Cavalieri and Her Love Match

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 182, 22 October 1927, Page 24 (Supplement)

Cavalieri and Her Love Match

Parisian Gossips’ Surprising Explanation of the “Friendly Divorce” of Songbird and Tenor who suddenly Dissolve Seemingly Ideal Union.

■ITH a brand new divorce decree in her handbag, j and eight one-thousand dollars bills added to her own considerable wealth —a settlement made upon her by Robert Winthrop Chanler, famous New York artist and bon vivant extraordinary, the husband she had just been freed from —Lina Cavalier!, often called “the most beautiful singer,” sailed from America, bound Ifor Paris, early in 1913. She was in quest of rest and “forgetfulness” in foreign lands. Would she see a new love to replace the old? | she was asked by ship news reporters 'before the gang-plank was pulled away. Lina didn’t answer that one. Her great, black eyes looked sad, and she shrugged slim shoulders. “My marriage with Mr. Chanler has ended disastrously. Only the future can tell I whether there will be another trip to the altar in store for me,” she said. Shortly after her arrival in gay Paree, Lina, bejewelled, befurred and marvellously coiffured, met Lucien Muratore, the most popular tenor in Paris at the time—a young man, full ! of ambition and temperament, two characteristics which the fair Lina herself possessed and which she so greatly admired. Lucien invited the fascinating Italian songstress to his home in the rue Anatole de la Forge and introduced her to the beautiful Marceline Rouvier, prima ballerina at the Paris Opera, and to their little child, Ariane, who was born in 1908. Lina made her home at a magnificent chateau at Vallan Goujard, near . Paris, and here she invited the young

tenor who intrigued her so. For a month Marceline, Ariane and Lucien lived with Lina, and during this time Lina and Muratore spent much time together, talking, singing, walking. And then they fell in love! Lina Cavalieri announced that at last she had found her perfect lover. This marriage, she said —for they planned to wed in spite of dancing Marceline and Ariane —would last forever and a day. But the perfect love match has gone the way of many marriages which were also so termed and has ended in the Paris divorce courts. However, Lucien did not sue Lina, nor did the noted Metropolitan Opera star demand that the well-known Muratore set her free. Their demand for divorce was mutual. Together, declaring that they will always remain the best of friends, they put in their application for the dissolving of the marital bonds and are now free to go their separate ways. The theatrical and musical circles of Paris are astounded. The famous Muratore-Cavalieri marriage broken up? Why? Why? “Ah!” says one group of Parisians. “We know. The temperaments that agreed so well in singing and in the business of marriage, could not get along very well in the more commercial business of running a shop.” For both Cavalieri and Muratore have added as much to their sizeable incomes by a beauty shop they conduct jointly in the exclusive district of the Champs Elysee, as they earn by their voices. “But, non, non, non, it isn’t that,” says another interested group. “Did you not see the statement that La Cavalieri made at the time the application for divorce was made?” And this group points to newspaper interviews in which the erstwhile Madame Muratore is quoted as saying: “We will remain good friends in business and continue running our shop together.” Well, then, what is this thing that broke up the fourteen-year-old marriage of the two operatic stars? A third and “wisest” group of Parisians claim that they know the reason. It is a fantastic story they tell, and the principals in it are, besides Lucien and Lina—Marceline Rouvier, Muratore’s love of ardent, youthful days, their daughter Ariane, now a beautiful young girl, and Captain Alexander Cavalieri Muratore, son of Lina Cavalieri by her first marriage. The stage for the divorce was set, if the “wise” ones are right, about four years ago when Muratore and Cavalieri returned to Paris after a most _ successful season of opera in America —and Muratore saw his daughter for the first time in ten years. Since the day that Muratore left her to wed Cavalieri and sailed away. Marceline had danced every night and matinee at the Paris Opera. Ariane had to have the best of everything—she attended the leading schools in Paris, studied music, dancing, painting. So the tenderly-cared-for girl was a starry-eyed flower of beauty when Muratore saw her again. He talked to Marceline. “Lina and I both love Ariane,” he said. “And she [is my daughter. Let her come to live