GRAND OPERA SENSATION

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 249, 20 October 1928, Page 16 (Supplement)

GRAND OPERA SENSATION

CHARGE OF PLAGIARISM

AGAINST PUCCINI.

"TURANDOT" SCORE.

SISTERS WHO CLAIM TO BE THE

AUTHORS.

Was Puccini's posthumous opera, "Turandot," a plagiarism, copied note by note from an opera by two young women of Germany, who published the score of their work in Hamburg in 1896 T This is the amazing allegation published in "Comedia," the Paris dramatic and literary daily.

"Comedia," publishing the story "with great reserve," states that it comes from a correspondent known for his accuracy. It will be remembered that Giacomo Puccini (the composer of "La Boheme," "Madama Butterfly" and "Tosca") had not finished "Turandot" when he died in 1924. The work was fininshed by Franco Alfano.

The story of the alleged plagiarism, which comca from Jerusalem, states that in Tel Aviv, near Jaffa, there live the sisters Frida and Goldina Rubinsohn, who earn their living by giving piano lessons. Before the war they lived in Hamburg, but when the family fortune was lost, after the war, they migrated to Palestine. As excellent musicians, cultivated and intelligent, they soon achieved a degree of local fame.

The news of the first performance of the "Turandot" gave them, the article says, some grounds for suspicion, and they had the text sent out to them.

"When they saw it," the writer says, "they gave a cry of amazement. Puccini's work was nothing less than an exact transcription of their opera.

"A number of musicians of Tel Aviv were invited to the house of the Misses Rubinsohn. The two scores were placed before the visitors, and the sisters played both on the piano, leaving no doubt as to their similarity in the minds of the hearers." Farther Investigation. *The article goes on to say that the director of the Conservatoire of Jerusalem, Professor Sydney Siel, has given the Misses Rubinsohn a letter, in which he declares that "the 'Turandot* of Puccini is copied from the 'Turandot* of the Misses Rubinsohn published in Hamburg in 1896."

The American Consul there, Mr. Oscar M. Heiser, who is a musician of talent, "called together an audience of all the musical people of Jerusalem, before whom the two pieces were played, and they were astounded to learn that they were identical."

Mr. Heiser advised the Misses Rubinsohn to go the United States (where "Turandot" was first produced), and he gave them a letter of introduction to Mr. Morgenthau, the lawyer, asking him to take up the case. The sisters, however, have not the means for such a long journey.

They have forwarded a statement to the Committee of Intellectual Co-opera-tion at Geneva, from which (the article adds) they received tho advice to so to Italy, and take up the matter with the heirs of the composer.