One Wrong Note

Lots of folks around Irvington, N.Y. know John the gardener, a chunky, happy-looking, apple-cheeked man of 42. Some who don't know John by sight know him by sound. Many a time during the six months he has lived and worked there, strollers have been startled to hear his rich tenor voice ring out from behind a hedge, have slowed their pace to hear an operatic aria rising above the snip-snip of his clippers. But few of the townspeople of Irvington (pop. 3,272) know that only eight years ago "John" was the first tenor of Moscow's Bolshoi Theater, and a "Merited Artist" of Soviet Russia.

The Red & the Black. In those days John was Ivan Jadan, and Russian critics compared him enthusiastically to Leonid Sobinov, who 40 years ago sang tenor to Chaliapin's bass. His more ardent admirers called him "the Russian Caruso." Ivan lived in Moscow's most modern apartment house with his wife Olga and his son Alexander, enjoyed the special privilege of shopping in the luxury stores reserved for the new Soviet aristocracy. There was only one wrong note: Jadan was not a party member.

In time Jadan's name was listed on the black side of the backstage blackboard at the Bolshoi. "When one is in the red, that makes for prestige and profits," he says. "But when one is in the black that means financial as well as police troubles. Those who stay too long in the black disappear." In 1941, Jadan disappeared--but he went west instead of east to Siberia. The Nazis captured the village where Jadan had a summer home; the Jadans and the entire population of the village were shipped to Germany for slave labor.

At war's end Jadan was working in the American zone, determined never to return to Russia. Finally an American friend arranged to have him flown to Manhattan to sing at an anti-Communist meeting in Carnegie Hall last April.

White Tie & Tails. That was Ivan Jadan's big break. In the audience was Michel Kachouk, manager of such illustrious Russian musicians as Feodor Chaliapin and Serge Koussevitzky. Jadan's family found a home with friends in New Orleans and Impresario Kachouk set out to see what he could do to start Jadan on a new-career.

Last week, in white tie & tails bought with a loan arranged, by Impresario Kachouk, Tenor Jadan stood confidently before the piano on the stage of Manhattan's Town Hall to sing his first recital in eight years. His tenor was a little rusty, and he had not yet worked back to his former full-voiced power. But he sang the songs of Mozart, Beethoven, Wolf, Verdi with lyrical warmth and expressiveness that reminded some of Caruso indeed. He also sang the songs of Tchaikovsky, Glinka and other Russians and he reduced a house filled largely with Russian expatriates to bravos and tears.

Said Manager Kachouk: "Maybe we can make him Ivan Jadan again instead of John the gardener." Either way, "John" ("I like this name") would be happy. Right now, his first objective is to earn enough money to bring his wife and son north from New Orleans to join him.

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