Safe Passage

by Mary Burchell

  I once read an article about Pinza that claimed he had no sense of humour. That simply was not so. He had a most lively, rather individual sense of humour, and he was, without exception, the finest mimic I ever knew. He had a wonderful repertoire: Sir Thomas Beecham; himself and a London policeman—taking the parts alternately—when he had parked in the wrong place; a rather affected salesgirl who tried to sell him some cultured pearls; many of his colleagues—who all enjoyed his performances—and I understand he did me very well, but he would never do that one for me.

  One of the nicest stories about his mimicry and fun was told to me by Elisabeth Rethberg. She was giving a concert in some American city one evening, under a manager who was also very anxious to represent Pinza. Pinza, who could dress like a tramp at times—I remember a shocking windjammer jacket in which he fancied himself very much.—drove Rethberg to the concert hall. The manager who so desired to have the famous basso on his list of artists obviously mistook Pinza for the chauffeur and proceeded to give him orders in a rather cavalier manner.

  Without a moment’s hesitation, Pinza immediately assumed the identity of a respectful chauffeur, touching his cap, calling the manager “sir” and generally enjoying himself very much in the role. Later explanations were, I understand, highly diverting. At any rate, diverting for Pinza.

  To return to Verona—Pinza collected us punctually at a quarter to nine and triumphantly escorted us down to the great open-air arena where opera is performed in Verona for three or four intoxicating weeks of the summer. At the back entrance, however, we received the firmest check. The man on duty there insisted that it was quite, quite impossible to admit any member of the public. The rule was unbreakable.

  Louise and I, like good, law-abiding Britishers, were about to retreat in reasonably good order when we received a peremptory sign from Pinza to remain where we were. He then took the objecting official by the shoulders in a friendly manner, shook him good-humouredly to and fro, poured a stream of talk upon him, pushed him dexterously a little farther inside the gateway and finally signalled to us to slip in.

  This we did with all speed. And, with a final joke or two from Pinza, and a final protest or two from the man at the gate, we were safely inside the darkened arena. Taking us across the half-built stage, Pinza triumphantly installed us in the best seats in the place; there we stayed until the early hours of the morning, enjoying the long dress rehearsal—our first, I suppose, now that I come to think of it—of Les Huguenots.

  What fun it was! The purple night sky of Verona overhead, pierced by a thousand golden stars, the gorgeous voices of Raisa and Lauri-Volpi to enchant our ears, and the gratification of having that operatic charmer, Ezio Pinza, for company. It was, indeed, another night to remember.

  Next day, we had to return to real life and our respective offices, and I don’t think we enjoyed the descent to earth any more than most people would. Nineteen thirty-four opened with another Cook trip to the States. This time it was our brother Bill who departed.

  Bill, who last appeared in these pages as a rather stolid little boy, had grown up very much in character. He seldom made a fuss about anything, but what he wanted, he got. And, unlike his sisters, he was naturally a sensible and steady saver, even when he had no special plan in view. Even when he was a schoolboy and I was earning my own living, I used to say, “Lend me a pound, Bill,” and he could nearly always produce one. Consequently, when he made up his mind to do anything, he did not have to save painfully for it. He was already prepared.

  I remember when he suddenly decided that he wanted to learn to play the piano, although he was almost grown-up and too old to study it seriously. Mother was not especially anxious to have a beginner practise on her grand piano and said so. Bill amiably agreed. But when she came home from shopping a few days later, an upright piano was being hauled through the space where the front bedroom window should have been. On horrified inquiry, she learned that Bill had gone out and bought a piano, which was now being installed in the attic, where he studied. As there was an awkward bend in the upper staircase, the men, cursing audibly, had had to remove the window and haul in the piano that way.

  They remarked, finally, that they had got it up there, and they hoped to God they would never have to get it down again. They never did. It is still there, though no one plays on it now.

