Dresden enterprise and Sharon tribune. (Dresden, Tenn.) 1907-1997, 1919-12-12
SINGER SUFFERS
TRIALS IN ITALY
Miss Mcvane Was Victim Of
Many Prosecutions Dur
ing the War.
sCOFFED At IN STREET
American Ambassador Puts Wheels In
Motion and Her Blackmaller ls
Sent to Prison-Puccini Planned
an Opera for Her.

New York.-"If there was lack OF
artistic temperament in the original
composition of Miss DOrothea Alastair
McVane, her experiences as a profess
sional singer In Italy would have
made good the defect, for she so i'm
pressed the great Puccini that, at his
instance, she made her operate debut
as Mimi, in his La BOheme," carry
ing through the part with success
when she was in the first stages OF
typhoid fever; she fell under official
suspicion as spy In laramie, where
there is an italian naval station; she
underwent siege Of blackmail that
resulted in sending two OppressorS to
prison, and she became the betrothed
of young noble, who was killed in the
war.
In addition, her progress toward
career was hampered by the stern OPP
position of her father, Silas Marcus
Mcvane, formerly professor of history
and international law in Harvard, re-
firing as emeritus professor. After
ward the family became so proud of
the young singer that they established
q home in Rome, where Professor Nc
vane died at about the beginning of
the war.
Scoffed and Kissed.
In connection with the spy and
blackmail episodes it seems that Miss
Mcvane unwittingly snapped her cam
era when the lens was pointed in the
direction of masked batteries. Soon
she became the object of SOOTHING in
the street, she was Kissed at the OPP
era, she found herself unable to get
letters to her friends or to hear from
them, She became so nervous and dis
plrited that she wished to so away,
regardless of her operate contract,
and was threatened with arrest if she
tried to go. When, at last, men an
noyed her with threats of publishing
the spy story and thus running her
career unless she paid money'to them,
she contriyed to get word to the
American ambassador in Rome, who
nut the wheels in motion for a black
mail trial, whereby Miss McVane was
cleared and the men were punished.
She was led to adopt singing as a
profession on the advice of artists and
others who heard her voice in Paris,
where she had gone merely to perfect
her French. When her French instruc-
TORS sent her to Milan, with letters to
the composer Puccini. she knew the
leading roles in 20 operas. 1t was re-
ported that Puccini intended to write
an opera for her, but the war alb
sorbed him in other affairs.
Something Of Psychic.
Miss McVane is something OF a
psychic. The story is that both she
and her titled lover believed firmly IN
the survival of personality after death
and the ability of the disembodied
spirit to communicate with the living
and that they exchanged VOWS that the
one dying first would visit the survlV
or on earth. Ever since the lover died
she is said to have been expecting such
a visit.
Miss McVane's sisters are Miss
Edith McVane, managing writer anc
novelist, and the Baroness DodemaI
de Placy, whose husband is a French
cavalry officer. The McVane home In
Rome was long a favorite meeting
place for social, literary and artistic
celebrities.