OPERA SALARIES

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 39, 10 November 1919, Page 6

OPERA SALARIES

HIGH-PRICED STAKS

PROPORTION TO LIVING COST Opera impresarios must be feeling very uncomfortable nt the spectacle of a world.asking for higher wages. Supposing, the opera singer applies the eanie areumenC as the scene-shiftes that salaries should be double pre-war ones on account of living now being twice a= dear. It would mean that several of the best-known artists would refuse to open their mouths for less than .£IOOO a time. Oarnso has already put his price up, and it was not a very low one before the war. A few months ago he signed on at Copenhagen to appear at the Opera House, and on tho concert stage for a limited number of performances at aC2OOO a time, plus 10 per cent, of the profits. Previously in 1912 ho had touched JEGOO n night in the United States, and also oid a four-weeks concert tour of England in 1909 for JJBOOO. In the same year three performanc'o3 in "Carmen," Pagliacoi." and "Lα Boheme" at. tho Berlin Opera House brought him ,£SOO a time, His pre-war average was about .£40,000 a year, but if he manages to acquire many contracts like this 1919 Danish one he will soon make this figure'look a mere pittance • ! /' Tetrazzini's £500. Tetrazzini is shortly to embark on a concert tour in Britain. Tho terms of the contract have not been published, but it mav bo assumed she is not singing for love. Tetrazzini is by no means cheap? Oscar Hanimerstein paid hor .£BOO every uight she sang at the Manhattan Theatre, New York, in January, 1908. which made her .£BOOO for forty performances she received in South America look small. In 11)11 ehe signed contracts to sing at the New York Metropolitan Opera House at the highest salary said to have ever been paid to a woman einger. Supposing that Tctrasifsini finds tho cost? of living twice as dear her notes will become very golden indeed. Destimiova is another sinser whose pre-war saljary, if doubled, would make en interesting figure. She was booked to sing in New York in 1916 for a limitedBumber of performances, and even then the price was ,£IO,OOO. In this case she lost tho money because the Austrian Government refused to let her leave Bohemia. In the comparatively cheap days of 1911 eho is said bo have named .£509 as tho smallest sum for which sho wou!d sing at tJio New o York Metropolitan. Chalianin. the great Russian bass, took '.£4OO a ni.eht when he slang at Dru.ry Lane in 1914. He is now receiving iOOO a performance, or rather more than .fiiO.ooo ft year, for ringing to Bolshevik audiences in Russia. 'As Albert Coates. the conductor, has remarked, "ho can just about '■mike ends meet" on this sum. and probably, he was not much better off when he won gertint: .£2 a rnnnft -in IS9O as . Jin unknown sinfrer. A Bolshevik fortune Is generally n erp.it misfortune. Melba's Salary. Melbe at Covent Garden in 1913 received ,£SOO a performance, and booked e fivo months' United States tour the «nno year for .£40,000. Sho signed with Kubelik, the violinist, for a joint tour in Canada, 100 concerts, for ,£loo,ooo— money guaranteed. It was estimated in .IMS that Melba had earned over in opere and concert platforms. To this must be added a sum of between ,£BO,OOO for singing into gramophones. But, even with all this trouble loomIng ahead, impresarios must congratulate themselves on their good fortune when they remember that Jean de Reszke ie weli embedded in retirement. Had he be6h in the full flush of his operatio triumphs to-day there is no saying what his post-war salary would havo been. He and his brother Edouard were stated in 1900 to hare made over a million sterling between them by their voices. In 3902, wlien operatic salaries were still jnoTO or less within limits, tho lato Colonel Mapleson proposed to Jean it Reszko ft tour of 40 performances in the Uiiited States for .£40,000—i.e., iJIOOO a performance. 'All the singer's very considerable expenses were to be paid in addition. Tho offer was, however, refused. The same , thing happened ivhen IJeinrioh Conned, the then manager; of the New York Metropolitan Opera House, ■wanted him to sing far i>4so a night. So opera directorates still havi- something to be thankful for, even if they do occasionally sigh for those fabulous days when • a IMba was singing four times a week for £2H, and a certain Tctrerzinl could bo hired in Florence for J2O a month.