Women Without Simdstrom

"Completely surrounded by congratulations in the foyer" (so reported Hearst's Chicago Herald & Examiner), "Mrs. Royden Keith, in black velvet trimmed with a diamante bodice, received all the between-the-acts applause with such modesty as the president of the Orchestral Association should assume." In the boxes of the Auditorium Theatre sat other Chicago socialite ladies, flashing even more ermine and jewels than had been exhibited at the opening of the Chicago City Opera last fortnight. The ladies were out in force, for this was a ladies' evening. On the stage, pretty Brazilian Soprano Bidu Sayao (Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera) sang Mozart, Massenet. Verdi in her Chicago debut. The 76-piece orchestra, demurely clad in dark dresses, was all-woman. But it was not quite 100%.

As the Chicago Woman's Symphony Orchestra thus opened its twelfth season last week, a lone man led it. Swallow-tailed against a gowny background, Conductor Frank St. Leger, radio director (American Radiator Co.'s Fireside Recitals), put the ladies through their paces. Watching him from an orchestra seat sat the woman who had been the symphony's conductor for eight years, and last week was so no longer --hard-working, blonde Ebba Sundstrom.

Chicago critics have often been polite to the Woman's Symphony but its performing ranks have seethed with jealousy, its feminine management has been beset by cliques. Headed by diamante-bodiced Mrs. Keith, the orchestra board dropped Ebba Sundstrom. Last week Conductor St. Leger, despite his flourishes and foot-tappings, was praised by Critic Cecil Smith of the Tribune for lightening the symphony's habitual "humorless heavy-handedness." Next month First Violinist Gladys Welge, favorite of one group of players, will try her hand at conducting. In February, Conductor Erno Rapee (Radio City Music Hall) should settle the question of whether a man or a woman can get more out of this 76-woman team. Ebba Sundstrom, having sportingly attended last week's concert, sportingly declared she would study conducting in the East this winter, in case the symphony wishes to give her another chance.

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