The San Francisco call., 1908-04-05

for cooking and that she had /
rather be over the steam from
her kitchen stove than that aris- |
ing from the footlights is not, as
might be supposed, to intimate that
she lacks either ambiton OF wit. |
Has not cookery been esteemed a high
art ever since the simplicity Of Ho-
meric days gave way to Grecian epi /
cureanism and luxury? Is not Arches
tratus the name handed down to us
by Athenaeus. who called him the
guide of Epicurus and the inventor Of
made dishes"2 Who shall say that a
cook has not a fine and complex soul?
All the same, where viii you md a
woman with high talents for singing.
trained TO the prima donna point, will
ing 70 admit an ambition TO putter
over an evening meal and willing to
show her comic opera proclvities out
through the screen door2
have found that woman. She is
Helen Bertram. whom the Princess
thester playbilIs not unreasonsbiy an
nounce queen OF comic opera" Before
could recover from the shock of her
announcement of her preference for
cooking she was head over heels in
Ibsen theories. That subject. after
cooking, being. it seems, favorite
source OF inspiration and interest to
the former prima donna of the Bos-
tonians and present prima donna OF
the Princess company.
-r-or,7rr1 real
woman, with brains and a disposition
TO do things in the world, keep on sing
ing .Yo. no. Captain ?" she asked me,
and / gave it UP. Last week she
pursued. 4 saw Mrs. Patrick Camp
bell in .Hedds Gabler.' Now there is
something worth a woman's while.
There are emotion, sentiment, feeling
and thought to portray, and. will you
believe itg I am sure 1 have talent for
thar sort of thing. But because 1 could
sing nobody ever gave me chance to
do anything efse. Think of singing
that. .Yo, ho,, My Captain stuff as long
as I have done it. It's enough to give
one paresis. I am surprised that my
little brain hasn't shriveled up 10 the
size of a dried kernel in nutshell"
There's art in that kind Of work.,
encouraged.
I suppose there is. There certainly
Is A pleasure in feeling that you are
really singing; that the tones you are
emitting are free and untrammeled and
that they are giving your fellows pleas
ure But it's deadening TO spend a life
in comic opera land. It's all right for
those who sit in front once a week or
50. but for as who have to wander
through the plots it is awful Yet 1
can't let go"
couldn't help thinking Of the story
of "The Viceroy.' which the Princess
IA playing this week with Helen Ber-
tram at the head OF the Singers; of the
pretty music, and the splendid setting
the play is receiving and 1 wondered
AZ. after all, it must not be, indeed as
she said, nerve wearing to try and
make such a story sound real You re-
call such episodes as these (and they
are in all comic operas):
Tivolini is captured and carried off
10 prison. a collapsed pirate chief, That
closes one act When the curtain goes
up on the next in walks Tivolini free
as bird, and quite as vocal, dressed in
fine black suit, just as If nothing had
happened. Then in the midst of foes
Tivolini bursts into loud song while the
peasants and police hover in the wings
and pretend not to see him. The true
comic opera author scorns TO explain
such liberties and hatters your imagin-
alton by presuming that you can supply
the explanation. The fact that Tivoliri
is bold male bandit while his imper-
senators garments reveal very feminine
curves is only another evidence of the
superiority OF story 20 circumstance;
besides, the exigencies of the situation
demand song from Tivolini at that
1uncture and that is the real issue of
the matter.
THAT is comic opera" said Miss Ber-
tram. s.and one is not much better nor
worse than another in those particulars.
So that's why I say give me domestic
lob or give me Ibsep. Alas. I fear
shall get neither. but must content my
self with the success that has come to
me in the sYo, ho. Captain. roles. Oh.
t.or4,fo nucs.a