FROM STAGE TO EMBANKMENT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15551, 7 March 1914, Page 2 (Supplement)

FROM STAGE TO EMBANKMENT

FATE OF A GREAT BARITONE.

HAD SUNG WITH MME. MELBA.

Poignant pathos invested the story told recently to the coroner at Surbiton of the vicissitudes of a well-known operatic singer who, in the heydey of his fame, as a baritone, sang with Patti and Melba] but who, owing to adversity, was driven in later years to sleep on the Thames Embankment. Deceased was Mr. Richard Green, who threw himself in front of an express train at Surbiton and was killed, Mr. Green first appeared in opera in 1&91 as Prince John in Sir Arthur .Sulivan's' "Ivanhoe," and during the following 20 years he sang at the Savoy and Covcnt Garden. The pitiful story was told Iv Mr. Samuel Solomon, who described himself as a singer, who had known Mr. Gr<-en for many years. Deceased was a nun. he said, who had sung in some of the best operas and musical plays in lie country. He had sung with Mine. Patti and Mni'e. Melba at Covent Garden, and had sung in an opera composed by witness's brother. Coroner : Were his troubles due in his own fault?—l don't think it was las own | fault. He has told me that lie has walked | his feet off looking for engagements, and j that sometimes he was so hard up that he | was driven to sleep on the Thames EmI bankment.

Coroner : How was it then that he fell from the high position he held in the musical profession ?—I think he lost a lot of money through speculation?, and his mother left him a lot of money, which lie also lost in that way. Then he lost some money in trying to educate himself to sing in four or five foreign languages. i n addition to these losses, he lost money in rubber shares. He once advanced money to men who were promoting comic operas, and he used to write to them asking for some of the money that they owed him. Occasionally he received half-a-crown from them.

Coroner How much do you think lie lost altogether?—l could not say whether he lost or not. It is only what he told me. He told me once that he went to deputise for an artist at a local musichall, and that he was so well liked that he got two or three " curtains," and the proprietor promised him an engagement. He kept on writing about this, but could get no reply, and this seemed to worry him also..

Coroner : That, I suppose, was the •' last straw ?"—Yes. I have asked him to try and pull himself together, and he has replied, " I have tried everything I am fit for. I have slept on the Embankment, and I have walked the streets looking for engagements." I once found hin without enough to pay for a shave, and said to him, " Yon need not sleep on the Embankment any longer; come and stay with me," and I took him to my house at Surbitoa, where he had been living for the past five or six months. He went up to town nearly every morning. A short time ago deceased got a chance of singing for one of Mr. George Dance's companies, but when he was tried he could not get up to the top G, and after that they did not want him.

The driver of an express train from Waterloo to Portsmouth, said that as he was approaching Surbiton Station at about 50 miles an hour he saw Mr. Green standing on local platform. When the train, was close to him he jumped on to the local line, and then threw himself in front of the express, which was pulled up a-quarter of a mile further on.