Gracie Fields’ Ambition

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 170, 21 July 1939, Page 11

Gracie Fields’ Ambition

Gracie Fields went to the opera at Covent Garden last month to hear a great English prima donna who is helping her to achieve tho crowning ambition of her career. She x>l an s one day to sing in opera, and her idol, Eva Turner, is coaching that famous plastic voice in the higher realm of music. “Turandot” was the first grand opera Gracie had ever heard at Covent Garden. “Ever since I met Eva on board ship coming from America last February she has been nagging at me to sing operatic music,” said Gracie, as she sat in the prima donna’s dressing-room during the interval. “Eva’s been coming to my homo to listen to me go over arias from ‘La Boheme’ and ‘Madam Butterfly,’ and has given mo advice on breathing and producing the old voice. I’ve been messing about with it so long, earning my living as a comic. I thought it might bo too late to get it to do the real stuff. But Eva says ‘No.’ I’ve always loved real music best, and back of my mind all the time I have had that longing to sing an operatic role one day.”