STAGE LOVE, REAL LOVE. GRAND OPERA ARTISTS TO WED IN SYDNEY

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 424, 4 August 1928, Page 26

STAGE LOVE, REAL LOVE. GRAND OPERA ARTISTS TO WED IN SYDNEY

“A marriage has been arranged—” Toti dal Monte and Enzo de Muro Lomanto, a leading tenor of the Grand Opera Company, have officially announced their engagement, and informed Mr. Nevin Tait that they will be married in St. Mary’s Cathedral before the close of the Sydney opera season. Both are Roman Catholics. Mr. Tait, who is regarded as the godfather of the company, feels that he is responsible for it all. “Though it is a fortuitous chance that has brought them together,” he says. “I engaged Signor de Muro Lomanto in Milan last year after hearing him sing privately. Toti was in America at the time. In February of this year they met and sang together for the first time at La Scala, he singing the soldier lover, Tonio, to her Maria in “The Daughter of the Regiment.” “There is. no doubt that since then he has been devotedly attentive to her —and, maybe, the romance of the voyage helped a little. Toti, looking demure and rather apologetic, brought him along to my office and broke the news. They said they wanted my advice, but I know all about that. They have cabled to Italy, asking the parental blessings on both sides. Totl’s mother lives in Milan, but her father is dead. Not Giving Up Her Art “Enzo’s father is a chemist. Enzo was born in Naples, and educated for the law. He is 28, and a fully-fledged barrister. He has sung leading roles at Budapest, San Carlo, Naples, and La Scala, and is as ambitious as Toti, so there will be no question of her giving up her art. She has a beautiful home at Veneto, near Venice, and everything she wants there. She is anxious to get married here, as she says, ‘No one can make fuss and try to put me off.’ ” Though due to sing at the Chicago Opera House in November, cables have already been exchanged, postponing Toti’s engagement for a year. “I shall need a year,” she says. “We must go home to Italy, and see our parents and lots of things.”