March 30, 1922
MUSICAL COURIER
26
I fear, but was told that after the performance they would put the cut off parts back again! And they did. We have had to give up going to some towns because there was no suitable theater. When you do run across a beautiful theater it is usually given over to motion pictures. And I can’t blame the manager. Why should he wait for companies such as ours to come for a couple of performances when he can make money all the year round through the ‘movies.’ ”
How did you get the idea of giving opera?”
“Well, to be frank, I do not feel at home in concert! I do not like it at all! I must have the stage! When I told Mr. Coppicus this several years ago he suggested my giving ‘L’Oracolo’ and ‘Cavalleria Rusticana’ on tour. I liked the idea and entertained it, but I realized those two would not be enough, so I added ‘Butterfly,’ and so, from season to season my company’s repertory has increased. On tour I work all the time singing and directing on the stage each performance. I try to overlook no detail. Of course the spring tour is easy for us because we can have our chorus and orchestra from that of the Metropolitan, but in the fall rehearsals prior to the opening of the season in New York require that we look elsewhere for that portion of our company. Our company, including a few husbands and wives of the artists”׳—with a mischievous smile— “includes about one hundred and fifty persons. The chorus numbers thirty and the orchestra about forty. This year it was suggested that I cut down my orchestra, but that is impossible. It would be like taking blood from my heart here”—placing his hands over his left side—“because I want my chorus right! I could never give ‘Carmen’ with a chorus of eighteen or twenty. Quite impossible! I want my opera company, as I said before, to be the Metropolitan on a miniature scale!”
And to do this Mr. Scotti plans and plots continually before each tour, superintends every performance and sings more than he has ever sung each week at the Metropolitan •—and even foots his own losses.
Why He Refuses Financial Backing.
When asked why he had refused offers of financial backing from moneyed persons in New York, Mr. Scotti simply said that he could never “beg for money for this and that.” He wants to stand on his own feet. And when conditions throughout the country are better and more cities are able to have the Scotti Grand Opera Company visit them annually, then it is to be hoped the admirable enterprise will again be able to support itself, with a profit over for Antonio Scotti—one of the pioneers of opera for the masses in America.	J. Y.
Unique Huss Recital
The recital which Mr. and Mrs. Henry Holden Huss will give on Thursday afternoon, April 6, at Rumford Hall for their scholarship fund will have several unique features on the program.
Mrs. Huss’ first group would seem to be almost symbolical of the international unity of music, as it is composed of French, German and English songs. Four Huss songs, three of them still in manuscript, comprise her second group.
Mr. Huss’ first group is a Chopin and Liszt one, and his second group will be two movements, by request, from his still unfinished piano sonata, on the finale of which he is now working. The first movement is an allegro risoluto, the second a lyric larghetto alternating with a goblin-like Scherzando movement.
The program will conclude with a group of six dances: a bourree by Bach, a valse by Mrs. Huss’ pupil, E. Marion Sexton, and four Huss compositions, a mazurka (MS.) “Minuet a !’antique” (MS.) valse; op. 20, and “Polonaise Brilliante,” op. 23.
The recital Mr. and Mrs. Huss gave on Monday evening, March 20, at Jamaica, was a distinct success, the assisting artists were: Ruth Kemper, violinist, (who played the Grieg sonata, op. 8, with Mr. Huss and also two Kreisler numbers, the second Wieniawskf. polonaise, Kramer’s “Ek-log” and Huss’ “Berceuse Slave”) and Mr. Huss’ artist pupil Ruth Garland, who besides accompanying Ruth Kemper, contributed Chopin’s A flat ballade and a berceuse of her own. Miss Garland is the composer of the incidental music which is being used with the last part of the cycle of Shaw’s “Back to Methuselah.”
S. K. Smith Married
Sherman K. Smith, of Boston, well known in the East as a concert manager, and who has charge of the musical affairs of George Fergusson, teacher and baritone, was married recently at the Church of the Ascension, Clearwater, Fla., to Parthenia von Osthoff, of New York. Mrs. Smith is a contralto and is well known in the social and musical life of the several cities where she has studied, Cincinnati, Chicago, Boston and New York. The honeymoon was spent in a thousand mile automobile trip along Florida’s eastern coast.
Dubinsky at Aeolian Hall on April 3
Vladimir Dubinsky, the cellist,, has been chosen by Boris Levenson, Russian composer, to assist both in solos and string quartet works, at Aeolian Hall, April 3. Mr. Dubinsky is a representative Russo-American cellist, and a better choice could not have been made. His solos will include Levenson’s nocturne in D, a Jewish lullaby, and “Humoresque.”
