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Show j New News a Or llesroor Operatic Star Had To Succeed Annie Louise Cary Had Borrowed $6,000 to Pay for Her Musical Education and Couldn't Afford to Fail. Annie Louise Cary, who retired to private life in 1S82, following her marriage to the late Charles M. Raymond, Ray-mond, was one of the first American girls to give Maine fame as a mother of operatic song birds of the first o.--der. This she did in the late sixties, -nd from then on until the day of her marriage hers was one of the famous contralto voices of the civilized world, more than realizing the prediction James G. Blaine made when he heard her sing on the day of her graduation from a girls' school near Portland, Me that, with her voice properly cultivated, she would have a greater career as a singer than as a teacher, which was the vocation her friends had planned for her. Encouraged, if not inspired, by this praise from one who was growing daily in public power in Maine luica Cary decided to cultivate her voice. She studied in Portland, then in Boston, Bos-ton, and finally there came the inevitable inev-itable day when she bade good-by and sailed away to contine the study of music abroad. For two years she applied herself In Milan, under the direction of the I celebrated instructor, Giovanni Corsi, at the end of that period, receiving her first opportunity to test her voice before the critical public she . was cast for the contralto part in the company com-pany which was to sing for the first time Verdi's "The Masked Ball" using the English translation of the Italian title in the opera , house in Copenhagen in the presence of the royal family of Denmark. When Miss Cary's friends heard of ft some of them alarmed, went to her. "Annie," they said, "don't you think you are a little too ambitious? Don't you think you are risking your entire career by essaying to appear for the first time in grand opera in the highly critical capital of Denmark, with tho king and the other members of the royal family looking on?" "Why do I risk anything?" Miss Cary asked in turn. "Wouldn't you, if you were in my place, be glad of the opportunity to sing in the royal opera house of Denmark, and with the king and bis family in the royal box-to hear you?" "But, Annie," was the reply, "see how much you risk! The part you are planning to sing is an ambitious one, and you are also planning to make your debut before royally. Suppose j m fail in such a part and before royalty in so public a manner what then? It would be much better for you to make a simpler beginning for you to make your debut, say, in one of the little towns of Germany, and so feel your way until you know exactly what you can do with yourself and your voice in public. Don't risk your future by being too ambitious at the start." Miss Cary turned to her friends, all sincerely anxious that she should make no false step at the threshold of her career. "You don't know what you are saying," say-ing," she said firmly. "I have got to sing in this opera in the royal opera house in Copenhagen and before the king and all his family. I must make a success of the pari, and I will tell you why. I owe $6,000. That money I have borrowed to pay for my musical education. I am getting anxious anx-ious to pay it back. So I have taken this part you do not want me to take, and I tell you now I am going to succeed suc-ceed in it, for then I shall be able to earn the money with wtiich to pay off this debt that is beginning to bother me. I simply have got to succeed. Don't talk to me about failure." And so, with the knowledge of the debt hanging over her, simple Annie Cary of Maine made her debut in the royal opera house in Copenhagen and sang so gloriously with that wonderful contralto voice of hers that royalty applauded ap-plauded vigorously and enthusiastically. enthusiastical-ly. She had triumphed and through the success that night in Denmark's capital and the other successes that followed yes, 'with the first earnings of her voice Annie Louis Cary paid off her debt of $6,000. (Copyright, 1910, by the Associated Literary Lit-erary Press.) |