Episode 35: All The World Is A Stage
The show must go on, even as the veneer of wealth starts slipping away. An opportunity allows one to shine as her private world continues to fall apart.
Cobina Wright performs at a smaller venue with Metropolitan Opera tenor Rafaelo Diaz. Cobina’s history with opera and performing flashes before her eyes reminding her that music has always helped her to cope with her circumstances at hand.
Archival music provided by Past Perfect Vintage Music, www.pastperfect.com.
Publish Date: July 8, 2021
Length: 18:29
Opening Music: My Heart Belongs to Daddy by Billy Cotton, Album The Great British Dance Bands
Section 1 Music: Lullaby by Coleman Hawkins, Album Nightfall – Sophisticated Jazz Classics
Section 2 Music: Stardust by Freddie Gardner, Album More Sophistication
Section 3 Music: Palais De Danse by Sid Phillips, Albums The Great British Dance Bands & Tea Dance 2
End Music: My Heart Belongs to Daddy by Billy Cotton, Album The Great British Dance Bands
AS THE MONEY BURNS
Podcast by Nicki Woodard
Episode 035 – All The World Is A Stage
00:00
[Music – My Heart Belongs to Daddy by Billy Cotton, Album The Great British Dance Bands]
AS THE MONEY BURNS is an original podcast by Nicki Woodard. Based on historical research, this is a deep exploration into what happened to a set of actual heirs and heiresses to some of America’s most famous fortunes when the Great Depression hits.
Each episode has three primary sections. Section 1 is a narrative story. Section 2 goes deeper into the historical facts. Section 3 focuses on contemporary, emotional, and personal connections.
00:27
Story Recap
Crossing the high seas, Doris Duke returns for her upcoming debutante ball, while her Newport neighbor Huntington Hartford goes into hiding. Both could learn a lot from older heir Vincent Astor on the freedom fortune can bring.
Now back to AS THE MONEY BURNS
Title
00:46
All The World Is A Stage
[Music fade out]
Episode Tag
The show must go on, even as the veneer of wealth starts slipping away. An opportunity allows one to shine as her private world continues to fall apart.
01:00
[Music – Lullaby by Coleman Hawkins, Album Nightfall – Sophisticated Jazz Classics]
Section 1 – Story
[Music fade out]
01:18
In the dark auditorium at the Ocean Grove in Asbury Park, New Jersey, supreme hostess and talented opera singer Cobina Wright gathers her bearings as she assesses the dynamics and acoustics of the stage.
The emptiness of the room allows for every crack and tap to be heard. The echo pattern is not quite desirable. The stage dimensions offer some hope for the decorations she has brought to liven up the background during performances.
She checks on the angles of the spotlight. The position she will take next to her companion.
She pauses.
Takes a deep breath.
01:55
Such a smaller venue than where she usually performs. She is always happy to perform mind you. It’s just everything feels different. So much has changed over the last few months. Can she bring enough cheer and hope to others in these darker times?
Does she have any left to give herself?
02:17
Back in October, she learned her husband the golden boy stockbroker William May Wright, aka Bill, lost everything. Cobina was certain they could and would rebuild. Bill was so smart, talented, charming…
Only, he has seemed to lost motivation and focus. He goes to the office and moves about, but something is still off. He is always in a daze, never really present. His old spark and pep hasn’t resurfaced all these months.
Only their closest friends know the truth. Need to keep up the façade, otherwise how could he rebuild? He’s got to sell confidence, but in private he’s shattered.
Cobina stares into the dark abyss. Her eyes water, and she tries to fight them back as she hears the stagehands moving about.
03:11
Memories of a past July 4th many years ago on the Oregon frontier inside a school yard on a makeshift stage. A young child Elaine Cobb, Cobina’s real name, is dressed as Martha Washington next to a small boy playing George Washington. Little Elaine steps up to say a line and the faces stare back at her causing her stage fright.
She runs off the stage and hides only to be coaxed out by her grandmother.
A couple years later, on a trip to San Francisco with her parents, a slightly older Elaine discovers one of her lifelong passions at the old San Francisco Opera House. Rigoletto with its costumes, sets, voices rising,… All magical, all for the first time… The most impressionable.
From there on out, Elaine desired most of all to sing. Once back in the Oregon frontier, her father found her singing at the top of her lungs on a large old stump with the trees as her audience. Amongst the pines, the waterfalls, streams, rivers, and birds providing her music and chorus.
04:20
By chance, as a pre-teen Elaine joined her Aunt for an excursion to Europe. There fortune rang when Elaine began to take music lessons and was discovered.
Transforming into Madame Cobina, Cobina was prepared to dedicate her life to opera. Her lovers would fall by the wayside until one caught her heart and soul – William May Wright.
An amazing life dashed by the Wall Street Crash.
04:50
Now Cobina finds herself back on that stage at Ocean Grove Auditorium. She will start over again. Her life like a soap opera must go on. One act ends, so another must begin.
She throws out her arms and motions along the stage.
