Conductor Chaliapin

Few will deny that towering Feodor Chaliapin is an imposing actor, an irreproachable singer of opera. Likewise, many have found him imperiously temperamental. Last week as the sardonic, demonic Mephistopheles of Faust he poured out his ruddy bass to the burghers, dames and daughters of Vienna in the Vienna Opera House. But frowns of annoyance danced on his brow; he found the time too slow for his impetuous taste. Over the bobbing heads of the first violins he glared meaningfully at Conductor Karl Alwin, tried vainly to force a faster tempo. Suddenly the audience gasped, the musicians faltered. The brawny arms of Basso Chaliapin were beating out an aerial quick-step at the orchestra in the middle of a duet. Before the nervous and fascinated audience, Conductor Alwin brought the orchestra to order with a sweep of his baton, held it to his chosen tempo for the rest of the opera. Sequel: A riled audience reserved applause for minor singers. An indignant press flayed the impertinence of the rebellious foreigner, Feodor Chaliapin. An exhausted conductor said that for Basso Chaliapin, he would conduct no more.

First instalments of Feodor Chaliapin's autobiography were syndicated last week in U. S. newspapers. He wrote that he could remember when he was five, living in East Central Russia in a hut costing a ruble and a half per month.* His father, a clerk, "was very fond of drink and on one occasion did not come home for two days. . . . After a time he became intoxicated every pay day" and beat Mrs. Chaliapin.

Young Feodor and friends would turn cartwheels, climb roofs and trees, shoot catapults, raid gardens, eat ripe poppy seeds. He was eight when he first saw the clown Yashka, a stout old man with ridiculously angry eyes in his coarse face."

"Charmed by this street artist, I stood in front of his booth until my legs became benumbed and my eyes grew dim with the gay diversity of the strolling players' attire...."

First a blacksmith, then a choirmaster taught Feodor to sing. Once he sang an all-night service, followed by a morning service in the same church.

A touring opera company came to town when he was 12. "'Suppose everybody always sang every-where,' I mused, 'in the streets, in the baths, at the workshops.' The idea charmed me and naturally began to convert everyday life into opera, singing the answers to questions asked me and greeting my friends in song.

" 'Did you ever see the like?' my father would say to mother. That's what the theatre is bringing him to!'"

*About 75-c-.