Music: Poor Girl

Annually now the Metropolitan Opera Company feeds the public a big human interest story. Three years ago it was Sopranos Marion Talley and Mary Lewis. Last year it was Soprano Grace Moore. All were “poor girls” who had their dreams, worked hard, lived right. This year so far honors go to Soprano Clara Jacobo, 28, daughter of an Italian grocer, who made her debut last week in Il Trovatore.

The Story. A little girl sat in the gallery at a Tetrazzini concert, her black pigtails rigid with excitement. The colossal colorature took her finale with a flourish, kissed her hands to her public, tossed back its flowers, and the little girl sat spellbound. When she arrived home (Lawrence, Mass.) finally she made a very serious announcement, that she too would become a great singer. The grocer father took no notice. There were seven other Jacobos to feed. Why should little Clara get such notions ? But she kept her dreams, left school before she was 15, worked days in a textile mill, nights in a store, saved every penny until, with what she earned singing in the Holy Rosary Church choir and what her mother could give her secretly, there was enough to pay her passage to Italy. Then Angelo Jacobo relented, sold the store, gave his all. So did the brothers and sisters, but the mother who had sympathized first died her first year away, left a saddened Clara to study doggedly for eight years in Milan.

Four years ago it was a full-blown opera singer who came back to the U.S., got an engagement with the Boston Opera Company, later with the San Carlo. Last week came her great triumph when she made her debut in a leading role at the Metropolitan. Papa Angelo was there, wiping away proud tears, and Mayor Michael Landers of Lawrence, to give the stamp of civic authority. Twelve times the audience called her out in front of the great gold curtains, thundered its applause. Next day a typical story named her as “the latest American Cinderella to find her golden slipper there.”

The Singer. Poor girls who work hard, live right, do not always develop into great singers. Marion Talley disappointed. So did Mary Lewis, Grace Moore. But Clara Jacobo promises better things. She has at least, contrary to her predecessors, a mighty voice that fills the far crannies of the opera house. She has had operatic experience, sings and moves with an assurance that projects over the footlights. Her first Leonora quavered occasionally, strayed a bit from the pitch but critics took it all kindly, as part of a debut performance, voted her a useful addition to the Metropolitan roster.