Safe Passage

Her reply, preserved gratefully and affectionately for all these years, lies before me now!

My dear girls,

I am so happy at last the great moment has come! and I imagine your joy, anticipating your trip to New York. I will be more than happy to have the tickets for you for all my operas and certainly I will sing Traviata—we had specially requested this—and will think of the perseverant girls who will be listening. Will you give me right away your address as soon as you arrive and your telephone number too? I want you to have dinner with me some night, when rehearsals are not so heavy. My address from December to February is 1022 Fifth Avenue, N.Y., in my new apartment there. I don’t know yet my telephone number but you will be able to get it by calling the office of Evans & Salter, 527 Fifth Avenue. God bless you in your trip; Merry Christmas and au revoir soon.

Sincerely yours,

A Galli-Curci.

It was a final crown on all our efforts. We were ready to go.

The goodbyes were said and, on one of the last days of 1926, Louise and I set sail for the New World. We had never been to Brighton for the day alone, but we were off to New York.

We had to be on board overnight before sailing in the morning; overwhelmed and with sudden panic, I very nearly came off the boat and went home that night. All the excitement and anticipation, the two years’ struggle and the determination dissipated into dreadful homesickness: I could not imagine now why I had ever said I would go nearly three thousand miles away. However, Louise’s resolution held firmly and she bolstered up my failing courage.

Everyone’s first long voyage is much like everyone else’s, of course, and yet individually one’s own. We were very cautious and kept ourselves much to ourselves. Well-armed with knowledge about “white slavers”—a great issue in our youth—we knew we were not to talk to any strange men. So we hardly talked to anyone.—I can’t think how I managed that for a week.—Finally, on the last night on board, we thought the danger was over and told everyone at the table why we had come to America.

This caused a terrific sensation. It is just the kind of mad thing the dear Americans love.

Had we friends in New York? No. Relatives? No. Business? No. Any reason at all for coming other than to hear Galli-Curci sing in opera? No other reason at all.

Fresh sensation! Then someone remarked that Galli-Curci ought to be told. It was such a wonderful story.

“But she knows,” we explained. “She waited while we saved up the money. She is giving us tickets for everything she sings. And she has promised to sing Traviata, because it’s our favourite opera.”

This really was a bombshell from the two quiet, inconspicuous Britishers in their homemade dresses. Amid the laughter and congratulations of the people around us, we became starlets in our own right for a few hours.

The next morning we arrived in New York.

I suppose the first view of Manhattan from the water is still one of the most fantastic and incredible sights to European eyes. But in those days, it was especially fantasy-laden. We had never seen a skyscraper before. At that time, I think no London building was allowed to rise above twelve storeys. And some of those early skyscrapers were truly beautiful, so unlike the faceless horrors of today. Indeed, it is impossible to describe the sheer beauty of New York during the nineteen-twenties.

We lost our hearts to New York the first day. In spite of its many changes, it still holds a special unchallenged place in our affections.

The very respectable friend of a friend collected us from the boat—Mother, also with white slavers in mind, having stipulated that this precaution at least must be observed. Having satisfied ourselves that he was who he said he was and not a super-subtle white slaver, we allowed him to escort us off the ship and deposit us at our Washington Square hotel.

It was the afternoon by then, and we decided to go out immediately and find Galli-Curci’s agents. We walked—not daring to get on anything for fear of what it might cost—all the way up Fifth Avenue to Thirty-Ninth Street, along to Broadway—according to the instructions we had memorized from our guide book nearly two years ago—and stood gazing at the outside of the Metropolitan Opera House. The Old Met, of course. Now, alas, no longer in existence.

The magic Met—which has resounded to the voices of every great singer known to us through gramophone records—was, in those days, under the inspired management of Gatti-Casazza, probably the last of the great impresarios.

