The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1904-12-11
MADAM CALVES ARTISTIC
TEMPERAMENT.
Why She VIII Not BE Heard in New
York This Year.


New York, Dec. 1O.-The illness of
Nine. Calve. reported from Paris, is
causing some anxiety among her New
York friends, who had hoped to hear
her sing in the Metropolitan this win
ter. but who will not be gratified.
According to the judgment of many
she is not likely to be heard here in
some time. unless she modifies her
terms materially. and this probability
has been strengthened by the I'M
equivocal success of Olive Fremstad,
the Swedish-American prima donna,
in Carmen" a role in which Calve
excels, especially according to New
York's way of thinking.
To date. so far as reported, none
of Herr Conreid's song birds this year
have made any of the little scenes that
Calve was always fond of figuring in,
and, of course, Herr Conreid is hoping
they won't Nine Calve has one of
the most artistic "temperaments" on
record. Once when Pol Plancon-good
old Pol, still singing in the Metropoli
tan-ventured to make a joke about
lot of bouquets waiting in the wings
to be given to Calve she walked out
of the house and wouldn't return till
half the company, including Plancon,
ran after and imDlored her to do so.
Last April, at her farewell concert,
after singing one of her two numbers
on the programme, she had a tiff with
Herr Mottl and positively refused to
sing the second, alleging that she had
been seized suddenly by an attack of
hoarseness. Motif himself. and near
ly everybody else supposed to have
any influence with the singer, went to
her dressing room and implored her to
appear, but all she would do was to
go to the footlights. empty handed,
and assure the audience that she had
neither score nor accompanist-and so
how could she sing? These are only
two of the many instances in her
American career that have helped to
make life a burden to the successive
chief musical purveyors in New York
during the last ten or eleven years.
In France she sings for about one
quarter the sum she demands for the
same work here. There, too, she is
satisfied with twelve appearances in
one engagement, while here she insists
on fifty. Her pay is so low there that
1t barely pays for her customes, so
that she is bound ultimately to seek
further American engagements.
Herr Conried, however, doesn't
think New York should pay for the
pleasure of Paris, and, should she en-
gage with him, the terms of the en-
gagement will have to accord with his
conditions, not her theories. When
Madame Calve went abroad last
spring she took with her Miss Eva
Palmer, the daughter of the Late Cort-
landt Palmer. who wishes to make p
success on the Partisan stage and to
whom Calve is personally a devoted
friend.
Calves first visit to America was
made eleven years ago, in 1898. She
had already won great musical .tri-
umphs abroad, but they had been
preceded by years of desperate strug-
giles. She is a native of the south Of
France, near the Spanish border, and.
as part of her childhood was spent in
Spain, she has often been termed Span
ish Part of her girlhood was passed
in Paris, where she was employed in
lingerie shop in the daytime, TAX
ing her singing lessons in the even
ing.
She sang her first opera role in
Brussels when she was eighteen,
"Faust' being the opera chosen. Her
singing teacher was in despair when
She told him of the engagement, for
she had not even learned the part CT
Marguerite" which she was to as
sumo. But he braveIy set out to
teach it TO her, and she learned it in a
fortnight.
That was years before she began to
get a small fortune for each ENGAGE
ment, and she has never been
paid more than half as much
as in America anywhere else.
Duane