AN ARTISTIC UPLIFT.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1299, 30 November 1911, Page 6

AN ARTISTIC UPLIFT.

GREATEST MUSICAL EVENT FOR AUSTRALIA. "The groat success which hns attended the Melba Grand Opera Company in Australia, said Mr. Phillip >low.b'ury to a Dominion interviewer yesterday, ''means more to the country than anyone can say as far as tho advancement of music in its higher forms is concerned. Hitherto Australia has been visited by second and third-rate opera companies at long intervals, with a good artist sandwiched in hero and there, but in this company they have been given some of the best in Mclbii. Cisneros, John M'Cormack, Bourko and Scandiani, and a new standard hns been set—a standard of excellence- which captivated the public entirely, and which will create a taste for tho best in music. I am ;i great admirer of John M'Cormack. I remember hearing him sing in the Albert Hall about five years ago, and remember saying to my wife that with study the young mnn had a great future. Ho has studied, as he has now si repertoire of twenty-five operas. The venture has been a great success, and will surely bo tho forerunner of other seasons of grand opera. One is already under way —the Quinlan Opera Company, which has some very fine artists, including John Harrison. Australia is fortunate, indeed, to have enjoyed grand opera on a scalo not far below that of Coveut Garden, and that it rose to the occasion shows that theirs is a tasto above musical comedy if it is.catered for."