The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-11-26
BIG SEASON
 FOR GRAND OPERA
Over ITO Performances for
 New York
HERR OSCAR ALL RIGHT
Hammerstein Is Captivating London With His Musical Stars-Tells How He Found Two of His
 Singers-Mice Unlucky
By JAMES GRANT THURsToN

By JAMES GRANT THURSTON
 New York, November 25.-(Special.)-- The season of grand opera starts off this year with every sign of being the great est season in the musical history of New
 York While Signor Gatti Casazza has
 retained practically all the old favorite
 songbirds, he has brought to us the larg- est number of new voices heard in New
 York since Oscar Hammerstein began
 the war which has made of New York
 the music center of the world
 So 1t is with operas while old favor
 ties are retained there are many works
 which this season will receive their first American presentation.
 There will be given during the season
 of p weeks no less than ITO perform
 ances and operas will be sung in Italian,
 German, French and English. This itself
 is unique in the history of opera. No less
 than s1,300,oo0 will be taken in during
 the 22 weeks and 1t Is estimated that
 fully half million persons will attend
 the performances. A weekly expense
 of $60,0O0 is entaied to cover amounts
 paid artists and artisans. for 1t takes a
 corps of 600 persons to make possible the
 series of opera performances. It costs to indulge in opera. If you
 have a matter of s1oo,0OO or so about you
 and a few other requirements you may
 own a box in the charmed parterre row,
 or perhaps you may rent one of those boxes from the owner for night for a
 matter of $5O0 If your tastes are more
 modest a box in the grand tier for s60 may do. Or leaving the box region, a seat in the orchestra may be had for s6. and in the family circle dollar will en- title you to a seat and an opportunity to hear MT. Caruso.
 And while New York is enjoying her operatic treat the only Oscar Hammer
 stein has been making good his boast that he would make London sit up and
 take notice by producing grand opera as it should be produced. When London
 went to MT. Hammersteins new house and saw the manner in which he put
 "Quo Vadis' on the stage, for the open ing night, it gasped and incidentally came to the conclusion that Herr Oscar was about all right Mir. Hammerstein, by the way, has two brand new Amer ioan voices with him. Here's what he says about them:
 ''One of my tenors, MT Orville liar rold is going to astonsh London. I dis covered him in New York music hall.
 His turn was very successful, and lighted with him. The timber of his
 voice was wonderfully good. I went round to sec him and told him how
 pleased I was with his singing.
 But you are wasting your time here"
 said.
 I
 opera Why don't you have your voice properly trained?"
 we talked things over then and there.
 and MT. Harold was sufficiently confi-
 dent in my judgment to give up his vau-
 deville work at once and undertake a
 long and thorough course of training.
 That happened a year or two ago, and
 now I am certain that MT. Harold has
 one of the most perfect tenor voices of
 any singer before the public.
 Miss Felicie Lyme, another of my sur
 prises for London, Is a Kansas girl, and
 my first meeting with her, or, rather.
 hearing of her, was rather curious. I
 was in church one Sunday. and when the
 choir stood up to sing I noticed among
 them a young girl with a charming face.
 "A few seconds later the hymn began and clear as a bell above the rest of the choir I detected at once the voice of a great soprano. I was really startled by he beauty of it. It took me very short time to identify the owner of the voice with the little girl in the choir, and I waited somewhat impatiently, fear, for the service to come to an end so I might make her acquaintance, for I knew at
 once she had the makings of great opcratic star.
 1T do not want 1t to be thought, of
 course, that I have discovered all my stars in this way many of them came to
 me with regulations already established. What I want to make clear is that I care very little about big names. It is good singing and not grand opera man. agement that is a passion with me, and I want the public to hear the best sing ing I can discover"
 Why is 1t that Shakespeare has lost the power to make satisfactory box office re- turns? This question is not a new one. If anybody is qualified to answer 1t Is E. H. Sothern And he does
 Here is what he says:
 '"The only way to popularize Shake speare is to work like the devil and give the public good acting. Shakespeare is popular if well acted-he doesn't have to be made so. have never had losing season in Shakespeare. Not even in my first season in Hamlet in 1898, when did that play exclusively for the entire sea- son."
 "There's nothing more unlucky than havin' mice in a theatre said the scene shifter. T knew one to break up mel odrama and 1t was a strong drama, with three murders, an abduction and ship wreck in it. The guv'nor who played the nero and the sole survivor from the ship wreck. was s'posed to be strugglin' ashore to an island in the South Pacific. l was in the wings in charge of big wave which broke in dusty foam on the beach an my mates heaved the troubled sea. The boss had just struggled to his feet. and was beginning to remark that there was no living object in sight when 2 mouse rushed over the heaving deep. fled across the island, took some more heayng deep in its rush. and vanished. This was embarrassing, but the guv'nor st rted his remark about the absence of life all afresh. Just then the property
 man,s cat. which had heard of the mouse. anneared on the top of wave, and also toot the ocean in its stride. The boss made a desperate attempt to prevent the scene breaking up, and might have man aged had not another large vessel move Tn sipht. It was the carpenters dog' whlch hated the property mans cat' ana was king heavy weather in pursuit. With ;ts mouth omen. Then the curtain fell" Arnold Daily. who is best known In New York for his productions. of Der nard Shaw plays has decided 10 remain permanently in England.
 For more than a year he has been on this side of the water studying both En- eIish and continental drama, and now, | having secured financial backing, he In tends to open repertoire theatre or his