STAGE JOTTINGS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 160, 8 July 1922, Page 18

STAGE JOTTINGS.

The Hamilton Operatic Society has commenced operations with "Miss" Hook of Holland." The production should be very successful.

A Sydney paper states that Robert | Quinlan, concert impresario, proposes to bring an Italian opera company to Australia nest year. There is keen interest in theatrical circles over the announcement that J. C. Williamson, Ltd., have negotiated with Mr. Oscar Asche to tour Australia with a complete production of "Cairo" and Shakespearean (plays. The company will leave London in July. Maxwell Carew, English fashionable dame, now appearing at Fullers' New Theatre, Sydney, is said to be a piquant contrast to the stereotyped dame in pan : tomime. He dresses in fashionable style, and possesses quite an "air." Mr. Carew has many elaborate hats anil dresses in his possession, all of which, were made from his own designs. lie i ■has made a special study of feminine attire, and is frequently giving the public something new in styles. Pay as you leave or not at all is London's latest in theatres. Sir Alfred Butt decided to keep the '"Lass of Laughter -, running at the Queen's Theatre regardless of the diminished receipts owing to thereat, because he believes the public will enjoy the play later. Ilore- | after the patron enters the theatre with- I out paying and if he is satisfied he pays , the usual price when he leaves. "Nine out of ten paid the regular price," saiu Sir Alfred. The next big Fuller star to visit New Zealand will be Harry Thurston, the original Ole Bill in "TBe Better 'Olcs" : in England, and a character actor of ■) rare capacity. As an artist in make-up i Thurston is said to lie a wonder. It is as a Labour agitator of the most ox- i treme order that he makes one' of his biggest laughinor hits. "I am a working i man," he explains. "I am a tailor —a ladies' tailor. What I don't know about a placket is not worth knowing, but now I am out of a job. All the ladies wear nowadays is a hat and a pair of stockings. 'Chuck the beer in the sea.' they] cry. What good would that do! It would only encourage swimming. I believe," he says, '"that every man should | get £20 a week, with Monday, Tuesday • and Wednesday as holidays, and go to work on Thursday to see if he can Ret Friday and Saturday off. I believe that every man should get £20 a >veek and marry the boss's daughter—if #'c boss has not got enough daughters to go round, he is a blackleg—don't work for him." London music lovers have been listeninn again to Parsifal, by favour of t.ho season of opera now in progress at tlic hands of the British National Opera Company. That organisation is larsoly the Beecham Opera Company of happy memory, which its creator and financial buttress, Sir Thomas Beecham, at last was obliged to disband by reason of the heavy cost of its upkeep .and an insufficient public support. It has now been reconstituted on a co-operative basis. It has an Australian interest in that some of it principals are known in Australia by virtue of the Quinlan opera companies of other daye, while some of them — Miss Beatrice Miranda, Miss Florence Austral and Miss ' Isabel Johnson, notably—are themselves Australians. It is admirably equipped in all regards. It has enjoyed a successful opening season in the provinces, and it is now testing the opera calibre of Ix>ndon. Furthermore, its financial scheme—public subscription lists in the principal centres and a shore system in respect of the artiste—ia not without bearing upon some aspects of musical enterprise. Parisfal is a strangely compelling ■work. Its appeal prevails over an in stinctive reluctance to submit to it felt! by the majority of healthy Morbid introsnection, agonised brnodincs , over a lapse from knisrhtly virtue, acute . concentration upon religious ceremonial, and a central character not merely of .' mystical, but of frankly sacred signifi-, canee —these would seem to be opera inffredients singularly ill-suited to the , taste of the normal theatregoer. There . is little in the drama to attract, and still less to excite, the averase natural, man. Its atmosphere, consistently solemn,' sometimes is of almost repellent jrloom, its long periods of Btaee inaction issue . in a sustained staee melancholy, while it-; • musical interest is often indefinite and ; elusive. And yet. Parsifal is t'>e most impressive production known to the lyric • stage, and one of the most beautiful. I. After an interval of twelve years, the : famous Passion play, dealing with the life and sufferings of Christ, is being per- I' formed at the Bavarian village of 'Obcr- ' ammergau. And as usual the village is ' thronged with visitors from various countries of Europe and from America. Many of the visitors are devout Christians, to whom the play has a, deeply religious appeal, but even ordinary holiday makers and sightseers cannot fail to be impressed with the wonderful spectacle presented at the open-air theatre at Obcrammergau. The play will be produced every Sunday until the end of September. There are eighteen acts and eighteen tableaus, and the play lasts about nine hours, with an intermission at noon. More than half the village, which has about 1500 inhabitants, take part in the play. None of the villagers who desire to take part in it is refused the opportunity, but, of course, the performers for the principal parts have to be carefully chosen, lie child performers are so numeous that they have to appear in relays. About 600 people appear on the stage in the course of the play, but there is also a choir of 45 voices, a band of 50 instruments, and a large number of attendants and scene shifters. The play had its origin in a religious .vow made by the inhabitants of Oberammergau in 1633, in the hope of checking the ravages of a plague that was raging. The original text and the arrangements for the production of the play were probably made by the monks of the neighbouring monastery ot Ettal, but in the course of years, these have been considerably improved. It is still as a great religious ceremony that the play is presented, and it is in a spirit of deep religious devotion that the ' actors play their parts. The play is usually produced at intervals of ten years, but occasionally the intervals have been greater. The previous performance was in 1910, but the war and its after-! math rendered it impossible to produce '■ the play in TO2O. In the years inter- i vening between the production of the ; play the villagers are carefully drilled i in dramatic performances, and it is , ' generally admitted that the combina- ] ' tion of religious fervor and artistic in- ' stinct of these Alpine peasants results > in a high-class dramatic performance. i