Gay Maggie

The No. 1 hit of Manhattan's concert season, far & away, has been Soprano Maggie Teyte. Last week she showed why. It was her last U.S. recital of the season, in Town Hall. One of the highest notes of the. program was an A flat in Henri Duparc's Phidyle. Redheaded, little (5-ft.) Maggie Teyte opened her mouth wide to sing it fortissimo but not even the faintest pianissimo came out. At the end of the piece, the audience bravoed noisily. Maggie Teyte seemed to feel that some of the applause was more kindly than genuine. She turned to her accompanist, snapped a "To hell with them" and signaled for the piano to take the last ten measures again.

This time, like a circus performer whose first try and miss only show how hard the trick is, she hurdled a perfect A flat.

The ovation then was one of the biggest in Maggie Teyte's 56 years--like the old days, more than 30 years ago, when she was America's frivolous "operatic sweetheart" and sang Mimi and Melisande in almost every major U.S. opera house. In 1937, when she returned to the U.S., concert and opera managers snubbed her. Last year Concert Manager Austin Wilder brought her to New York, discovered that he had the biggest box-office attraction in Town Hall's 25 years. After her first concert a critic wrote: "A Sinatra demonstration at the Paramount is a feeble thing indeed."

It was the same the U.S. over. Maggie recalls: "San Francisco was a little haughty, but Los Angeles was charming. Washington was amazing. It was an all-Debussy program and you couldn't give them anything more highfalutin. President Truman and Margaret sat through the encores, following the music on their own scores."

Maggie Teyte has a way of being herself on stage, which charmed the audiences but sometimes chilled the critics. Says she, "The formal, cold stage is pfft. I want to throw my arms and roll my eyes. These young girls, they parade and strut around the stage and wonder 'What do I look like?' I forget who I am."

When she sent her accompanist out for a glass of water, it was too much for the New York Times's stodgy critic Olin Downes, who chided her for overacting "both histrionically and vocally." Says Maggie: "That Olin Downes! When I sing about fire, I want people to see the buildings and hear the screaming, and he says 'go away and don't bother me.' He has no soul, no imagination. He is stone cold, like a piece of mutton fat."

This week, after 14 packed U.S. concerts, Maggie Teyte returned to England to rest, to lose ten extra pounds which she blames on rich American food, and to cut some more records. ("Most people say I'm better than the records. On records they don't see me being lively, gay and expressive.") The day after her final concert, tickets were already going well for three more Town Hall concerts next fall. Said Maggie: "Americans are getting tired of their cheap music. They have had their crooning and their jazz. The youth [of America] have made my comeback possible."

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