A large snapping turtle named Orpheus made itself at home last week in Chicago's expensive Blackstone Hotel. It was the honored guest of Mrs. Ben Rubenstein, wife of a British timber merchant. As Conchita Supervia, Mrs. Rubenstein was in Chicago to sing Carmen with the Civic Opera Company. The turtle was her talisman.* Never before had she found one sturdy enough to weather touring. She had always depended on a little silver turtle, the insignia of the Orden de la Tortuga of which ex-King Alfonso of Spain and the late Dictator Primo de Rivera were charter members. The grandfather turtle (age 14) had been given her when she landed in Manhattan by Grandmother Ernestine Schumann-Heink, Baritone John Charles Thomas, Tenor Beniamino Gigli. So long as it lived she would feel sure of success. Conchita Supervia succeeded in selling out the house with her Carmen, in convincing the audience that she was really Spanish, alluring and sure of her power over men, in recalling the Carmen of Spanish Maria Gay who used to tear an orange apart with her teeth and spit out the peels.
Conchita Supervia sang nicely last week, played castanets better than any of the current Carmens. But not even the big turtle could make her voice big enough to fill the Chicago Opera House or make her pretty gypsy-girl appear deeply, inevitably tragic.
The Chicago Opera packs up its scenery this week, prepares for its annual two weeks in Boston, the only city it will visit this year. To all appearances Chicago's home season has been more profitable this season than last. Attendance has been better. Artistically, the season has been an undisputed success.
Moon's Mountain
Huge (208 lb.) Kate Smith last week had her RKO vaudeville salary increased from $4,750 to $6,000 a week, because receipts at Manhattan's Franklin Theatre, where she was singing, had jumped from $8,000 to $16,500. While Singer Smith is at Keith's Theatre in Washington next week, RKO will pay line charges for her radio program, for La Palina Cigars, to the Columbia Broadcasting System, rival to RKO's National Broadcasting Co.
When Singer Kathryn Elizabeth Smith first sang at Keith's Theatre (then Crandall's) in Washington, she got nothing for her performance. That was in 1926, when, while she was studying to be a hospital nurse, she made her stage début in a benefit production. Pleased by her quivering technique, Funnyman Eddie Dowling presently gave her a job in Honeymoon Lane. Singer Smith had barely had time to continue her musicomedy career in Hit the Deck, Flying High, when Fleischmann's Yeast put her on the radio which concealed the comical incongruity between her strong, low sentimental voice and her jellyfish physique.