"A Mixture of Frailties", the third volume of Robertson Davies
"Salterton" Trilogy, is his first extended engagement with one of the
great neuroses of Canadian culture: Canada's artistic relationship to
Europe, and particularly to Britain. Davies begins his story with the
funeral of Louisa Bridgetower, the Salterton matron whose imposing
presence ranges throughout the earlier volumes of the "Salterton"
Trilogy. The substantial income from her estate is to be used to send
an unmarried young woman to Europe to pursue an education in the
arts. Mrs. Bridgetower's executors end up selecting Monica Gall, an
almost entirely unschooled singer whose sole experience comes from
performing with the Heart and Hope Gospel Quartet, a rough outfit
sponsored by a small fundamentalist group. Monica soon finds herself
in England, a pupil of some of Britain's most remarkable teachers and
composers, and she gradually blossoms from a Canadian rube to a
cosmopolitan soprano with a unique - and tragicomic - career.
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