FEES TO OPERATIC STARS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2146, 23 March 1908, Page 2

FEES TO OPERATIC STARS.

Tho writer of Musical Notes in the London “Telegraph” reports, after making due inquiry at Covent Garden Opera-house, that in tlio last twenty years, of the artists regularly appearing, only three 'have touched £2OO for a single evening. Of these three, two have exceeded that limit, tlio figures ibeing respectively £240 and £250. The sum last-mentioned is paid to one singer on-Jj now holding a contract with the Royal Opera Syndicate, and the only male artist who in the last two decades has received over 1 £2OO for each appearance at Covent Garden was Jean de Reszke. It was once given out that de Reszke obtained as much as £4OO every time he sang. 'What are the facts? "When he first appeared as n tenor —having, lit will he remembered, sung origiiullly as a baritone—bis manager was 'Sir Augustus .Harris. That .was in 1887, at Drury Lane. He began with £6O for each performance, that amount increasing to £7O, £BO, and then to £IOO. In due course a new contract was made by which the artist received £l2O. In subsequent seasons at Covent Garden, .under Harris, *he was paid„£l6o for every np.nean.ihce, and that sum was iincreasecUafterwards to £2OO. In the last two or three seasons during which he sang —Oiis final appearance was mode in 1900 —his Tee reached £240 —the highest ever paid to a malic singer in bis time—or probably any other. (Mario, for his farewe’l appearances, received from the elder Gye £I,BOO, the contract being for thirty performances spread over three months. In the last twenty years the biggest fees secured by any “star” at Covent Garden were those paid .to Madame Adelina Patti, when Sir Augustus Harris induced her to make her final appearance in opera at Covent Garden. For each of four performances in the summer of 1895 Patti received £4OO .