BEECHAM'S APPEAL

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 6, 9 January 1928, Page 5

BEECHAM'S APPEAL

OPERA SCHEME iN PERIL FLEETING OPPORTUNITY (From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, 30th November. Sir Thomas Bcccham announced, during a concert at Manchester on Saturday, lliafc if his opera scheme was not ■successful tho British National Opera Company would bo wound up in tho spring. "If this scheme docs not go through," he said, "there will bo no opera of any consequence in this country." . During a concert at the Albert Hall on Sunday,' Sir Thomas addressed the audience on his scheme for half an hour. "I think I am entitled to speak," he pleaded, "because for twelve years a relative of mine and myself subsidised opera in this country almost alone. I have produced 119 operas here —and 72 of them were new to this country. Now we can no longer put up the money, and I am trying to get you to do it. Support this scheme and I promise you infinitely better opera than you get at Covent Garden. "Let us recall home our wandering English minstrels who are famous in foreign lands. Mr. Piccaver, the darling of Vienna, is actually Mr. Peckover, of Lincolnshire. Edouard Giovanni is really Edward Johnstone, Englishman. Maria Sandra, singing here to-day, is English. These people want to come Home, but you cannot expect them to give up their honoured and lucrative positions abroad to come to London for a month or a year. Under my scheme they will get jobs for five years. "But at least 60,000 of London's 6,000,000 must offer to let me have 2d a week for five years. Twopence a week!" exclaimed Sir Thomas, "the cost of a railway bun!" Before conducting part of a symphony by Mr. Strickland Constable, Sir Thomas pointed out that it was being played in England for the first time. "But," he added, drily, "it was "performed in Munich last March." Tho Prince of Wales has sent £1 to the Imperial League of Opera. This represents a two years' subscription in advance.