ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT Dobbs, Vasary In Concerts

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31672, 7 May 1968, Page 21

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT Dobbs, Vasary In Concerts

The N.Z.B.C. Symphony Orchestra will return to Christchurch next week for its first concerts since the Pan Pacific Arts Festival. The two concerts, in the Civic Theatre on May 15 and May 16, will be the first two subscription programmes of the season and will be conducted by Juan Matteuci. In the first, the soloist wilt be American coloratura soprano, Mattiwilda Dobbs, who last visited New Zealand nine years ago. Miss -Dobbs, who is now the reigning prima donna of the Hamburg State Opera, will present a “double bill,” singing two Haydn arias in the first half and the first Christchurch performance by the orchestra of Gliere’s Concerto for Soprano Voice in the second part. Another Christchurch “first” by the Orchestra in this I

concert will be the Bartok Music to- Strings, Percussion and Celesta. The programme will end with the Italian Symphony, by Mendelssohn. In the second concert the Hungarian pianist, Tamas Vasary, will be introduced to Christchurch. He will play the Schumann A minor Concerto, which he has presented with major European Orchestras, and with the Cleveland Orchestra, under

Georg Szell, in New York. Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite and the popular Seventh Symphony in D minor by Dvorak will complete the programme.