  When Bill wanted to know something about the United States, he just bought a ticket and prepared to go. He bade us all a good-natured, undemonstrative farewell and departed. Dad, a little perplexed, though I suppose he was growing used to his children flitting about by now, accompanied him to Waterloo Station to see him off on the boat train. Conversation, he afterward reported, remained at a minimum, but just as the whistle blew, Bill leaned eagerly from the window. Touched by Bill’s unusual show of feeling and thinking that at least they were going to exchange a manly handshake, Dad immediately offered his hand.

  “No, no,” cried Bill, leaning out still farther, “You’ve got my umbrella!” And as the train began to move, he unhooked the umbrella neatly from Dad’s extended arm and departed for America, secure against rain and, we felt, against anything else he might encounter.

  In America, he also had a wonderful time, heard Ponselle in L’Africaine—for which Louise and I found it hard to forgive him—and was very kindly treated by our operatic friends, particularly the Pinzas. Lita and Homer literally passed him in mid-ocean, en route for the last tour of the British Isles they ever made.

  Lita gave a dramatic description of the incident. “I actually saw his ship,” she declared, “and rushed to the side and waved and cried, ‘Jim!’”

  “I got it right,” Homer added, grinning. “I cried ‘Bill!’”

  But even if they got the brothers a little confused, they had left their agents with all sorts of kind instructions for Bill’s entertainment, and these were interpreted in the most generous way possible. On our side, we enjoyed every moment of Lita and Homer’s tour. Because of the slightly improved finances of this short-story writer, we were able to go to several of their provincial concerts and even as far afield as Edinburgh. When we finally bade them goodbye at Waterloo Station, on a depressingly foggy February morning, we talked quite gaily about meeting again soon.

  Possibly they would come back, or we would dash over to New York—at any rate, we would meet somewhere.

  We had no idea—how could we?—that 1934, an epoch-making year for so many, would close a chapter for Louise and me too. And open another that would be written in much more dramatic language. When I look back, it seems to me that 1934 was the year the bright lines from the past and the dark lines of the future met.

  Our depression over the departure of Lita and Homer was considerably lightened by the thought of the approaching Opera Season, always guaranteed to raise our spirits.

  In the list of artists, there appeared some from Vienna who had never visited us before. Under Clemens Krauss, Viorica Ursuleac and Alfred Jerger were to play their original parts of Arabella and Mandryka. Many years later, when we knew her very well, Ursuleac used to describe for us those thrilling first rehearsals of Arabella in Dresden. Apparently, they closed the opera house for several weeks, and while Strauss sat in the stalls, Ursuleac and Jerger worked out those two complex and fascinating characters under the personal guidance of Strauss himself. No wonder every Arabella and Mandryka afterward always seemed rather pale in comparison.

  We were naturally interested in the newcomers, though at that time, not passionately so, and I looked forward to adding snapshots to my now quite extensive collection. One lunchtime, when several of us were sitting on our camp stools, someone remarked, “The tall, good-looking man by the stage door is Clemens Krauss, I think.”

  Privately, I thought he looked almost too good to be true—so completely the great stage figure that I felt cynically sure he would turn out to be merely someone’s husband, or chance friend of one of the singers. Reluctant to waste any of my precious film, I said to Dennis, “Go an
d ask him for his autograph and let’s see who he really is.”

  Dennis obligingly approached, and I went and looked over the conductor’s shoulder while he silently, and a little sardonically, inscribed “Clemens Krauss” with a variety of twirls and twists, calculated almost to obscure the actual signature.

  “Oh, it is Clemens Krauss!” I exclaimed rather too audibly and asked whether I might take his picture.

  I was unaware then that Krauss did not take very kindly to these frivolous trimmings of his job. Indeed, it is recorded that, on one occasion when he was pestered by autograph-hunters after a performance of Carmen, he gravely wrote “Georges Bizet!” on several programmes, and then passed on, leaving astounded speculation in his wake.

  On this occasion, he did say I might snap him, but I was so overcome by his somewhat impatient manner that, for the first time in my snapping career, I fumbled and jerked the camera as I clicked the shutter. However, I dared not ask for time for another attempt. I simply had to hope for the best. And, as someone exclaimed at that moment, “Here comes Ursuleac!” I promptly added an amused and intrigued Ursuleac to my “bag.”

