By Anne Gray
Born in Salisbury, Missouri, in 1881, petite Artie Mason exhibited her passion for music and promotion when, at age 14, she rented the town theater, performed as piano soloist and convinced a group of musicians to put on a program of classical music. Soon after her college graduation, she married medical student Joseph J. Carter and moved to Vienna, Austria. While Joseph was finishing his studies, Artie took lessons with renowned pianist Theodor Leschetizky (1830-1915), all the while absorbing the centuries-old culture of her surroundings.
When the Carters returned to America, they settled in Hollywood, California, where Carter threw herself into the civic and cultural life of the budding community. By 1919, she was president of the Hollywood Community Sing, and she organized the very first outdoor Easter Sunrise Service. Its success led Carter and her friend, Aline Barnsdall, to plan a more ambitious event for next year’s service. They conceived the idea of holding the service on Barnsdall’s estate on a beautiful hill of olive trees—aptly named Olive Hill—now called Barnsdall Park. (Barnsdall was heiress to one of the estates remaining from the original Spanish land grants.) Carter convinced William Henry Rothwell, conductor of the young Los Angeles Philharmonic, to have the orchestra perform along with her chorus. The 1920 Sunrise Service was an even greater success than the previous one.
The following year the event was planned in Daisy Dell in Bolton Canyon with Hugo Kirchhofer conducting the Community Sing. When Kirchhofer saw the site, he commented, “It looks just like a bowl!” The name stuck. In the pre-dawn darkness of March 27, 1921, 2,000 people flocked on foot, bicycle and horse-back to the place, which resembled the Garden of Gethsemane, and spread their blankets on the ground, watching in reverent silence as the pink banners of dawn unfurled in the cool breeze. The softest notes of the Grail Scene from Wagner’s Parsifal were audible in the natural acoustics of the “bowl.”
After this triumph Carter gave birth in 1922 to her next brainchild, “Symphonies Under the Stars.” This was an original, far-reaching idea—to keep orchestras working during the summer. The saga that unfolded in the course of raising the money to construct a shell, stage, seats and other necessities even inspired books.* The footlights were donated at the last moment by Hollywood High School, for which they were granted the right to have their graduation exercises in the Bowl forever after. The coarse brush was cleared with picks and shovels and backbreaking human effort. The money dribbled in with donations, fund raising shows, dinners, and ticket-selling contests; tickets were 25¢ each, $10 for a book of 40. The idea of “Penny-a-Day” banks was conceived by a retired businessman, who made sure that his little yellow boxes were placed in every conceivable spot: stores, markets, banks, newsstands, movie theaters, etc. The collection banks alone raised over $10,000!
With Artie Carter at the helm, readying the Bowl became a most frenzied activity. Right down to the wire, she and fellow volunteers were planting hundreds of red geraniums to cover dusty, bare patches of terrain. Despite their efforts, the conductors they were counting on made other summer commitments and left town. But fate smiled in the person of Dr. Alfred Hertz, founder of the San Francisco Symphony, who stepped in and became a popular favorite with all.
The first season—60 concerts over a period of 10 weeks—was a great success. Aline Barnsdall generously helped fund both the 1923 season and the retirement of the debt on the Hollywood Bowl. Carter went onstage and ceremoniously burned the mortgage papers.
Meanwhile, Carter was being edged off the board by the outspoken Florence Irish. The conflict between these two women came to a head in 1926 with the issue over expanding the seating area, which Carter wanted to keep intimate. She walked out, but kept her box at the Bowl until her death, September 15, 1967.
Artie Mason Carter’s contribution will never be forgotten, nor will her prophetic words after the successful first season: “[This is] just the beginning...of a permanent [musical] achievement...of national credit to Los Angeles.” Still going strong today, the Bowl has a new shell, replacing the one built in 1929. The architectural style has been preserved, but with vastly improved acoustics, new lighting and theatrical elements, all completed for the Summer 2004 concerts.
Dr. Anne Gray is the author of The Popular Guide to Classical Music and is in the process of completing The Popular Guide to WOMEN in Classical Music. *In 1996 a new history of the Hollywood Bowl, in the form of a handsomely illustrated coffee table book, was written to commemorate its 75th Anniversary.