PLANS TO SING IN OPERA

Waikato Times, Volume 124, Issue 20821, 3 June 1939, Page 17 (Supplement)

PLANS TO SING IN OPERA

Gracie Fields, Queen of the English •variety stage, went to the opera at Covent Garden one night recently to hear a great English prima donna, who is helping her to achieve the crowning ambition of her career. For Gracie, former mill girl from Rochdale, plans one day to sing in opera, and her idol, Uidham-born Eva Turner, is coaching that famous plastic voice in the higher realms of music. It was the first time Gracie had ever heard grand opera at Govent Garden, and Miss Turner was singing in “Turandot." Ever since I met Eva on board *hip coming from America last February she has been nagging at me to 6ing operatic music,” said Gracie as she sat in the prima donna's dressingroom during the interval. “And she could do it,” said Miss Turner, matching Grade's broad Lancashire with her own homely accent. ••She's got a wonderful natural voice.” Said Gracie: “Eva’s been coming to my home to listen to me go over arias from “La Bohemc” and “Madame Butterfly,” and has given me advice on breathing and producing the old voice. “I’ve been messing about with it so long, earning my living as a comic. I thought it might be too late to get it to do the real stuff. But Eva says •No.’ Working to Catch Up *‘So your friend Gracie is working hard to catch up with the other Lancashire lass, the great Eva Turner. “People have been telling me for years that this voice box of mine belonged to opera. But when I should have been learning all about the sort of singing that has made Eva famous, I was a working girl scratching along on short rations.

GRACIE FIELDS COACHED BY PRIMA DONNA

“But I've always loved real music best, and back of my mind all the time I have had that longing to sing an operatic role.” Gracie remembers that as an obscure player in touring revue, years ago, in the provinces “the critics were always popping in bits about a voice that was lost to opera. . . They meant me “But although I loved opera then, and every penny I could spare I spent on records of great singers, listened to them and learned all I could from just listening. I've always had to work much too hard to spare time for voice training. “But I can take and hold high E, and Eva says I'm not bad at all.” Learned By Listening Miss Turner listened to her protegee, nodding approval: “I’m going to keep after her and see that she sticks to a bit of quiet practice at home.” Gracie said: “I've never been to Covent Garden before, but whenever I’m in Paris or Rome I always go to as many performances as I can. “I have scores of Eva’s records, and I have learned a lot from hearing them.” When and where Gracie will make her debut in an operatic production is problematical, but she means to do it, and Eva Turner is determined that she shall. And Gracie Fields, sitting in the stalls in silver fox and magnificently cut black evening gown, fongot she was herself a celebrity and jumped to her feet clapping and cheering when the other lass from Lancashire, Eva Turner, was recalled 15 times at the end of the second act, to one of the most enthusiastic receptions Covent Garden has ever given a great singer.