Galli-Curci

People who sit in the glittering horseshoes shoes of great opera houses, in the orchestras of famed concert halls, have cold faces, bright clothes. To brilliance, to frigidity runs their taste. Let a soprano pour out her soul in a fine frenzy of enthusiasm, they lift their eyebrows, clap and go away to their clubs or cabarets. But let her be a coloratura, let her sing with no emotion but with brilliance, with coldness, these cold, bright people in their turn give way to a fine frenzy of enthusiasm. Melba-- they smothered her under mountains of flowers; Patti--they took her out to supper on their shoulders; Jenny Lind --50 brilliant, chilly young men pulled her carriage up Fifth Avenue. Now Galli-Curci, who recently made her first English appearance before the coldest, the shiniest audience in the land. They did not even wait to hear her sing but met her steamer, conducted her to London with what the British press termed "unprecedented popular enthusiasm." She appeared before them to justify this reception; suddenly they became scpetical. Here was a lady in a Paris ballgown, younger, slimmer than great divas are wont to be; she positively looked as if she were about to be emotional. The brilliant and the chilly sniffed; Galli-Curci sang. Her first song was Se tu m'ami, an old fall warm as the yellow wine, soft as the jargoning fountains of Italy. That was a mistake. Her next, a number from Dinorah, came more welcomely; it had a thinner flavor. The coldness of her music increased; the warmth of the audience increased commensurably. She sang Bishop's Pretty Mocking Bird, the Polonaise from Mignon. Then the Mad Scene from Luna--flight upon flight of crazy silver bells pealing in a ruined steeple rimed with frost. That cold, brilliant audience rose to her; they clapped and clapped again; they cheered her until her car (which even the gallant 50 could scarce have budged) took her away. She had given them what they wanted, a flawless technical performance. Lind, Melba, Patti-- Galli-Curci.