N. Val Peavey Recital April 18
N. Val Peavey, American pianist, will be heard at his own recital on Tuesday evening, April 18, at Aeolian Hail. This is the first solo recital that Mr. Peavey has given in more than three years. Mr. Peavey will be under the exclusive management of Annie Friedberg for three more years.
AN OPERATIC IMPRESARIO’S TASK MOST DIFFICULT,
YET SCOTTI PROVES HIS GENIUS AND HIS GAMENESS
The Distinguished Metropolitan Baritone, Whose Operatic Company is Very Much Like the Big Broadway Company in Miniature, Aspires to Greater Heights—His Success of the Past—Difficulties the Road Tours Offer
Mr. Scotti has. Such an artist would not surround himself with a poor company !’ ”
And, incidentally, when Mr. Scotti meets this local manager she is sure to receive a warm welcome from the singer-impresario. She is, in common parlance, “a woman after his own heart.”
Ideal—Metropolitan on Miniature Scale.
“Giving performances of a high standard throughout the country, Mr. Scotti, I should say was your ideal!’ said the writer.
“I adore it! Really love it!’ he replied, with a little smile. “Even though friends say, ‘Tony is a fool losing money on his tours,’ I do not listen to them because I do not care. Qf course, understand, I want to make money, like everyone else, but it costs to give opera as I desire—on a miniature scale of the Metropolitan. I select artists upon whom I can rely. There is not time for many re-.hearsals, and so when I cast a singer for a certain role I want to feel sure that the singer will give the best in him or her! It will be only necessary for me to give a suggestion here or there. I should like to take many young artists whom I hear with beautiful voices, but their lack of experience would mean a drop in the artistic standard of the company. If my tours were long, then I should be tempted to take along several inexperienced singers and coach them and let them try their wings, but limited tours do not permit this. Of course, on the other hand the one who receives the most benefit is the singer who has had some stage experience and is hoping for more opportunity.”
Here Mr. Scotti told of a young soprano who won an ovation in California as Micaela to Farrar’s Carmen—a very difficult feat¿ considering the great artist’s superb impersonation and popularity. (Because of her success there
IPESCIA
5 VOCAL TEACHER and COACH
Teacher of Olga Carrara of Chicago and Scotti Grand Opera Companies
Studio : 52 West 89th Street, New York City
Phone: River 10123
are rumors that she may become a member of the Metropolitan next season.) Chamlee, Jeanne Gordon and the late Mario Laurenti are a few of the artists who have gained valuable experience through being members of Scotti’s organization.
Deplores Laurenti’s Loss.
“What a terrible loss—poor Laurenti!” said Mr. Scotti when he touched upon the late young bariton’e name. “How I shall miss him this tour! And the other day my friend, Mr.'Gatti, said, ‘Don Antonio, it is a big loss for me, too!’
“You see, he was to have his real chance at the Metropolitan next season. While on tour with me I realized his talent and several times he sang Sharpless for me in ‘Madam Butterfly’—and sang the role beautifully. This season I missed two performances of ‘Butterfly’ at the Metropolitan, the first time in over four years, and only then because of hoarseness, not real illness. When I could not sing the last time I suggested to Mr. Gatti that he let Laurenti do the role—only to hear that he was ill. And then soon after came the tragic news.”
His Greater Loss.
As Mr. Scotti spoke of the young fellow" artist, the writer thought of, perhaps, a greater loss that he had sustained recently and of which he cannot even talk these days— Enrico Caruso! His lifelong friend, who was to him like a brother. The bond between these two men and artists was a vitally close one and left a wound in the great baritone’s heart that even time will not heal. On his piano was a large photograph of the tenor and on his walls little snapshots taken at various places, one or two of which showed Caruso in amusing poses.
Country’s Lack of Theaters.
During the course of the interview Mr. Scotti deplored the lack of good theaters or auditoriums in this country.
“In one town near Chicago, where the guarantee was $4,000, the stage was so small that we couldn’t get our scenery up. We were to give the double bill of ‘L’Oracolo’ and ‘Pagliacci.’ Hearing of the trouble I went to the theater and almost died when I saw several men cutting off the top of my scenes to get them up. I flew into a rage,
“But—I have met you somewhere?” said Antonio Scotti, the distinguished Metropolitan Opera baritone, one night several weeks ago when the writer was introduced to him at a mutual friend’s home.
“Three years ago—maybe four, to be exact !” replied the Musical Courier representative.
