THE WEEK'S RADIO Preview Of N.Z Opera Company’s “Tosca”

Press, Volume C, Issue 29634, 3 October 1961, Page 8

THE WEEK'S RADIO Preview Of N.Z Opera Company’s “Tosca”

The New Zealand Opw Coaptny i mat w titiout pfodoeito* ee far ia Puccini’s “Tosca,” which wiM open its Christchurch season at tho Theatre Royal on October 17. Radio listeners will have an opoortimity sfx: Welliorton performance on September 16.

X. ’‘iSTStretto, baoed on SerOou’s dnuna, “t* tofU. Ku its central figura ria Tosca, a singer, who Il toyeo by Mario Caoara-te'wsir-ifisa IeOO. Baron Scatpia, the gSAsh-ss.-'S hounds him to Ute torturn chamber. Scaipia sends for Tosca, who divuteaa Angetottrs hidiiw jrtoco when aba to £‘ «k chamber. Scarpia demands Toeea’s virtue as the price for her lover’s life. She repitlees him again and again, but ftnaUy pretends to agree. Scanpie then gives orders for a meek aseoution of Cavoradoesi and Tosca also gets a safe conduct out of the country for herself and the painter. When he has written it, he advances to embrace her. She stabs him. Cawradoasi is awaiting his execution when Toaca enters his ceS and tells him her news, explaining the need for a mock execution. But tbo execution is real; and Cavaradoesi lies dead while Tosco playfolly compliments him on his acting. As she realises the truth, Spoletta, Scatpia’a benchman, enters with soldiers, denouncing her as a murderer. Before he can take her prisoner, Toeca leaps to her death from the castle parapet It is not the gory story but the music which has kept Tosca” alive, for it provides a vehicle for a great dramatic soprano and contains two of Puccini’s best known airs for tenor. In to- | morrow’s recording the role i of Tosca is sung by Vincente Major, Cavaradossi by Jon Andrew and Scarpia by the La Seal* baritone, Marcello Cortis, who also produced the opera. John Hopkins conducts the National Orchestra. Sharing the leading roles during the opera’s Christchureh season will be Elizabeth Hellawell (soprano), Ramon Opie ( tenor), and Graeme Gorton (baritone). Miss Hellawell recently returned from Britain, where she sang with t|e Birmingham University Opera and the New Operp* Company, and gave a recital in the Wigmore Hall. For a year she sang in Germany. Ramon Opie is a New Zealandtrained singer who toured New South Wales and Queensland with the Austra-I lian National Opera in 1857. Graeme Gorton played Sharpless in the company's production of “Madame Butterfly," and has sung with the National Orchestra. Jewish Drama (»YC, 7Jfl pjß„ Friday) Bernard Kops’ first play, The Hamlet of Stepney Green,’’ derives largely from the Jewish folk dramas of toe hut c gntury; the author) describes it as a “sad comedy with some songs.” The songs ptay an important part in creating atmosphere and arise naturally out of the play. For Roy Hope’s N.ZB.S. production the music has been specially composed, arranged and performed by Marjorie Orchiston, while Michael Woolf was a spacial musical adviser. David Levy is a young Bast End Jew who wants to be a famous crooner, in spite of his father’s wish that he should take over his pickled herring stall. The father, Sam, dies but returns as t ghost to watch over his son. who is firmly convinced that his father has been murdered. This loads David to exploit the situation as a parallel to the Hamlet lesend However, thanks to Sam's intervention, the story does not end tragically. And in this modern “Hamlet” it is not tho living son but the ghostly father (played by Antony Grosser) who dominate® the pfoy, Tim Eliot, who was seen in Christchurch as Borneo, Mays Davfd. Bernard Kops was born in Btepney Green in 1« of Jewish parents, Wt.rw up m poverty. He wrote from an early age and for a while workad with a small touring theatre company. After his mother died in HU, he went abroad and worked fo a labourer. He returned to Digland penniless wUrit won him an ArtsCoun, Ml award ot £5OO and pro, ductioM in England, Germany/ftslland and America, He now holds the unique Tchaikovsky Songs c L m E! er ’* KS’TSAr.SS ■ffVuSsyvTS really given an opportunity i fo decide for thennelves between conflicting critical views on ths spngs. Some including Brnest Newman, have defended them. "The sentimentality." Newman wrote “is only apparent and the fotdt lice, Mt in the song, ST-- L-.r-2i7inT.riYhi\ -AgmtwbmrieMy 5mA afaisrir wn ««H

•atmosphere’ in ha songs.” Certainly Tchaikovsky'S great melodic gift did not desert him when he came to write songs, aa listeners to 3YC will hear at BfiO tonight, when Boris Christoff (ban) and Alexander Lebinsky (piano) will be heard in a programme of Tchaikovsky songs. The songs are “Doti Juan's Serenade" (one of the well-known ones), “The Mild Stars Shone for Us,” “Child’s Song,’’ “Night,” “Cradle Song” and “Do Not Ask.” Bomb Warning Robert Bott, author of “The Lart of the Wine,” which will be heard in ZB “Sunday Showcase” at 8.16 p m. on Sunday, is widely considered to be one of the most promising of the younger English playwrights. This play deals with reactions to leaflets Mattered in quantity round the London area, warning the population of a pending hydrogen bomb explosion. Although the leaflets took very official, their origin is unknown and even queettone in the House of Commons fail to elicit any information. The pl«y was produced in the Auckland studios of the N.Z.BS. by Earle Rowell and leading roles are taken by Laurence Hepworth, David Prosser and Glynis McNiehoU. Byron In Venice When Lord Byron left England finally, driven out by the scandal which followed the failure of his marriage, he treveHed by way of Switzerland, Milan and Verona to Venice. There he stayed for some time, living, if bis own letters are to be believed, a riotous and dissolute Me. But in the midst of this he finished “Chalde Harold’s Pilgrimage,” and began to write poetry in a style he had not attempted before—* lighit, satirical, narrative verse imitative of certain Italian peefo. Many of his coniemporeries found itds

frivolous, but posterity agrew that it was his true genre. Hi* grot attempt in this style was “Beppo,” which he called “a Venetian story.” In it he vividly de* scribed the city’s women, its carnival and its aoctol customs. and the whole poem is salted with cynical criticisms of the homeland from which he had been forced to fly, together with sty asporstotM on his wife, her intellect, her English virtue and her hobby of mathematic*. "Beppo” may be heard, read by Robert Eddison in a 8.8. C. recording, from 3YC at 8.10 p.m. on Sunday. Assassination On October 9, 1934, King Alexander of Jugoslavia was shot dead as he drove through cheering crowd* in the streets of Marseille. The motives behind the assassination were political The instigator was Ante Pavetich, the leader of the revolutionary movement for Croad independence, a movement which had been active ever since the Kingdom of Jugoslavia had been created by the Treaty of Versailles opt of a mixture of South Slav peoples, of whom the Serbs and Croats were the most numerous. Pavelich lived in exile in Italy, where his terrorist activities were actively supported by Mussolini, who hoped to benefit by a revolution in the Balkans. Pavelich lived to become the Jugoslav quisling during World War 11. D. G. Bridson, author of ‘"The March of the ’45,” has written a programme which reconstructs the assassination of King Alexander as a vehicle for Edgar Lustgarton, who is well known for his many reconstructions of famous trials. In the feature. “Murder at Marseilles’ ’ (3YA, 8.30 pm., Monday), Lustgarten tells the story of the assassination while actors play the part* of the conspirators who carried out each carefully-planned stage of the crime.