Guila Bustabo, “greatest woman violinist in the world”
Manitowoc was the home of Guila Bustabo, once considered the “greatest woman violinist in the world,” according to an advertisement for one of her performances in the 1930s.
Bustabo’s story begins here in Manitowoc. She was born in 1916 to Italian -Bohemian parents, Alexander and Blanche Kaderabek Bustabo. When Guila was around two years old, the family moved to Milwaukee and it was soon noted that she had a great interest in playing the violin. Her father and mother both played the violin and she wanted to play too.
Her father made a violin out of a cigar box with a stick attached to it for the neck. Shortly after, her mother found someone who would make a violin small enough for Guila.
As a young girl, the family moved to Chicago so Guila could study with Léon Sametini, a master violinist who had studied with the Belgian violinist and composer Eugène Ysaÿe. In Chicago, the aspiring violinist played in the Chicago Symphony, performed with the Chicago Grand Opera Company, and studied at the Chicago Musical College. After a few years in Chicago, Bustabo and her mother moved to New York City, where she studied at the Juilliard School.
On November 2, 1929, at only 10 years old, Guila Bustabo had her major solo debut. At a Saturday morning Children’s Concert of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, Bustabo was a featured soloist, performing the first movement of Wieniawski’s Violin Concerto №1 in F-sharp Minor. A year later, on December 6, 1930, Bustabo rejoined the New York Philharmonic, performing as a soloist for the first movement of Mozart’s Violin Concerto №5 in A Major. On December 15, 1932, at the age of thirteen, Bustabo performed her first major solo recital at Carnegie Hall.
In November of 1934, at the age of fifteen, Bustabo left the United States with her mother for a European concert tour. Over the next three years, Bustabo performed in England, Holland, France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Sweden, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary.
In 1938, Guila returned to Manitowoc for a short time and performed at the Lincoln High School auditorium, with her Guarnerius violin, on January 17.
As World War 2 took hold in Europe, Guila and her mother settled in Nazi-controlled Paris. The young star continued to perform throughout Axis territories during the war. She claimed later in life to have performed a concert at which Adolf Hitler himself was present.
As a newspaper account details, “Her performance record during the war, and specifically those performances under Mengelberg in occupied Amsterdam, led to her arrest in Paris alongside her mother in 1945 at the hands of General Patton with the Allied forces. The United States never prosecuted the Bustabos, and they were released soon after. That September, General Patton recruited Bustabo to perform a three-month series of concerts in Europe for multiple divisions of the Seventh Army. The high-ups of the United States military easily forgave Bustabo for her Nazi associations because of her musical gifts. However, this association with the Nazi party would prove detrimental to Bustabo’s reputation with the American public.”
In 1948, Guila performed with the New York Philharmonic. General Robert McClure wrote to the New York Philharmonic stating: “Bustabo was blacklisted by the [Information Control Division of OMGUS] in fall of 1945 and is still on blacklist. Investigation at that time showed that she had given concerts in Germany and German-occupied countries with special permission of Nazi Propaganda Ministry and had permitted her talents to be exploited for Nazi propaganda.”
Guila’s performance was very controversial and was one of her last major performances. She passed away in 2002 in Birmingham, Alabama, at the age of 86.