31
MUSICAL COURIER
June 2 9, 1922
THE STADIUM SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA CONCERTS
ARTHUR JÜDSON,
Under whose management the Stadium concerts are again to he given.
Reinhard Photo
WILLEM VAN HOOGSTRATEN, Who will conduct the last three weeks of concerts.
TWO CONDUCTORS, FOUNDER AND MANAGER OF
Apeda Photo
HENRY HADLEY,
© Underwood & Underwood
ADOLPH LEWI SOHN,
Who will conduct the first half of the season.
Founder and main supporter of the Stadium Symphony Orchestra concerts.
AMERICAN COMPOSITIONS FEATURED
AT STADIUM CONCERT SERIES
Sixteen American Compositions in First Three Weeks—W agner Program and Symphony Evening Weekly—Competitive
Auditions Close
stopped for the party and there were the usual faintly murmured introductions in the dark. For some moments the conversation was general, then Miss Bonner answered some question addressed to her, whereupon the famous conductor, after listening intently, remarked:
“I have met you before. I can’t remember your face but I know that voice. Let me see,” he continued musingly. “It was in Philadelphia and you sang”—mentioning what she had sung.
When one considers the number of people Conductor Stokowski meets during the season, this display of memory may well seem remarkable, but even those less susceptible to sound than he would have no difficulty in recognizing that voice, even while they might not be able to recall the circumstances of the previous meeting.
But it is not only Miss Bonner’s voice which attracts and pleases one. There is a merry twinkle in her eye and a delightfully whimsical smile, which seem to denote that she is the possessor of that never-failing grace, a sense of humor. Better acquaintance establishes this supposition as a fact and she is found to belong to that rare genus which enjoys a joke on herself quite as well as on the other fellow, and can always see a humorous touch and the silver lining, no matter how dark the cloud.
H. R. F.
Vera Curtis to Be Busy During Summer
Vera Curtis’ very busy season is rapidly encroaching upon her vacation time, as she has been filling engagements through June and is booked for several important appearances in July and August. One of her June concert appearances "was a recital in the Village Hall at Bronxville. Her audience included many regular Metropolitan Opera House subscribers and they showed enthusiastic appreciation of her vocal gifts and dramatic intensity. Miss Curtis has been featuring this season with pronounced success “Marietta’s Lied zur Laute” from “Die Tote Stadt.” The song has found so much favor, with her audiences that she was specially requested to include it at her last two recitals.
T. Tertius Noble Sails for England
T. Tertius Noble sailed for England on June 24, where he will remain until the middle of September.
MORE QUESTIONS
ANSWERED BY
VOICE EDUCATION
BY
ELEANOR McLELLAN
“Maker of Singers“
Do You Know
The requirements for a successful career?
What makes a voice sound large near by but lacking in carrying quality at a distance? Why few singers are successful?
Why many soprano voices sound thin and squeaky?
Why alto voices often sound hollow and “whoopy”?
The art of combining technique and interpretation?
Why a voice sounds “bleaty” or “yelly”?
Why many voices last but a short time?
That uncontrolled emotions affect voice technic? That it is possible to have a resonance which is not jammed, pinched or forced?
That dieting affects the breathing?
That there is a science of deep breath taking and breath control?
Why many voices sound too high or too low? Published by Harper Bros.
For sale at all book dealers, $1.75
performance out-of-doors, none of them familiar though some have already been presented here and there elsewhere. Eight, however, are absolutely new. The American composers who will be represented during the first three weeks are Nevin, MacDowell, Winter Watts, Hadley, Dunham, Chadwick, Hosmer, Barlow, Gilbert, Breil, Deems Taylor, Dunn, Skilton, Van der Stucken, Robinson, Hum-iston.
The “finals” of the Stadium auditions at Aeolian Hall were held in Carnegie Hall yesterday afternoon, June 28, and again this afternoon, June 29. Altogether 750 contestants have been heard. The “finals” are for established artists and those chosen from the preliminaries, these latter, however, being very few because of the high standard required. Something over forty contestants in a single afternoon have been heard. Often it has not been necessary to hear a singer through an entire aria, his or her voice showing quickly whether it was adapted for out-of-door work of this high standard.
