San Francisco dramatic review (1899)

2 THE SAN FRANCISCO DRAMATIC REVIEW October 7th, 1899 JUST OF PASSING INTEREST Society Singers NEW YORK TEACHER Sl'EAKS HKR MIND CONCERNING AMATEUR VOCALISTS. 4 ''"The reason why 'society amateurs' 1 ilo not sing better," said one of the foremost vocal teachers in New York recently, "is not that they have less voice, talent, or musical intuition than professional artists, but because they are vain, conceited, lazy and good for nothing. "If I were to tell them so, my music-room and my purse would be empty; whereas I now have a handsome income. I can not quarrel with my bread and butter, and tell my society pupils that they are mostly fools, but it is a fact that they are, nevertheless. I love my art for art's sake, and music to me is something divine. But I am teaching in my music-room as a business, and I have to hold my tongue and be diplomatic. But, oh! how I do long sometimes to let it loose and tell these 'daughters of the Four Hundred' just what I think of them and their musical goings-on. "This is strong language, but it 's a relief to free my mind. 'Vain, conceited, lazy, good for nothing!' That's just what they are. And let me tell you why I say so. It 's a popular belief, and a mistaken one, that professionals are the shining examples of vanity and conceit. The} are not a marker to the fashionable girl of 16 or 18 who comes here for her lessons. She pays a high price, for I charge probably more than any other teacher in New York, and one would suppose that she woidd want to 'get her money's worth' and really learn something by study and having her voice and style criticised and improved. "Criticism? My gracious! Miss Millions 'knows it all' on coming here, and unless I studiously ply her with all sorts of compliments on her 'lovely voice' and her 'beautiful singing,' I can hardly cram in edgewise the least particle of instruction. She doesn't come to study seriously, but to get a smattering of phrasing and to try over some new songs. Of work such as a professional does, and such as one must do to improve, she knows nothing; and of criticism — bold, truthful, helpful criticism, such as a professional pays me for and profits by — she will have none. "If I am candid and honest with this spoiled child, she will flush, get angry. gather up her wraps and take berself off. Vanity, conceit, is the Scylla on which the amateur is wrecked; and if she escapes that rock, laziness is the Charybdis on which she is sure to bring up. "And yet many of these girls have better voices than has the average professional, and constant attendance at operas and concerts, advantages such as the poor professional longs for and can't afford, should make her the equal of her professional sister, if she were not the vain, silly, musically lazy creature that she is. "And the worst of it is that when she goes into the drawing-room and scrambles through some half-learned song in a dreadful way, while the women titter behind their fans and the men get out of sight and say, 'Ye gods!' she announces herself as one of my pupils!" Paris <Jree Shows '"The free performances at government 1 playhouses, the Opera, Opera Comique, the Theater Francaise, and the Odeon, present one of the most remarkable spectacles of up-to-date Paris. They take place regularly on the various great fete days of the year, and cost heavily in breakages and cleaning up. They are no newer than the idea of socialism itself. Ancient Rome offered free spectacles at the Colosseum to its citizens, just as it made gratuitous distributions of wheat. The "people" pay a good part of the taxes and the subventioned playhouses of Paris take a good slice of the public revenue. disappointed Dlanche Bates opened with The D Children of the Ghetto in Washington September 25. She telegraphed her mother, Mrs. F. M. Bates of the Frawley Company, that she thought the play would prove a success, but that she was disappointed in her role. She plays Hannah, which in the story is not as conspicuous a character as Esther. WANTED Good people for a first-class company to be organized October ist, by a well known manager. Also vaudeville actors, sister teams and single performers; lady pianist. Hai.lett's Agency. How Funny! The Woman of the World, writing in the Sunday Telegraph, says: "The long comedian, Edwin Stevens, who has recently leturned from California, was hailed on Broadway the other morning by Harry Corson Clarke — the San Francisco pet — who slapped him on the back with a hearty 'Glad to see you, old man; how does San Francisco look these days ?' "With the air of a man who is happy over an ended exile, Mr. Stevens illumined his features with a glowing cigarette and replied, 'It looks mighty nice from Broadway!' "A proposition to which all of us who have gazed over the sad blue waves of the Pacific and longed for a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge will agree without the faintest shadow of argument." Snap Shots MORRIS MEYERFELD, JR. As wel! up in matters of dress as in business. Just now he is struggling against one of the gentle summer zephyrs that go to make San Francisco life pleasant. She's Getting On A nna SriTS is another of the Tivoli ** girls who has done well in the East. A reviewer in the New York Telegraph has the following to say of her appearance in Laurence Webber's The Parisian Widows: "Ano^ier act that was well received was that of Anna Suits. She has been so ill as to be unable to fill dates at the continuous houses this summer, and her illness has left its traces upon her voice, but this fact was not noticed by the audience, and the act is a very pretty one. Two special settings are used to carry three songs, and as a novelty act it is as well staged as any offering in this line. Three persons are used in two of the songs, and there is a Cakewalk in addition to the singing. Miss Suits is a good looking girl, whose method conceals much of her hoarseness, and barring a shrillness of tone her voice is good even now. When she has more fully recovered from her illness, the act will be a crackajack, for Miss Suits is clever and the scenic part of it is all first-class, and not this aniline trunk stuff that is dingy !>efore it is used and worse afterward. There should be more acts like this in vaudeville, for picture acts are needed badly, and there are few with energy enough to fill the demand." Anna and the Tars LJ ere is what Leander Richardson of New York said last week of the French dancer: "Anna Held hasn't taken out naturalization papers or done any of the flam-bouyantly patriotic things by which foreign stars are wont to win American favor, but she is very much a national institution, even if she doesn't have recourse to the naturalization scheme of advertising. "The soft-eyed French chanteuse — French chartreuse is what Maggie Cline calls her — has been chosen to head the bill of entertainment at the smoker to be given the Dewey sailors at the Waldorf-Astoria. I am sorry for the noble crew of the Olympia. There isn't the ghost of a chance that one of those tars will escape from that smoker without a broken heart, for Anna's gown is sure to complete the devastation begun by Anna's eyes and Anna's new songs. "The dress which is to dazzle that conquering crew is the most heartrending creation that ever came from Paris. It is of palest lemon -colored satin, embroidered in orchids, that stand out from the fabric in such richness and truth of coloring that the fortunate sea dogs who will be the first to see it are sure to want to climb over the foot-lights and pick them off the pretty gown they decorate." COAST MUSICIANS' UNION The Pacific Coast Musicians' Union was organized Friday night of last week at Native Sons' Hall as an assembly of the Knights of Labor, with a membership of 250. The following officers were elected to serve for the ensuing term: Master workman, R. I). Barton; worthy foreman, I. C. Levey; worthy inspector, L. R. Heitler; almoner, R. A. Silvas; recording secretary, George Ehrman, Jr.; financial secretary. W. C. Swabel; treasurer, H. J. Seegelken; statistician, F. R. Garett; unknown knight, George Hilderbraut; inside esquire, Victor Anderson; outside esquire, A. B. Gauco. The union being a bona fide labor union will ask for its share of patronage from the people of San Francisco and also the state of California. The Dramatic Review contains all the news. Subscrilie now.