SINGER'S AMBITION.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 11123, 24 July 1907, Page 1 (Supplement)

SINGER'S AMBITION.

MME. NORDICA'S GREAT .{.:;; SCHEME., ■'„- ;.

NEW YORK, June 5. Mme. Lillian 'Nordica has purchased for £20,000 a site of, twenty acres at Harmon, on the hanks of the Hudson River, forty ■ miles distant f rom - New York, for the establishment pf an American Bayreuth. She also intends to found an institute of music, where young American men and. women will be educated for an operatic career at less expense than is involved in training abroad. The prima donna will further build an openair theatre. The .Festival House will be an exact reproduction "of the theatre at Bayreuth. ."' • ' ..'.' The Herald publishes an interview with Mme. Nordica, -who states that during the first year nothing except Wagnerian operas will be performed, but afterwards the plan will include cycles of Shakespearean works, which will probably be performed in the open-air theatre. Sundays will be devoted to oratorios and symphonies to be given in the Opera House. -The Saturday performances will be for the benefit of tlie great masses of the people. The Festival House will be. erected at the expense of Mme. Nordica, but the rest- of the project will be supported by wealthy friends, whose aid she has enlisted.' I am informed that Mr William Rockefeller and Mr Pierpont Morgan are interested in the scheme. *

The Institute of Music will cover four acres. It will include dormitories, where students will be accommodated at 'a minimum expense. The management is to consist of women, with a male advisory board, and the teaching corps will le largely obtained from Europe'. The grounds o'f the surrounding buildings will be in the form of an oval. Mme. Nordica ' hopes to have the first • ■**_- nerian performance by singers either born or residing here; The performances will be given at first only in the summer, so as to enable the greatest European conductors and musicians to come to America. Mr Walter Damrosch will be the musical conductor. Mme. Nordica sails for Europe to-morrow on the Savoie to complete her plans for this project, which she has had in mind for many years. Mme.. Nordica this afternoon informed a press representative that she is going first to Paris, and then to Berlin, where she will see Herr von Possart, and obtain from him the original plans of the Bayreuth Theatre. She will personally visit Frau Cosima Wagner, and the latter' s son Siegfried, and will invite them to attend the dedication of the Festival House, which will take place in June, 1909. The statement is correct that Mme. Nordica will consult all the prominent German singers with whom she has appeared. Many of these will be asked to participate in the first summer's performances. Mme. Nordica has obtained the co-operation of the New York Central Railroad and of all the steamboat lines on the Hudson River for facilitating the pilgrimages of music-lovers to the coming performances.