Prodigious Coloratura

Last autumn the impresarios of the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Young People's Concerts hit on a bright idea: let prodigies perform before their peers. To puerile applause, they presented 8-year-old and 11-year-old pianists, a 12-year-old fiddler, a 14-year-old clarinetist. Last week they trotted out a talent which was more special and more exciting.

On to the stage of Carnegie Hall tripped demure, blonde Ellen Berg,11. In a soprano that was emotionless, usually hall-size, usually on pitch, she sang an air from Mozart's Magic Flute. Sophisticated kids and mammas gave each other sidelong looks when Conductor Rudolph Ganz announced that Ellen Berg would next sing the Mad Scene from Lucia di Lammermoor. On that glassy surface, double-runners are not allowed. Coloratura Berg sailed out cleanly, figure-eighted through her trills, skidded a couple of times into her flute accompanist, ducked low to coast into her final note an octave below the conventional high E flat. Wisely, she made no attempt to act daft. Soprano Berg looked like championship material.

Daughter of a Detroit manufacturer, she has been singing since she was 4, has had her pictures in Ford and Lincoln advertisements, is now studying singing in Manhattan with Frank La Forge. Coloratura Soprano Berg plays with her dolls, reads children's books, has started collecting miniatures, likes opera.

Few operatic voices are known to have developed before the age of 10. Last week some of her listeners were reminded of the greatest who did: Adelina Patti (1843-1919).

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