Her special tapestry drops down behind her. This moyenage setting is one she had specifically made for performances. 20 x 14 in size, they are painted in tempera on canvas with Biblical scenes. A candelabra and some evergreens provide just the right atmosphere that signifies the great hostess skills within her.
Cobina claims, “The ordinary concert hall with its glaring lights and barren walls is certainly not the perfect setting for a musical performance.”
05:37
Her accompanying tenor is the Spanish American Rafaelo Diaz. Born in San Antonio, Texas, Rafaelo is of both Mexican and German heritage. He plays the title role in Deems Taylor’s opera “The King’s Henchman.” He is prestigious and has his own crowd with little need for any introductions to music lovers. The Lone Star Tenor from the Lone Star state.
However the star for this evening is Cobina with her illustrious career both as an opera singer debuting in Mainz, then onto Monte Carlo, the first female American to entertain troops in World War I France, and over the last 10 years several performances at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City plus her minor private tours.
Oh it was lovely, when she recently returned to France with Bill, and they toured part old battlefield grounds with General Pershing. All the memories of her younger passionate self with her then lover handsome Jimmy Cromwell, a naval officer at the time.
Of course, she loves her life with Bill. It was more than a dream. Actually, now their life seems more like fading dream. Stardust drifting away.
06:52
The spotlight shines, as Rafaelo greets her with a double kiss.
The empty concert hall transforms into the July 5th, 1930, Saturday night performance.
Cobina and Rafaelo sing multiple pieces of music, finishing with the duet from the finale of Act 1 “Madame Butterfly.”
Cobina will go on to give her greatest performance not on stage but in her own private life. Hiding the secrets she dares not wish to tell except to only a select few.
07:28
[Music – Stardust by Freddie Gardner, Album More Sophistication]
Section 2 – History & Historiography
[Music fade out]
07:40
During the Great Depression, the arts and entertainment became vital for many wanting to escape their darker realities.
Late spring 1930 was active for music as many tried to lift their spirits. On Broadway, the musical Green Pastures featuring the Hall Johnson Choir is a hit of the season. Remember in Episode 11: A Tall Order Cobina Wright hosts a party for a visiting French maestro who was fascinated by the Harlem Renaissance. Cobina recruited Hall Johnson and his choir for a special performance in January 1928. Hall would make some Broadway among other elite connections that night. In 1930, Hall Johnson’s choir would also perform their collection of Spirituals at other receptions. Cobina attended both a private performance and the larger venue.
Another connection, Deems Taylor was the guest of honor at Cobina Wright’s The Last Party (Episode 24) held amidst the Crash and on the same day in which she learned her husband Bill had lost their fortune.
08:40
If there was one thing Cobina always relied on in life, it was music. Whether times were good or bad, she would return again and again to her very special gift of singing.
After her father’s death on the Oregon frontier, Little Elaine Cobb, which was Cobina Wright’s birth name, moved to her father’s family home in Boston and lived with her Aunt Ellen Cobb. Her actual age isn’t specified but likely around 10 or 12 years of age.
09:07
With her Aunt Ellen, Cobina began taking piano and vocal lessons. Together they would also make Cobina’s first trip to Europe. While hob knobbing with various royalty and aristocrats, it was recommended that young Cobina go and study with Lamperti in Berlin, at the time the center of the music world. Lamperti was over 70 when he agreed to make her his pupil. She also studied under Lombardi and Jean de Reski.
09:33
But Lamperti was the first to whip her into shape. With his baton, he whack her shoulders or head depending on the magnitude of her mistakes. In response to her tears more from temper than pain, Lamperti would shout, “Don’t you realize I do this only to the ones who have real talent. Don’t you appreciate it is because I am interested in your great talent. You must progress quickly. You must become perfect. You may have forever, but I have not.”
10:00
Despite minor romances, a 16 year old Cobina vowed to focus on her art and talent. After she becomes successful, she might take a lover here or there, but young Cobina vowed never to become a wife nor mother. The first vow she broke twice, the latter only once.
She would transform herself from Elaine Cobb into Madame Cobina. Cobina Wright is a coloratura soprano. That is the highest distinction in opera singers. Meaning she can reach the highest pitch and has great versatility in range. In the Depression Era novel and more recent HBO movie Mildred Pierce, Mildred’s troubled oldest daughter Veda is a coloratura soprano, which gives the daughter great leverage in the artistic world despite a nasty temperament. Her maestro warns Mildred of the dangers of pissing off a coloratura soprano and likens Veda to a snake that will strike and bite.
10:53
Cobina had the talent but a far more pleasing personality. She was often very well loved. Capable of charming rather than throwing around diva demands. She often masked her driven ambition, but she was indeed driven.
Her problem? She lacked more focus and discipline to be a bigger star on the stage. She didn’t like the endless rehearsing and the complete lack of other elements of life performing required.
