The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-04-07

The tickets sold like hotcakes, for the
mem bers of the Spanish colony were an
xious to see two remarkably bright operas.
They were also anxious to help out in dis
tress, and A. Lapizondo, Spaniard well
known in the San Francisco colony, told a
touching story of the 'Compania de Opera
Espanola."
1t was composed, he said, of splendid
artists, who had been stranded at MaZat-
Ian, and all it wanted was money to bring
it to San Francisco. A. Lapizondo took
such deep interest in the sad plight of
the stranded singers that he and soft
voiced young Mexican, who shared his
feelings of kindly pity, made a house-to-
house visitation to sell enough tickets to
bring the Spanish artists to this city.
The company did not send on an adj
vance agent, but all its business was
transacted in the name of r. Catalan.
Lapizondo engaged the Bush-street Thea
ter, not for himself, but for r. Catalan, the
printing was done on credit to r. Catalan,
and the posters were distributed in the
same manner.
Who is r. Catalain?' asked members
of the Spanish colony, and the people who
had bills against him put the question to
LapiZondo with touch of anxiety. But
Lapizondo always treasured them by say
ing that Catalan, the manager of the
Spanish Opera Company, would come
when the prima donnas, and tenors, and
bassos, and the chorus, and orchestra, and
all the rest of the 6rst-class artists ap-
peared at the Bush-street Theater, and in
the meantime he had the money and was
responsible.
rallied, and LapiZondo and his soft-voiced
friend had vanished as if into the air.
There was no Spanish Opera Company
among the arrivals in town, in fact the best
informed people said there had never been
one stranded at Mazatlan, and that those
patrons of art who had bought seats and
boxes for the grand representations only
had bits of yellow pasteboard for their
pains.
"Are you thinking of buying tickets2''
said one well-known member of the Span
ish colony last night when questioned on
the subject. eff you are, don't do 1.-THE
performance will never come off. Lapi-
condo has fooled people right along. He
is a handsome fellow, with fine voice,
and every one thought because he could
sing he had got a whole troupe of people
back of him who could do the same.
"There neverwas such man as Catalan,
lonia, in Spain, and as Catalan means a
native of Catalonia he thought the word
would suit for the OCCASION"
Signor A. P. Alvarez, editor of Ell
Concrete, touched by the story of his
stranded compatriots in Mazatlan, has
given considerable space in the columns
of his paper to advance notices of the
opera company. He has also inserted
their advertisements, which have not
been paid for.
''The whole business is a fake" he ex-
claimed. "Lapizondo seemed a good sort
of fellow and it never struck any of us that
his tales of woe about the stranded COM
pany were pure inventions. He has been
connected with several opera organiza-
tons himself and sang here once with an
Italian opera company. but the last time
he appeared in San Francisco was at the
Peoples Palace.
st just happened in this way. He
worked on our sympathies to buy the
tickets, showed US long lists of singers we
had never heard of, but that some people
respected more on that account, and then
when he had got all the money, PER-
he'd gone.n
The genial editor laughed at the neat
way in which he and his friends had been
beguiled by myth. Then suddenly be-
coming curious he added:
"This reflects on the good faith of
Spaniards if the performance does not take
place, and fear it will not. In that event
the next number of Ell Comercio," and
he beat the air with his hand, as if he had
been chastising an imaginary foe, 1.-The
next number of Ell Concrete will know
how to deal with these people"