TENORS & SOPRANOS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 September 1938, Page 5

TENORS & SOPRANOS

GREAT BREATHING CAPACITY WHY THEY ARE FAT. DILEMMA OF A SINGER. Lina Pagliughi, probably the greatest living coloratura soprano, confided to Patrick Murphy, of the London “Daily Mail” recently the troubles of a primi donna.given to stoutness. “Listen,” she said, “you cannot have a great coloratura voice without being large, like me.” Pagliughi is very short and, remarkably rotund. “We high sopranos and the tenors have to put up with the discomfort of being large. There is no way out. If ■you want to see slim, pretty girls playing operatic roles, then you must go to the films.

“If you want to hear really great voices, then you must expect to see” she laughed— “well-developed figures.”

“Listen to the dilemma of a singer. The public will not accept her because she appears on a concert platform. She must have proved herself in opera. “Now singing, particularly operatic singing, develops the figures of people <yith high voices like mine. Those figures do not lend themselves to—• shall we say —the rather artificial acting demanded by opera. “So fat prima donnas are figures ol fun. Whereas, in fact, fat prima donnas would much sooner sing in concerts than in any opera. “I hate as a "stout lady’ being asked to run here and there and appear in most improbable situations with a stout tenor. Singing is my life, not taking part in love-scenes like a sylph of a girl.” I mentioned one or two coloratura singers who had been slim. Lina Pagliughi smiled compassionately. "Good voices for the gramophone—but useless in a great hall. “I assure you it is impossible for tenor or coloratura soprano to be successful without great breathing capacity. That comes from singing. With it comes this fine development which has made prima donnas the subject of so many jokes.

“I am stout, you will agree? Good. I have not eaten for 24 hours, because I do not like to eat before or after .singing. It is singing and not eating which has given, me my figure.” So now the matter is disposed of.

RKO-Radio is filming the biggest production in its history—“Gunga Din.” The leading parts are being played by Cary Grant, Victor McLaglen, Douglas Fairbanks, Junr., and Joan Fontaine.