DAME CLARA AND DAME NELLIE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18544, 18 August 1928, Page 1

DAME CLARA AND DAME NELLIE.

extracts from book THAT IS CALLED IN,

The comedy of the two Dames, Clara Butt and Nellie Melba, which figured in recent cables as a sequel to Melba’s alleged advice for an Australian tour, to '‘sing ’em muck! It’s all they understand!” printed in Miss Winifred Ponder’s book, ‘‘Clara Butt, Her Life Story/’ (Angus and Robertson, Sydney) now withdrawn from publication, is not the only incident in which these two singers have been mixed up with amusing results. The ill-fated memoirs relate how, on one occasion during the Rumfords’ 1925 Australian and New Zealand tour, a certain nervous Lord Mayor welcomed Clara Butt “with patriotic pride as ‘the greatest of all Australian singers.’ There was a general laugh, and some one set him right by a hoarse whisper of ‘No, that’s Melba! ’ The poor man, trying his best to set things right again, only grew more and more entangled, and finally addressed Clara cordially as ‘Dame Nellie Butt.’ ” Of peculiar compliments it is refcorded that Melba, having donated a trophy for bulldogs to a Ladies’ Kennel Club, the club decided that the appropriate thing to do with Clara Butt’s was to assign it to the female class of the same breed and call it “The Butt Trophy for the Best Bull Bitch.” While touring in Canada in 1913-14 it chanced that the Rumfords were following most of the way upon the heels of Melba. At Calgary both concerts were fixed for the same night, and a soint supper-reception was arranged by the Women’s Club. “The two Dames ■were expected to shake hands with every one present—a strenuous task enlivened by Melba’s remarks and pertinent comments upon some of those presented. The climax was reached when a gushing little lady trotted up to Melba, and, seizing her by the hand, said excitedly, “You know, I’ve heard Galli-Curci!" “Oh, yes . . . have you? . . . very interesting,” murmured Melba, rather wondering why this piece of information was vouchsafed to her. “Yes,” went on the enraptured one, '“and you’re the next best! ” In view of these and other stories, including one in which Melba is said to have dubbed Clara a “silly young ass” ■because she would not indulge in “promiscuous kissing,” one has some sympathy with Melba for turning. One wonders if she will make an effective reply by publishing her own memoirs. Yet, from her recorded sayings and doings, it is evident that Dame Clara Butt has a sense of humour, with, her biographer assures us, “a decided flair for practical joking.” The life story of Clara Butt, as told by Miss Ponder in her large, well-illus-trated book, makes entertaining reading. Born of middle-class parents, the second child of a runaway marriage, Clara Butt’s childhood was not remarkable. except for the strange circumstance that her singing teacher assumed that she had a soprano voice. The discovery of “gold in her throat” was not made until, an unseen listener, hearing her practising her low notes “for fun,” mistook her voice for a boy’s, and later had her sent to a leading singing master in the west of England. That tremendous contralto voice, once under control, carried the singer, after a series of triumphs, into intimacy with Royalty of many nations. Her acquaintance with the German Court at Potsdam reveals some interesting sidelights on anti-English sentiment in Germany prior to the war. Of anecdotes

about Royal personages, of which there are many, here is one in which our t K the Prince of Wales, played a leading part with the six-foot-two singer. The scene was a dance and musicale. Clara had arrived and was standing near the piano, not far from the Royal group, amongst whom was Prince George (his present Majesty). Obviously some huge joke was in progress, and Clara seemed to be in some way concerned in it. “At last . . . the Prince crossed the room to her, and, politely greeting her, asked her to dance with him. There was only one thing to be done. ‘l’m sorry, sir’’ said Clara, ‘but I’m afraid that either you’re too short, or I’m too tall.* The Prince bowed and retired, amid shouts of laughter from the Royal party, in which Clara had perforce to join, hearing later that the Prince had been ‘dared’ by his friends to proffer the invitation.” There is unintentional humour, too, of course, in life behind the footlights. When Clara sprained her ankle on an occasion of some daredevil riding, she was only just able to get up in time to go to Birmingham to sing in “ Elijah,” and, hobbling by her mother s side, she met Santley bound for the same place. “ Good gracious, girl! ” he said, “ you don’t mean to say you’re going to sing “ O Rest in the Lord ” resting on crutches, do you?” Artistic fitness cried out against it, and she didn't. Stories, of course, cling to songs. It is well known that when Kennedy Rumford first sang “The Keys cf Heaven ” with Clara, he played the real suitor as well as the stage lover. ~ Abide with Me ” has a history which is too long to quote here, and the stories concerning it are legion. “ During the war, Clara Butt received a letter from the mother of a young officer at the front who possessed a gramophone and had “ Abide with Me " among his records. A friend beside him in the trench had put on the record during a ‘ scrap,’ and the first deep notes had sounded when he was killed outright by a shell-burst, which also stunned and wounded the owner of the gramophone. He recovered consciousness after a few minutes, and. writing an account of the occurrence to his mother, said, “ When I came to, good old Clara was still singing! ” As would be expected in a biography of one who has won the fame and high distinctions of Dame Clara Butt, her story abounds in references to wellknown personalities, not only of the musical world and society of Europe, but of all parts of the world, wherever she has sung, and she has sung in diverse places—in national concert halls and royal palaces, under the tropic stars, and beside sun-baked river banks. She has sung to Rupert Brooke while brown figures came padding noiselessly to stand entranced at open doorways; she has gathered at dusk with Gandhi on the bank of the Ganges to sing “ Abide with Me ” where he holds his evening prayers; and. since the gramophone has been perfected, that deep-toned voice has rung out in far-off strange places—in Java, Fiji, China, Borneo, and even in Japan. When asked to write a foreword for this book, Bernard Shaw replied, “Good gracious, I’d never dare! . . . And anyhow, what could I say? ‘Witnessed her debut as Orfeo. Loved her. would have married her if she’d asked me. She didn't. Might actually have chosen Bernard Shaw, and chose a Mr Rumford instead! What a woman! ’ ”, ’Twere best left at that.