Authentic musical Wunderkinder were something new to U. S. audiences when, one evening in 1887, a sturdy n-year-old boy, 4 ft. tall and dressed in a sailor suit, marched out on the stage of Manhattan's new Metropolitan Opera House. The solemn youngster seated himself on a high chair at a piano whose pedals had been built up to be within reach of his short legs. In the wings offstage stood the boy's mother, an opera singer of Warsaw, and his father, who had taught him to play the piano so well that he...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
