show page . theatre . cream of voices pitch too high for us . by Alan Bendle . none of the singers who has already won through to the rank of international artist will be with the Covent Garden company when it opens its week &apos;s visit to Manchester on Monday . as Sir David Webster , the Garden &apos;s general administrator , has been pointing out , the reasons are two - the international artists have too many engagements elsewhere and they are too expensive . the company can not afford to hire them for touring . I asked Sir David to make the second reason even plainer . how much must the company pay for the services of one of the great ones , a Callas , a Gobbi , a Christoff , and nowadays a Joan Sutherland or a Geraint Evans ? he shrugged his shoulders . anything from &amp;pound;300 to &amp;pound;800 , he said . oh , yes , for one performance . it is therefore on real hard cash that he bases his argument that if Manchester is ready to pay the top price of , say , 25 s a seat , and fill the theatre , Manchester can expect more of the world-famous ones - always provided that her claims do not unhappily conflict with those of La Scala , New York &apos;s metropolitan opera , Vienna , Venice , Paris , San Francisco , and the rest of the world &apos;s leading opera houses . the career of an international opera singer is not a particularly long one . the harvest of fame must be collected in some 15 years at most , and to-day , with the tax-gatherer in hot pursuit , no-one is likely to rival the fortune of a Caruso or a Melba . there is a more sensible attitude than that adopted by some of Manchester &apos;s opera fans . taking recent years as an example , Joan Sutherland may now be shuttling between the States and Italy ; Canadian Jon Vickers may have been stolen away by New York and Chicago ; and Geraint Evans may be conquering Vienna , but we have heard them all in the near past . and there are singers with us next week who are destined for world renown but are still here to be listened to . why should we let nostalgic longings spoil the pleasure of picking out to-morrow &apos;s world favourites ? let us , like the gentlemen of the turf , choose half a dozen to follow . my own list is : soprano Joan Carlyle ( der Rosenkavalier and Boheme ) ; soprano Marie Collier ( Boheme ) ; bass Michael Langdon ( der Rosenkavalier ) ; mezzo-soprano Josephine Veasey ( Carmen and Peter Grimes ) ; and baritone David Ward ( Aida ) . that admirable singer Michael Langdon has one passion that must endear him to a wider public . when he is not using his voice as Baron Ochs in der Rosenkavalier - he sang the role at Covent Garden in November and repeats it in Manchester - he is putting it to what I believe he secretly considers an equally good purpose . I &apos;m Wolverhampton-born , he said , and I try to be free as often as possible when the Wolves are playing so that I can go and cheer them on . well over six feet tall , he has no crowd difficulties in watching soccer with an expert eye . but he finds his height a handicap when it comes to his other hobby - gardening . the garden , says Michael , is such a long way down ! he has been with the company for 13 years , and already in 1950 was singing solo roles . the drunken monk Varlaam , in Boris Gudonov , gave him a notable start , and the grand inquisitor , in Don Carlos - as one of the cast that included Tito Gobbi and Boris Christoff - was his biggest break . he went to Vienna last year to study Baron Ochs under Alfred Jerger , who had sung the part with Richard Strauss conducting . he has achieved a ripe humour without clowning , and as a result is to sing the Baron with the Hamburg state opera . is the Covent Garden tour repertory too familiar ? well , you know what happens when a new work appears - an inevitable and heavy financial loss . when Peter Grimes made its first appearance in Manchester the house was half-empty . on its second visit there was a slight improvement . next week what will the answer be ? the same thing happens in London . this season is the first in which Peter Grimes has sold out for several performances . placed on record . by Roderick Random . backing to the front . sometimes when you listen to a record , the backing , however unobtrusive it may be , attracts your attention more than the singer . I mean no slight on Mr Gary Miller when I confess that this is what happened when I heard his record dream harbour ( Pye , 7N.15338 ) . the accompaniment , a soft , oriental rhythm , came through entrancingly . it was , I discovered , the work of one of the busiest back-room boys of the recording world - Bill Shepherd . I note that he has credits on two other records this week - model girl , by Davy Jones ( Pye , 7N.25072 ) and kookie talk , by Scott Peters ( Pye 7N.15343 ) . I met Bill for a few minutes just before he began yet another session for a BBC programme . chubby , cheerful , duffle-coated and carrying a bag containing 40 precious band arrangements . I &apos;ve done all sorts of things , he said . I was a singer with a group called the Coronets . I &apos;ve played a few instruments , and I was once a journalist . but I &apos;m happy just now to be one of the people behind the big vocal stars . Bill spends his spare time with the other sort of stars - his hobby is astronomy . she &apos;s dead set on singing . one thing about Billie Laine . she has got determination . so much of it that you feel that if she set her mind on swimming the channel or breeding champion poodles , or anything , she &apos;d do it . as it is she just wants to sing . when I was a little girl , said the 24-year-old shapely miss from Trinidad , my mother said I ought to learn to type or do dressmaking , or something like that . but I wanted to sing - so I just sang . she began on the West Indies radio station &apos;s equivalent of