Biographical
Henri Scott was born at Coatesville, Pa., April 8, 1876. He was intended for a business career but became interested in music, at first in an amateur way, in Philadelphia. Encouraged by local successes he went to study voice with Oscar Saenger, remaining with him for upward of eleven years. He was fortunate in making appearances with the "Philadelphia Operatic Society," a remarkable amateur organization giving performances of grand opera on a large scale. With this organization he made his first stage appearances as Ramphis in Aïda, in 1897. He had his passage booked for Europe, where he was assured many fine appearances, when he accidentally met Oscar Hammerstein, who engaged him for five years. Under this manager he made his professional début as Ramphis at the Manhattan Opera House in New York, in 1909. Hammerstein, a year thereafter, terminated his New York performances by selling out to the Metropolitan Opera Company. Mr. Scott then went to Rome, where he made his first appearance in Faust, with great success. He was immediately engaged for the Chicago Opera Company where, during three years, he sang some thirty-five different rôles. In 1911 he was engaged as a leading basso by the Metropolitan, where he remained for many seasons. He has sung on tour with the Thomas Orchestra, with Caruso and at many famous festivals. He has appeared with success in over one hundred cities in the United States and Canada. In response to many offers he went into vaudeville, where he has sung to hundreds of thousands of Americans, with immense success. Mr. Scott is therefore in a position to speak of this new and interesting phase of bringing musical masterpieces to "the masses."
THE SINGER'S LARGER MUSICAL PUBLIC
HENRI SCOTT
Like every American, I resent the epithet, "the masses," because I have always considered myself a part of that mysterious unbounded organization of people to which all democratic Americans feel that they belong. One who is not a member of the masses in America is perforce a "snob" and a "prig." Possibly one of the reasons why our republic has survived so many years is that all true Americans are aristocratic, not in the attitude of "I am as good as everyone," but yet human enough to feel deep in their hearts, "Any good citizen is as good as I."
Why Grand Opera is Expensive
Music in America should be the property of everybody. The talking machines come near making it that, if one may judge from the sounds that come from half the homes at night. But the people want to hear the best music from living performers "in the flesh." At the same time, comparatively, very few can pay from two to twenty dollars a seat to hear great opera and great singers. The reason why grand opera costs so much is that the really fine voices, with trained operatic experience, are very, very few; and, since only a few performances are given a year, the price must be high. It is simply the law of supply and demand.
There are, in America, two large grand opera companies and half a dozen traveling ones, some of them very excellent. There are probably twenty large symphony orchestras and at least one hundred oratorio societies of size. To say that these bodies and others purveying good music, reach more than five million auditors a year would possibly be a generous figure. But five million is not one-twentieth of the population of America. What about the nineteen-twentieths?
On the other hand, there are in America between two and three thousand good vaudeville and moving picture houses where the best music in some form is heard not once or twice a week for a short season, but several times each day. Some of the moving picture houses have orchestras of thirty-five to eighty men, selected from musicians of the finest ability, many of whom have played in some of the greatest orchestras of the world. These orchestras and the talking machines are doing more to bring good music to the public than all the larger organizations, if we consider the subject from a standpoint of numbers.