RUSSIAN OPERA

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 261, 31 July 1937, Page 2 (Supplement)

RUSSIAN OPERA

Impresario’s Ambition 31. Alexandre Levitoff, the impres-ai-io with the General Platoff Don Cossack Choir, which is now in Wellington, has not previously been in New Zealand. He hasj however, been twice to Australia, and he is delighted that he is going to visit that country once more. His first trip to Australia was in a managerial capacity with the incomparable Anna Pavlova, the worldrenowned dancer, and later he was in Australia some two and a half years ago with the Russian ballet, which did not come to New Zealand, but was seen in Melbourne during the centenary celebrations in that city. Those visits t<J Australia, coupled with the news that prosperity appears to have returned in earnest in Australia, have revived M. Levitoff’s one absorbing ambition: that is to bring a full Russian opera company to Australia and. perhaps, to New Zealand, to play a season of Russian opera, something which has not heretofore been accomplished, though M. Levitoff confessed yesterday that the project had been mooted by him when he was last in Australia. “What I would like to do is to bring a first-class company—los people,” said the impresario. “That would be costly, I know, but yon cannot do these Russian operas well with less than 100 people—and that does not include the orchestra. Take ‘Boris Godounoff’: you must have 40 people in your chorus at least for the great ensembles; then, in ‘Prince Igor.’ there is the ballet, another 25 people. There would be 30 soloists —that makes 95 people, and the rest (10) would he the mechanicians and the wardrobe and office staff. No. you could not do it well under 105 people.” “And what would be the repertoire of such a company?” “Well, 'Boris’ and. ‘Prince Igor,’ of course, works of musical magnificence, the like of which they have not seen in Australia; and ‘Sadko’ (RimskyKorsakov), and perhaps ‘Eugen Onegin’ (Tschaikowsky) and ‘Russland' (Glinka). 1 believe it could be done, and done successfully, with good organisation, for there is an immense magnetic pull in these operas, the very novelty of which would make a big appeal to all classes of the community They never- tiro of them in Europe—and all Europe can't be wrong.”