Those were the days when you could hear Traviata on a Saturday afternoon with Galli-Curci, Beniamino Gigli, and Giuseppe De Luca; go home to eat; and come back for La Forza del Destino with Rosa Ponselle, Pinza—just becoming a famous name in America—and Giovanni Martinelli; and find the young Lawrence Tibbett—in the part of Melitone—thrown in for good measure.

No wonder we gazed at the unimpressive exterior in silent awe. Later, we sought out the offices of Evans & Salter and, feeling once more rather shy and far from home, timidly asked, “Please could we have Madame Galli-Curci’s telephone number? We have just arrived from England and…”

Before we could get any further, a pleasant American voice called out from an inner office, “Hello! Is that Miss Cook?” And out came Homer Samuels, Galli-Curci’s husband, with Lawrence Evans.

Dear Homer! How well he chose the words necessary to make us feel neither oddities nor hysterical fans, but friends and valued admirers. He gave us our tickets for the following evening when Galli-Curci was to sing Traviata, asked us about our journey, satisfied himself that we were comfortably established in New York, and finally, reaffirmed that, as soon as there were fewer rehearsals, they would get in touch with us and have us to dinner with them in their new Fifth Avenue apartment.

By the time we staggered out of the office, we already knew that our two years’ saving had been worth it. What mattered now the skimpy lunches, the cheese-paring and saving, the day-today sacrifices? And we had achieved it ourselves: the happiest state human nature can attain.

In a glow of contentment, we returned to our hotel, admiring the traffic of Fifth Avenue, the skyscrapers of Lower Manhattan, and every American face and form that passed us.

The telephone rang as soon as we reached our room, and Louise lifted the receiver gingerly.

“Who is it?” I hissed anxiously.

“The New York Times,” replied Louise succinctly, “wants to know what we look like.”

This was right up my street! I seized the telephone and described us—as I saw us. Other questions followed. What did we think of the Prince of Wales? Of the skyline of New York? Of bobbed hair—a great issue at that time?

No one before had ever wanted to know what we thought of anything. It was marvellous, but only the beginning. The next day, several other newspapers wanted to interview and photograph us, as “the two girls who saved their money to cross the Atlantic,” etcetera.

That evening we donned our Mabs Fashions’ evening dresses—the first we had ever had. Mine had a thick cotton georgette background, and superimposed upon it in plush—rather like drawing-room chairs—was a design. I had a diamante bow on my stomach, and I thought I was what was then called the cat’s whiskers. With Louise equally fetchingly attired, off we went to sit in the stalls at the opera for the first time in our lives. Girls of our type generally never sat anywhere but in the gallery, in those days.

Which of us who saw the Met in the great days of the prosperity boom can ever forget the fantastic sight of its glorious, sweeping Diamond Horseshoe, or the display of dresses, furs and jewellery?

The Metropolitan and Covent Garden also looked then as opera houses should look. How I hate the drab austerity of an “undressed” Covent Garden today! Opera is a festive art, and in my view, the audience should pay it the compliment of looking a little festive too. Pushing your way into the stalls of a great opera house in scruffy jeans and a pullover brands you as either tiresomely common and insensitive, or rather pathetically exhibitionist.

But from our seats in the fourth row of the stalls on that wonderful night, we looked around, enthralled, at the dazzling scene. It remains with me to this day—and during the darkest days of the war, when everything that was gracious, colourful and beautiful had to go—as one of those shining memories to be cherished and treasured.

Galli-Curci, Gigli, and De Luca formed the cast for La Traviata that night. Our particular star played a Violetta that fulfilled our most eager hopes and anticipations—worth the two years’ wait.

That great first night at the Met we heard the young Gigli for the first time, and although we both preferred him in other roles later, we did know we were hearing a phenomenon. Perhaps for us, the real discovery was De Luca—no longer young, but still at the height of his glory. And the finest baritone we ever heard. His voice, one of the most beautiful possible, had the quality and colour of dark honey in the sunshine; with it went a knowledge of the art of singing, which no one who heard him could ever forget. Even at that time, we knew he was supreme. We have never since had reason to revise this opinion.

