Evening Star Newspaper, September 13, 1931, Page 81

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, SEPTEMBER 13, Explaining Madame Hempel’s Many Lawsuits M There Should Be a Law, Says the Lovely Singer, to Protect Prima Donnas From the Chronic Crank. BY HAZEL CANNING. HEN a New York judge the other day threw out of court the suit one Johannes Adler, brought against the world- famous prima donna, Frieda Hempel, all the singer’'s friends, quite naturally, congratulated her upon her victory. But the golden-haired soprano waved a pretty hand, arched delicate brows, and shrug- ged expressive shoulders. “Victery,” she sighed, ‘“yes, perhaps. But deliver me from any more victories of this kind. I would prefer to take my laurels, sing- ing." ; Fame and fortune, it is supposed, wait to reward the successful singer. But this is only a matinee girl's imagining, according to the former Metropolitan star. Why not mention, also, the annoyances and the worries that dis- tract many a singer, once she has arrived? As Mme. Hempel told her own story, it sug- gested other stories of great singers who also found lawsuits at the top of the ladder. In fact, it almost seemed that the trials of the poor working girl, alone in the cruel city, are less poignant by far than the lawsuits of the great prima donna, adored by all the world and persecuted by a very minor part of it. For, it was explained, the great singer may enjoy an income in six figures—and yet she may shudder whenever the telephone rings. For its tinkling may bring news of another suit, a request tor thousands of dollars, for a musical education, a house and lot, a trip to Europe, or just enough money to get married on! UT what Mme. Hempel naively calls her “most recent appearanoe” was ‘‘cancelled, to use a professional term,” when the case Adler brought against her was found valueless. As was explained in court, she made a contract with Adler, and paid him to the last dollar agreed upon. She even added, outside.of the contract, money for tips and long, comforting cigars, during his travels. He coached her singing for a short period. It may not be generally known, but every con- scientious singer, no matter how finished her art, still spends much time in practice, even as a runner spends much time with his run- ning trainer. At length, however, the Alder- Hempel incident was ended—and Adler sailed back for Europe. What, then, was Madame's surprise, as Ma- dame herself pointed out, when considerably later she took up the paper one morning to read that her singing *“master” of a few con- ferences was suing her because she had not induced all the shining stars of the Metropol- itan Opera to take singing lessons of him! So the matter came before the judge, where it was soon revealed that this gentleman, who then called himself Selva, had really taken the name and other perquisites of a very famous singing coach, the great German 1maestro, Selva. But this suing gentleman was not Selva at all. The case crumpled to bits when this fact was proved. And so. as Mme. Hempel reviewed her latest suit, a bit ruefully, her story recalled other rather amazing suits, levied against other famous singers. Geraldine Farrar was sued by her cook years after the maker of fine biscuits had left the Farrar employ, because the woman believed she traced her sore eyes to her employment with the singer. Marguerite Matzenauer had much trouble connected with her divorce suit from the man who had first been her chauffeur and then her pampered husband. Mme. Schumann-Heink has not only de- fended a suit now and then, but has felt com- pelled to bring one recently, for breach of con- tract. She won it, too. Caruso was pestered with all manner of suits —and his estate was pestered after he had gone to a well-earned rest. 1IDEING sued seems to be a part of grand opera,” commentsr ¥me. Hempel. “But I am sure I haw giaerited more suits than any other sirg~r. I have never lost one suit— not a single one. The judge always says I am right. But think of the expense—the terrible worry—the brutal way in which an utter stran- ger may hound an artist and, somehow, keep within the law. “Just picture it to yourself. An artist may be singing a concert—giving all she has to the public, who love her. Her concert may have finished. Her friends may be crowding about her in the green room, saying sweet and lovely things. Then in strides an officer of the law and hands her a summons, while everybody looks on. “Is it fair to put an artiste to all this agony, just because some irresponsible person feels he would like to enjoy some of the fortune for which the singer has worked so hard?” So spoke the charming “Daughter of the Regiment,” the lady who created new and orig- fnal interpretations of the leading parts in “Martha” and “Traviata.” Then sk'ie added v N . The grand opera star's life is just one summons another. And, asks Mme. Hempel, “is after it fair to put an artiste to all this agony just because some one wants some of the fortune?” singer’s that she prayed her suits were now flnished for a while, and that she would have leisure for “an enchanting vacation” in the little village of Sils Maria, up In the Engadine. This mention of happy Summers she had already spent in the Swiss village brought memories of madame’s first Summer in the United States. Mme. Hempel, just 20, stepped off the steamer fresh from unusual triumphs in Europe. Kaiser Wilhelm—then on his throne—had called her his “high whistler” and presented her with a diamond brooch. The King of the Belgians had made his way backstage after a gala performance, and had brought as a gift a diamond bracelet. The young lady had been petted and feted. She had worked hard to succeed, had known no childhood, because of her music, and now, Europe at her feet, had set sail for America. T the boat a dashing American press agent met her. He spoke German. Madame spoke no English then. “When anybody says something you do not understand,” he told her, “just answer—'Sure, Mike!" That will et you anywhere.” Mme. Hempel