The Savannah morning news., 1903-02-08
NEW YORK TOPICS
DRIFTS AND UNDERCURRENTS OF
THE METROPOLIS.

or Three Leading Women Vocal
lists in America-AnxIety About
the Source From Which Enough
High-GrRde Singers Shall Come
Next Season to Make the Season
a Success-Comparing Gadski, Who
Is still Young and Ambitious, to
LiIIi lehman, Now Singing in
Vienna-HOw the Films of Brook
Iyn Are Watching for News from
Their Beloved aud Distressed
FntherIand - Loyalty of Finnish
Americans to Finland Remark
ably supplemented by Their De-
votion to the Republic.
New York, Feb. 7.-Opera-goers in
this town are still congratulating
themselves on the return to the sing
ing stage in her own land of Nine.
Suzanne Adams, the soprano. =
For, despite the enormous prices that
Mr.. Grau, just now retired because of
illness, has paid to his stag singers,
that he might get the best in the
world, Nine. Adams is one of the two
oe three leading women vocalists in
America to-day. MeIba is in Aus
tralia, Calve is i'll in France, Eames,
Nordica and Sembrich are in good form
and still valuable as attractions" but
have passed the period OF improvement,
and the only prima donna here who is
at all up to Nine. Adams is Gadski.
She is still young and still ambi-
tious. as evidenced by her heroic
studying of the part of Fro in Man
cinilli'S opera, "Ero and Leandro,"
which is soon to be given, but the
others, while by no means old women,
have all been before the public that
freQuents the Metropolitan Opera
House from fifteen to twenty years,
and already have exhibited to New
York audiences many times over
every last vocal trick of which they
are capable.
Where enough star singers for next
year to carry the season through shall
be found is an anxious question with
the gentlemen who are to succeed
Mr.. Grau at the Metropolitan Opera
House.
Though Nine. Adams has made so
much of a success on this, her return
to the opera, and though she purposes
following her season here with a sea-
son as prima donna in London, she
really prefers the concert stage, and
it is as a concert singer, probably, in
the years to come, that she will be
most heard in her native America. Her
debut here this year. a week ago to-
day, was a Juliette in Gounods "Ro-
meo ct Juliette."
1t was in this role that she first
sang in America in 1899, when she set
every one to talking by her ingenious
way of draping her left sleeve so
that it should show a perfectly form
ed heart in blue. There could be no
other role, either in opera or drama,
in which wearing her heart upon her
sleeve" would be so appropriate.
OF Gadski, the critics are saying
constantly that some of her work APP
proaches absolute perfection in the
same way Lilli Lehmann's used to,
and that is high praise, indeed. Leh-
mann, by the way, is singing in Wen
ma this winter and winning the most
enthusiastic praises, despite the cir
Cumstance that New York audiences
have long considered her voice out
worn.
Cadskis voice was discovered to be
wonderful when she was in school by
a musical visitor whose quick ear
discerned that one voice in a school
girl chorus sung for her benefit was
far above the average in range, sweet
ness and power, and had the little one
sought out and her voice tested. 1t
is probably to that accidental test
that the music-loving world is in
debted for the existence of Gadski.
the prina donna, of to-day.
And it is certainly because of that
chance test that Madame Gadski takes
the interest she does in the school
children of the cities in which she
sings. This has been manifested more
in Philadelphia, perhaps, than else
where, There, on one occasion, she
electrified and won the lifelong, hom-
age of 500 schoolgirls who had sung
their simple songs for her by MAX
ing them a short address and then
singing Way Down Upon the Suwa-
nee River to them.
Over in Brooklyn there is a goodly
colony of Europeans whose interest in
every foreign mail outweighs the in
terest of almost all others. They are
Firms, and their present almost pain
full desire to get the latest information
from the other side is due to Finland's
combined n.isfortunes from famine
and the oppression of the Russian
government, of which the Western
world gets occasional glimpses only
through brief press association dis
patches.
Although the Firms in America
quickly become most enthusiastic in
their devotion and loyalty to the coun-
try of their adoption, they never lose
their love for the dreary land of their
BIRTH and, while they get along I'M
usually we'll with men of every other
nationality, their racial solidarity is
remarkable. Every Finn feels it his
bounden duty to help every other Finn,
whether a relative or not, and as every
Finn also feels it a disgrace not to
earn his own way, the percentage of
Firms who become public charges is
smaller than the pauper percentage of
almost any other immigrating nation
atty.
Naturally, the characteristic which
brings about this result impels the
rims here to keep the closest kind of
watch upon the developments ON the
other side. AS the Finnish and Rus
SIAN newspapers are forbidden to tell
the truth about the country in its
nour of dire distress, and no other
newspapers can get the truth readily,
the information received by Firms here
must come almost exclusively by let
ter Hence the feverish watch for for
elsn mails. Despite the close watch
kept by the Cars government upon
the mail from Finland to America,
many of the letters received by the
brooklyn colony are filled with stories
OF privation and hardships and no less
thrilling recitals of encounters with
Inc military and anV steamer NAV