Mimes and Music

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 49, 26 August 1922, Page 17

Mimes and Music

(By "Orphsu*.")

ID1 SHOWS. J. C. Williamson, "The Boy" Uuiietl ConIn season.. * > « Etc Majesty's-V»ude»ill«. The King's Theatre—Pictym. Artcraft Theatre—Pleturss. Our Theatre—Picture*. Empress Tneatre-Pieturai. Shortt'* Theatre—PictuM*. Strand Tkeatre—Pictures, Britannia Theatre—Pictum. Priicess Theatre—Pictur««. fcverybody's Theatr/e—PWturss. Quefc1* Theatre-Picture*. ' Paramount Theatre—Picture*. ,

Leading the cast of ''Pomp and Circumstance," produced at the Duke of York's Theatre, London, on Bth June, were RobeYt Loraine and Irene Brown (who were here with Julius Knight in "Bella Donna").

A private cable published in tho Sydney "Sun" announces that' Frank Freeman and Fine Bush, who left Australia to try their luck in England early this year, both opened in a new play at the. Ambassadors on 3rd August. !

Daisy Jerome's season at Fullers' New Theatre, Sydney, ended last week; alio the long run of the "Stuffy and Mo" itetrue. The Sydney "Sun" announces the return of Jennie Hartley to the Fuller pennant.

Mr. Martin Duff, who has been in Paris studying voioe production with M. Jean de Reske, the world famous tenor, has oorae back to London. He intends later to give a series of concerts and reoitals here (writes "The Post's" London correspondent). ;

A meeting of the- Actors' Federation of Australia, at Sydney, agreed to'motione declaring the present award to be unsatisfactory, and directing officials of the organisation to proceed with the olaims of the federation for a general increase to £6 a w«elc for the chorus .and ballet, £8 a week for actors, and £4 for Fiupernumerariee. - , •;• Madam D'Alvarez the famous contralto, who has made such a sensational suocess in' Australia, will in all probability pay a brief visit to New Zealand, and provisional dates have been arranged by Messrs. J. and N. Tait. It is expected that she will gi\e her first concerts in Auckland early in October. . The enormous sums of money that Sir Benjamin and Mr. John fuller are spending in Australia on theatres—£2so,ooo in* Sydney aione—are not oonfined to headquarters. The "firm is at present engaged in renovating the Gaiety Theatre, Melbourne, at » coet of about £5000. Then thsre is the Princess Theatre in the same City, which is 4 -present in the hands of the builders. It is the intention to make this the do luxe .place of amusement ef Australia, at a oo»t qf £40,000. It w also planned, when the new theatre and offices are built in Sydney, to completely remodel the Bijou Theatre and Arcade in Melbourne at a cost of 1140,000, thus "bringing this popular home of vaudeville into line with the other Fuller theatres in luxury and comfort-' Mr. Alfred Hill's new opera "Auster" is to be performed in Sydney during, this month with the State orchestra and .the Coiiservatorium chorus, and will mark the occasion of the last appearance of the orchestra as at present constituted. Mr. Hill/ has ahead) produced half a dozen operatic pieces of a light character, but what moat people remember are the haunting melodies of "Taupo," the Maori opera, which New Zealandere allow reproduces the spirit of the, Maoris as dieclosed in their legends and songs and, dances. "Aueter" deals with Australia,; but the form partakes of the characteristics of the Maori legend. Mr. HilL is a New Zealander, but has been long associated with, music in Sydney, and wa* one of the conductors mentioned as a, fitting successor to Mr. Verbrugghen. George A. Highland, who hap been to Europe for the Williamson firm, has arrived back in Sydney to stage Walter Haokett's "Ambrose Applsjohn's Adventure." This play has been running for fifteen months at the Criterion Theatre, London, and is still proving a big draw at that playhouse, with Sir Charles Hawtrey in the lead. In Australia, Lawrence G'rossmith, brother of George Gross'mitii,, and sou of the late G. G. Grossmith, ef Savoy fame, will play Apptejohn. - -lathe cast also will be Diana Wilson, Doris Kendall, Mattie Brown, Gus, Wheatman, Ashton Jarry, Ed. Duggin/ and y Kenneth 'Brampton. ' ■ ', \ Sir George Tallis, writing from London by the last mail, mentioned the success achieved by Maggie Dickinson. "I went to see an American revue called 'Chuok; les,'" said Sir George Tallis. "In this production Maggie -Dickinson has got her big chance in London at last, and she has certainly made good. She is really better than any of the dancing girls I have seen over,here, and as people are very conservative over here, to say that she has 'caught on' is to indicate that she has made s bigl success, and T have no doubt that she will win her way right to the top. She is already very popular." The many thousands of admirers of the clever little Australian will welcome this news. Mr Allan Wilkie and his permanent Shakespearian "company, it is announced, ar«i returning to New Zealand, in the course of their annual pilgrimage, after a phenomenally successful tour through the principal Australian cities.1 That tnis success is not 'counterfeit, but is true metal, is evidenced by the foot that Mr. Wilkie was accorded public receptions in eaoh of the capital cities visited, and was the recipient of all sorts of civSo honours and public presentations at the conclusion of his several seasons. Some new works Joi the great master —new in the sense that they have not hitherto been included in the repertoire—will be presented by Mr. Wilkie during his season hero, and Miss Hunter-Watts, newly returned from ,a trip to England, will resume her position as leading lady of the company. Everyone who has heard d'Alvarez must be struck with the 'intense emotion she can exhibit (says a writer, an Sydhey '"Daily; Telegraph.") It gives almost a barbahc impressiveness to her singing. It recalls the faot that music' was originally not an art, but purely an emotional phenomenon—an outlet from the earliest times for religious feeling. \This is the music of hundreds of bountries. As an art it reaches, back only to St. Ambrose at the close of the fourth century, or Gregory in the sixth century But though in the course of time we have gained in consequence in musical resources, yet a part of "Nature's untaught spirit" is absent. There is something of this untaught spirit iii d'Alvarez's singing, due to her heredity, perhaps. There is her Spanish blood with its leaning towards Orientalism j and it is in the East that this1 peculiar emotional ingredient in music still lingers, as it also does in the purely unconventional Spanish music of the sons and dance. But d'Alvarez has also, by, all accounts, some of the royal blood of the Incas, and records of this ancient, original people of Peru show this same emotional spirit displayed in their sun-worship festivals. "No sooner did his first rays appear than a shout broke forth accompanied by songs of triumph, and the wild melody of barbaric instruments." And again: "The revelry of the day was closed at night by music and dancing." When, those things are considered ono feels that the special hold thttt d'Alvarez has upon her listeners is twofold. She is urged by her heredity to sing without any restriction upon her musical temperament, and she ia able to join this, without loss of sincere emotional expression, to all the resources gained by way of the cultivated art and through the great possession of a voice, inherently an emotional resource by reason of its beautiful ,tqne, sonority, Volume, compass, and flexibility.