tilanked the nice gentleman Mme. Frieda Hempel, whom Kaiser Wilhelm II called his “high whistler” and who finds lawsuits the bane of her life. RN T R kindly for such a useful expression and when, later, she sang for a club of serious and high- born society ladies, and they congratulated her, she replied sweetly, “Sure, Mike!” They stiffened, froze with displeasure. Poor little Hempel felt very bad. But that was only the beginning. Fast as she learned English, she also learned that there is a great deal more to being an im- portant singer in the United States than mere studying, and singing, and paying for what she calls “a prima donna's running expenses.” She figured in a number of lawsuits as the years passed. As she won her suits, her fame grew. Perhaps it was her increasing celebrity which induced August Hecksher, millionaire and philanthropist, to offer a very large yearly salary to persuade Mme. Hempel to give up her Nation-wide concert work and to sing only near New Yerk. He wished this, madame’s lawyers explained, so that he could always have the “high whistler” near enough to sum- mon her to sing for his own pleasure and that of his guests. Mme. Hempel pondered awhile, as to whether she should give up a large concert cli- entele to sing, almost entirely, at the Hecksher chamber concerts. Finally, being plagued with 50 many cranks, she agreed to do it. The arrangement went on for some time. Then Mr. Hecksher left for Europe and the salary agreed upon stopped. After reasonable negotiations and waiting Mme. Hempel filed suit for a broken agreement. But such a deluge of cranks, mischief makers, critics and perse- cutors did this stimulate anew that Mme. Hempel quickly instructed her lawyer to dis- continue all action. It seemed to her far better to give up her fees, far better to have lost a profitable concert season, than to carry the thing through. HERE was a divorce suit in the prima donna's life, too. Several years ago she got a Paris decree ending her marriage to W. B. Kahn. Then, a little more than a year ago, there was another unpleasant tangle when her sister, Mrs. Helene Schaper of New York, sued her for the recovery of jewelry valued at $10.000. Mme. Hempel explained that the jewelry had changed hands as security for a loan she had made her sister, and her lawyer pointed out that Mrs. Schaper was represented by the same lawyer who had represented Adler in his lawsuit. ‘Some people,” she explains, “think all a prima donna has to do is to stand before an audience, her arms full of roses, taking curtain calls. But if they knew——" Madame cites a few of the absurdities and nuisances that crowd her days. There was, for instance, the rapt gentleman waiting for her in the foyer of her New York house. “My dear madame,” he urged, saying his piece as if he had learned it by heart, “here is a cigarette lighter which not only lights cigar- ettes, but yodels while performing. Finance me in putting this on the marke¢t and we—_we 1931, —we will become rich beyond the dreams of avarice. It will only cost you half a million—" “Only half a million,” exclaimed Mme. Hempel, “but where will we find half a mil- lon?” ME. HEMPEL believes that vicious as it is to bring suit lightly against anybody, it is perhaps a little more vicious to bring such a suit against an artiste. For there is the artistic temperament to be reckoned with. “We suffer,” she says, “more from one hard word than well-balanced people suffer from a paragraph of hard words. I do believe, again, that our joys are also deeper and higher. I am sure a little yellow flower growing wild by the roadside brings more of joy and beauty to an artiste than a whole conservatory full of flowers sometimes bring to what we might call better balanced people. “It is, I know, unreasonable and absurd for artistes to be like this. But this, again, is why they are artistes. We love our public. We love all the people, so many of them unknown to us, who send kind words and notes and—re- quests for photographs. ““We owe them a debt—and that is the debt of responsibility to shield our lives, to keep out all unnecessary shock, that we may sing our best for all our friends. And—certainly—the cranks that hem our ways do not help us to fend off shocks.” Suits, requests for money, salesmen with tm- possible wares, inventors with wild inventions Mme. Hempel would like to bundle all up together and exchange for a world where flow- ers, music and dogs—“my three passions”— fill a singer’s life. And this done, there is one thing more she could wish, to make life per- fect. She wishes it were possible for her take out some crank insurance! Gasoline Tank “B r‘mt/u'flg" Is Costly A GASOLINE storage tank only takes eme “breath” a day, but when it exhales a lot of good dollars go out into the atmosphere to be lost forever. The annual loss through this breathing is considerable, in fact serious enough to have the Bureau of Mines undertake an in- vestigation to determine ways and means of curtailing the loss. The breathing is caused by purely physical reactions. When the temperature in the storage tanks rises the pressure increases, with a re- sultant escape of some of the gas vapor over the liquid in the tank. Then when the pressure lessens as the tank cools at night it may fall below atmospheric pressure, which brings a leakage of air into the tank or a more rapid increase of evaporation within the tank. This continues daily with the loss assuming serious proportions. In order to correct the evils of the pressure increase various remedies have been attempted. The two most successful have been the con- struction of vapor-tight tanks and the painting of tanks with lighter colo's. The. vapor-tight tanks are equipped with a one-way relief valve which permits the escape of gas before the pressure within the tank be- comes dangerous and halts the intake of air when the tank cools. The use of light-colored paints, of course, brings about a lowering of the previous high temperature through the pe- flection of the light and heae , v+ ~ - s,