Auditions

Radio amateur hours make a gong-walloping hurrah about discovering unknown genius. But the records show that they very seldom turn up an artist who can get to first base. In the four years of its existence, the most famed of U. S. amateur hours, that of pudgy, beak-nosed Major Bowes, has not yet unearthed a singer of first-rate concert or opera calibre.

No amateur hour is the Metropolitan Opera Auditions of the Air. Its hurdles are high and its winners are likely to be young singers of more than average ability. Last week Metropolitan General Manager Edward Johnson, having listened with his fellow judges to 707 auditions, announced the winners for 1937-38. Presented with a contract, $1,000 and a silver plaque apiece were handsome, smooth-faced Brooklyn Tenor John Carter (Nelson Eddy's successor on the Chase & Sanborn Hour) and slick-haired, muscular Bronx Baritone Leonard Warren. Twenty-five-year-old Tenor Carter studied to be a civil engineer, gave up engineering to study voice. Baritone Warren was brought up in his Russian-born father's fur business, studied singing for five years before presenting himself as a contestant, sings today in five languages.

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