ENTERTAINMENTS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIV, Issue 49, 26 August 1907, Page 2

ENTERTAINMENTS.

GRAND OPERA SEASON. GOUNOD'S FAUST. A packed house greeted the first production of Gounod's masterpiece with every demonstration of delight on Saturday night at the Opera House. The old German legend of the scholar who after a life of meditation and laborious research becomes disgusted with the nothingness of human know, ledge, and who in return for the gift of youth and personal beauty signs his soul to the spirit of evil, is too wellknown to need re-iellirig. Wedded to the melodious strains of Gounod's delicious music, staged with that wealth of colour, historical correctness, and ndelity which is co characteristic of all Mr. Musgrove's productions, and interpreted by principals liberally steeped in the atmosphere of the play, it is small wonder that the audience followed with rapt attention the workings of this great operatic tragedy, with its interesting human note, from the op"ening recitative in Faust's study until it reached its climax in the prison scene. Having seen Faust interpreted by artists of different natianalities, we must acknowledge that it requires for its true artistic presentment the German temperament, and under the influence of their .singing and their acting, the illusion was so perfect that one lived with them in the quaint old town of Nuremberg in the middle agea. There were several features in the reading end staging, new to us. In the first act a charming effect is produced when Mephistopheles shows a vision of Marguerite in all her glorious maidenly sweetness at her spinning wheel, and in the fourth act when Marguerite is abasing herself on the steps of the church, the audience is shown (through the solid buttresses of masonry) his Satanic Majesty declaiming "the worm to welcome thee, the fire to warm thee ; " while the tableau after the prison scene is a gracious tribute to the great army of playgoers who like to leave the theatre in a happy frame of mind. The orchestra was heard to the best advantage in the martial strains of the Soldiers' Chorus, bub at times ehere was a tendency to overpower the soloists. The violins were particularly good, and Herr Slapoffski conducted in his usual quiet yet masterly-manner. Franlein Mia JBarckow was an almost ideal Marguerite, and acted and sang with a winsomeness, naivete and abandon that won her the sympathy of the audience. Her singing of the King of Thule solo w&s marked by its sweetness and admirable phrasing, but in the jewel song £he high notes were slightly above her compass. Frauieiii Barekow possesses a dramatic talent of a quite exceptional order, and found an opportunity for the display of her art in the scene with Valentine after the fatal duel with Faust ; at the church steps when she is spurned by her erst •companions ; and then in her sublime apathy a3 she lay on the straw in the cold" grey of the prison. Herr Hunger takes high rank as a delineator of the difficult character of Mephistopheles, and his impersonation of the evil genius of the tragody was consistent, artistic, and thrown into vivid relief by his cynicism, diablerie and sardonic humor. His voice was admirably adapted to the music, and his singing was of a quality both virile and mellow, and of a range rarely met with in a basso. Herr Runger has a mobile play of countenance, and ths rapid play of his features united with his mocking, challenging /voice, made his soronade "Catarina, while you play at sleeping" in the fourth act a fine effort. The touches of broad comedy he introduced in his scone with Martha (Miss Elsie Verner) relieved .the grim. earnestness of his part, and his work in the Nurembeig square with his singing of the cavatina, "Calf of Gold," was full of action. Herr Richard Oeser was cast as Faust. His voice is of fine quality, although not very robust, and his chest register somewhat lacking. He is, however, so resourceful that this defect is scarcely noticeable. ' Herr Oeser was heard to best advantage in the opening recitative and in the interchanges with Mephistopheles in the first act, -whilst his acting in the love passages in the garden sceno with Marguerite were tinged with a delicacy and refinement that deserve the highest prtisc. Herr Fitz Hupp was a soldierly Valentine, and his flexible baritone voice charmed in the cavatina, "Even bravest heart may swell," and his rendering of the aria in the death scene where he casts off Marguerite was most thrilling and dramatic. The feeling which he threw into the words "Live and grow old . . . . Let heav'n reject thee, and earth be thy hell!" were delivered in German almost incandescent in its passion. Fraulein Kuhnke was petite and fascinating as Liebel, and her pleasing voice made the well-known flower uong a charming number. To-night the management will stage Wagner's idyllistic opera "Lohengrin."