11:19
Cobina debuted in Mainz, then performed in Monte Carlo and Paris before becoming the first female American to sing for the troops in France during World War I. From September 1917 through Christmas she spent entertaining the boys under any condition with both versatility and willingness. Thus she also became acquainted with General Pershing and his young lover Micheline Resco while in Paris. Cobina’s autobiography details some of her time in Paris with General Pershing as well as her own brief love affair with heir to two fortunes Jimmy Cromwell, who is also featured in our story from time to time. Episode 09: Heir With A Spare and Episode 27: Prodigal Sons to mention two.
12:00
Despite all her success, Cobina quite happily gave it up when she married William May Wright, aka Bill, and had their only child and daughter little Cobina Jr.
In 1930, Cobina with Bill would return to France on tour of the battlefields accompanying General Pershing. One newspaper photo features Cobina, Bill, their daughter, and Pershing while they travel on the ocean liner Leviathan for that trip. The photo is hard to see clearly due to heavy contrast. If I locate a better one, I will post via Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at @asthemoneyburns.
That photo was included in a notice of her upcoming July 5th,1930 performance with a tenor also from the Metropolitan Opera.
12:43
Rafaelo Diaz was born in San Antonio, Texas in 1883. Growing up he learned to play piano and was studying at the Stern Conservatory in Berlin when he was discovered for his strong voice. He went on to study under Italian maestro Vincenzo Sabatini.
Returning to America, he made his debut at the Boston Opera Company’s production of Giuseppe Verdi’s “Otello.” By 1917, Rafaelo joined the New York Metropolitan Opera and remained there until 1936. He could sing in English, French, Spanish, Italian, and German. He never married nor had children.
Rafaelo has a vast repertoire of songs, a wide vocal range, versatility, and great clarity. He could sing simple ballads to operatic arias.
13:25
Cobina and Rafaelo’s performance must have delighted their audience. It must have also been partially rejuvenating for Cobina, who must figure out how to rebuild her life in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash and the ensuing Great Depression.
She will soon rely on both her performance and hostess skills to create a new financial venture.
13:45
[Music – Palais De Danse by Sid Phillips, Albums The Great British Dance Bands & Tea Dance 2]
Section 3 – Contemporary & Personal Relevance
[Music fade out]
14:03
There is not a way to skip any of them, and they happen in their own order and time, staying for as long as they do until they change into the next. The avoidance of any stage guarantees its continual reappearance until properly experienced. I know I’ve tried a few times to minimize or avoid one, only for it to linger and torture me more.
14:42
For the next couple of years, Cobina Wright is in the bargaining stage after her life was dramatically altered by the Wall Street Crash. Bound and determined to rebuild if not the same than maybe even better. Only that will require teamwork, and her husband William May Wright can’t cope with their situation. A couple is only as strong as its weakest individual.
Thus Cobina is forced to live a harsh duality. The appearance of happiness and recovery while sinking further into madness and despair.
15:09
Whenever hard times hit us, there is often a deep desire to return to the normal. Turn the clock back to life before the problem occurred. Of course, there is no going back. The only path is the one forward. But what will that entail?
Partial, a return to the normal, the routine of daily life as much as possible. Maybe as the simple as the basics – eating, sleeping, schedule,… A little higher coping, maybe some activities. Those are somewhat the lucky ones if that can truly be achieved.
Others must face the very real and difficult fact that a whole new normal will have to be formed. Resistance to those changes can be difficult, as well as someone who pushes for swift changes without the requisite pause needed for reflection and more thoughtful redirection.
16:03
The pandemic definitely changed a lot of our lives and disrupted routines. We will struggle to find the new social interaction protocols and work procedures. Many still suffer losses in finances, and many lost loved ones. Those will likely require an even longer recovery time.
It’s gonna be a lot harder to recalculate our lives when so much of life has been in flux without a clear return to normal for all.
16:29
And yet, life persists. I am not trying to be trite or overly callous in saying any of this. Trust me, I myself am now going through a monumental change nowhere near I was expecting especially how it occurred. Once again, I have to pull myself together, find a focal point, so I can tread slowly my way through the darkness that would otherwise engulf me.
I want this podcast to be entertaining as well as soothing. A discussion of our resilience, not in a perfect façade way. Resilience requires an enormous amount of grit and determination. That is not something bought and can only be earned.
17:13
I say that will full and true admiration for the greatest model I had in teaching me how to do all that. And now I am left to honor her existence without her direct guidance and presence.
Please come share your story and journey with me and the other listeners via @asthemoneyburns – Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook page & group.
Hook
17:39
[Music – My Heart Belongs to Daddy by Billy Cotton, Album The Great British Dance Bands]
Next when we return to AS THE MONEY BURNS…
A great fortune doesn’t always lead to happy endings. The future isn’t always bright. Before the heartbreak begins, come take a glance to where it all might end.
Until then…
Credits
18:03
AS THE MONEY BURNS is an original podcast written, produced, and voiced by Nicki Woodard, based on historical research. Archival music has been provided by Past Perfect Vintage Music, check out their website at www.pastperfect.com.
Please come visit us at As The Money Burns via Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Transcripts, timeline, episode guide, and character bios are available at asthemoneyburns.com.
18:29
THE END.