Again Schumann-Heink

For three years Ernestine Schumann-Heink has been exceedingly busy bidding farewell to her public--concert, operatic, radio. Last spring, sailing for Europe, she announced herself as definitely "through." Teaching was to be her sole occupation. Last week she returned from Europe, limping down the gangplank on a sprained ankle, grinning her great grin. Yes, she told reporters, she was going West. Sound cinemas provided another way for great singers to sing. Three companies had made her offers.

Austral Banned

Curiously illogical is the influence of morals and manners on the fortunes of musical and theatrical folk. Jenny Lind owed her popularity as much to her reputation for spotlessness as to her nightingale voice. But Lily Langtry, the Jersey beauty, was just as successful despite her intimacies, which every one knew, with Edward VII and others. Moral protests arise where least expected. Last week in England Soprano Florence Austral, 35, was banned from the Three Choirs Festival* to be held in Worcester Cathedral because her past included a divorce case. The objections came publicly from the Very Reverend William Moore Ede, dean of Worcester. They harked back to quiet divorce proceedings brought four years ago by a Mrs. John Amadio against her husband-flutist. Soprano Austral is now the second Mrs. Amadio. That, declared Dean Ede, the Church of England could not condone, contract or no contract. Indignantly Husband Amadio protested. His pleasant, big-chested wife had done much for the Church in charity concerts, festivals, bazaars. Her hobbies of reading, needlework, cooking, hardly suggested a rakish character. As for himself he said: "I was married, but legally separated from my wife. I was unhappy and without comfort. I loved Miss Austral and she loved me and we still love one another. We decided then that we must go through everything in the recognized legal way. I was divorced, and my former wife is now happily married to another man. I married Miss Austral. "How dare the Church criticize us? Supposing there had been no divorce? Supposing that we had not been brave and moral enough to take the matter to the courts, and lived the kind of life so many others are living today? What is the answer of the Church to that? . . ." Nellie Melba (Mrs. Nellie Porter Armstrong), as everyone knows, invented her professional name, using the first letters of her native Melbourne. Florence Mary Wilson, a compatriot, did the same with "Australia," dubbed herself Austral shortly before she made her debut at London's Covent Garden. That was seven years ago. Since then, in England and the U. S., she has won great applause in concerts, oratorios, operas.

*The choirs of Worcester, Hereford and Gloucester participate in an annual festival, held alternately in the three towns.