The San Francisco call., 1898-04-24

Well, we have had our little Melba season-or, rather, we will have had by the time these lines are in type-paid our little $7 without a murmur, packed the house at every performance, eX- humed and refurbshed the traditions of our munificence, had a grand, glad time of it generally and made royal record for our artistic and pecuniary appreciation, which sooner or later will reach New York and give the poignant ha-ha to those metropolitan managers who have indulged ribald jest at the expense of our cheapness. In appreciation and in coin we have done as well by Melba as could have been done anywhere. On three per formances given in a theater that can not comfortably entertain more than 1900 persons at a sitting we have ex- pended a sum close on to $25,00 And never was bread cast upon the waters to surer profit than when we rose to the challenge of those $7 seats. San Francisco should henceforth spell prod igality instead of 10, 20 and 30 cents for the manager who knows the economics of his trade. One of the Melba man. agement said to me the other night, Why, this is not touring station, it Is a metropolis! Put up your opera house, some place that will hold the crowd, and we will come every year with the operas, Wagner, everything, and with all the singers of the world" The same night, Thursday, I met three men in the California, a millionaire, a broker and a manager, each of whom told me that he was going to build an opera-house in San Francisco before another season had come around. If I can believe them all-and I don't mind telling you that one of the will ing builders is Samuel Friedlander-it is only a matter of months before we will not be able to walk a block on the Rialto without pumping up against an opera-house- From the conversations that have taken place in the California lobby this last week you would think that opera-houses were an even more imperative necessity than battle-ships. If in addition to the three that were promised me a half dozen or so of those song palaces which lately have been architected and adjectived in the news papers should go up, San Francisco will be known not as a city of boarding houses, but of opera-houses. It seems to me that halt should be cried before everybody in the town takes to build ing them. We don't want system of private opera-houses scattered from North Beach to the Potrero. Just one big substantial edifice on the right side of Market street would be pretty good.
 
 The Melba season gave us our first chance of assisting in the high sal ary crimes" which have so long been monopolized by the grumbling East. For a year and more several New York newspapers, especially the New York Musical Courier, have been mak- ing a crusade against the salaries paid to foreign singers. They have said that the American singer stands no show and that America should be for the Americans. But the New York public, pampered and petted and will ing to pay for the best and most fam ous that is to be had, has gone un- disturbed along the tenor of it's pleas ures. Presumably 1t concluded that art knows no national bounds, and that in the matter of opera artists there is nothing quite so good as the best, which, with only several rare excep- tions is not American. And Melba, the Reszke brothers, Calve, Flames and other high salary gobblers have contin- ued to winter in New York, even while dynasties tottered on the managerial throne of the Metropolitan Opera-ho America never has been able to offer the foreign artist anything better than money. This is a cold fact The American success of a musical artist is not worth a rap In the capitals of Europe. Is this unjust? Well, should say so. There is no city in the world with an opera record of the last few years that will not look pale and puny beside New York's. The Czar, the Emperor, the Queen. have had to wait for their favorite singers until