The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, July 3, 1904, Page 19

n—and, like another d of his job—is » profundo of the and former There is no hn” should not ork. 'Tis no > have slept in al in the stoke hole i ng for a meal and = vour ideal, as John ns way here as years later he was a Bostonians and in some w seriously dubbed the ight opera” Ah well, never mind that now. ng these hopeful things od to hear, sane, ng—I went 1o ask » success. front of there, quarter huge cowboy hat street. Barron h him, @ooking happy Hood—he has 1 t that dashing out- g in Miss Par- 1 know. We, I s to the guiity in- nterview very t like me. But ng, where Dunsmure protested art face te season with not a good part, y a ‘feeder w Glaser . the People gh t turn over the pro- 5ok to see who's who ve Bo chanc Scarlett, hard k how com- I suggested, “I be fun to be with ice as long and Mr. Dunsmure d the cor- id more than his y V ff the quick as lightni rather, you part ‘than hs from the ues, for ex- rden what do you do wise as you know how, as you best can,” the Then with poaderous " takes some time to set all of d three-quarters a-laugh then as not always that way. s we arranged little surprises Once, where Dolly and king into the distance suardy,’” and she has mes Guardy. Perhaps r with him and we ed up one of the 3 man. But such painted his nose blue, and put on him a i sluggers. Then I put my t a little one—and him in my frock coat. We ble under his him—in the t down er!’— remembered her the lover hadn't when she came hed. ently stroked his ordained: Of course not,” I said. “But,” Mr. Dgnsmure advised then. in his deepest profundo, “I think the way I got my education will be the most interesting material to you. I've had rather 2 unique career.” Yes? . “Yes,” he nodded weightily. 7 T.bkn he bheaved round my way te 4 the tale, that he evidently enjoyed as much as I did. “Yes, I came over here as a cabin boy when I was fifteen,” he began; ran away from home in fact"— “Home?" Edinburgh,” the big lowlander told me. “I went back not so long ago and my father said: ‘Eh, mon, but the climate over there must have developed The six feet one and the etc. that Mr. Dunsmure insists on are certainly all there, likewise a proportionately noble breadth. Give him also prom- inent blue—he serio-comically eclaims “blue-violet"—eye a mouth curved cheerfully upward like @ new moon, a noble handle of a nose and a radiant ruddiness of color, when you think of this braw Scot. “First 1 strayed down to Norfolk. Virginia,” he continued then, and stili with the same solid delight in his memories said: “It was a dry goods store 1 started in. Imagine a big fel- low like me measuring tape! It was a good thing for me that this voice gen- erated in my throat. I used to sing in church choirs and €0 on even then.” “Did you study?” “No, just sang naturally. I had a natural, deep, heavy profundo, even then,” he recalled, dropping into the depths of it. He rolls out every now and again a bit of mellow subterranean thunder just for the joy of it. “You see that was something out of the coin- mon, and people began to hear about me. I got invitations to join minstrel shows that came along, Al G. Fields one of them. But the church people persuaded me not to go on the stage. At last 1 did, however, went on with a male quartet in ‘The White Slave.” Two weeks of that I had and then the barytone got tipsy and the quartet was all off.” “And then?” “With my two ,weeks’ continued, salary,” he “I went to New York and got an engagement with Francis Powers in the chorus. I got $18 a week, and saved $10 of it. by the way.” “In New York!” “On the road, too. Oh!"™ the Scot cried here, pounding a big, solemn fist on the seat in front: “If you make up your mind to do anything, really make up your mind, you can do anything. And that has been the Dunsmure experience and is the Dunsmure gos- pel. Built on the same big, simple lines as his body, his desires have con- verged all to one goal, to sing, to sing, to sing! True, a “little farm well tilled,” “on the side,” a competency appear desirous, but first, last and all the time to sing and to sing. And with the clear eye®f a single desire he has hammered away at his career as he hammers at the anvil in “Robin Hood,” with a stroke certain, steady, mighty. — . | | | TIVOLI'S NEW BASSO | TALKS OF HIS CA- | REER. x3 To know what you want—there's the rub. To desire it effectively—there's the rubber! Whether Mr. Dunsmure achieves his final desire—and he flies very high—will be interesting to note. But we left him in the chorus with Francis Powers. “For a year and a half T was with Powers,” the singer told me thei “After that T went to Europe to stud “Dear heaven!"” I ejaculated. *“And how did you manage it?"” “Worked my way on a cattle boat to London, slept on raw for thirteen days,” the basso replied, with oh! such an unctuous note! “Then on to Italy— oh, I wanted to go rignt to the foun- tainhead. I got to Genca as a sort.of engineer's steward, a kind of chamber- maid to the engineers, making up beds and things, and then, Milan.” As the devote says “Mecca,” Mr. Dunsmure says “Milan.” As he says “Mahomet,” so the singer says *“Mor- ettl,”” the teacher from wnom he took three months and a half—think of fit, will you?