MUSIC AND THE STAGE

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17865, 5 June 1926, Page 22 (Supplement)

MUSIC AND THE STAGE

FADS OF SOME OF THE WORLD’S FAMOUS ARTISTS

SINGER WHO SWALLOWED CONTENTS OF THE MUSTARD POT.

Adelina Patti, who, at the age ol seven, earned £4OOO. and refused 4c sing at Cincinnati until her manager had bought her a doll she fancied, waalways very determined about the preservation and. care of her voice. Though emperors and dukes awaited her appearance on the platform, nothing would induce her to sing unless she felt perfectly fit. “If 1 did not feel well, I went to bed and said there was no one in. I would not sing.” she declared to a friend. Moreover, she spared her voice when ever possible during a performance The chorus and orchestra crashed together as the prim a donna’s notes began to ascend. It really* did not matter much who sang those final top notes so long as they* could be reso lutely* reached, and so. for instance, at the Covent Garden Opera House it was the part of the good Bauermeister to sing the top notes instead of Patti, and nobody in the audience was ever the Caruso’s Plaint. Malibran, another famous prima donna, refused to be worried about

either her health or her voice. She was very fond of horse-riding and would gallop about tirelessly* all day* in the Bois de Boulogne, even when she was due to sing the same evening. Her husband one day* remonstrated with her when she came into the din-ing-room. “ Marie,” he said, “ y-ou’ll be tired to death. You’ll never be able to sing to-night.” “Shall I not?” she cried. “This is what will make me sing,” and before anyone could interfere she seized the mustard-pot and swallowed half its contents. It is well known that Caruso was very* temperamental, and this often showed itself when he was engaged at a rehearsal. On a certain occasion he was rehearsing in conjunction with Signora de Nuovina, a famous soprano, and he was so concerned with the music and action that he had omitted to remove his hat. The prima donna, resenting the omission, snatched his hat from his head and threw it on the stage, crying, in her anger: “When you sing with a lady, take your hat off.” Singing for a Night’s Lodging. Poor Caruso had many troubles. Yes, “poor” Caruso, though he earned immense sums for a single night’s engagement. “ People expect circus tricks from me, and it is natural enough they should,” he once exclaimed to a friend. “Enormous promises are on my behalf by* those who charge enormous prices to hear me. If they* charged double the usual rates they* would cover expenses. Why, then, charge four or five times the usual rates? These things excite me dread fully*, and T am not master of my* re sources. The feeling that unprecedented things are expected of me makes me ill. and I fail to do half as well as I might otherwise do.” Caruso, of course, was not always prosperous and popular, and as a youth knew what it was to sing for the price of his board and lodging. On one occasion, after a brief season at Leghorn, Caruso had managed to reach Milan, where he hoped to raise sufficient money to take him back to Florence. Fie tried to borrow a small amount, but failed. The singers, conductors, managers, all turned him down. America set him on his feet, and he never forgot it. The ex-Kaiser once said to him: “Caruso, why don’t you turn your back on America, and stay with us. always in Europe?” “Your Majesty,” exclaimed the tenor, “my gratitude to America will only* be extinguished with my death.” Lost His Voice. The famous singer, Tetrazzini, is

very fond of telling of the days wher she and her sister shared rather humble rooms, as they went from place tc place. One landlady* had been very kind and motherly, and the sisters thanked her on leaving. She was busy over her washtub, and looked up at them with benign compassion and said: “ That’s all right, my dears; I'm always good to theatricals; for I never know what my own children may* come to.” When Winckelmann, the great tenor, was taking the part of hero in a performance of “ Lohengrin ” in Vienna, he had reached the middle cf the last act when he suddenly* and completely* lost his voice. A violoncello in the orchestra instantly continued the voice part, and Winckelmann proceeded to the end of the Scene in dumb show. Sims Reeves was notably “ faddy* ” about his voice, and he himself once declared that his “ extreme conscientiousness ” about his voice had cost him no less than £BO.OOO. When asked what his test of. unfitness was, he said; “You get a peppery feeling, a dryness in the throat, an irritation of the mucous membrane. The saliva refuses to flow properly*, the vocal cords lose their beautiful coating. The throat of a tenor is as sensitive as highly-polished steel, which is affected by the most minute speck of dust, or the least breath of air. Why, if y*<ra bend down for any* time the mere contraction of the muscles produces a feeling of huskiness.” Pianist and Prime Minister. It is not generally known that the famous pianist Paderewski, who* was for a time Prime Minister of Poland, is also a doctor of philosophy* of Lem berg University. Ilis philosophical qualities, however, do not prevent him from an unrestrained contempt for whistling people. “ Any man,” he says. “ ought to have the right to shoot a whistler at sight.” Judging by his comment in the visitors’ book of a London hotel, he has the same kind of feeling towards people who talk while he is playing. “ They* talked here when I was playing,” was the brief comment accompanying his signature.

A well-known musical man, after one of Paderewski’s wonderful recitals, ex claimed to him: “Now I know what you are. You are the devil!” The famous man was greatly pleased and retorted: “ And you are an angel for saying so.” The well-known sensitiveness of Paderewski and other modern artists is as nothing in comparison with that of the famous pianist, Rubinstein, who. when playing Chopin’s, Funeral March in St James’s Hall, was' so disturbed by hearing a post-horn sounded suddenly from a coach in Piccadilly that he took his hands off the piano and dashed them down again with a crash on the keys in a fit of anger. He sat for a moment quite still and then began to play the piece again but it was a very tame performance, as the spirit of music seemed to have forsaken the great man. The Man Who Yawned. Rubinstein confessed that the reason he never looked at the audience was that once, in doing so, he saw, as he was playing, a stout man in the front row in the act of a most exceptional yawn. The reaction upon his state ol mental ecstasy was so immediate and acute as well-nigh to ruin the rest of his performance. Brahms had a very decided prejudice against women musicians (says a writer in “The Nottinghamshire Guardian”), and confessed that he had tried to make his two piar.o concertos prohibitive for women players. One day. in company, he expatiated on this point with Teresa Carreno, sitting next to him. “Alas!” he concluded. “ 1 thought 1 had succeeded, but women will play them.”Carreno, with her ready tact, exclaimed : “ My dear Maestro, I sit here overwhelmed with mortification.” “ Ah,” replied Brahms, “ don’t suppose 1 mean you; I always regard you as a man pianist.”