Among the judges whom Mrs. William Cowen secured passing upon the audition candidates are Henry Hadley, Inez Barbour, Mrs. Ned Kaufman, Mrs. Sigmund Adler, Mrs. Julian Edwards, Estelle Liebling, J. Landseer Mackenzie, Mischa Levitzki, Helen Stanley, W. A. Humiston, Mrs. Parks Brownrigg, Michel Piastro and Mrs. Louis Smith.
They are almost as good an indicator as a handshake, for there is a kind which makes you feel like giving the speaker a good shaking up to wake him from his lethargy, and there is the ringing, cheery kind which makes the world seem brighter, so replete are they with pure optimism. Elizabeth Bonner belongs to the latter class. Her greeting was a joy to hear; it seemed likewise to say: “This is a jolly old world and I am glad, glad to be living in it.” Perhaps it is the depth and beauty of her speaking voice, too, which attracts and holds the attention so that one would fain remain silent altogther and hear that voice without regard to the direction taken by the conversation. One instinctively recognizes it as the voice of a singer and longs to hear it in song. Small wonder that Philip Hale wrote, after hearing her Boston recital this past winter: “Her voice is of true contralto quality, rich, rather sombre, a voice of extended range. Her intonation was pure and her enunciation distinct, As an interpreter, she interested the hearer. .	.	.
She evidently felt the music she sang intelligently, not because she had been coached into a semblance of emotional feeling. We shall not soon forget Miss Bonner’s singing of Haydn’s ‘Spirit Song,’ Lalo’s ‘L’Esclave’ and the songs by Fourdrain and Gretchaninoff.”
Nor does one wonder that a man whose ear is as highly tuned to musical matters as Leopold Stokowski, conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, remembered the voice after several years, even though he could not see the owner. It is an interesting story, and at the risk of incurring Miss Bonner’s displeasure it is herewith set down.
Several years ago Miss Bonner sang under the baton of Mr. Stokowski, and although she met with genuine success she felt that she was not fully prepared for her career, and the intervening years passed without any public appearances. Then one summer she went to Maine to visit some friends, whose summer home was near that of Stokowski and his charming wife Olga Samaroff. Upon Miss Bonner’s arrival, she found her host and hostess planning to attend some sort of semi-social-musical function that evening. The Stokowskis, in their car,
The first Stadium concert of this year—the season opening Thursday, July 6—will be a “Wagner Night.” According to the announcement just made by Mrs. Charles S. Guggenheimer and Mrs. Newbold Le Roy Edgar, chairman and vice-chairman of the Stadium Committee, good news is at hand for all Wagner and symphony music lovers, for throughout the six weeks of the Stadium Symphony Out-Door Concerts once each week there will be a Wagner night and a symphony night. The so-called “popular nights” at the Stadium this year have been eliminated. Only classical programs will be given, with Wagner, Tschaikowsky, Beethoven and such composers played. In addition, there is to be a new feature of great interest— the systematic presentation of new works by American composers. These will be given by the full Philharmonic Orchestra of eighty-five men with the same sympathetic expertness that it will devote to the classics.
For the Philharmonic next winter, Henry Hadley, who will be the conductor of the Stadium Concerts for the first three weeks preceding Willem Van Hoogstraten, who will have the second three weeks in charge, has been making thorough research into the works of latter day American composers. Some of his results will be made use of at the Stadium. Of the twenty-one programs he will conduct, Mr. Hadley will present sixteen such American compositions, all representative American works suitable for
Elizabeth Bonner a Humorist and Artist
To Hear Her Speak Is to Remember Her Voice
“How do you do 1”—commonplace words enough, but so capable of serving as a barometer of one’s personality.
Photo by Mishkin, N. У.
ELIZABETH BONNER, contralto.