—just three months and a half of lessens, but daily. “After the last cent went.” the basso recalled then, “I went back to Genoa, walked it, with an Engiisn fellow that was also broke. . You see I couldn't earn anything because I couldn’t speak Italian. I do now—rather well.” “And when you got to Genoa?” I “fed.” “Po Genoa, 175 miles away,” the singer gravely insisted, “I sang in cafes, and got a bed and a place to sleep if I was lucky—the Englishman’s remittance justtook him home.” “And then you worked your way as cabin boy back to America,” I con- cluded for him. “No, sir, not so easy. Couldn't get an American boat at any price, didn’t want me for anything,” he said. *“I got out at last on an Australian, pass- ing coal to the bunkers.” “How old were you then?"” “Twenty,” the singer said. He squared his shoulders with his charac- teristic naive pride in himself, to say: “It takes a lot of courage to do that.” 1 agreed and asked what was his Australian programme. 2 “Minstrels,” he informed me, “just | %= for a few weeks, then worked my way to Frisco. I came to the Tivoli here— isn’t it funny?—to ask for a job in the chorus, but they wouldn’t even hear me sing. Then I went to New York and got into the Bostonians. I was two years with them.” “Five years ago—two years ed, “that makes you—" “Twenty-eight,” he supplied. “And is it worth all that?” “Lord, yes,” the Dunsmure testified. ““There’s more to come, too, but not of that sort.” “What are you going to do?” “In a year or two I'm going to study for keeps,” he said sturdily, and he will. “You know a bass voice—" “Profundo,” I thundered softly. “A bass voice,” he repeated, “does not mature until you're thirty-five or forty—" “When you are going Reszke?” “Or a Plancon,” he smiled. ‘'Oh, be a Plancon,” I urged. “All the women like Plancon,” the other basso said, rather impatiently. “Don’t you like his Mefistofele better than de Reszke's?” he said, “Plancon’s has too lit- tle dignity. It is too much this kind of thing'" and the big Scot then as- tonished me by a very facile, nimble Imitation of the Frenchman's manner. “You are jealous,” I charged him. “Haven't time to be,” he laughed. “When I see a greater artist than I am, I'm too busy trying to close up the gap between us to be jealous. But Plancon to me is like a hod-carrier to a sculptor in comparison with de Reszke."” He had to tell me of his farm on Long Island before I left, with its sev- enty-five acres, six-acre lake, and crops of chickens, asparagus, corn, beets, and 'the best caulifiowers in the country. “All paid for, not like a good many othe¢r actor farms.” Also he told me that he was importing two other long-legged, mellow-throated Dunsmures this season. “I'm going to put them in the chorus in ‘The Country Girl,'” ne said. “If there’s anything in them it will come out, and if there isn’t there's no harm done. Fighting's good. It’s good to go without things. I jumped, you know, from $18 to $150 a week in two years I'm going to tell 'em.” " 1 add- to be a de — BILL OF SPLENDID FEATURES IN STORE FOR TER-GOERS ‘With “Barbara Frietche” James Neill and his clever company will this after- noon open i summer season at the Grand Opera-house. There will be as- sociated with Mr. Neill many of the players that have made his company so favorably known of late years, nota- bly Miss Edythe Chapman, who will o g appear this afternoon in the title role of Mr. Fitch’'s pretty war comedy. T For the second week of the White Whittlesey season at the Alcazar they will put on one of the John Drew suc- cesses in “One Summer's Day.” a com- edy by H. V. Esmond. The opening week of the engagement has seen some excellent achievement among the Alca- zar players and the theater has been crowded to its capacity. Mi Marie Rawson, the new leading lady, makes her debut this week oo b ik They are still worrying along with “The Mormoms" at Fischer’s, and have, indeed, much improved that excellently dull show. Next Saturday night an- other partly new company will take jon of the perturbed burlesque s, including Miss Dorothy Morton leading lady, Nora Bayes in the of Miss Edna Aug, Rice and German comedians, and Bobby North, a new Hebrew. The piece is also new and entitled “A Lucky Stone.” Better and better grows the Tivoli's “Robin Hood,” that at the special mat- inee to-morrow begins its third week. It is without doubt one of the best per- formances of comic opera ever seen here, though the press agent does say The people have now settled into their parts, with the result of a rare individual and ensemble excellence, and crowded houses nightly greet the per- formance. so. LRy TR The Columbia is still dark, to open next week with another of the notable attractions