New Leonora

Three years ago a young Italian girl went up unannounced to the Manhattan apartment of Tenor Giovanni Martinelli, rang the bell and asked for a ticket for that night's performance of La Juive. Signora Martinelli was sympathetic, asked the girl why she thought she should have one. She got the very positive answer that it was because the girl intended to sing the role herself some day. Signora Martinelli asked her to come in and sing, was so impressed that she immediately proceeded to round up backers for the girl's study abroad.

In Chicago one morning last week, Serafina di Leo lay abed in a clutter of flowers, telegrams and Sunday papers. A great deal had happened to her in three years. She had studied diligently in Italy, learned to speak pure Italian instead of the dialect on which she had been raised. She had sung at the Scala and in Genoa. With lips vermilion-red and finger nails to match, she returned to the U. S. this autumn to find herself good copy because she was a New Jersey laborer's daughter and at 19 had a five-year contract with the Chicago Civic Opera Company. Her father had died while she was away.

In bed last week, Serafina di Leo read and reread her congratulatory telegrams. The newspapers told her what she already knew, that her debut as Leonora (// Trovatore) the night before had been successful if not sensational, that she had deported herself with accustomed confidence, displayed a powerful voice, bril liant if sometimes hard. . . . Lazily she stretched out, turned to the comic strips.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.