Music: Prima Donna from Perleberg

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(See front cover)

Bright in the pattern of New York's history have been the dozens of prima donnas who made news with every utterance, set fashions in food and dress, left vivid memories with every song they sang. Old men still live who remember pious Jenny Lind when she trilled in gaslit Castle Garden, a protégée of that amazing Yankee, Phineas T. Barnum. Adelina Patti was singing at the old Academy of Music on 14th Street when broughams first brought Vanderbilts and Astors to the shiny new doors of the Metropolitan Opera House.

If a prima donna roll-call were taken this week there would be no answers from the great singers of 50 years ago. The last to die, at a rich old age, was plump little Marcella Sembrich (TIME, Jan. 21). Of the living singers no longer singing there remains mountainous Luisa Tetrazzini who in Italy squabbles publicly over money with her 34-year-old husband. In France there is old Emma Calvé, proud with the assurance that her Carmen has never been surpassed. In a walk-up studio in Bronxville (N. Y.), great Olive Fremstad lives grimly surrounded by her operatic trophies. The still lovely Emma Eames divides her time between Paris and Manhattan, occasionally revisits her old home in Bath, Me. Alma Gluck stopped opera-singing in 1912. Concerts and phonograph record royalties made her rich. And she is content to be a New York hostess and devoted wife to Violinist Efrem Zimbalist.

To the brilliant pre-War era belonged Ernestine Schumann-Heink, hardy at 73, broadcasting in Chicago last week for Hoover Vacuum Cleaners and sending flowers to the bewildered Mother Dionne from "Mother Schumann-Heink." Geraldine Farrar, long the high-spirited pet of the Met, has also turned to radio. Sedately she describes the doings on the stage where once she ruled. Mary Garden was resting in Manhattan last week after her Debussy lecture-recitals and a visit to Sing Sing.

Lacking much of the oldtime glamour, the most notable female singers now current on the world's stages are:

Lucrezia Bori, young and unmarried at 46, lately adored as "Savior of the Met," gracefully expert in light florid roles.

Amelita Galli-Curci, 45, who still sings profitably in South Africa and India where she has no youthful coloratura rivals.

Maria Jeritza who impressed Chicago audiences this winter but who is no longer wanted by the Metropolitan.

Rosa Ponselle and Elisabeth Rethberg who sing most of the routine Italian roles at the Metropolitan today. Both are capable.

Lily Pons, 30, who made her stir four winters ago and already sounds tired. But she lately signed a fat three-year cinema contract with RKO.

Kirsten Flagstad, 38, a new import from Norway, whose first Isolde won reams of praise last week. Critic Lawrence Gilman of the Herald Tribune called her performance "one of the rarest of our time." Even Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt stood in her box and cheered.

Gertrude Kappel who, older and more experienced than Flagstad, has been the Metropolitan's most dependable Wagnerian since 1928.

Frida Leider, whose absence from the U. S. this winter gave Flagstad her job. Leider figured that with the devalued dollar and the short Metropolitan season she could make more money by remaining in Europe.