GRAND OPERA MEMORIES.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 214, 10 September 1928, Page 6

GRAND OPERA MEMORIES.

Of all the operas that Verdi wrote The best to my mind is the Trovatore; And Mario can soothe with tenor note The souls in Purgatory. The moon in the tower slept soft as snow: And who was not thrilled in the strangest way, e neard him sing while the gas burncjl low, Aon ti scordar di me''? Poor poetry this? Yes, but for many oldfashioned people it has a charm. It brings back the days when they were young and heard their first opera, and something of that indefinable fragrance of the theatre is wafted across the years. "Trovatore" must have been the first °P era _ °f hundreds of thousands, and as such its familiar tunes will always possess a special assoWith me the place was the old Opera House in Welleslev Street, and the company was headed by one Turner and his wife; I think his name was Charles Montague, but that is many years ago, and I was very young. "Trovatore" is one of the most popular of operas; perhaps only "Faust" leads it. And it calls tip Verdi, with his amazing gift of melody, his long and tragic life, and the marvellous flowering of his old_ age. From "Trovatore," "Traviata" and "Rigoletto" lie passed to another style in the gorgeous "Aida," and then after a long rest produced "Othello" when he was seventy-four, and "Falstaff" when he was eighty, two great masterpieces of quite opposite kinds to his early works. "Falstaff" is full of the spirit of youth and fun. In his younger days, when the country was fighting for its liberty, Verdi was a national force, and one of his arias containing patriotic expressions would send an audience mad with excitement. Xo wonder the Italians venerate him as one of their country's greatest men. It is fitting that so old a favourite as "TrovaJoje should open the season that begins to-night. Highbrows," of course, are apt to raise their brows higher still when it is mentioned, but we may cite so eminent an authority as Dame Ethel Smyth in support of the opinion that it contains great music. In power to sweep youth off its feet, however, it takes second place to "Faust." Well, indeed, do I remember tny first "Faust" in the packed, hot and smellful pit of the old Opera House. A young and sweet Marguerite, a slim and youthful Faust, a commanding Mepliistopheles, and that easy-flowing, sensuous music enfolding impressionable youth— what an evening! I walked home on clouds, and for davs there was spring in my heart. I have heard a good deal of opera since. At Covent Garden I heard "Tristan and Isolde" and "Othello" magnificently sung by perfect casts. Tristan was also young and handsome and knightly, and the whole performance throbbed with passion. Desdemona's "Willow Song" was exquisitely beautiful and unbearably poignant. But I have never felt anything quite equal to the rapture of the first Faust." "To be young was very heaven." It is easy to make fun of grand opera. A stout tenor "with food in his eyes" mav be even more ridiculous in a love scene than*a portly Claude Melnotte. The long delays in the action while singers show off their voices must sometimes appeal to one's sense of humour. A wittv liishwoman said of the twenty -five-minute (or thereabouts) love duet in the 6econd act of Tristan : Long ? My dear, they'd be celebrating their silver wedding by the end "of it." Opera is a marriage between arts—some might call it a misalliance—and the result cannot always be happy. But is it much more ridiculous to sin** dialogue in exquisite music than to speak it in magnificent blank* verse? Opera triumphs over this danjjer because its music is so entrancing and thrilling, and sometimes, of course, the dramatic nature of the scene makes the effect almost overwhelming. We mav feel that when Ravenswood enters in the weddtng scene in "Lucia" he should, strictly, talk, and not waste tune or words, but how magnificent it» the ensuing sextet! English-speaking communities, it is true, do not take their opera so seriously as Latins.' In Italy, where nearly everybody in the theatre knows the music by heart, it mav be as much as a singer's career is worth to make a mistake. The audience is apt to be rude. Even Caruso used to sweat with nervousness when he sane before his countrymen. The English and Americans, he said, took him on his reputation, but the Italians were ruthless critics every night. And can you imagine an English tenor what Caruso did when a dish of marcaroni pleased him unusually in a London hotel? He went down to the kitchen and sang "La Donna e Mobile" to the delighted Italian chef. We go to our opera with less knowledge, but there are thousands of us who enjoy it thoroughly and we may thank those who are now giving us here in Auckland another opportunity of hearing this form of music. Since a considerable proportion of the good music of the world is written in operatic form, it is part of the community's musical education that operas should be staced for it periodically. —CYRANO j