Music in the White House

Virginia Lewis might well have showed stage fright, but she didn't. When she stepped on the stage at Philadelphia's Robin Hood Dell one night last summer, before the Philadelphia Orchestra and Conductor Alexander Smallens, she had never sung with an orchestra. She had not been rehearsed for this concert. She had just been handed an unfamiliar arrangement of two songs from George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess. Someone had stepped on her gown and ripped it. But the chunky, dignified, dark brown Negro soprano let loose a voice for which everyone, including Conductor Smallens, predicted a future. Last week, 26-year-old Soprano Lewis made her second big-time concert appearance. For a publicity sounding board, she had the best there is: the music room (East Room) of the White House, in Mrs. Roosevelt's first musicale of the season.

Virginia Lewis' start was much like another Philadelphia Negro's, Contralto Marian Anderson. Soprano Lewis, discovered six years ago by Contralto Anderson's accompanist, studied as best she could, earned her living as a housemaid, went on relief, finally got a WPA music-teaching job last February. One day her voice was exhibited to Samuel Rosenbaum, president of the Robin Hood Dell concerts. Mr. Rosenbaum, after launching Soprano Lewis in the Dell, vowed to get her what he called "visibility" at the White House. He got it through Pennsylvania's Senator Guffey's sister Emma. Soprano Lewis journeyed to Washington, sang songs and spirituals to Mrs. Roosevelt and 300 guests. Said she afterward: "Everybody was so nice to me. Mrs. Roosevelt thanked me and predicted a fine career for me."

For her White House musicales," Mrs. Roosevelt is partial to Americans, likes programs that interlard well-known artists with entertainers like Whistler Robert MacGimsey, Character Sketcher Mollie A. Best, Singing Satirist Vandy Cape. Encores are given only if Mrs. Roosevelt signals. Artists are asked not to brag much in the press about their White House dates, and few do.

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