STAGE JOTTINGS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 89, 14 April 1923, Page 18

STAGE JOTTINGS.

;| A fifteen-year-old soprano, Marion Talley, sang the title role, of "Mignon at the annual performance of the Kansas City Opera Company this year." Her debut was a pronounced success. j An English physician named Heath (according to <'Le Menestrel") has discovered that music is an aid to digestion and has prescribed, special music for special parts of the -penu- He recommends "love songs" during the roast. I A Schumann Festival, the first ever to be held in his birthplace, has recently been managed successfully in Zwickau, Saxony, where Schumann's father kept a bookstore and where Robert spent the first eighteen years of his life. : The theme of the play is the poisoning of his wife by a man under the hypnotic influence of a sinister, stronger will There is a court scene in which the author has drawn vividly on his own experience as a criminal psychologist. Sasche Guitry, the inimitable actorauthor, comedian of Paris, has just completed the book of a comic opera for which Ivan Caryll (pen name for the Belgian composer Felix Tilkins) has just written the music. | That old favourite, Maggie Moore, will support Lady Forbes Robertson during the latter's Australian tour. Maggie Moore is nothing short of a wonder. It is a far cry to her days of Lizzie Stofel in the J. C. Williamson days of "Struck Oil." ■ • Oscar Asche recently entertained a few of the Melbourne pressmen at lunch, and entertained them with theatrical stories that were so good that many of them will linger in the memory and cause Oscar Asche to be remembered as a notable raconteur as well as a great producer. The following are. a few from Mr. Asche's repertoire:-—There was tho famous English actress who spoke the perfect sentence of condemnation against her equally famous rival: "The ' only woman in the world who can wear ermine and make it look like rabbit." Or, wbejj, three very famous actresses, | appeared, in a matinee, and t.he third was younger than the other two, but not quite so famous as either. They drove to the theatre in their carriage, and the old doorkeeper confided, "Them's I the two stars." "The stars ?" said the third lady. "The Ancient Lights!" The actor who came to see Beerbohm Tree before a new production had a high opinion of his own value, and concluded his self-recommendation with the announcement: "And I want £60 a week." I "Don't forget to close the door after - you, will you," was Tree's rpply. j The J. C. Williamson, Ltd., Gilbert' and Sullivan Opera Company were recently in Singapore. The season opened - with "The Mikado," which At first was - objected to by the authorities as likely ■ to offend the Japanese residents, but • tho Japanese themselves fourd nothing objectionable in it. The local Japanese paper, "Nanyo Nichi-Nichi Shimbuh," eager to disabuse its readers of any erroneous impression they might have had regarding the play, published the following:—"The J. C. Williamson Gilbert I and Sullivan Opera Company are very I shortly expected to .arrive in Singapore. The company has every good will towards Japanese people and it is doubtless that -heir plays consist no such dramatical scenes that will bring about misunderstanding of us. They are endeavouring to erect every possibility to show plays that will be assimilable to the Japanese charactarities. This company have- staged everywhere round the world, and it is affirmed specaly in Calcutta and London they are n ceived splendidly by Japanese community and were most success. We th~refore rejoice and hope that the same may be had amongst us." A tour of the Far East will follow. Singing masters may soon think of quitting their profession if M. Cove' enters the field of voice-production, for l Mary Garden, the diva, when in Boston with the Chicago Opera Company, referred in eulogistic terms to the Cove method and what it had.done for her voice. Miss Garden met the Nancy chemist in Boston soon after his arrival there, and after greeting him effusively and wringing his hands with dramatic fervour called a roomful of visiters to i witness that as a result of repeating a variant of the "day by day" formula she had improved her voice "100 per cent." "Day by day I am singing better and better," she repeats when she retires at night and when she awakes in the morning. The fair Aberdeen songstress declares the results are "marvellous," and she has only been practising autosuggestion " a month. "Even the old fogies" (the critics, she meant) "have been sincere enough to notice the improvement in the quality of my voice." said Miss Garden, "so it must be true." She made no secret that she was seriously uneasy and despondent a month previously, • when bronchial trouble ha.i almost compelled her to cancel her singing engagements. The Cove method was revealed to her just in time, and now she ypws eternal gratitude to Coue^ "French Leave," the new play at Sydney Criterion, is a brisk little war comedy, and ia none the less interesting because it was written by Reginald Cheyne Berkeley, whom Maoriland claims as its own, says a "Sydney Bulletin" contributor. Though London borp, Berkeley was grounded in Latin and Greek at Auckland College, and is a member of the Auckland Bar. He wrote the thing as a relief from the tedium of the first Somme campaign, and it was successfully produced at London Globe in July, 1920. . But the part of a dashing young wnr- , wife, who gets admission to the brigade ,i mosßropm in the character of a <*ay I French lady, hardly suits Emelie Polini's J full-blown charms and tempestuous style , Miss Polini couldn't act badly if she , tried, but she has been more happily cast in other productions. She is at her best ,1 in a flirtatious scene with Leslie Hoi- , land, who is iincommonlv entertninin*as a sportive old brass-lnt—a character | very reminiscent of Kipling's LieutenantGeneral Bangs. Capital help is given by Frank Harvey, as the lady's jealous ; husband, and by Anew McMaster, as an impassioned lieutenant: and the minor S parts are well played by*Eily Malyon, ' 5„ y^°n i La ' rrence - John 'Fen-side and f Edwin Brett. "Madame Butterfly-" rather sombre stuff after the brfeht fun s ot French Leave," completes-the bill. , Herej-gam, Miss Polini has failed to find , her ideal part, but her Cho-Cho-San is a i conscientious piece of work, and she is ' _?*2 te i by SO - nB clev < : " people, notably Katie Towers and Gerald Kay Souper, and -by the scene-painter and tho i orchestra. Mr. Berkeley is now a mem- ?| per of the British House of Commons.