Newspapers / The Herald-Sun (Durham, N.C.) / May 29, 1923, edition 1 / Page 3
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“No more Garden, as she counsels her friends “to love one - another, every day in every way, better and better." Only a year ago, “Our Mary" was calling Muratore "a great big spoiled baby,” |pd poor Polacco, conductor of the * * Chicago Opera Company, was being pummeled. Now* after embracing Coue-ism, she goes to the Opera Comique and stands up in her box to applaud Muratore, while Polacco is reported as engaged as her conductor for next season , <«T\AY by day, in every way, we’re get ting friendlier and friendlier!” carols Mary Garden, gesturing affectionately toward her old-time bitter enemies, Lu eien Muratore, Lina Cavalieri and Ganna Walska. Only one little year ago, “Our Mary” and the rest were making faces at each other over the back fence, calling names and announcing loudly that nothing—no nothing!—could ever induce tWm to play in each other’s yards again. “Great big spoiled baby!” said Mary to JVforatore. “You’re no director!” retorted Mura tore. “You’re temperamental—that’s what you are!" shrieked Lina, referring, of course, to Mary. V" “Whatever I am, I’m the boss in this Joint!” responded Mary, with a reipi niscent look at her pretty fists. That was Shortly after she had pummeled Giorgio Polacco, the conductor of the Chicago Opera Company, with them. “I’m going home. I don’t like you. I wouldn’t sing in the same State!” cried Ganna. Or anyway it was about like that, ac cording to reports. But now—! Mary goes to the Opera Comique to hear Muratore in his Parisian debut, and stands up in her box to applaud him. Ganna sits near Mary, and the two stars exchange bows and smiles and loving looks. Lina Cavalieri, in another box. can hardly afford time to give a glance to her handsome hiisband on the stage, she is so occupied with beaming at “Queen Mary.” IIIHAT'S the answer? 1 Why, Mary’s gone and got converted to Coue-ism! . , “No more enemies! No more fights!” vows Mary, “Come on, let’s love each other! That’s it. Now, all together: ‘Every day, in every way, we’re getting better and better and better!’ Attaboy!” Yes, Mary's a fcoue fan. No wonder. They say she looks ten years younger •nd is even more vivacious and charm ** Forgotten is the row with Claudia Muzio, and just to show Claudia that "all is forgotten,” Mary embraced her on the street in Monte Carlo not so long ago ing since she began to study the philos ophy of the Nancy druggist. And “Our Mary” was always a human dynamo, remember. Back in 1900, when Mary was an eager young student, understudying in Paris, came her big chance. It was at the Opera Comique—that very, theatre where today she effervesces with love for her enemies—and the dat<% was April 13. “A Mile. Rioton” (who ever heard of her since?) was singing the title role ih “Louise.” \ Mary watched and listened in the wings, thinking, no doubt: “My, what a way to sing it! What wouldn’t I do with that opportunity?” as understudies do,' and have done, and probably will con tinue to do, while the world wags on. And then— Yes, you guessed it! Mile. Rioton col lapsed in the third act. Mary jumped into the part, took the audience by storm, and sang Charpentier’s “Louise” through to the last lovely note. And continued to sing it for one hundred consecutive nights thereafter. Maybe Mile. Rioton died. She might as well have done. The “lass from Aberdeen” was the talk of the town. , Nine years later came Mary’s great triumph in “Salome.” . That was a night! N * Mary, bursting with personality and power, dominated the performance to such an extent that her fellow artists on the stage forgot that the thing wasn’t real and became part of the fascinated audience. "IX7HOEVER it was that played Herod ” struggled hard. He was game, and hung on as long as a strong, though not very brilliant, man could. But the third act finished him. He didn’t even vaguely remember that he was supposed to be a king famous as a crafty, bloodthirsty, evil-dispositioned cuss. He stood be hind the footlights with his mouth hang ing open, watching Mary act— It was this dynamic stuff that led the directors of the Chicago Opera Company to give Mary the reins two years ago. She succeeded Herbert M. Johnson as business manager, and Gino Marinuzzi as artistic director of the Collection of “T -ove Leaves No Room for Hate/’ Sighs Temperamental Diva, Now Convert to Philosophy of Nancy Druggist, as She Kisses and Makes Up With Erstwhile Operatic Enemies voices of the others were not raised in song or anything: else. Eight months later, returning from a concert tour to resume roles with tha Chicago company, Mary made this an nouncement: “During our concert tour I was strick en with bronchial pneumonia. For twen ty days I was flat on my back. Ten days ago, before I was well, I got Coue’s book. Now I cannot get along without it. Every night and .every morning I re ligiously repeat that every day, in every way, I am growing stronger and stronger.” A few weeks later, Mary met Emile Coue himself in Boston. It was at a reception and the room was crowded with Coue converts, but crowds mean nothing in Mary’s life. She flew to him and seized both his hands. Her voice, which has at least never been accused of be ing inaudible, proclaimed her adoration of the famous Nancy druggist. "Your formula has improved my voice one hundred per cent! 