The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-09-23
DESTINN BACK IN US.
DESPISING TEUTONS
Soprano, Prisoner 3 1-2 Years
in Bohemian Castle, Would
Spurn German Tongue.

Bringing Emmy Destinn. the former
Metropolitan soprano; Eugen Ysaye,
the Belgian violinist; several other mu-
sicians and number Of notables among
her $50 passengers. the French liner
La Lorraine arrived yesterday from
Havre
Miss Destinn said that she had been
hemia for three and a half years, as
she was forbidden by the authorities to
go more than eight miles from the gates.
Tho only exception granted was when
she was permitted to visit Vienna last
sumer to sing. She went to Bohemia
in May. 1915, and when she began
preparations to return she was informed
by the Austrian authorities that she
could not leave.
The singer will begin a concert tour
that includes fifty performances in vari-
Gus cities from the Atlantic to the
Pacific and will then appear at the
Metropolitan. Asked II she would sing
in German operas sEe said:
II will not say that I will never
sing the German operas. but I never
wish to sing again in the German
tongue"
Ysayes Visited Old Ostend Home.
Ysaye arrived with his wife and three
children from their first visit to their
home in Ostend in over FIVE years. He
said that many of his old friends were
gone, that Ostend showed the marks of
war and that he was glad to be back
once more in the United States, He
has lived in Switzerland in the last two
years
Minnie Egener. mezzo-soprano at the
Metropolitan, who spent the summer in
France and Italy. and Louis Haselmann.
director OF French operas or the Chi
cago Opera Company, also arrived on
the liner. Mr.. Haselmann said that he
would produce two new French operas,
"Aphrodite," by Erlanger. and "L'Espa-
MOL" by Ravel. which will be heard in
New York in February.
On her way to visit her father, John
Scullen Of St Louis, Nine. de Chest
reached here with her son, Lieut. Henri
de Gheest of the Fourth French Zouaves
II is Nine. de Chests first visit to this
country since the beginning of the war
and she expects to remain for several
months. Her son was wounded four
times and won the Legion of Honor
and the Croix de Guerre with two palms
and three stars
Other passengers on the Lorraine
included Mr.. and Mrs. George A. Kessler,
who had been absent for two and a half
years working for the Relief Fund for
the Permanently Blind, which was begun
by Mr. Kessler three years ago. Mr..
Kessler, once well known In the cham
payne trade here, would not tab about
prohibition but said that he and his
wife had come over to interest the public
In the work of the fund, which has spent
more than 100000 and needs So
100000 more.
CEechO-slOvak Soldiers Get In.
Three hundred Czecho- Slovak soldiers
on their way to their homes in the
United States also got in on the French
liner under the command OF Lieuts. Lada
Krizek and Jan Itavaic, both of Cleve-
land. The men were met by a reception
committee of their fellow countrymen
and after a band had played "The Star
Srangled Banner" the "Marseillaise"
and the Czecho-Slovak national hymn,
Where Is My Home?" they marched to
Sokol Hall in East Seventy-first street,
where they were paid of
Raymond Higgins OF Chicago, sec
ond class passenger who was returning
10 this country with his wife after
several months spent in welfare work
in France, committed suicide by leaping
over the stern OF the ship in midocean
IN full view Of number of passengers.
He left his widow, French girl only
! 8 years old, with but two francs, and the
Mr.. Kessler heading the list with 500
francs. She was met at the pier by
her husbands mother. Mrs. C. Ii. Hig-
gins of 643S Peoria straat Chicogo