  When the film came out, the photograph of Ursuleac was excellent, but I had blurred Krauss badly, to my great chagrin. One did not have the chance of snapping a famous conductor every day, but I was not sure that my courage was up to risking Krauss’s impatience a second time. However, once more at lunchtime, I learned that all of what we now call “the Vienna lot” were in the opera house rehearsing. And I decided that if Krauss and Ursuleac came out together, I would show her her snapshot—artists nearly always liked that—explain about the failure of Krauss’s and ask to be allowed another chance.

  In theory, this was excellent. In practice, the end of the rehearsal was delayed beyond all reckoning. I was due back at my office; indeed, the extreme limit of any reasonable extension had already passed, and still they did not come. Even now, I can’t imagine how I dared to hang on. But—I lay claim to only one premonition in all this story—as I sat there, fuming, on my camp stool, I knew suddenly that I would be sorry all my life if I went away now.

  And my one premonition proved correct.

  Finally, at an impossibly late hour, they came out together and I rushed up to Ursuleac to show her her picture. She was charmed and made Krauss examine it too. He gave it what we used to call afterward his “directorial approval,” and so I ventured to explain about the spoiled photograph and asked if I might snap him again.

  He puffed at one of his famous cigars, looked genuinely amused and, apparently liking the unfamiliar word, said, “All right. Snap me again, snap me again.”

  Thus encouraged, I even asked him to come and stand in a better light, and as an amused Ursuleac came to watch the proceedings, I asked, “Shall I take you together?”

  She hesitated. But Krauss said immediately, “Yes. Take us together!” And so I took what was to be the most important of all our snapshot collection—Krauss and Ursuleac outside Covent Garden in 1934.

  It was a superb success. I had it enlarged, one copy for Louise and me, and one for Krauss. Or rather, as it turned out afterwards, for Ursuleac, because by the time the enlargements were ready, Krauss had already returned to Vienna.

  When Ursuleac came past the queue one day, I gave her one enlargement and asked her to sign the other for us. This she did. When I asked about the possibility of obtaining Krauss’s signature too, she shook her head regretfully and said, “He has gone to Vienna.”

  This was disappointing. But there was one more chance. We had been toying with the idea of spending our summer holiday in Salzburg. For one thing, the programme that year was to include the first performance of a new production of Don Giovanni, under Bruno Walter and with, as is now operatic history, Pinza in the role of the Don. In addition, we knew that Strauss’s Egyptian Helen—Die Aegyptische Helena—was to be given and guessed that Ursuleac would have the title role. We were already enthralled by her special Strauss artistry, though it was not until later that we were to realize the full measure of its magnificence.

  I asked if she were going to Salzburg that year. And when she said, “Oh, yes—” and looked enquiring, I said impulsively, “Then we will come too.”

  “You come to Salzburg?” She gave that her smiling approval. “Then you can bring the picture and Mr. Krauss shall—shall write.”

  She meant “sign,” but her meaning was clear enough, so I gave her a hug, which seemed to astonish but please her, and it was arranged.

  The Italian part of our season that year was to include the much discussed Cenerentola. A tremendous amount of preparation had gone into this and there had been some inevitable delays. Consequently, it was not to make its appearance until the last week of the season. Two performances were to be given—on the Wednesday and on the last night, Friday.

  Pinza was, of course, already in London, taking other roles and enjoying, as he always enjoyed, the amusements and absurdities of the queue. He never tired of our “system,” which he used to explain to the other singers with great care and in some detail. As he had been so extremely kind, first to us in Verona and then to Bill in New York, we had, after some thought, asked him if he would like to come home and meet the rest of the family. I explained anxiously that we were a perfectly ordinary suburban family, but that if it would please him to come, everyone would be very happy to see him.

  To our gratified surprise, his reply was unequivocal.

