A GREAT event in the life of any artist is some unique distinction in their career. With one, it is a new role created or, perhaps, a new interpretation of an old role; with another, a song discovered, or maybe some unusual honor bestowed by a person of prominence. Marguerite d’Alvarez, the Peruvian contralto, who landed in New York on Nov. 12, however, had a privilege, shortly before leaving England, of which any singer might be proud. She gave a song recital in Westminster Abbey, and, what is more, was the first singer ever to do it.

“The way it happened was this,” said Mme. d’Alvarez to a representative of MUSICAL AMERICA, “I gave a recital in Albert Hall, and as the London public has always been very good to me, the place was crowded. They even waited by the hundred to see me come out, and when I got to the top of the steps, they applauded and asked me to make a speech. I simply couldn’t! It was all I could do to thank them and hurry to my motor. Well, the very next day I had a note from in the Dean of Westminster Abbey asking me if I would give a recital in the Abbey for the benefit of the reconstruction fund. Of course I was overwhelmed with the honor, and said I should be delighted, so it was all arranged.

“When I got to the Abbey there was a crowd around all the doors and I was told that 3000 had been turned away. It was certainly packed inside. When my time came to sing and I stood at the head of the great nave, I was so moved that I could hardly sing a note. Think of singing there where Purcell and Handel lie, and all the other great men, not only musicians but poets and statesmen! Do you wonder I was thrilled? During the recital they took up a collection and got 500 pounds. They had expected only about 100 and had not enough bags to hold the money or they might have had even more. The applause, of course, was silent applause, a cough here and there, and even a sob or two, but it was to me a far greater tribute than any roar of hand-clappings that I have ever had given me!

“So, I shall feel now, when the restoration of the Abbey begins, that I have at least added one pinnacle to a flying-buttress and helped preserve one of the world’s great monuments.

“One thing that interested me more than I can say, and touched me as well, was receiving a letter from a young girl who had been at the Abbey. She wrote that my singing had been a far greater inspiration than any sermon she had ever heard and that music to her was a religion that pointed out the Way, as nothing else could.

“I think if singers realized this they might take a different attitude to each other. One thing I cannot understand, is why singers like to regard songs and operatic roles as their own personal property. Why should they? I don’t mind people singing the songs I sing or the operatic parts. If they do them better than I, all credit to them, and I am glad to learn where I have failed. If they don’t do them so well as I, again, why should I care? Recently in Paris I gave a number of songs I had found to one of the singers in the Metropolitan. She thought at first that I was joking, and it took her some time to realize that I was acting in perfectly good faith.

“I know another operatic artist, one of your greatest who threatened to leave Covent Garden if the rôle of Tosca were sung by another artist announced. This, it seems to me, was a confession of inferiority on her part. She couldn’t have been sure of herself or she would not have had the slightest apprehension. I should have felt that I did it so well that no one else could touch me, and then if the other artist ‘walked away with it,’ as you say over here, well—le roi est mort, vive le roi! But, after all, there is plenty of room at the top for more than one artist

“I enjoy song recitals almost as much as opera. They are in a way, a far greater strain than opera, not only because the singer has to do the whole thing, but also because in song recitals you have to dress and undress a word and lay it bare to the bones in order to ‘put it over.’ ‘Then, a real artist, as I said to an interviewer in London recently, has to take her audience along with her to lands where Cook’s tours will not transport you for seven-and-six. If the public realized this there would be no empty seats.”

“But all artists do not have such powers of transportation,” suggested the interviewer, “in fact, very few do.”

“Yes, I suppose so!” said Mme. d’Alvarez. “And more shame to them that it is so! Well, I am going to see what I can do here. I have had much success as a leader of personally conducted tours to the Land of Fancy, in England, and I hope to have as much in America, and I want the American public to love my brain-children as much as I do, and to take them to its heart.

“One thing more I want to tell you, and that is, I think I discovered a remarkable voice just before leaving England. I went to see ‘Tosca,’ the dramatic version, at the Aldwych Theater, and was greatly struck with the speaking voice of a young girl who acted the part of the boy, Gennarino, in the first act. In one or two places she uttered a little cry of joy that was almost a musical sound, and I was so impressed that I wrote her to come to see me. She had never sung but had always wanted to do so. I tried her voice and found it to be a beautiful pure soprano. I told her then that I was going to put her with a good teacher. She overwhelmed me with thanks, but I said to her that that was all very nice, but what I wanted was work, and that when I got back to London in the spring I expected to find not a student but a rival.

“We shall see!” said the singer. “It is true that very few of these ‘finds’ turn out to be anything but hideous disappointments, but I suppose we must go on trying because it is the duty of every artist to pass on the torch to the younger generation.” —JOHN ALAN HAUGHTON.