Page 4 - To Dragma May 1934

To DRAGMA JANUARY, 1932 5

jUary 1(ose <Barrons With Qhicago Qivic Opera

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By E L E A N O R E D . G R A F F , Phi Heink in Kansas City at the insistence of the music critic of the Kansas
City Star, who knew Mary Rose and of her desire to sing, through his
MARY ROSE BARRONS ( $ ) , last heard from through these friendship with her father, who is advertising manager of the Kansas
pages when she sailed for Germany with Madame Schumann- City Star; how Madame Schumann-Heink was so thrilled and awed by
Heink three years ago, has returned to the United States. And! |he beauty of Mary Rose's as yet untrained singing voice that she urged
when she returned this fall she brought with her a coveted three-year J*1" to go to St. Paul, Minnesota, and study with her own coach; and
contract to sing with the Chicago Civic Opera Company. n ° t t Mary Rose did go to St. Paul where she lived and studied for two
years.
On the night of November 3, the second night of opera for this sea^j
son, Mary Rose made her American debut in "The Magic Flute," an From St. Paul she went to New York City where she spent eight
opera by Mozart, singing the role of First Youth, in a trio of three j?onths studying music with Schumann-Heink and dramatics with
youths. I t was the first time this opera had been sung in Chicago for a ^harles (Daddy) Trier, French dramatic coach of Julia Marlowe and
quarter of a century, and therefore created widespread interest. Here §> H . Sothern.
is what Edward Moore, music critic for the Chicago Tribune had to say
regarding the singing of Mary Rose. At the end of that time she sailed with Madame Schumann-Heink
0 r Germany. On their arrival they toured the country for six weeks,
You will see in this opera that a number of artists appear as members of a
group, three ladies to the queen, three youths, two priests, two knights, and so on.
There were such notables as Mmes. Leider, Votipka, and Olszewska as the ladies
to the queen, and seldom has there been such trio singing hereabouts. Nearly as
good was the trio of youths by Miss Barrons, Miss Turner—these two debutantes—
and Miss Ornstein, who did her first singing the night before.

This was high praise, when one considers the prominent place in the
world of operatic music which is accorded the three singers who sang
the roles of the ladies to the queen, to whose singing that of the trio of,
youths is so favorably compared.

Mary Rose will also sing the following roles during the current sea-J
son: Flora, in "Traviata"; Inez in " I I Travatora"; the Countess, in
"Rigoletto"; and small roles in "Meistersinger," "Lohengrin," "Parsi-
fal," and "Martha."

But let us return to the story of Mary Rose's amazing achievements j
in the world of music—a story as dramatic as any written for the stage
and one which really requires her own delightful and radiant personality ;
to tell it as it should be told.

Most of us remember how she was graduated from the University !
of Kansas in 1925, and taught school in Independence, Missouri, the
following winter; how that same spring she sang for Madame Schumann-