that the management has 80 lavished upon its patrons this sea- son. The attraction in question is Miss Ethel Barrymore in a new comedy, “Cousin Kate.” &l . e The California is dark, to reopen in August. « . . <The Central's bill this week isa Kre- mer melodrama, “Wedded and Parted.” It is said to live up to its promising title and will be elaborately produced. YR e The Leigh brothers, equilibrists, head- line the Orpheum’s bill this week. They are said to be miracle workers. An- other feature of much interest w the appearance of Miss Inez de Wolf, a local soprano possessed of a sweet and powerful voice and of charming personality. Valerle Bergere changes her sketch for one entitled “Jimmie's Experiment.” . e Lotta and Belle Tobin, eccentric mu- sicians, are the stars at the Chutes. Fafledn R b GOSSIP ABOUT WELL KNOWN PLAYERS AND THEIR MOVEMENTS The “A. T.'s,”” as some one has joy- ously labeled the artistic temperament, are responsible for many #nd curious things. The violent enthusiasm is one of them, both pardonable and delight- ful. Mixed with the Californian climate this sometimes becomes a very ebul- lient quantity. In the visiting victim, actor or musician by preference, the enthusiasm commonly takes the form of a large and perhaps not wholly un- businesslike admiration of this place and all the things thereof. But, alas, again, these fervors are frequently as evanescent as they are violent. What cruel, cruel wisdom, Mascagni, thou hast taught us here with thy just horrid remarks about us to those Parisians! But all are not Mascagnis. Some keep a warm corner in their hearts for us even after they get on t'other side of the bay. Nay, with some their kindness seems to increase with distance. Mrs. Fiske, greatly to our credit, is one of these. 'Mrs. Fiske, it is true, said nice things about us when she was here. But Mrs. Fiske has said nicer things about us behind our backs than she ever said before us. She said them in Chicago, too. If she will only now prattle them in New York in that terse, pointed way of hers we may be recognized even there as having some little artistic right to be. Here is just what Mrs. Fiske said in Chicago to the Record-Herald in a very ably written interview by their critic: “Thus ensconced, Mrs. Fiske devoted an hour 0 a cool, purling stream of pleasantries, piquant sarcasms and frank protests. “The pleasantries concerned mainly her recent professional tour on the Pa-. cific Coast. The animation and gayety of San Fraacisco, the beauty of the bay—which she thought as lovely as the bay of Naples—the receptivity of the people—all had charmed her, and she is eager to go thither again. She was full of tle recent experience and reverted to it ' several times, saying once, ‘With what delight I recall that trip to the coast, and, along with San Francisco, the beautiful cities of Port- land, Seattle and Tacoma, I cannot for- get the lovely warmth of kindliness—I cannot forget the charming people.’ an Frap-isco she thought more like Paris than uny other city she knew of, and the people seemed to her beauti- fully willing to accept not only with respect but with enthusiasm certain newer phases of dramatic art and lit- erature which in certain communities she did not name inspire a half-resent- ful attitude.” Here again is Mrs. Fiske on “Ros- mershclm,” that, with the Maeterlinck “Monna Vanna,” will be the chief pro- ductions of her forthcoming season at the Manhattan, in New York. An Ibsen play deserves one year's study at the very least, Mrs. Fiske. “I have given ‘Rosmersholm’ two and do not yet feel ready. There ought to be a law against the pre tation of the Norwegian's works with the hurried. hit-or- preliminary work characteristic of our methods of theatrical production. But perhaps I am an extremist in this matter. I worked six months, for example, on the one-act play ‘Dolce, which I have never presented In Chicago, and then was not satisfied with the result on the opening night. s for Rosmersholm,” I dare say I read it twenty times before the light began to dawn. To me it is the great- est, the m complex, of Ibsen's works, and I believe that ultimately Rosmer and Rebecca will take their place with Romeo and Julie Tristan and Isolde and Eloise and Abelard as the sypreme figures of tragic love in the dramatic literature of all ages. studies ‘Rosmersholm’ conviction becomes. And I haven't a doubt that Rebecca will ultimately stand side by side in the classic reper- tory with Juliet. It may not come to pass in our day, but it will come, for the world does not possess a greater tragedy of expiation than this of F becca, who, a perfect Valeria Messa- lina in the beginning of her life story, ultimately is purified through suffering and is dead to every impulse save the desire to serve.” “‘After ‘Rosmersholm’ wé mu never say again that Ibsen is not beautiful It is the most heartrending thing 1 have ever studied and still its pathos is pure beauty. Mr. Huneker has said that Rebecca is the wickedest