SOPRANO ELLY AMELING AN ADMIRER OF U.S. WAYS

Years of international touring have convinced Dutch soprano Elly Ameling that the American way of supporting art is superior.

The dark-haired singer, currently on a three-month tour that takes her from London through the United States and on to the Orient, says she doesn’t believe in “helping artists who turn out only one work a year,” a reference to those grant-receiving artists in the Netherlands who produce the minimum to keep their grants.

“Only the best should survive,” states Ameling, the much-beloved soprano who first sang in this country in 1968, and who returns to Ambassador Auditorium in recital tonight.

“That sounds very harsh, but I mean it in the most objective way--as if Apollo would look down on our artistic world, and choose the best.”

The marketplace is one good way to separate the good from the less-good, the 51-year old concert singer believes.

“The American system of survival by competition is a good one--even in art,” Ameling says.

“And I like the easy way Americans approach all kinds of art, with a free mind, and without prejudging it, or with a great deal of awe.

“Sometimes, I think we Europeans bring too much fear in our approach to art.”

Told that many Americans envy the organized government support of art and artists practiced in her country, Ameling counters with, “Yes, but you have the same thing, only it is accomplished by sponsors, by private people, by gray-haired ladies--they get things done. And without a bureaucracy.”

Ameling also admires American orchestras, “Especially the middle level, just below the top five or six. Those (middle-level) orchestras are excellent. And there are many more of them--that level is thicker here--than in Europe. In Europe we have the top ones, a few below that, then many lesser ones.”

One cannot talk to a Hollander without praising that paragon among European symphonic bodies, the revered and acclaimed Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, an ensemble with which the Rotterdam-born soprano sings regularly.

“Last year, (Wolfgang) Sawallisch came to conduct, and I sang the Four Last Songs (of Richard Strauss). At the rehearsal, he talked to the orchestra about the composer and these songs for more than 15 minutes, and I thought, ‘They are not going to like that.’

“But, later, some of the players came to my dressing room and told me they were very interested in what he had to say about that music, and about Strauss.

“You know, we singers are always worried about being heard in a work as thickly written as the Four Last Songs. So I said to the players who came to see me, ‘If I bring (a case of) beer for you tomorrow, do you think you could play half as loud?’

“And I did. And they did. They played like gods that day.” Ameling releases hearty laughter without self-consciousness.

The bonus in the soprano’s current tour, she says, are a few opportunities for sightseeing. Between an appearance in Texas last week and her Ambassador recital tonight, for instance, she and her husband rented a car and drove through New Mexico and Arizona, visiting, among other attractions, “the 45-mile-long, and unpaved, Apache Trail. It was fantastic!”

Ameling is very grateful, she says, to be reaping the rewards of her long success. But she hasn’t forgotten the early years, when she sold calendars over the telephone to make her way.

“I never had a grant,” Ameling says simply. “I always had to do it myself.

“Of course, at the beginning, I had government management for my concerts. But no support. In fact, I had to pay 10%, as one would to any manager.”

She speaks bemusedly, and with an acceptance of the humor in her situation. She even laughs at it.

“Isn’t it funny? (From my government) I have a knighthood. But not a cent.”