to perfect it! Indeed, it is interesting to read the old New York newspapers of November 1918 just after she made her sensational debut opposite Caruso. To every interviewer, she said the same thing: “Don’t tell me I’m a great singer. I’m going to be one.” And from then until she retired nineteen years later, at the criminally early age of thirty-nine, she never ceased to work like a slave.
Looking back over our years as opera-goers in many countries, Louise and I both consider Ponselle to be the greatest operatic artist we’ve ever heard. We are not alone. Farrar used to say, “When you are considering singers you must put aside Caruso and Ponselle, and then you may begin.” And Fred Gaisberg, in his book on the outstanding stars of recording, opines that “Rosa Ponselle was probably the greatest lirico-spinta that ever lived.” I would question that classification of her as a spinta; personally, I would call her a full dramatic soprano, as she was usually regarded. But we certainly agree that her voice was of unrivalled beauty.
Perhaps the most interesting opinion passed upon her voice was expressed by no less a person than Puccini. She met him only once, in the summer of 1924, a few months before he died, when she was staying at a villa near his home. One afternoon, Romano Romani, her teacher, took her to meet the composer, and he asked her to sing for him. She sang him his own “Vissi d’Arte” from Tosca—a role she never sang on the stage. And at the end he said, “Finalmente sento la mia Tosca—ma, ahime, troppo tardi.”—“At last I hear my Tosca—but, alas, too late.”
“What did he mean, Rosa?” we asked, when she told us the story years later.
“I don’t know,” she replied simply. “I suppose he already knew he was dying. I didn’t like to question him. I just treasured the words.”
Matchless Rosa! I am thankful that I heard every performance she ever gave in Europe. There were five in the first year at Covent Garden, seven in the second, nine—I think—in the third, and two performances of Vestale in Florence in 1933. I eternally regret not having heard her Donna Anna, her L’Africaine, her Luisa Miller, her Il Trovatore, her Santuzza and a dozen others. But, as will be seen later, we had claims on our time that could not be denied and we were unable to return to America during the years that mattered.
At the end of the memorable evening of Ponselle’s Covent Garden debut, it was no wonder that even the orchestra stood and joined in the storm of applause that broke in wave after wave through Covent Garden. As we stood there, in the front row of the gallery, clapping madly, a complete stranger in the back row of the amphitheatre stalls just below us turned and simply asked, “Well, was it worth it?”
“Worth what?” we said, hardly pausing in our applause.
“The twenty-four hours’ queuing you must have done to be where you are,” was the reply.
We laughed and said in chorus, “You bet!”
“Well,” was his reply, “I’m glad I didn’t have to do it, but I think she’s worth it, if anyone is.”
And this started one of our longest and firmest operatic friendships—with Douglas and his wife, Luigia.
When the 1929 season came to an end, Louise and I had a great compensation coming: we were due to sail for the States once more in September. Lita and Homer were waiting to welcome us at Sul Monte, their famous country house built at the top of Bellair Mountain, overlooking the most beautiful part of the Catskill country.
In a sense, the departure and even the journey were something of a repetition of the earlier trip, though perhaps we were a little more experienced—if not worldly, at least more self-possessed than before.
We arrived in New York in the middle of a heat wave, but nothing could dim our enthusiasm for the city, which would always represent excitement and high romance for us. Nevertheless, we were very glad to be going into the cooler, hilly country and very excited that, this time, we were travelling farther afield than New York City.
On a bright Sunday morning, we left Grand Central for our fascinating journey along the banks of the Hudson. We went by train as far as Rhinecliff; there, Homer met us with a car. Perhaps the best impression of our feelings that first day can be gleaned from my rapturous letter written home after our arrival.
Homer drove the car on to the ferry boat, and we were ferried across the Hudson—feeling like a million dollars. There were gorgeous wooded hills rising on every side, so I thought we should just begin to drive up one of them, when Homer smiled and said, “Now, you’ve a fifty mile drive in front of you.” We have found since that they have a station ten minutes from the house, but the darlings thought we should like to be met and driven through the wonderful Catskill country—so it was nothing to Homer to give up most of his day to doing it.
It was heavenly! We stopped halfway, to eat corn soup and fried chicken and Boston cream pie. We dawdled and talked politics. We dawdled a bit more and talked music. And at last, late-ish in the afternoon, we turned up a rough woodland path leading to the top of Bellair Mountain. They own 132 acres right at the top, and Sul Monte—which is just the loveliest place you can possibly imagine—is built on a wonderful plateau with thickly wooded slopes rolling away on either side. You can see sixty miles or more back and front of the house and, on a clear day, right away to the faint purple outline of the Adirondacks.
Homer tooted the horn as we drove up and Lita came running out, crying, “Here are the girls!” and there was such a kissing and greeting and talking as you never saw.
* * *
It was the beginning of another holiday. Homer and Lita had their own swimming pool, dance hall and cinema on the estate. There was darling Fagin, a shaggy sheepdog, who was very sentimental and friendly, but who hated Lita to play her castanets, which she sometime did, like a true Spaniard, for her amusement and ours. There was the farm to visit and the endlessly beautiful grounds.
Above all, there was the wonderful studio, where Lita practised and sometimes allowed us to come and hear her. She explained how she used to allow the famous top range of her voice to rest almost completely during her holiday.
“Take care of the middle of your voice,” she used to say, “and the top will take care of itself. Or, if you prefer—look after the cake! You can always put on the icing afterwards.”
She gave another sound piece of advice one evening when we had been discussing La Gioconda. She immediately fetched the score and sang quite a chunk of this heavy, dramatic work.
Astounded, I exclaimed, “Why, Lita, I had no idea you could sing like that!”
“Oh, I can,” she replied, laughing, “but if I did I wouldn’t have much voice left in six months.”
Sometimes later, as I have listened to ill-judged young sopranos happily tearing their way through the fabric of a bright upper register, I have thought of Lita’s words about the difference between what one can do and what one should do.
On another occasion, she decided to sing some excerpts from Romeo and Juliet, which Homer said was his favourite role for her. Lita insisted on a certain amount of stage action for the death scene, so Homer was pressed into service. He
finally agreed to pose on the studio steps in a dying attitude, with a resigned, “All right, all right. I’m Romeo—in black velvet,” while Lita swarmed over him, singing heart-rendingly.
It was great fun being “Galli-Curci’s English girls.” We were invited out to the surrounding estates, and everyone seemed to vie with each other in an effort to give us the time of our lives. The wife of one millionaire newspaper owner gave an “old style” dance. She took over the whole of a picturesque Dutch inn, and we all drove out thirty miles through the moonlit Catskills to dine by candlelight in old world surroundings and dance until the early hours.
I was still, be it remembered,