'Day by day, in every way, I'm singing better and better.1* After that she went to the little French town to study under the master. Tangible evidence of the deep and abiding peace that ha* come into Miss’ Garden’s heart since she became a convert to Coute’s philosophy was furnished at the Opera Comique, when she and Lina Cavalieri beamed on each other and Lina’s handsome hus band on the stage t temperamental stars that twinkled in the organization. Her predecessors had resigned. No body agreed as to why. - Somebody said they couldn’t get on together. The singers in the company said it was because Marinuzzi and Johnson told Gan na Walska her voice wouldn’t fill tho auditorium and they wouldn’t let her sing, and Harold McCormick, backer of the Chicago Opera Company, who’d taken all the trouble to bring Ganna there to make her American debut, didn’t like it. "I left because I couldn’t stand the wrangling,” Marinuzzi declared, running his fingers through his hair, “They have given me nothing but sleepless nights. Now I am just a conductor. I will n<£ assign any more roles. Oh, their voices have been in my ears twenty-four <hours a day, e&ch with a grievance, each one objecting to a role I had assigned to some one else. They all bring their trou bles. I go hon^e and pace the floor until five o’clock in the morning. In a few hours there arc rehearsals. I get no rest. I cannot listen to their talk any longer.” ANYWAY, Mary got "I’ll settle their the job. temperaments!” vowed the diva, whose only regret in life is that' she was born a woman and not a man. The blue fire blazed in her eyes and she tossed her red locks. “I’m a fighter. I’m an Anglo-Saxon. Battles are the breath of life to me!” It can’t be denied that Mary got plenty of breath out of the connection. She says she didn’t have a clash with Ganna—she wasn’t even in Chicago t the time of the Polish artiste’s fiasc “The trouble with Walska is that si doesn’t know what she wants!" Ganna had been going to sing Zaz and Mary always said she wanted to « that. They say Ganna left just befo •Mary got there. Also, there was Haro McCormick, whom rumor was linking up with Mary, the way rumor will. Dorothy Jardon, of New York, had n tiff with the new director. The Italian maestro, Polacco, was pum •mclcd with the diva’s fists and told *o get out quick, his playing was bad, very bad—go, go, GET! Lina Cavalieri either was or wasn’t jealous, according to which side told the story. Muratore complained that Mary made him learn roles and then didn’t let him sing them, or if she did, she didn’t let him keep on singing them. She rushed up to him one morning, all smiles, happy enough to kiss him—and the next, there was nothing but dark glances and blank silence for him. It got on his nerves. He couldn’t sing. Not for $5000 a night could he stand that! “Never!” echoed Lina, his devoted wife. “Oh, fiddle-dee-dee!" said Mary, or words to that effect. Muratore and Cavalieri left immediate ly for New York. They were furious, all three of them, including Mary. They were never going to speak to each other again! Mary resigned as director the follow ing April, althcAgh she continued to sing with the company, where, however, the "Our Mary" has made up with Giorgio Polacco, with whom, if memory serves, she had an interesting difference of opin ion while he was the conductor of the Chicago Opera Company “Coue restored my health, he mad* me feel years and years younger, and he did wonders for my voice!” she ex* ults. “Love leaves no room for hate.” So Mary forgets that she ever had a difference with Claudia Muzio, for , instance, and embraces her on the streets of Monte Carlo. Mary cheers and applauds Morators | when he appears on the boards of that | very theatre where she won fame that thirteenth of April when the century was new. She bows and sipiles at Ganna , Walska. She beams at Cavalier!. “Certainly I believe in love,” she ones told an interviewer. “No woman can accomplish big work unless she knows love. It broadens and sweetens her na ture as nothing else has power to No good work is possible without it»* Copyright. 1823. by Publlo Ledyor Company
The Herald-Sun (Durham, N.C.)
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May 29, 1923, edition 1
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