SINGERS AND PLAYERS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 155, 1 July 1911, Page 14

SINGERS AND PLAYERS.

Next year Australians (and let us hope New Zealanders) will hear Madame Kirkby Lunn. The English contralto is a native of Manchester, and first studied at the Royal College of Music, London, under Signor Visetti. She has achieved extraordinary distinction in Wagnerian and other grand operas. Mada.xie Lunn was the first to sing in English the parts of Kundry in ' c Parsival" and Brangane in " Tristan and Isolde," and also the character Dalila in Saint Saens " Samson et Dalila" at Covent Garden. Madame Lunn is regarded as the greatest Amneris in " Aida" who has ever yet appeared at Covent Garden. A couple of years ago Sir Charles Santley, who is not easily pleased, praised Madame Lunn as " the finest operatic artist since Pauline Viardot Garcia."

Triumphant success attends the beginning of Madame Ada Crossley's South African tour. The opening concert took piace, on April 12, at Cape Town, in the presence of an audience which numbered 3000, and included Viscount and Viscountess Gladstone, and several members of the Vice-regal party.

An enormous audience welcomed Madame Melba back to Covent Garden last month, when she reappeared as Mi.vi in "La Boheme." As for Melba's Miini, the critic of the " Telegraph" observes that it seems hardly to have changed one jot or tittle with the passing of the years—all of which means that Madame Melba, having once made up her mind as to the manner of playing and of singing the role, has remained true to her ideal. What that is all the world knows. It was a pleasure to note again the easy method of the voice production. That pleasure was clearly shared by all present, since at curtainfall the applause was intensely enthusiastic and warm, and Madame Melba repeatedly came forward alone to bow her acknowledgment.

The revival of " Traviata " at Covent Garen the other day, with Madame Tetrazzina as the pathetic Violetta, is of interest by reason of the fact that it is to be included in the repertory of the Melba Opera Company in this part of the world. The popularity of the opera would appear to be evergreen, for the people collected in vast numbers at Covent Garden for the performance, and received it with vociferous applause. Messrs M'Cormack and Sammareo shared in the honours of the production.

" Wanted—opera in English," is the demand made through their accred itod representatives by about 40,000 music-loving persons upon the operaproducers of the United States. This was one of the most important acts of the National Federation of Musical Clubs at its convention in Philadelphia— to carry a resolution asking that operas should be staged in English. The Federation is determined to bring this matter before all other musical organisations and solicit their co-operation, in an endeavour to make the demand universal and from sources that will compel acquiescence on the part of the impresarios. Madame Eleanor de Cisneros, the famous contralto, who is coming to Australia, attended the convention, and spoke in favour of the resolution; but, as she aptly pointed out, the difficulty in opera is to get adequate translations.

In Wagner's autobiography, which will fill two large volumes, not the least fascinating part is that descriptive of the master's early- youth. With infinite hu- . inour, he relates his debut as a composer, : as a 17-3'ear-61d student at Leipzig. It ' was just after he had overcome a passion for card-playing that he ofl'ered a B major overture for performance at a Christmas Eve concert in the Leipzig Theatre. \Vagner says the composition was founded upon Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, and he had emphasised the mystic signification by uniting three several opposing elements. He had endeavoured to render these elements more strikiing by colouring the score black for the wind instruments, red for the strings, and green for the horns and trumpets, only, unfortunately, having no green ink, that had to go. The writer says he could not undertsand how the director, Heinrieh Dorn, could accept the work, but looking back, he was inclined to think Dorn enjoyed the joke. Wagner's description of the performance is vastly amusing, though a little pathetic. He had taken his sister Ottilie with him, but while she sat in a box he had forgotten to get himself a> ticket. Finally he persuaded the man at the door to admit him on representing to him that he was the composer of the overture. Making his way to the front, the youthful composer heard liiis overture begin. The black, red, and green motifs produced < astonishing effects, nnd particularly the frequent repetition of the kettledrums, brought out with brutal emphasis by Dorn, aroused the hilarity of the audience, who anticipated the drums with eagerness. Wagner relates that he seemed to lose consciousness, and sat as in a dream till the end, which came very j abruptly, he hawing despised all banal finales. He remembers the audience's surprise distinctly, and cannot describe what he suffered. He managed somehow ■to make his exit through the rows of benches—a terrible experience—but nothing equalled the painfulness of his feelings as he passed the doorkeeper again, who threw him a most remarkable glance. Young Wagner then escorted his sister, as before arranged, to a Christmas party at home, the brilliance of which, he says, was like dazzling irony in his' night of stupefaction. A German publishing firm advertises a musical book by Herman Stephani, called "Das Erhabene insonderheit in der Tonkunst und das Problem der Form im Musikalisch-Schonen und Erhabenen" The second chapter is said to be iust as interesting.

Following on the cable message to the effect that Madame Melba had again made a huge success in the role of "Juliet" in Gounod's "Borneo and Juliet," at Covent Garden, comes the news that this opera has been added to the repertoire of the forthcoming grand opera season in Australia. Both John McCormack and Edmund Burke sing with her in this opera, so that it looks as if the "Romeo an<J Juliet" nights will be one of the outstanding features of the season. Juliet was one of Melba's first great operatic triumphs, and is, despite advancing years, still one of tho strong cards of her repertoire.

Lady Hallo has had such tribute to her powers as a violinist that one is apt to forget she was a vocalist as well. She began to learn the violin "on the sly" at the mature age of four and a-half, and when her father happened to hear her playing he decided that she must be properly trained. She used to sing and play the violin in operettas at home. "It is history now," she said, since we appeared at the Princess's in 1849, where I made what is called my professional debut in England, although at the time I was only ten years old. The public has never heard mc as a singer. Would that I now had a yolee, erca to amuse myself I. _— f*-