Omaha Daily Bee Newspaper, October 25, 1903, Page 28

The NDER Heinrich Conried American singers are coming to their own,” exclaimed a well known musical critic, on reading the list of the “stars” who will appear during the forthcoming grand opera season, which opens at the New York Metropolitan Opera house In November, and will be continued In several of the other large American cities, The critic was right. Never before, In the history of grand opera in this country, have American artists had as large a representation, This is especially true of the mezzo-sopranos and contraltos whom Mr. Conried has engaged. There are seven of them, and six are American women, Edith Walker was born in Long Island, Olive Fremstad is a Minneapolis girl of American and Scandinavian parentage, Isabelle Bouton is a Brooklyn woman with & great musical reputation in her native city, and Loulse Homer and Fanchon Thompson are well known American singers, . Of the six pupils In the new school of opera which Mr. Conried has started as the first step toward the formation of a permanent conservatory two are American giris. Joscphine Jacoby 18 a popular oratorio singer In Manhattan, and Marcia Van Dresser is well known In many Ameri- can cities through her successes in light epera. Of all these artists, the most interesting to opera-goers and the American public will undoubtedly be Miss Edith Walker, who has been engaged to sing the leading mezzo-soprano roles, Her story is a romance of real life. When she was a little Long: Island girl her father was & nurseryman who went around the island selling plants and flowers. Bhe was brought up among “practical” people, who knew little about music and cared less. 0ld Long Islanders remember her as a dreamy girl, who had a passion for studying music and going to such concerts and oratorios as came within her reach. But none of them ever suspected that she would become famous. “As a little girl,” says one who knows her, “'she was full of dreams of music and ambition, but she had positively no musical atmosphere or ‘pull’ Yet Somehow she managed to work and hope, creating her own atmosphere as she went along No one knew her or encouraged her, but she struggled with all her might and main to keep the hope from dying.” Finding no chance of developing her tal ent and gaining a reputation in her own country, Edith Walker went to Europe while still a young girl, and studied earnestly in the best centers of musical education on the continent. After a hard struggle, during which she was often al- FELIX MOWIL, M.4ICAL D.RECTOR. most on the verge of destitution, she be- came known in London and Paris. But her real success was not made until she sang in Vienna. Old Emperor Franz Josef heard her there and was delighted with her voice. Calling the director of the Vienna Imperial Opera house, a state institution, he asked him to engage the young American woman at once. Since then Miss Walker has been for several yvears one of the leading singers at the Imperial opera house and a prime fa- vorite with the aged emperor. When he is wearied by the cares of state and his cease- less struggle to hold his country together and preserve the peace of Europe, he often summons her te his palace to sing to him in the evening, and declares that that is the best relaxation he can obtain, The emperor's consent was necessary to the engagement cof Miss Walker by Mr Conried. It is an open secret that he did not wigsh to give it, but felt it would be hard to deny her the opportunity of mak- ing a reputation in her native land. Thus it is that the Edith Walker who is re- American Invasion of Grand Opera MISS EDITH WALKER, LEADING MEZZO-SOPRANO AND AN AMERICAN. FRAN NAVAL, TZNOR. membered by Long Islanders as a little girl of no particular account is returning to her heme, for the first time in many years, a prima donna of European fame. Interest will also be felt in the appear- ance of Miss Olive Fremstad, the Minne- apolis contralto. Some years ago, when Seidl was giving Sunday evening concerts in the Lenox Lyceum, New York, Sofia Schalchi, the “cello-voiced contralto,’” failed to appear at ene eof the concerts for which she had been engaged. Her place was taken by a young girl, and that was the first time New Yorkers heard Olive Fremstad in concert, Like all the musical geniuses of America, Miss Fremstad had to go abroad to study and become famous before she could hope to attain honor in her oewn country. She studied under Mme. Lilli Lehmann, first appeared In opera with Colomme, the French conductor, and made a hit last season at the Covent Garden opera, London. Miss Fremstad is a beautiful woman She works hard, reads deeply, has a wide range ef interests, is an expert swimmer, s very fond of animals and keeps a great number of pets, “She is an original,” says one of her friends. ‘“Unlike most operatic stars, she {8 a trifle careless as to her personal ap- pearance, even on the stage. She walks with a lagy grace, which is effective on the boards because of her beautiful figure.” Mme. Emma Calve, who is to reappear after two years' absence, has been leading a truly rural life at her chateau in the south of France, tending her sheep, chat- ting with the peasants and climbing the hills. As Calve wanders ut she listens to the folk songs of the peasants, A year or two ago she began to write down her favor- ite airs, until at length she had enough to weave into a one-act opera, which she sang recently in London. In return for the songs which the peas- ants give lL.er she sings to them the grand opera airs which Americans eagerly pay thousands of dollars to hear, Often she stops at a cottage and sings song after song to please a peasant woman or a child, asking no payment save a glass ef milk, Emma Calve i{s a many-sided, eccentrio woman, She {s deeply interested in all kinds of mystical, occult and spiritualistie lore, and she even became engaged to be married to Mr. Jules Bois, a writer of mystical stories, on the strength of advice which she supposed the spirite gave her. She broke this engagement, pre- sumably because her phantom coundellors changed their advice. But she is a woman with a keen sense of humor, a facile pen, and a fondness for caricaturing her friends, She is also a very clever dancer, and can do the lively serio-comic ‘‘song-and-dance act” with any soubrette of the Bowery stage. A new soprano is coming from Finland in the person of Madame Aino Ackte. To quote one of the officials of the Metropoli- tan opera house she will be ‘“the Eames of the colection.” She is not only a fine artist, but also a beautiful woman, a society belle in Hurope, and an exquisite dresser. She is saild to resemble the lovely Christine Nilson of other days, being a richly colored blonde, tall, stately and graceful, Madame Ackte did not have to struggle for fame, like Miss Walker and most of her kind. £he was “born to the purple.”™ Ehe is the daughter of the director of a musical academy, and her mother was a singer well known throughout Norway, Sweden and Germany. The daughter, when only 17 years old, sang at a concert given by her mother, and after that was often heard in her own country., She begam (Continued on Page Fifteen)