“I have a faint recollection,” he continued, with a puzzled expression on his face. “Where was it?”
Fortunately some one then began to sing and the writer had a little time to think. Mr. Scotti, unknowingly, had touched rather a sore spot. How was his query to be met?
After the song and applause of the guests had died away, the singer, a member of the Metropolitan and also of Scotti’s company, approached the baritone-impresario and was duly complimented. This led to a brief discussion about what Mr. Scotti is doing for music lovers throughout the country in presenting opera of the highest standard for a limited number of weeks each spring and fall; also of the splendid opportunity the younger artists, particularly our own American ones, are given to gain experience under such an artist’s critical eye. _
“You should get an interview from Mr. Scotti about all this !” exclaimed this young singer, turning to the writer.
“Then, you write?” asked Mr. Scotti, still puzzled.
“A little!” came the still indefinite answer. “But Mr. Scotti might not be interested in an interview.” This was said to the singer and also in truthfulness, because four years ago Mr. Scotti “turned down” the writer when he had been thus approached. And just here was the “sore spot.”
“Ah,” Mr. Scotti murmured good naturedly when the occasion was recalled, “but it was different those ^ days. Then I did not want the publicity. Believe me, I did not mean to offend! Please forget!”
Familiar with Business Details.
A new appointment was made, and that is how this interview came about. Several days later it was that the writer, with the “cured sore spot,” called on him at his apartment in the Vanderbilt Hotel. Clad in a loose-fitting velvet jacket, a soft collared “sport shirt” and slightly baggy trousers, Mr. Scotti might have just finished singing his familiar role of Marcello in “Bohême.” The table in front of him was littered with papers, which showed that he had been working on business• details of the future tour of his opera company. Although he naturally has a booking agent and business manager, Mr. Scotti is familiar wit the minutest details of his company. He knows what cities guarantee and the others where the appearance is made on a percentage basis. His repertory has been mapped out and his company practically selected.’ To be sure there are some hitches in the complete smoothness of his plans, such as realizing the fact that it is an easy matter to lose several thousand dollars on tour, if one does not gauge the situation properly, but even so, Scotti is content to put up with these annoyances.
Business Bad Last Year.
“Last year was a 'bad one for us,” he told the writer. “People did not seem to be spending money. In California alone we fell behind in the receipts enormously as compared to what we drew the first season out. Even such an attraction as Geraldine Farrar in ‘Zaza’ did not cause the stir we anticipated. To be frank, ‘Zaza’ drew the smallest receipts, showing to me that it takes a long time for a sensational success to travel 3,000 miles. ‘Butterfly’ was the most popular; then came ‘Carmen,’ and after that ‘Tosca.’ You never know what a public likes the best. As a further example, I might state that the year before last, in Texas, we were convinced that the big drawing card would be ‘Tosca’ with Florence Easton in the title role opposite my Scarpia. But it wasn’t! Old Trovatote took first honors! Imagine?
To Tour to New Orleans. .
“This year our route will carry us again to Texas and as far south as New Orleans. After the Metropolitan’s annual season in Atlanta the members of my company will gather together and begin our tour in Birmingham on May 1.” Mr. Scotti took up his schedule and, pointing to the first week’s repertory, said :
Sings Six Times a Week.
“See, we give two ‘Toscas,’ two ‘Secret of Suzannes,’ and two ‘L’Oracolos.’”	...	,	, -
“That means you sing yourself six times that week? How can you do it?”
“They want me in some places and I have to do it. It is almost as bad the second week,” running his finger over the neatly mapped out schedule. “Here I am down for five performances, but there are no ‘Toscas.’ With ‘L’Oracolo,’ ‘Secret of Suzanne’ and the other roles I sing during this tour, it is not so taxing, but Scarpia several times a week is too much. The first season out I sang much more,_ and _ I only missed one performance, due to an injury received in being accidentally thrown down too hard on the stage in ‘L’Oracolo.’
“I hope the time will soon come when local managers will not want to be told who Scotti will bring in his company. I hope they will grow to rely upon my giving them the very best. I am delighted, though, for the other day I learned that a lady in Fort Worth (for the minute her name has escaped me), when Mr. Mills started to tell her who was in my company, said :
“ ‘No, no, Mr. Mills, it is not necessary to tell me who
■	SOPRANO
MANAGEMENT :
MUSIC LEAGUE OF AMERICA
8 East 34th Street, New York
PARKHURST
“Astonished patrons of her recital by the power, sweetness and birdlike facility of her voice.״—New York Herald.
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