Again, Farrar

Recital. A small block advertisement appeared in Manhattan newspapers some time ago. It carried just the two units of a name but it created more disturbance than all the 6x6 World's Greatest Tenors and World's

Beloved Divas of the past five years. GERALDINE FARRAR would give a recital--and in no time every seat in Carnegie Hall had sold itself. Some went expecting to see the ravishing black-haired Farrar of Metropolitan days. Some went remembering the concert she had given in 1924 when even then the best moments were relics of opera days. Others had heard things --that there was a new Farrar, an artist reborn with the broad splashes of opera far behind and just miniatures of Lieder ahead.

There were grains of truth in each notion. It was a subdued, dignified Farrar who appeared last week--save for one terrible moment when backing off stage, she stepped on her train and sat down Ka-Plop. Her hair has turned gray. Her methods were in all ways softer, more delicate than those of five years back. But still it was the old Farrar, winning, by sheer charm of personality, an audience that was on its feet to greet her, to rush to the front when the program was done, to give thunderous ovations after each number. Her program was not over difficult, but it was in all ways distinctive, with not one inartistic bid for popular favor. Songs from the Italian, French and German, an aria from The Marriage of Figaro and a final group in English. Critics had unqualified praise for her taste, for the intelligence with which she used a voice no longer fresh and glowing, with which she has approached a new and supreme art.

In Melrose. A New England thinking cap, an unerring instinct for knowing the opportune thing at the opportune time, a deep and artistic regard for truth, and a magnetism that compels attention whatever she does--such qualities have gone into the making of Geraldine Farrar, Artist. When she was a little girl in Melrose, Mass., daughter of a storekeeper who played professional baseball in the summer time, she was asked to represent Jenny Lind at the town hall carnival, to sing "Home Sweet Home." But just "Home Sweet Home" alone was beneath the embryo prima donna. She must first dazzle her audience with an aria in a foreign tongue, then bring them close to her, play on their heartstrings with "Home Sweet Home" for an encore. Not a word of Italian did she know but she picked out Siebel's song from Faust, tripped brilliantly over the words just as they were spelled and won her ovation.

He Was Drowned. She dramatized everything, that Farrar child (the accent was on the first syllable then). The neighbors talked about it. She never cared for her first admirer (she was ten) because he sat, a lump of a boy, and would not be thrilled by her singing or her acting. But one day he fell through the ice and was drowned. Here was drama--and the widowed Geraldine was for six weeks a withered little creature in deep black, mopping her eyes through the long school hours with black-bordered handkerchiefs. She bought herself a pair of violently checked stockings to wear when she "must be left alone." She wrote plays, acted in them, designed the costumes. She became a very capable little pianist under her mother's jurisdiction, liked to improvise but always on the black keys, because the "white keys were angels and the black keys devils" and she liked the devils best.

It was directly after her Jenny Lind performance in the town hall that the Farrar horizon spread beyond Melrose. A pupil of the famed Mrs. J. H. Long was in the audience and went back afterwards looking for the prima donna, found her in her stocking feet, just not able to get back into her tight new shoes. Thus Mrs. Long found a new pupil; and the career was launched.

In Washington. There followed study in New York, with Farrar the Student a frequent standee at the "Met," learning the ways of Melba, Calve, Lilli Lehmann, Jean de Reszke, learning to her greater advantage what pleased the purse-poor folk around her who scarcely missed a performance. She studied a year in Washington, was taken one afternoon to call on Mrs. McKinley. News came: DEWEY VICTORIOUS AT MANILA--and Farrar, still the Student, sat down at the piano, played and sang the "Star Spangled Banner."

In the spring of 1898 Maurice Grau, then General Manager of the Metropolitan, offered to let her sing in a Sunday night concert, but Farrar, 16, refused. A Sunday night concert was no occasion for a prima donna's debut. Instead Sidney Farrar sold his store in Melrose, borrowed, in addition, from a Mrs. Bertram Webb of Boston some $30,000* and the Farrars started for Europe--on a cattle boat.

In Berlin. From 1901 to 1906 the sensation at the Berlin Imperia, Opera was MISS GERALDINE FARRAR AUS NEW YORK. She began as Marguerite in Faust, doing the unheard of thing, singing in Italian in a Berlin house, holding a contract saying that she need not sing in German until she had had time to learn the language. She was 19, sparkling, as she is today. The Kaiser was interested; so was the Crown Prince. The Hofmarshall brought her an invitation to appear at the Palace one night. She must wear black or lavender and gloves, for the court was in mourning. But Die Farrar never wore black, or lavender--they weren't becoming--and she never wore gloves when she sang. She would wear white or she would not go. The Hofmarshall trembled. He would see what could be done--and Farrar wore white.

