Singer's Reward

Five years ago without fuss or fancy advertising a 24-year-old mezzo-soprano made her debut at Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera House. No one was much interested then in her youth or the fact that she came from Kansas City. Mezzos and contraltos rarely get leading roles; besides, the legend of Marion Talley had been too recently deflated. Nor was her debut audience aWare of Gladys Swarthout's dark good looks. As the blind old mother in La Gioconda she appeared with her slender figure hulked out in unbecoming grey, her face ashy with chalk.

During her five years at the Metropolitan Gladys Swarthout has averaged as many performances as any other singer. Most of her roles have been minor but she has acted them gracefully, sung them warmly, proved to the opera and its audiences that she is one of the most hard-working members of the company. She was born in Deepwater, Mo., a town whose entire population, she says, "is about big enough to fill one concert hall." At 13 she pinned up her hair and got a job as soloist in a Kansas City church. She went to Chicago to study, at 20 had a contract with Samuel Insull's Civic Opera Company. Mary Garden gave her advice which she was smart enough to follow. Day after day whether or not she was billed 'for a performance she went to rehearsals, followed each stage direction, each note in the score. In Chicago she married one Harry Kern, 25 years her senior. He died in 1931. Year later she married Baritone Frank Michler Chapman Jr., son of the famed New York ornithologist, whose first wife was the daughter of Funnyman Irvin S. Cobb.

Young Metropolitan singers engaged since Depression have not had big pay. Contraltos and mezzos rarely make front pages. But for its women singers. Radio still prefers, with few exceptions, low voices to high. .By last week,Gladys Swarthout was reaping a rich financial harvest for her five years' work at the Metropolitan. In April she began singing in oldtime operettas for Palmolive Soap (Tuesdays, 10 p.m., E. D. S. T.). In addition last week at a good, fat fee she became headliner for Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. For six months at least she will sing for the sponsors who did most to give national fame to Tenor Richard Crooks and Baritone Lawrence Tibbett.

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