  “I should simply love to come,” declared Pinza, whose English had improved somewhat over the years. And so it was arranged that he should come on the Thursday evening, in between the two Cenerentola performances.

  On the Wednesday before, we had all planted our camp stools early, and the only thing that disturbed us was the rumour that Borgioli was ill. Because the work was so seldom given in those days, the tenor role in Cenerentola was not one that could easily be handed over to anyone else. Literally no one else in London knew it. So if Borgioli’s illness were serious, the performance itself was threatened.

  Concurrently with this rumour ran another most interesting piece of operatic gossip. Elisabeth Rethberg—whose voice had been described by no less than Toscanini as the most beautiful in the world—was said to be in London on a private visit. She had not sung at Covent Garden since 1925, and her absence had long and often been lamented.

  Now, some of us hoped that she might at least be in the house for such an interesting occasion as the first Cenerentola.

  In the early evening of that memorable Wednesday, when we all began to gather for the performance, the incredible report went around that the performance had been can-celled. Bergioli’s cold had taken too serious a turn for him to be permitted to sing.

  But, as I afterward heard the story, the management, at their wits’ end for a substitute performance that would lessen the very natural disappointment, had learned that the famous Rethberg was in London. She was approached with a request to help them out of their difficulty and sing that night.

  She asked what they could put on at a moment’s notice, and they suggested La Boheme, as they had the cast and scenery for that immediately available.

  It was two years since she has last sung Mimi, but she said, “Give me a couple of hours to run over the part and I’ll do it.” And so, as we returned to the queue that evening, we were met by the exciting announcement that though Cenerentola had had to be postponed and could be given only once, Elisabeth Rethberg was to be heard at Covent Garden once more.

  As the time for opening the doors drew near, the queue seethed with excitement. The artists began to arrive, and presently the taxi drove past the queue—with both Rethberg and Pinza in it. Pinza beckoned to me peremptorily from the window, and puzzled but intrigued, I ran down to the stage door.

  Rethberg went straight in, but Pinza paused to ask, with devastating simplicity, “Will it be all right if I bring Miss Rethberg with me tomorrow night?”

  Stifling the shriek of astonished delight to which I t
hink most people will agree I was entitled, I managed to say calmly that it would be quite all right, but did he think she would care to come?

  “Yes,” Pinza asserted confidently. “She would like to come. Write her a note, inviting her.”

  I promised dazedly to do so and returned to my surprised and curious family. And—heaven forgive me for the bit of showing off—I said to Mother, in the clearest and most carrying voice I could achieve, “Pinza wants to know if it will be all right if he brings Rethberg with him tomorrow evening.”

  “Perfectly all right,” replied Mother, acting up beautifully. And we became the centre of interested gossip and enquiry.

  What fun that Boheme performance was!

  Rethberg was in superb voice—that radiant, almost silvery voice that also had a warmth one does not usually associate with a silver tone. Everyone in the cast was in the sort of riotous mood of enjoyment that usually belongs more to an amateur performance than a professional one. That is to say, the whole thing had been thrown on, with everyone determined to save the day if possible. And I have seldom, if ever, seen the four Bohemians enjoy themselves with such genuine relish.

  During one of the intervals, I rushed across the road to the sandwich shop in Floral Street and begged the loan of some writing paper. They supplied me with some in a fierce violet shade, and on this I wrote a note to Madame Rethberg, inviting her out to the suburbs to meet a family she could never have heard of before that evening.

  It would be difficult to describe the sensations with which Louise and I went to our local station the next evening to meet Pinza, of whom we were still slightly in awe, and Rethberg, who was to us an unknown celebrity on a red-label gramophone record. But so naïve were we still that we had instructed them to come by train—in the homegoing rush hour, now I come to think of it!—and we walked them the short distance from the station to our house.

  Feeling very nervous, we welcomed the star of the previous evening and made the immediate and reassuring discovery that she was at least as shy as we were. As we went out of the station together, I said to her, “You do realize that we’re taking you to the most ordinary and homely household, don’t you?”