Live Geese. In 1906 Farrar began her engagement with the Metropolitan Opera Company, where she stayed until the spring of 1922. During that time she made countless thrilling moments: in Butterfly and Boheme, in which she has never been matched; in Romeo et Juliette, when she sang the chamber scene in bed, on her back; in Tosca, after she had lighted the candle coming from back stage, a burning white line from the tip of the flame to her beaded train; in Carmen and Zaza, less artistic, perhaps, just as exciting; in Die Koenigskinder, a radiant creature in rags with long golden hair and a golden crown with jagged peaks such as children cut from cardboard, and real live geese (her own innovation) flocking around her.

Backstage they adored her--the younger singers, the chorus, the stage hands, the musicians in the orchestra, the ushers. She brought glamour to the humdrum of rehearsals. Her escapades were their bread-and-butter talk. She always seemed to do the opportune thing at the opportune time, came out on top. She was the only prima donna ever to have her own permanent dressing room. Two of the older singers had been bickering for one for weeks. Gatti was obdurate--and then Farrar came in, casually. No one would mind, would they, if she took that dirty, airless room by the stairs and fixed it up. No one would, so she took it, fixed it over, lined it with brocade, put on the door a big plate--FARRAR.

Jeritza. There have been scores of stories as to why Farrar left the Metropolitan. Greatest publicity has been given to an alleged row with Maria Jeritza, new Austrian import then, because Jeritza was given certain of Farrar's roles. But Farrar and Jeritza never met, the latter admired the U. S. singer tremendously, went often to hear her. The truth was that Farrar, sole relic of the Conried star system, was getting bits of discipline from the management. She herself was tired out, vocally, spiritually. The death of her mother had been difficult for her. There had been the divorce from Cinema-Hero Lou Tellegen* whom she married in 1916. When Mr. Gatti offered her a new contract, it was too late. She had already arranged a concert tour with Manager Charles Ellis of Boston. Never, they say at the Metropolitan, has any celebration rivaled that of Farrar's farewell performance. Flowers, confetti, streamers, tears--to Manhattanites she was "Gerry," a passionate, gay creature who always gave them their money's worth of excitement, and who'd sworn she would leave the opera when she was 40. She kept her word.

Seclusion. No one had believed her. Prima donnas rarely retire at the peak of their career. Still, for five years, Farrar has kept out of the limelight. True there was the concert tour, and an abridged edition of Carmen that toured for a while. But operagoers never lost hope. There have been rumors that she would return to Berlin, that she had already been invited to open the new Metropolitan Opera House. She herself has spoiled the stories./- For her, opera is finished. Henceforth she works in miniature. In opera she played chiefly from her heart, from now on the New England thinking-cap must have harder wear. She will play, and live, from her head as well. For four years she has had the courage, intelligence, to live in seclusion studying, preparing herself for the new adventure--for Lieder, their finest lines, their beauty and simplicity.

In Costa Rica

Last week President Ricardo Jimenez of Costa Rica issued a call for songs "fresh and luxuriant from our farms and our rivers, not withered from the cabarets," songs to defend his people "from the tremendous invasion of poor songs that cross the frontier to spoil our pleasure." Two annual national contests will be held, the material gleaned to be compiled into a book on native music.

Angry Baritone

In Detroit, last week, Baritone John Charles Thomas arrived late for a rehearsal with the Detroit Symphony. The orchestra, busy under Conductor Ossip Gabrilowitsch, would not stop immediately to go over the part of the program it was to share with Baritone Thomas, saw instead its star soloist stride angrily from the hall. This, explained Manager Jefferson B. Webb, was the reason for the last-minute substitution of Tenor Richard Crooks.

U. S. Composers

In Rochester, last week, the Philharmonic Orchestra, under Dr. Howard Hanson of the Eastman School of Music, submitted to a large audience and a jury of six, four manuscript orchestral works of U. S. composers. Pageant of P. T. Barnum by Douglas Moore and Darker America by William Grant Still (Negro) were chosen for publication.

*The arrangement was that Mrs. Webb should advance funds until Farrar's voice was ready to earn her an income. In return, Farrar's life was insured in Mrs. Webb's favor. It was all repaid, Farrar writes in her Geraldine Farrar, within two years after her return to the U. S.

*Farrar herself has taken turns in the cinema, won much praise for her Carmen, Maria Rosa, The Woman God Forgot, The Devil's Stone, The Turn of the Wheel, The Hell Cat, Shadows, The Stronger Vow, Joan the Woman, and The Riddle Woman.

/-Her interview was given to Editor Alfred Human of Singing.