children &apos;s hour . then she graduated to her weekly programmes . she sang in clubs and in concerts , until she looked around one day and asked herself : where do I go from here ? the answer was London . with her usual determination she arrived last July . she did n&apos;t know a single soul . but she started to sing - and that was enough . she has just made her first record for Philips , called kiss me ( 326547 , bf ) . it &apos;s a pop song , she admitted . and I want to sing jazz . jazz , jazz , jazz , that &apos;s for me . she called herself Billie ( although her real name is Grace ) after her model , her idol , the late Billie Holliday . there will never be another like her , she said . next month Billie makes her first EP - as a genuine jazz singer - with Bill McGuffie providing the backing . they keep burying rock &apos;n roll - but it just will n&apos;t lie down . pony time , a fast piece of work by Chubby Checker ( Columbia , 45-DB.4591 ) and Ray Garnett ( R.C.A 1228 ) will probably be as popular here as it is in the States . that goes for gee whiz , by Clara Thomas ( London , hlk.9310 ) , too . but my record of the week is the new Bobby Vee one - more than I can say ( London , hlg.9316 ) . classical look . though one thinks of Tchaikovsky mainly as a lightly popular orchestral composer , he did write more than 100 songs , many of them very fine indeed . but , apart from none but the weary heart , few of them are generally known . just how rewarding these songs are may be judged from the fourteen selected by Boris Christoff in a new LP recital ( HMV alp 1793 ) . Christoff , whose gifts are well known at Covent Garden , admirably varies the use of his splendid bass voice to suit the mood of the songs - from , for instance , the vigour of Don Juan &apos;s serenade to an enchanting mezza-voce in the gentler moments . the value of the disc is enhanced by a phonetic version of the Russian text , with an English translation alongside . the Rose Marie girl is happy in the swim . Neville Wareham &apos;s show round-up . Virginia Courtney straightened a strand of coal-black hair , added a touch to her coppery complexion , and said : I think my mother had visions of my swimming the channel . I could swim before I ever learned to dance , and I started that when I was three and a half . Miss Courtney &apos;s skin is normally as white as any English city dweller &apos;s , and her hair , she told me , is really like yours - an ordinary , mousy shade . as I straightened a strand of my ordinary , mousy hair , she added : the management pays me to keep it dyed as long as I &apos;m playing Wanda . we were talking in her dressing-room at Manchester &apos;s Palace Theatre , where Miss Courtney is giving an exciting performance as the sultry Indian girl in Rose Marie , and sometimes we had to talk pretty loudly . from a dressing-room down the corridor came the sounds of David Whitfield limbering up his voice , now almost back to normal volume after an illness which recently kept him out of the show for two weeks . and from the pipes in the corner came less musical gurglings as the water from the bathroom upstairs drained away . I count the number of baths people have during the evenings , to be sure there &apos;ll be enough hot water left for me , said Miss Courtney . I need that bath badly . she has to wash off the coppery make-up which covers most of her body , and , particularly on days when there are two performances , that means a good deal of washing . but Miss Courtney is perfectly happy in any amount of water , provided it &apos;s not too cold . as a child she lived at Herne Bay , and her mother , a professional swimmer , diver , and dancer , soon had little Virginia following in her wake . I just can not remember a time when I could n&apos;t swim , she told me . it &apos;s quite possible that I might have swum the channel , though the longest measured distance I ever covered was only five miles . in open water , distance does n&apos;t bother me as long as I can take my time and just plod on . she is also an expert skin diver , and between dancing and acting engagements has appeared in big aqua shows and modelled swim-suits under water . while dancing in a five past eight revue in Glasgow she was called on to do some swimming in a royal command performance . it &apos;s funny , mused Morton Fraser , to think that last year Don Arroll was working for me . and next week he &apos;ll be top of the bill at Manchester Hippodrome with the harmonica gang in support . not that I mind at all . he &apos;s a very nice lad with a lot of talent and we &apos;re happy to be working with him on this variety tour . all the same the rapid rise of the young comic is a prime example of the potency of TV , for without his spell as compere of the Sunday Palladium show , Don Arroll would still be using his undoubted talent in much lowlier spots on the bill . Fraser and his gang have spent most of this week in Manchester , although their Hippodrome date does not begin until Monday . they have been working on a new BBC TV musical show which makes its debut next Saturday , and on Thursday were in Edinburgh for a TV show with Charlie Chester . for the last eight years Fraser has left the stage performances to his gang , and has concentrated behind the scenes on management problems and finding a steady supply of bookings . not many people know that his decision to stay in the background was made at Oldham , and was initiated by an implacable doctor . Fraser told me : we had been playing Cardiff , and I arrived at the Oldham empire with the gang and a dreadfully sore throat . the theatre manager sent for a doctor , who told me : there &apos;s no show for you this week . you &apos;re going straight to bed - unless you want to be the central figure in a show you will n&apos;t know anything about . 