Worcester Morning Daily Spy

GADSKI FOR FESTIVAL.

An Important Engagement—The Eminent Operatic Soprano to Appear at Three of the Festival Concerts.

One of the most important and far-reaching engagements made for the music festival was consummated yesterday by the managers, and they announce the first appearance in festival work of Mme. Johanna Gadski, the leading soprano of the Walter Damrosch German Opera Company for the past two seasons. Mme. Gadski ranks as one of the great stars of the operatic world, at the same time like Mme. Nordica, she is a most versatile and accomplished artiste, and as she has an enormous repertoire of modern music, is ready to acquire still more. Her work will include the soprano role in H. W. Parker's "Hora Novissima," Wednesday night, Wagnerian selections in the Thursday night concert, and an aria and songs in Friday afternoon's concert.

Mme. Gadski is the leading dramatic soprano of the Damrosch-Ellis Opera Company for this coming season, but they do not open until into next November. She comes to America in season for the Worcester festival, as its fame is so well known throughout Europe that she anticipates singing here with much pleasure. It is no more than fair to Mme. Gadski to say that for the past four or five months she has been the one soprano prima donna the festival managers have desired in their casts for the fortieth annual festival. Throughout last season in the midst of the most arduous travel and rehearsing, the press, the public and the musicians of the country united in their praise of Mme. Gadski's great artistic advancement and development. She created for the first performance on any stage "Hester Prynne" in Walter Damrosch's opera, "The Scarlet Letter." She has sung "Elizabeth" in "Tannhauser," "Eva" in Meistersinger, "Senta" in "Flying Dutchman," "Sieglinde" in "Walkure," "Elsa" in Lohengrin; knows all the Brunhilde roles, knows the Isolde role, has studied all the Wagner productions at Bayreuth, Covent Garden and Dresden, and is today the youngest prima donna on the stage. Her appearance in the Worcester festival will be awaited with the greatest interest, and it is safe to predict for her a great musical and popular success.