Salzburg on the Saugatuck

One of the world's most famed places of musical pilgrimage, Austria's Salzburg, last week appeared on the verge of losing its eminence. It had already lost its three leading artistic personalities, Italian Conductor Arturo Toscanini, who resigned (TIME, Feb. 28), Jewish Conductor Bruno Walter, who was last week safe in The Netherlands although his daughter was arrested in Vienna, and Jewish Stage Director Max Reinhardt whose two Salzburg presentations were canceled. The moment was therefore favorable for revived talk of a U. S. Salzburg.

A bid for that honor promptly came last week from Westport, Conn., an arty village lying on the sluggish River Saugatuck where it empties into Long Island sound. There Author Hendrik van Loon's Connecticut Society of Friends of Music announced plans for an initial summer season of six concerts scheduled for this summer. While this six-performance schedule would still leave Westport trailing in competition with such established U. S. summer festivals as the Berkshire, Hollywood Bowl, St. Louis Municipal Opera, and Manhattan Lewisohn Stadium, such Westporters as van Loon, Grace Moore and Lawrence Tibbett hope for glamorous future expansion, to help keep American music lovers from stumping off to Europe every summer.

A Westport resident is Patrick A. Powers, an enterprising Irishman, onetime backer of Walt Disney, organizer of Universal Film Co., later of Film Booking Office of America (forerunner of RKO) who sold out his Hollywood interests several years ago, purchased a 200-acre estate in Westport, where he built the Longshore Country Club. Sociable, civic-minded Powers spends his winters in a marble-floored palace at Spuyten Duyvil on the Hudson River, wears green suits and still sports an Irish accent. Last week he promised Westporters a great gift: he would build a $100,000 "marine stadium" at Westport, lease it to the Friends of Music for $1 a year.

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