Twenty years later, when he was over seventy, we heard him give a recital in New York, and even then he could teach something of the art of singing to almost anyone else I ever heard. Grand old De Luca was one of the glorious company indeed.

At the end of the performance, something wonderful happened. When Galli-Curci came on to take her applause, she picked us out from where we sat clapping in the stalls, and waved to us. I remember thinking, “This is the nearest thing to royalty I shall ever be! I’m being waved at by Galli-Curci across the footlights of the Metropolitan!”

The next day, Galli-Curci asked us to dinner in her apartment. She lived just opposite the Metropolitan Museum on that part of Upper Fifth Avenue then known as Millionaires’ Row. She added that she would send a car for us.

Again we donned our Mabs Fashions’ evening dresses and swept out, we believed, as to the manner born. Our waiting car possessed a chauffeur and a fur rug.—We had hardly ever been in even a taxi before in our lives.—And away we went up Fifth Avenue, to be deposited at an apartment that looked rather like the Wallace Collection to us. At this point there was a slight social hitch: Louise was wearing an evening cloak made by me, with a near-fur collar, and if this collar were roughly handled, it would crackle. As the manservant took the cloak, the collar crackled. Louise was mortified, but no one seemed to notice. And then Galli-Curci came running downstairs and into the room.

Oh, Lita! How the years roll back when I recall that evening. I suppose it was later that she became “Lita” to us, for those were not the days when every important fan presumed to address stars by their Christian names. But from that first evening, she was a dear, kind, affectionate friend for life.

She apparently needed no more than a few minutes in our company to realize what kind of girls we were, and she asked almost immediately, “Did your mother mind your coming?”

We admitted that she did rather.

“I know exactly what she thought,” Galli-Curci said. “I’ll tell you what we will do. We’ll all write a card to Momma tonight to tell her that you are in a good house and she needn’t worry.”

And she did. In the middle of a busy season, she wrote to Mother, assuring her of our safety and happiness. A typical Galli-Curci gesture, we were to find later, for she combined an extraordinary sensitivity about the feelings of others with the sort of cool common sense one does not always associate with prima donnas.

Years later, one of her great colleagues—who liked her, as a matter of fact—told us many people considered Galli-Curci rather cold and proud. Although a small woman, she had immense dignity and presence, and her Spanish side gave her a rather aristocratic bearing that marked her out in any company. She would have been a fool if she had not known her exact position in the musical world of that day. And Galli-Curci was no fool.

But to us, she was an angel. And she changed our lives.

That first magical evening was like the sort of thing you invent to please yourself, but which never really happens. Plans were made for our enjoyment; we were advised on what to hear at the opera. And, final delight, Homer told us that Arturo Toscanini was returning to New York for the first time, after fifteen years’ absence—following his famous quarrel with Gatti-Casazza—and if we wished to go, he would take us.

In those days, we had only a vague idea of Toscanini’s position in the musical world, but we accepted with alacrity. Thanks to Homer, we witnessed that wonderful scene of excitement and rejoicing when Toscanini returned to New York.

In this connection, Lita told us an amusing story. Once, during Toscanini’s long absence and before the reconciliation between him and Gatti, she said to the famous manager of the Met, “Gatti, why don’t you have Toscanini back?”

Gatti regarded her with somewhat sardonic gloom and replied, “When you have had typhoid fever and have had the good fortune to recover, do you ask to have it again?”

That evening was the prelude to an unbelievable four weeks of musical festivity. In addition to hearing Lita once more in Traviata, we heard her as Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, and as Gilda in Rigoletto, which I still think her greatest part. I never heard another Gilda who even remotely approached her. She was an absolute mistress of the art of recitative, and her coloratura was as effortless, as natural as the spoken word. Also, she was a very good actress. Not a very great one—that is something different—but a very good one. She even looked a Gilda—quite a tough assignment for some who have essayed the role. With her oval, Renaissance type of face, her magnificent dark eyes, and that essential touch of melancholy, which could sometimes transform her face as well as her voice, she was the living embodiment of Rigoletto’s daughter.

