DON COSSACK CHOIR.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18724, 22 June 1926, Page 13

DON COSSACK CHOIR.

THEATRE ROYAL, JULY 2. Bos plans for tha Don Cossack Choir's Christchurch season, in. the Theatre Royal on July 2nd, 3rd, sth, and 6th, will he opened at The Briatol on Monday next. A packed house greeted these singers at Auckland recently, and gave them an unprecedented reception, and at the termination of the concert they were accorded an ovation. It behoves all those w.ho.ure desirous of hearing this wonderful Russian Choir to make early application for eeats. At Sydney and; Melbourne huge crowds thronged the booking cffices daily, ond the accommodation was usually booked out before evening. We quote an excerpt from a leading Melbourne journal: "The songs cf the stanitzas and hamlets of the native habitat of the singers called up the bracing winds of the great Russian plain, where the swans, golden in the sunset, fly over the rusty-red roofs to tho Mother of Cities (Kiev), the Sarmatia of Herodotus, lit by the sun ol Maurus Jokai, 'glimmering like a medal on a ragged soldier's cloak.' Immemorial tiDtings, primitive, Greek, and Eastern, seem to'be inherent in the wild and plaintive tones of tho Don Cossacks. In Naprawnik s fantasia. 'The Joke,' the flying notes, so short, and sped with such impact that they seemed to leap visibly through the air, wore mingled with lyrical episodes that were not always so limpidly intelligible. A passage for a single tenor, sung, sung with peculiar inflections, that strained the intonation to the note's edge for the sake of tone colour, was succeeded by an ineffably lovely alto solo, bo cunningly interwoven with throbs and windings in the other voices that » fairly brought down the house. The Twelve Robbers,' a legendary song that was tolled with the verv breath of romance, put the finishing touch on' the delight of the audience. It opened with a beautiful prayer, which not only served as a refrain between the stanzas, but also dissolved into a murmuring accompaniment while a noble bass voice related how Koudivar—Pitnrn Koudivar himsclf-a, holy monk of tld. told m the monastery of Solovki, the tale of his own deeds and misdeeds cs <he robber chieftain. . , , "The superoosing of differing linos of. volatile tone above one another sudden softenings that outrivalled the equally sudden st'esses in signi6cance, head tones of ringing quality, approximating to instrumental effects, exclamations of two or rhree syllables flung across tho more subdued general mosaic, and bass notes of extreme profundity; barkings, whistlingß, and shouts, .interspersed with Cossack dances and episodes sung with infinite tristesse, were varying characteristics in other numbers, such as the 'Volga Boatmen 'On Iho Road to St. Petersburgh, and 'the rattling railitarj calls and campaign ditties of the Don Cossack soldiery.'