Seven Men

PRIMA DONNA--Pitts Sanborn--Longmans, Green, 2 vols. ($5).

Seven men and music make the story of Helma Seymour, a pretentious life cycle of a U. S. prima donna which begins in a mid-western town and revolves ironically to a prosperous and almost respectable middle-age.

Helma was an offish, disdainful girl, daughter of a lawyer in Byzantium, Ohio. She went to the local college where a freshwater esthete named Winfield Gaines (but called "Phoebe") was her friend until he was expelled. She studied singing with a local teacher who had a book called Lyra Operatica, full of stilted engravings of old singers in the pinched and flowing costumes of classic roles. She herself had a big rich voice. It was for church-singing, perhaps someday teaching. Certainly not for the sinful ways of opera. But when her father and mother died, Helma went to New York.

There Dubosc was her teacher and Gonsalvo her constant companion. Dubosc realized her capabilities, pointed her far. Gonsalvo betrayed her, scorned her, until it was a half-crazed creature, without ambition, almost without voice, whom Dubosc mercifully took to Paris. There she met Raymond who was young. They lived together, went to Tours together where Dubosc had arranged for Helma's apprenticeship. In Tours she was soon the prima donna, successful because she was healthy, worked hard, sang splendidly. John O'Brien, a visiting tenor, heard her, got her an engagement in Paris. Then came the problem of Raymond. A young singer at the Paris Opera should have no handicaps. Raymond, fortunately, understood this. Helma's next episode was Ravet.

Ravet was a giantish man from the mountains of Dauphine. He knew nothing of singing but he knew the stage and passionately probed all the great roles to their depths. He too loved Helma and had much to give. He gave it all and died. And Helma went on alone, only she was taller than before, and an artist.

Helma's was then, as always, an artistry of the theatre. She was torn by Ravet's death. She thought she needed Raymond again and went to Biarritz to find him. But he had married without telling her, grown heavy, gone into business and was fathering a family. She fled to Buenos Aires and on board ship she married de Laurac who, she discovered later, preferred to her a slovenish bourgeoise who bore him children.

De Laurac was divorced and in the War he died. Helma came to the U. S. to the Metropolitan Opera Company. There critics thought her a little cold but her prestige grew as it had in Europe. Her sole defeat was a trip to Mexico City under none other than Impresario Gonsalvo. She had been tempted by the offer of the highest fee ever paid a woman singer. But she offended the politician-backer, sang badly and had to be hustled out of the city to save her skin. The experience shook her confidence, ruined Gonsalvo. For Gonsalvo she magnanimously provided, for herself there was Ashley Jocelyn, considerate, correct.

The Significance. Writer Sanborn's story is simply told, absorbing despite its great length. Percy Hutchison, staff reviewer of the New York Times, has found it truly Flaubertian. Soprano Amelita Galli-Curci says of it: "Any singer who knows the ins and outs of the operatic stage both here and in Europe will recognize the truth to fact." That the musical details are correct, no one will dispute. That the sufferings of so cold and untemperamented a person as Helma are a little overdrawn, verging too near melodrama, is more a matter for argument. Helma is too closely akin to the trite, untrue picture of the prima donna. The seven men are more expertly characterized.

The Author. John Pitts Sanborn has reason to base his novel on music. Soon after leaving Harvard (1902) he went to assist Critic H. T. Parker on the now defunct New York Globe, succeeded Parker there as editor and critic, whence he went to the late Evening Mail, then to the Telegram for which he now writes daily criticisms that are boldly authentic and tinged with venom. In appearance he is round, cherubic; in essence a dilettante who likes cats, first editions, liqueurs, Mozart and politics. He speaks French, German, Italian, Spanish, is always worrying about his health. He has written many magazine articles. Prima Donna is his first novel.