As well as our Galli-Curci performance, we heard Turandot, Falstaff, Tosca, Romeo and Juliet, and La Forza del Destino. We also heard La Bohème and I think that it was on this first visit that we heard Martinelli in Pagliacci.

It will be seen from this list that we leaned very much to the Italian side of the operatic repertoire. Later, at our own Covent Garden, we discovered the great German artists of this rich period. But meanwhile, did we have fun among the Italians!

I cannot complete an account of these magical weeks without mentioning the amazing American hospitality we received. I mean the heart-warming welcome Americans extend to anyone they recognize as an eager and interested visitor. Because of the particular events in our later lives, we thought that the golden, happy things of life lay largely on the other side of the Atlantic. Because of those lovely, carefree, happy days of our youth, we found a particular touching significance in the words, “Westward, look, the land is bright.”

Like all good things, our American visit could not last forever, and finally we had to go to say goodbye to Lita and Homer. It was a melancholy occasion, but Lita said something that changed everything.

“If you come back one year in the fall, we will give you a really lovely holiday at our home in the Catskill Mountains.”

“If you’ll wait while we save up the money,” we cried, “we’ll come. But it takes two years.”

Lita promised to wait. And then she added thoughtfully, “Time and distance don’t matter, if you are really fond of someone.”

A profound and simple assertion, put to the test again and again in the years that followed, but always to prove true.

3

We went home on the Aquitania. Third class this time, which was the nearest thing to steerage that existed in our day. In working out our expenses, we had realized that we must travel one way in lowly state; we reasoned that, on the return journey, there would be no emigrants. This was true, but there were deportees—twenty-two of them, if I remember rightly. But it was an experience and we could hardly expect roses all the way.

As we ste pped off the Aquitania at Southampton, a man approached us: “Are you the Misses Cook?”

When we replied in chorus that we were, he went on, “Well, I’m from the Daily Mail.” And a milder version of our New Yorker publicity experience began all over again. We returned to the bosom of our amused family as minor celebrities of a moment; to this day, there exists an incredible photograph of Louise and me smirking falsely at each other in an attempt to “look sisterly,” as requested by the press.

We were spent out, down to our last shilling. Since we intended to return to New York, I thought it was time I tried to make some extra money and decided—like many a deluded creature before me—that the easiest thing might be to write something. Since they seemed interested, I sent a breezy little article about us and our trip to the Daily Mail.

Luckily for me, we were news in a very limited way; the article was accepted, and I saw myself in print for the first time. Intoxicated by success, we thought we were famous for life. Needless to say, in two or three days everyone had forgotten all about us, and in rather chastened mood, I pondered on possible topics that would interest anyone.

I hit upon a brilliant idea—or so it seemed to me. Mabs Fashions m ight like to have an article on how we made our clothes to go and hear Galli-Curci.

I wrote the article, typed it out carefully on my office machine, and sent it in. It too was accepted. But for a while, this was the full extent of my journalistic career. To become a shorthand-typist, instead of a mere copying typist, I had to take an exam, and this took up all my time and energy.

I passed my exam—top marks in English and bottom marks in shorthand, which is rather thought provoking when one reflects that I was offering myself as a shorthand-typist—and found myself in the Official Solicitor’s Department of the Law Courts.

There were four of us in that particular section, and very soon I turned the other three into operatic enthusiasts, with a gramophone apiece. We all earned approximately three pounds a week, made our own clothes, saw life in simple terms, envied no one, often worked shockingly hard, but saved systematically for whatever we wanted and enjoyed it extravagantly when we got it.

The height of social glamour in those days was to sit for two hours over a pot of tea and a roll and butter at a Lyons Corner House, talking endlessly about ourselves, our hopes and the deliciously distant glitter of our favourite stars. The short International Season of Opera at Covent Garden was the most expensive time of the year.

