GRAND OPERA.

Evening Post, Volume LXXI, Issue 142, 16 June 1906, Page 13

GRAND OPERA.

» The following is clipped from the editorial columns of the Sydney Daily Telegraph "• — There is a chance of Australian audiences being gratified with grand opera next year, but everything depends on the willingness of musiclovers practically to guarantee the entrepeneur against loss. It is, of course, part of the business of theatrical managers to stand tho risk of the failure of some of their enterprises, just as it is their pleasure to derive good returns from others ; and it may be objected to the proposal which is to be laid before the public that private persons jiro invited to assume a responsibility which usually fails to the province of those who cater for their amusement. But we must distinguish. We must regard a grand opera en^e^pfiso from a different point of view to that fiom which we contemplate the introduction of dramatic companies or of music-hall "artistes." Grand opera stands by. itself.For one thing, the great singers who stand alone can render it as it should be rendered are few in number, and they accordingly command a high price. Especially is this the case when they are invited to take a long journey, absenting themselves for months from the centres of European and American culture, and submitting to the arduous conditions of travelling to and throughout our continent. And another, perhaps the more significent, thing is that our theatrical managers decline to undertake the great financial responsibility involved. They have had experience, and they know. The company which they import at great expense may score a marvellous success — we are talking sordidly now in terms of pounds, shillings, and pence — in one Australian capital, and it may be a dismal failure in another. Or untoward conditions may oppress it all through the tour, with melancholy consequences to the management. Briefly no Australian entrepreneur will bring grand opera here unless he is guaranteed against heavy loss. If we are to have grand opera again in Australia music-lovers must help in bearing the financial responsibility. The present suggestion is that a limited liability company shall be formed, with a view to the importation of a high-class company to interpret grand opera. The question is, whether or not we desire to havo grand opera properly represented in Australia next year. Incidental to thi3 is the desire to know the personnel ' of the artistes who may be ongaged. Upon this important point we shall have to repose confidence in the i skill and judgment of Mr. George Mus- j grove, who will be the managing director of the company. It would, of course, be absurd to expect that the men and women who stand in the forefront of their profession will be prepared to forego their European and American engagements for the sake of spending a year or so in Australia ; but we may be sure that of the high-class artists who are biding their time in Europe and America a company of great merit may be selected for tho adequate production of operas that we have seen in Australia, such as "^ohengrin," "The Flying Dutchman," and "Tannhauser," and operas that we have not seen, such as "Meistersinger" and "Romeo and Juliet." Now the importance of this proposal lies mainly in the educational and artistic value of the performances proposed, There is no more musical nation than Australia, but unfortunately, wo are thousands of miles distant from ♦the centres of musical activity. Wo cartnot go to Europe or America to listen to tho great masters of singing in their rendering of operas which mark tho progress of the mvsical art. But if tho Mountain, which in this case is Australia, cannot go 1 o Mahomet, why not endourage Mahomet, the high interpretation of great themes, to come to the Mountain? The proposa 1 seems desirable in the intorests of art. There is : this important consideration to be borne in mmd — that if the public does not co-operate with the entrepreneur, Australians have no immediate chance of seeing grand opera interpreted hero by competent artists.