In Binghamton, Walska

Great prima donnas usually do their singing in great cities, where great crowds besiege the box office for the privilege of hearing great music. Ganna Walska, different, opened a concert tour last week in the Central High School Auditorium at Binghamton, N. Y. This caused Critic Martha Wheatley in the Binghamton Press (circulation 34,800) to write as follows:

"Some came to doubt and remained to marvel at the will to do, on the part of this extraordinary woman. Some were frankly puzzled, yet duly appreciative of the pictorial impressiveness offered by the singer. None was enthusiastic over her vocal attainment; yet the audience, as a whole, paid tribute to her magnetism, her beauty, her taste and her resolute courage. . . .

"Mme. Walska has a high soprano of some flexibility and range. Her enunciation is something that the artistic world has long sighed for. She has grace and charm sufficient for half a dozen stars of the first magnitude. She is determined to attain the high goal she has set, regardless of vocal equipment.

"Her period gown of cream crepe and silver (or was it crystal?) seemed a part of her. She was alternately serious and arch; now she reflected the lights and shadows of the land of her birth; now she was the spirit of the beauty of Paris, where she has a home; now she might be demanding that her fairy dreams might be also philosophical. . . .

"She never imitates, and if her real hope of success is only a fluttering bird of passage, that plumed creature is sure to be faultlessly preened and exquisitely feathered. . . .

"She was besieged by high school girls, who found her graciously willing to autograph their programs. Harold F. McCormick, Chicago multimillionaire, who is the husband of the artist, was in the group. . . ."