For those unfortunately born too late to know Covent Garden in those days, and for the nostalgic enjoyment of those who shared those joys with us, let me recall the life of a Covent Garden gallery-ite.

I think it was the German conductor, Heger, who was reputed to have said of the Covent Garden audience that our enthusiasm was kindled to red heat by the simple expedient of starvation for ten months, and stuffing for two. Whether he really said it or not, the analogy was, largely speaking, correct. For nearly ten months of the year, Covent Garden was a dance hall, covered with yellow posters bidding anyone who wished to spend one shilling or half a crown to come and dance there.

But in the spring, those notices would be torn down and replaced by the preliminary lists of works and artists for the coming season. On the Sunday afternoon before the opening Monday—could it always have been as sunny as it now seems in retrospect?—the “regulars” gathered—some having seen little of each other since the previous year. Those Floral Street reunions stand out in my memory as among the happiest days of my life.

In those days, the gallery seats could not be reserved. Instead, under the masterly direction of Gough and Hailey, our two “stool men,” we hired camp stools, which marked our places whenever we had to leave for such unimportant matters as earning our living. Rumour had it that both Gough and Hailey did a substantial amount of betting on the side. Certainly their financial situation fluctuated in the most extraordinary way, and it was always difficult to know if Gough were employing Hailey or Hailey employing Gough. But from our point of view, they were splendid. I can see Gough now, pontificating gravely when called on to settle any question of queue-jumping. Not that there was much of this; anyone caught cheating was regarded with boundless contempt and handled with something less than kid gloves.

Apart from the first night of the season—marked by the Sunday gathering—and big “star” nights—when most of the real enthusiasts would gather overnight—we put down our camp stools at six or seven in the morning. Those of us fortunate enough to work near Covent Garden rushed over at lunchtime and sat on our stools, munching sandwiches—or a mere roll and butter if hard up—while watching the stars go to and from rehearsal.

The one disadvantage was that, for those of us who went almost every night, life became a series of late retirings and early risings. But either we were tougher then or youth cares little for that sort of thing. Louise and I regularly caught our last train from Victoria at twenty-to-one in the morning and rose to catch the first train to town next day before six. I was dreadfully weary sometimes. But I remember that my heart was high those early summer mornings, because we lived in a wonderland of opera, of interminable conversations with fellow enthusiasts in the queue, of glimpses at and sometimes even snatches of conversation with the stars, and of a dozen other delights.

Oh, the friendships and enmities of that queue! What book of this kind could be complete without mentioning some of the familiar figures?

Francis had attended every performance of every single opera at Covent Garden since the early nineteen-twenties, usually accompanied by Jenny. Francis had some wonderful turns of phrase from time to time and once uttered the pearl of succinct criticism when we were all recalling a singer we had deplored. “She had an enormous voice,” he agreed thoughtfully, “and all of it came from her nose.”

George was three when he first queued with his mother, though he didn’t actually come into performances until later. He adored Pinza and was the first person the amused basso used to ask for when he passed the queue.

Arthur was attending a finishing school in Switzerland when he received word that Ponselle was to make her Covent Garden debut. Unable to contemplate missing such an event, he wrote immediately to his father. He said he had been seriously considering the future and felt strongly that, instead of wasting money abroad, the time had come for him to assist his father in business. So admirably did he state the case to his unsuspecting parent that, somewhat touched, his father brought him home—just in time for Ponselle’s debut. “But, by God, it was a near thing!” was Arthur’s invariable comment when he told the tale later.

Dennis cycled up every morning from Forest Gate and once fell asleep on his bicycle, worn out by a series of late operatic nights. He always declared that he remembered seeing the Law Courts, and that the next thing he knew, he was lying on the pavement, fifty yards farther on.

Colin was afterwards to found perhaps the most famous record collectors’ centre in England. I have always thought he owed the phenomenal success of his venture partly to his uncompromising statement of views. They carried such shattering conviction.