Talley Finale

Kansas City's music boom has burst. The chubby little girl with .the high, bright voice whose sensational opera debut three years ago made the country Kansas City-conscious, decided last week to go back to the farm, to sing no more. Encouraged by the mother who had chaperoned .her career, the sister Florence who had taught her to sing, the telegraph-operating father who had flashed the first news of daughter's triumph from the wings, Marion Talley announced that she was through with being a prima donna. Her statement was as simple and matter of fact as herself: "My retirement is permanent. I am going West with my family. The farm might be in California and it might be in Colorado but I'm going to look first in the Middle West. I am going to be just like all the other farmers."

It has been known ever since as the $100,000 debut, that evening of Feb. 17, 1926, at Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera House. Ten thousand persons battled for admission. Standing room soared to $25. Mounted police handled the crowds outside. Within the old red and gold auditorium, humped in an inconspicuous seat, waited General Manager Gatti-Casazza. sphinxlike, beard sunk deep on his chest, pondering the ways of music in the U. S. Up in his box, sleek, important, pleased, sat the Chairman of the Board of Directors, Otto H. Kahn. And in that over-stuffed audience were heard the boastings of the Mayor and 200 citizens of Kansas City who had paid $50,000 for a special train to carry them there for the great night. Kansas City had found Marion Talley. Kansas City had launched her, backed her. Kansas City was there to share in the glory.

Front pages the next day streamed with the news. The wires rushed the story around the world. Jenny Lind, Galli-Curci, Marion Talley ... the man in the street learned a new name. Overnight the 19-year-old girl became a national institution.

Unheeded in the roar, buried in the shuffle, music critics bent uneasily over their typewriters. Lost in back pages were the reviews, flashing such signals as "immature talent" . . . "further training" . . . "promise." Three years later nothing had happened to alter those words.

At the opera her career was soon over, limited to a few performances a season before audiences to whom her singing personality seemed as shallow and mechanical as last year's gossip. But General Manager Gatti-Casazza had another contract ready for her signature, and her country-wide appeal was proved by more than 40 concert contracts. From the spring of 1926 to February 1928, she netted $334,000 on tour. Today she can still get her fee of $3,500 per appearance in the less sophisticated cities. Perhaps she is piqued at the defection of the larger musical centres.

Wrote shrewd Interviewer Charles D. Isaacson of the New York Morning Telegraph: "The little lady is furiously upset. She does not like the way she has been received and she has, like the overfed child, a dislike for all the present life. . . . I see a cynicism in her manner, a tightness in her face, a tortured look. The impulse which has sent women to the nunnery ... is pushing Marion Talley now. It is a psychological case if the farm plan is sincere ; it is another ballyhoo, like the original Chamber of Commerce stunt, if it is not." Said Manager Gatti-Casazza: "I do not understand. I have always been like a father to her."