STAGE JOTTINGS.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 116, 17 May 1924, Page 18

STAGE JOTTINGS.

I . I The Irene Vanbrugh-Boucicault Com- ; pany, after a long run in Sydney and j Melbourne, will play a season in New j Zealand, opening here about the middle jof June. The next big theatrical at- , traction will be the pantomime "Alladdin." Handel's "Samson" is down for presentation by the Royal Wellington Choral Union on July 20. Dunedin is doing "Elijah" on May 14 and 15. Then will follow, later in the season, "Der Freischutz." Custav Dannreuther, violinist, prominent for many years as a member of leading chamber music organisations, especially the Mendelssohn Quintet Club I of Boston, died at his home in New York lon the twentieth of December. He was a native of Cincinnati, Ohio, but had resided in New York since 1884. Eben E. Rexford, author of the verses of "Silver Threads Among the Gold," will have a tablet to his memory I erected by the residents of Johnsburg. ] New York. The movement was started at a recent reunion of the natives of Johnsburg of which Mr. Rexford was a j favourite son. '■ The Detroit Symphony Orchestra is to have a _..,o_d dollar organ for its Orchestra Hall. The instrument is the gift of Mr. and Mrs. William Murphy. > Mr. Murphy has been a liberal supporter j of musical enterprises in "The Auto I City" and is president of the orchestra. Miss Valeric Scott, the well-known New Zealand dancer, who appears under the stage name of Mile. Valeska, recently \ met with a serious accident, fracturing | her hand while rehearsing acrobatic dancing. She is now appearing in the new Ernest Rolls production, "Copper j | T °P-" ' Miss Eileen Castles returns to Sydney for another season, after which, accompanied by her sister Amy, she proceeds m America to appear in grand opera in September. After that she will marry Mr. Irvine Stone (the famous aviator)", and leaves for Europe in 1025. , Albert de Courville has produced what :is aptly described as a full-length, allevening, no-expense-spared revue at the London Palladium, and (with assistance) he turned out "The Whirl of the World." It is an enormous spectacle, fascinatingly I beautiful and impressive, and the light- | ing is simply gorgeous. Billy Merson and Nellie Wallace are the chief come- l dians. Nervo and Knox appear in a wonderful knock-about act, and Myrrio and Nattovo appear in beautiful dance i scenes. I Grace Christie (the girl of the mask), I famous dancer, ias arrived at Sydney from America. She is tall and slender, and from the finger-tips to the tips ot her toes she is tho personification of grace. W. T. Brenda, the creator of the mask, came along and Miss Christie it I was who first put life into those gro- ! tesque faces and gave them a soul. This girl has been immortalised by Rupert ; Brooke in his novel "Beauty." She is to appear at the Tivoli in her masked dance and her equally renowned scena "The Silver Bubble." Later on Miss Christie will appear in New Zealand. Another noted first appearance at • Sydney Tivoli are the fussy French couple Noni and Horace, in their world- : renowned musical absurdities. I Melbourne has gone grand opera mad, says a "Bulletin' correspondent. Even tbe office-boy and girl palpitatingly I declare they would rather pawn their boots than miss a new production. The fashion was started by the biggest adverj tising campaign ever launched here; but, seduced by grand opera's own provocative charms, the crowds now swarm thither for love of tbe thing. On Friday night the management was nearly driven Ito frenzy turning people away from i -Faust," and the rush for "Samson and I Delilah" on Saturday night was only a I made a comely Juliet in the usual I Liey frock and yellow pla;t3, and 'an avalanche of vegetation descended :on her after the second act. One , bit of floriculture didn't, however— jit landed on the head of the first trombone, who subsequently heaved it stagewards, and the diva neatly | fielded it with a joyous schoolboy ; chortle. j Since "Smilin' Through" has been j staged in New Zealand Lady ForbesKnbertson has heard of a dozen cases of old gentlemen who have been reminded i of old tragedies by this beautiful story of love and devotion. None of them had experienced a drama of the same kind as the play, but two or three had lost fiancees on their wedding day. One man in New Zealand mentioned that forty years ago in England he had made his promised wife a present of a horse, and i on the morning of the ceremony she went ! out for a ride. When she failed to | return in the time stipulated a search I I party was sent out. and her dead body ' ' was found in a coppice. Her horse was found near by, and the assumption is I that the animal shied and threw her off. | 1 Tiie raconteur stated with tears in his j eyes that the incident was as vivid to ] him as if it had happened the day before. Dame Ethel Smyth has been making i ! some remarks in the "London Daily Tele- > i graph." She holds that the English musical genius lies in the direction of ' comic opera. Tho race has an inexhaustible spring of humour. Opera comique is unknown in England. The question is whether there is a public in London for light opera. There is apparently nothing between musical comedy and grand opera. On the Continent, in the big opera houses, ran lie beard in one season, "The Ring," "The Barber of Seville," "I'idelio," and "The Mikado." ; You may laugh heartily one night and 1 weep the next. Art in England is taken ! with provincial solemnity. If London, Manchester, and Glasgow would vote a ! subsidy for local opera, it would help to establish centers of culture aud education. | A vocal recital—her first in London— ' given by Miss Rosa Alba, the Australian soprano, gave us a London debutante •of far more than average quality, (says the London correspondent of the "Melbourne Age"). She sang a formidable programme of many varieties of song, i anil in that regard, perhaps, erred on j the side of enthusiasm. But that, after ! all. is no bad fault, and the great thing about the recital was its revelation of a really lovely voice, which proved itself to deserve all the praise it has had from Australians. The spontaneity of Miss Alba's lark-like singing, the flexibility and the full-throated resonance of an unfailingly beautiful upper register in particular", established her at once as a singer of unusual quality. Amid such singing of the past, few* seasons. I can recall none which bas given mc more person** 1 pleasure to listen to than this or Miss Alba, tho latest of Australians to show London her powers, and the possessor of a voice which should carry | her far.