Tutored by Ussatoft, Chaliapine's voice grew stronger and more beautiful and in a few months Ussatoff singing of the "Volga Boatmen's Song" and the "Song of the Flea," which he popularized in concert tours.—Reuter. procured an engagement for him at the Tiflis State Theatre. Here he had a salary of £17 a month, The Italian Truf was the conductor and from him Chaliapine received much aid.
Traveling first class, Chaliapine went to Petrograd in 1894. There he sang in a private company. In this year, his name first appeared in print, a critic observing that he sang "like'a bear with a bad cold." His role then was Dr. Miracle, in "Tales of Hoffman."
In 1895 he sang at a private concert at which a sister of Glinka, the composer, was present. She admired hhis voice and soon Chaliapine bad a contract with the Imperial Opera of the Mariensky at Petrograd. He sang minor roles in Gounod's "Faust" and Bozet's "Carmen" and Glinka's "Russian and Ludmila But bureaucracy had sterilized the operas of the day so that by 1896 he was in rebellion, He had sung a minor role in Borodini's "Prince Igor," been acclaimed, and then punished with a still less significant role. He suddenly vanished to reappear as a prominent member of the private company of S. I. Marmantoff, millionaire dilettante of music, The company began playing the works of the then unpopular and almost unknown Moussorgsky.
Rachmaninoff was the director, and other later world-famous musicians lent themselves to the development of Chaliapine's art, But Ussatoff was the only voice tutor he ever had, Return as Great Man Ratepayers Decide to Keep Orchestra (Continued from page 5) monopoly—a small group of ruthless Politicians who dictated what music the community should have and what the Council should pay for it, seeing to' it that the profits accrued to themselves, He refrained from naming any members of the monopoly, but let it be understood that he could do so if he wanted to.
He said that the orchestra was a useless extravagance so long 4s} Shanghai had six bands and orchestras—-the bands and orchestras of the regiments stationed here and the warships in port—upon which to call. Why, he asked, should the Council pay $200,000 for monopoly music when for a trifling sum it could obtain the finest musical programmes from the bands in Shanghai?
He recalled that the Council were limited in 1936 to the expenditure of $200,000 a year for the orchestra. The figure for last year was $183,370, and the estimate for 1938 was $184
500. These figures, he charged, were neons and misleading, though it was stated in the annual report that they were $15,000 below the minimum—he emphasized that word minimum, pointing out that it was not maximum. This word minimum was not a cleric cal error, he continued, and went on to show that the expenditure on the orchestra was considerably above 1898, the company played "Ivan the Terrible" and in this, as in the role of Boris, Chaliapine scored successes: The critics now accepted him and in 1899 he returned to the Imperial Opera, but ti of the Bolshoi the amount allowed.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.