Word: opera
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...years ago-a towering, turreted, 100-room French chateau surrounded with gardens, stables, farm buildings, 18-hole golf course, tennis courts, landing field and woodlands on 441 rolling acres. It was conservatively assessed at $1,100,000 and in it Otto Kahn, international banker (Kuhn, Loeb & Co.), art and opera patron, lived and entertained lavishly...
...seed early. When golden-voiced Enrico Caruso died at 48, he had passed his prime. Jean de Reszke and gut-busting Francesco Tamagno retired at 51. But not yet retired is Giovanni Martinelli, 53, robust, white-mopped tenor who made his debut at Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera the year before the War. Never the undisputed best of the Metropolitan's chandelier-jigglers, Martinelli has been a dependable artist in an enormous repertory (57 roles). In two operas, Verdi's Otello and Halevy's La Juive, critics found him first-rate. Although a little worn...
...traditional side show of London's Season-the weeks of social harvest between the opening of the Royal Academy in May and the first week of August-is opera at elderly, fuddy-duddy Covent Garden. Last winter, Londoners talked of letting Covent Garden sit out this Season. Some reasons: some backers objected to German and Italian singers, Wagnerian operas; others were alarmed about wars and rumors of wars. To the rescue of Covent Garden leaped gruff, goateed Sir Thomas Beecham, who has spent uncounted sums from his pill income ("Worth a Guinea a Box") to give England good music...
Also, Sir Thomas reportedly took a hand in Covent Garden's financing. A new backer for the opera appeared: the London Philharmonic Concert Society (among the directors: Sir Thomas). The Philharmonic Orchestra (conductor: Sir Thomas) took to the air, on Radio Luxembourg, the continental commercial station* to which Britons listen on Sundays or whenever B. B. C. becomes too deadly. Radio sponsor of the orchestra: Beecham's Pills, Ltd. (coupon clipper: Sir Thomas). So Covent Garden had a seven-week opera season, which last week reached...
...cable about. Sir Thomas Beecham called it quits. Said he: "Support this year has been entirely inadequate. The public has not yet recovered from that contemptible condition of nervous prostration caused by the entirely anticipated events of last autumn and this spring." Declaring that he would never, never conduct opera again, Sir Thomas announced he might enter politics...