Professional Documents
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A. Well, she had sung at small affairs in her big musical club,
which was called The Birdy Club. They had a ball yearly, and in the last
few years she had created an intermission in the ball during which she sang
an aria, and so great was the enthusiasm and the mirth that people clamored
for more. She was encouraged to sing more and more, both by professionals
and laymen. There were a great many singers from the Metropolitan in this
club - I think Enrico Caruso was one of the founders - and all these
people, to kid her along, told her that she was the most wonderful singer
that ever lived, and encouraged her that way.
Q. Through which of these activities, Mr. McMoon, did you first come
to know Mme J?
Q. I know a lot in the public's mind has been made of the appearance
of the great final appearance she made at Carnegie Hall. Would you be
willing to recount some of the unique characteristics or some of the
especially interesting things that happened during that performance?
Q. During the years since Mme J's death, there have been many
attempts, have there not, to imitate her, on the part of other singers less
- less qualified, or less completely sincere, as she was, about that type of
vocal art?
A. Oh, yes. Such a golden shower as the audiences which she was
able to attract are certainly a temptation to anyone, and many have tried
since to give studiedly discordant recitals at Town Hall and different
places, or trying to make the music funny that way, but they have no success
at all, and they just make a dismal evening, and the reason is that they're
not sincere in their efforts, as Mme Jenkins was. She is inimitable, and
many have tried also to imitate her, but without success.
[The elders among us may recognize that name from the numerous recordings he
made as the favorite accompanist of . . . wait for it . . . the one and only
Kirsten Flagstad, the greatest dramatic soprano of her time, and the
greatest Wagnerian soprano I ever heard; she did everything in her
considerable power to get the Met to engage him as its Wagnerian chief, but
he lost out to Erich Leinsdorf, to Mme Flagstad's considerable vexation.
She did, however, euchre RCA Victor into letting him conduct when she and
her favored partner Lauritz Melchior recorded great chunks of Tristan und
Isolde with the San Francisco Opera Orchestra. I'd heard before that
McArthur had played for Mme Jenkins at the beginning of his career, but had
never taken it seriously. I can only assume that at the time he, as any
musician can understand, simply needed the scratch. The discovery of Cosm?
McMoon's true identity set me on fire to get into contact with him, and ask
him some probing psychological questions about her rare disorder.
Unfortunately, I learned from Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians that
Edwin McArthur had already died, at the age of 79, on February 2, 1987. I
still marvel at the sublime serenity of his facial muscles the only time I
heard him and Mme Jenkins together. At that time I had the feeling that
nothing short of an atomic explosion would have ruffled his extraordinary
aplomb.]
Paul Moor
<Texas-Paule@Sigmund-Freud.Org>
Wilhelmsaue 132
D-10715 Berlin
Telefon (4930) 8639-5784
Telefax (4930) 8639-5785