I listened. I was inspired. I could not take my eyes away from her. I longed to sing like she did. I sang a little song my mother had taught me, and when I finished granny embraced me, saying, ‘Amelita, some day you will be a greater prima donna than I ever was.’ I never forgot those words, and I cried with delight when she spoke them. “Mascagni heard me sing, and he told rnv parents to let me take up singing. ‘lt will be her fortune,’ he told them.” The Gazette understands that Madame Galli Curci will receive £2O,(XX) in fees for the six weeks’ tour she is to make in England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. This is believed to be the highest salary ever paid to a singer hero, but th<-> P’inia donna nevertheless will receive less than she does in the States, where her ordinary fee is £IOOO a- night.