The age-herald., 1900-06-03
GRATIFYING ID
 LOVERS OF MUSIC May Festival to be Repeated
 Next Year. ORIGINAL SCOPE ENLARGED Association Will Bring Renowned Ar- lists Here During Winter-Success of R. E. Johnston, One of the Shrewdest of Impresarios.
BY WILLIAM RYAN.


 Most gratifying to all lovers of music hereabouts is the fact that the Birming- ham May Musical Festival Association has decided to give a festival again next year. And it is further gratifying fact that the association has enlarged its original scope, for in addition to providing an annual fes- tival on a grand scale it will bring to Bir- mingham during the fall and winter many strong musical attractions, including half dozen or more renowned vocal artists.
 One of the best-known and most success ful amusement managers-one of the shrewdest of impresarios-in this country is R. E. Johnston, who spent several days here this week. He is the man who brought to the United States Trebelli, Muslin, Mar teau, Ysaye, Rivarde, Sauret Huberman, Carreno, Pugno, Plancon and Sauer. Nor dica is another great celebrity that John ston has managed in brilliant concert tours.
 It is reasonable to say that no impress ario living knows more of the tns and outs and the eccentricities of stage artists than Johnston. He is at present the proprietor and general manager of Innes' band and has planned the most extensive tour in the history of band concerts. Opening in Att lantic City, June 30, his booking includes four hundred concerts in two hundred days. This is indeed a record-breaker. Sousa has never approached it.
 But Johnston is essentially a discoverer He has the reputation of having made few mistakes. In the course of a year he listens to unknown singers, unknown pian- ists and unknown violinists, who sing or perform for him on trial. As can readily be imagined he finds ninety per cent or more only mediocre. But Johnston, like all other impresarios listens patiently, in the hope of discovering in the whole lot a real ar tist, or genius capable of development There Is hardly great prima donna in Europe or America, known a box office success. who was not discovered" by some such manager as Johnston. The talent was there but 1t had to be educated and properly presented to the public.
 Mr. Johnston tells me that of all the dis coveries he has ever made the star who will dazzle the world most is Mariette Mobr1ene, mezzo-soprano, who will make her debut at the Metropolitan opera house in New York, December g. This woman was born and reared in one of our southern states. She claims Atlanta as her home. She is about twenty eight years of age and has been studying with Marchesi in Paris for five or six years.
 In 1896 Johnston went to Paris to try to induce Marchesi to sign a contract for an American tour. He offered her a fabulous price, and the terms were about agreed to, when the distinguished artist changed her mind and decided that she did not care to cross the Atlantic But while Johnston was in Marchesi's studio he caught the notes of one of her pupils. Great heavens, what voice!' he exclaimed. Let me hear that woman sing" he said to Marchesi. Certainly replied the famous teacher The pupil was Mariette Mobriene, and such a phenomenal voice he had never heard before. After listening to her for half an hour he predicted for her a spicnls;d fu- ture. Marchesi confirmed Johnstons esti- mate of the womans talent, and said that after a few more years of study the world would be sounding the praises of Mobriene just as it had sounded the praises of Patti, Melba and Nordica. 'I will put her name in my book, and will lay first claim to her when she Is ready to make her debut" said the impresario. Four years have rolled round and Mariette Mobriene's musical education is completed; i; and Johnston, on hearing her last spring, was more than delighted with her develop ment and congratulated himself over and over again on having discovered her. He raved over her
 'Why, sir, she is without doubt the greatest of them all,'' Johnston said to me. This is not extravaganza talk. I haven't made many mistakes in knowing what was what and 1 certainly have not made any mistake in bringing out Mobriene. She has for me the most colos- sal voice, tHe most HdtuTdl FOlce tldt | have heard in all my life. Her intermezzo- the quality one hardly ever expects-comes only with half-hour singing
 ''I have heard singers and singers; have listened and listened to singers and musI- clans in all parts of the globe, but this wo- man is marvel to me. She is astounding astounding to me, blase man, if you choose Many persons have been present. ed to me as artists and musicians out of the ordinary. I have been bored to death so to speak, by the friends and would-be friends of these people, only to find that most of them were artists and singers only for the long green's sake. I have consent- ed to hear sing and play men and women whom I could understand as musicians after the veriest pretense But in some cases I have been rewarded ten times over. In Mobriene of Atlanta I have discovered a voice which is truly a voice; in all my experience the most marvellous voice. It is voice that will haunt the memory and go down into history In addition to Mobrienes superb voice and method she has a magnificent stage presence which, of course, counts for much"
 Speaking of musical celebrities who draw, MT. Johnston said: 'The leading box office proposition was, as every one knows. Ada lima Patti. Next to Patti, the red-headed Paderewski has led the record. All the famous virtuosi command big prices, but none of them have been so profitable as the Polish pianist.
 TWO years ago I offered Joachim, the most classical violinist who has ever lived. $3O, ,OOO for twenty concerts in America and all expenses. But money did not tempt him. He simply would not entertain my proposi- tion. He said quietly, No, I do not care to travel across the ocean, am not open to an American proposition. There, now.