Teacher Garden

A handful of people sat in the darkened auditorium of Chicago's Sonotone Theatre (cinemansion for the hard-of-hearing) one day last week. On its bare stage, students were singing opera to the accompaniment of a grand piano. Restlessly, ceaselessly between the stage and the aisles moved a rusty-blonde woman in white sports dress, white low-heeled shoes. She followed the singers about, pushing them, prompting them, gesturing at them, bursting occasionally into song or husky speech. She cried at the confused pianist: "Piano, piano, don't sprint! Follow the singer!'' She brusquely interrupted arias and duets: "Tres pianissimo. . . . But, my dear, you are folle with love for the man! . . . The public--look at your public, there in the galleries too." Then she burst into gay applause: "C'est gentil, c,a!" Prowling around, never sitting down, the woman in white went on for three hours, abruptly dismissing one group of singers to call up another, suddenly feigning vexation that the time had passed so quickly.

Such was the debut of dynamic, 58-year-old Soprano Mary Garden as an operatic coach, at Chicago Musical College. Founded in 1867 by Dr. Florenz Ziegfeld, father of the late musicomedy producer, this privately-run institution is the oldest music school in continuous existence in the U. S.. is now headed by Pianist Rudolph Ganz. This spring when an intermediary suggested to Soprano Garden that she teach there for six weeks, the onetime prima donna of the Chicago Opera willingly accepted. Tuition for the course ("Opera -- Stage Deportment -- Dramatic Song''): $150. From hundreds of applicants, all of whom were supposed to have had training and to show great promise. Miss Garden selected 51. Nine qualified for scholarships given by such people as Mrs. Charles H. Swift (Soprano Claire Dux) and Mrs. Archibald Freer, who stipulated that her beneficiary must learn and sing an aria from her opera. Joan of Arc. Youngest pupil is a girl of 16, oldest a Chicago concert singer named Marie Zendt, fiftyish. Though Miss Garden began teaching with great gusto and abandon, sometimes slapping a thigh for emphasis, her class last week persisted in feeling too religiously awed even to laugh at their teacher's quips.

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