woman in the drama. Yes. But that phase has passed and the expiation has begun be- fore the play opens. Rebecca Gamvik is dead and the new birth of Rebecca West, as the former adaventuress is known at the Rosmersholm, is the theme of the tragedy.” It may be remarked here that Ber- nard Shaw in his “Quintessence of Ib- senism” constantly insists upon “the vital part played in this drama by the evolution of the lower into the higher love.” This fleeting epitome of Rebecca ‘West's spiritual rebirth was given with tremendous enthusiasm by Mrs. Fiske ‘““Here to me is the most beautiful and poetic part of ‘Rosmersholm.” Rebecca ‘West has made her way—her calm, unfaltering, ambitious, intrepid way— through seas of blood. The ‘green’ be- comes ‘one red.” She desires t0 possess Rosmer. At last the way is clear. But she must be wary. He is a man of ex- quisite sensibility. She must advance slowly, wait and be still. And as she waits, slowly, gradually, the beauty of his character opens the little window of her soul. (She did not know she had a soul.) And as she waits and waits, at last, for the first time in her life, love comes to her. It is well that Ibsen has not revealed to us the Rebecca West of those days—the days of illumination and remorse. We could not have en- dured the sight. It is a ghost we see when the curtain rises. How can we. in the presence of this martyr of mar- tyrs among all the stage women of sor- rows, say again that Ibsen is without beauty and poetry “They say worse—that he is unneces- sary,” was suggested. She answered in a strange, still tone, “So, T suppose, are the flowers unneces- sary.” The more one the firmer this Kyrle Bellew is to visit us next fall after an absence of seven years. He will appear in his great Eastern suc- cess, ‘“Raffles.” « s . Henry Miller’s play for next season will be “Joseph Entangled,” by Henry Arthur Jones. It will be produced in New York immediately following Mr. Miller’s stock season in San Francisco. Charles Frohman has selected Hilda Spong to be leading woman with Mr. Miller next season. & . The story that Charles Richman is to be Ada Rehan's leading man is evident- ly untrue as he asserts that he is to star in the fall. o5 During the engagement of Mr. and Mrs. Forbes Robertson in this country next season they will produce their —_— Among the pleasantest musical gos- sip that has floated th way lately is that Herr Fritz Scheel, who got lost on his way here last g will likely be the first of the music- with us this aut phony lovers pointed at Mr. pear here last The local wer Sch Mar among them af concerts giv at the beginning of last s permanent orchestra seemed complished fact, the founda such an organization as has ma ton world-famou and that we surely have he far, securely laid concerts was to ¢ was to be the sec phant season. B quito, that any. If the rumor son be correct, Mr. in August. does Manager Will tists for the cor a particularly cludes Madame ( I fancy, is going t her developm singer of the Me pany here whose takably prophesi Mr. enbaum's man, ouz rham, an De Pachmann, ve the season is alre one. a sopra surprise us was tan Op also h Band. and § symphony um activ will come di prod H are fashion siderable local duct; nterest will b iracle play by The Star of Bethlehem t plans also include an ela production of “A Mids r N Dream” at ¢ a special hundred chi orchestra to —_— e FIFTEEN THOUSAND A YEAR FOR UNDERWEAR Young Marquis Explains How Squandered a Fortune in Years. PARIS, July the of Anglesey at L Grand Prix was b the but nobleman in a ¢ in one e Mar when tk Parisian paper: bankrupt Marquis i heard I much prefer, £ regard it 55 as £ A yielded me an ann francs. In through that not teil for u How uld you that?” asked the Paris astonished “I had ject,” replied braces (suspen of geld instead webbing that other support their were gold too the private which 1 took Anglesey nificent way, six trousers. as Fouq were done the thing at Vaux in his day. I costs money to do these things: I took pleasure in doing t hat ¥ SR New York LONDON, July 2 MacDowell of N Windsor Tuesday to er Is Surprised. When William letters, wt e with h the an g of Magna Char- the event, a double him. Not a solitary one of t up and he found that Runnym and had become private propert particularly stringent regulations against trespassers. +- — - -+ new play, “The epoch ta on at mak appointment awaited Edge of the Storm. J. Fred Zimmerman announces that Bertha Galland will appear in “F and Juliet,” next seasc Edouard de Reszke is to sing in sixty concerts, from Bost Sa Francisco, under the man nt o W. F. Pendleton and H. G. Snow Vicla Allen will play P ita In a production of “The Winter's Tale next season. . . . Henrietta Crosman is not idling away her vacation. She is studying a Shakespearean character in which she will appear in the near future. Ezra Kendall's play for next season is called “Weatherbeaten Bronson.” It is the work of Edward E. Kidder and is rapidly nearing completion.