RICHARD CROOKS

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21903, 2 October 1936, Page 6

RICHARD CROOKS

FIRST CONCERT TO-MORROW NIGHT To-morrow night at the Theatre Royal the celebrated and very popular tenor singer, Richard Crooks, will be presented by Messrs J. and N. Tail and judging by the large number of seats which have been booked at the D.I.C. the Theatre Royal will probably be taxed to its utmost capacity. Mr Crooks will go to Dunedin on Sunday, and will return to Christchurch for his second and final concert on Wednesday night Richard Crooks has made an intensive study of all that pertains to the singer's art. He has studied and sings all the lyric roles in their respective languages, and to his wide operatic mastery, he adds a great classical repertoire and the complete range of lieder. Then there is the field of the drawing-room song, or ballad, so-called, with its wide appeal to the “musically inclined but unlearned.” Richard Crooks draws judiciously on this source of supply as well. The famous tenor is accustomed to sing for the multitude, and not merely for the musical intelligentsia; and so, very rightly, includes in all his programmes examples of that simpler, more sentimental, yet melodious music beloved by so many. His programmes, comprehensive in their sweep, minister also to those who respond to the higher and better things; and, indeed, to the best; a group of classics—Bs&h, Haydn, Gluck, Mozart, Beethoven; arias from opera; songs from the beautiful repertory of lieder, a final group of ballads. This is the scheme of a Crooks’ programme; to which only posers and the hypocritical can take exception.