TENOR'S VISIT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22444, 13 June 1936, Page 18

TENOR'S VISIT

ME. RICHARD CROOKS

EARLY WORK RECALLED NO HARD ROAD TO SUCCESS Big anil burly in liis brown tweeds. Mr. Richard Crooks, oik; of America's finest tenors, sat in the lounge of the Mariposa yesterday morning and detailed some of the incidents in a career that has placed him on the list of the country's best-known opera and radio sinners.

'"Dumb as a tenor" is a popular saying in German opera circles, as 'Mr. Crooks himself remarked, hut this .15-year-old leading tenor of the New York Metropolitan Opera lacks nothing in personality. With his dark hair, tanned skin, rj u ifk smile and hearty laugh he might easily lie mistaken for an Italian, for he has much of the natural vivacity of the race that has produced so many great opefn singers. Hut li is height and pleasant drawling voice are clues to his membership in the select circle of native-born singers who liavo achieved fame both in America and

abroad. ''l cannot say J had a terrible struggle," confessed Mr. Crooks as the prelude to the storv of his rise to fame. "I started at the ago of nine as a hoy soprano in an episcopal choir at Trenton, New Jersey. L warbled along until my voice changed. Then the war came along, and I served as a cadet officer in the United States Army Air Force, hut never got any further than Langley Field. Virginia "Afterwards, 1 sang for two years at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church," continued Mr. Crooks. "Then 1 studied for four years in M unieh under Raucheisen, who used to be accompanist to Fritz Kreisler, and made niv debut in Tosca' at Hamburg in 1927."

Mr. Crooks added that he studied originally with the intention of becoming a concert singer, but was persuaded to enter upon an operatic career by Walter Damrosch, conductor of the New York Symphony Orchestra. He also studied in France, and Italy, where he learned two Italian operas, and later sang "Tosca" and "Faust" in Berlin. The idea that the Metropolitan Opera would not give an American singer a chance unless lie was a proven success was not supported by Mr. Crooks. "There is no prejudice against nativehorn singers," lie said. "The Metropolitan offered me contracts for four or five years before I went there." "I leave that to my thinner and more handsome colleagues," said Mr. Crooks smilingly when asked if fi;> had ever done any screen work. "1 am quite happy where I am. Besides. I do not think opera singers are capable of doing as fine acting as experienced screen actors." Mr. Crooks is married, and has two children. Patricia, aged l.'i, and Dickie, aged 10. "Dickie is not a singer," emphasised his father. "He seems to want' to bo either a policeman or a Texas! ranger." Next to singing, Mr. Crooks likes best 1 to fish, swim, or play golf. 11 is favourite! opera is Massenet's '"Manon." Mr. Crooks left on the Mariposa last j night for Australia.