"THE BOHEMIAN GIRL"

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 112, 16 November 1928, Page 5

"THE BOHEMIAN GIRL"

CARNIVAL CONCERT The Orpheus Musical Society fully deserved a more numerous audience than, they got last, night, when, in the Concert Chamber of the Town Hall, "The Bohemian Girl" was sung, the 2YA Orchestra assisting. Tlie entertainment was in support of "Iphigenia" (Miss Kathleen O'Brien), the Entertainments' Queen of the Carnival, in aid of the National Art Gallery and Dominion Museum fund: had it been advertised as a musical event pure and simple, perhaps it would have been better attended. At any rate, those who stayed away were the losers. The story of the opera isitoo we!l known to need full recapitulation. It concerns the daughter (Arline) of a Count, the girl being stolen away in her childhood by Gipsies in revenge for the imprisonment of their leader. She grows up with the gipsies, falling in love with a titled exile who is sheltered by the gipsies. The ire of the gipsy queen is roused, for she is jealous of the girl. Finally, Arline is im prisoned by the Count: he, of course, discovers the identity of his fair captive, and wheu he learns who her lover really is, he consents to the betrothal, and the opera ends with high festival after the gipsies have attempted the life of the lovers. Some twenty excerpts from the opera were given. In most instances the chorus work reached a very high level of excel: lence, the male voices perhaps not being quite so strong as was desirable. The i leading feature of the performance was undoubtedly the playing of the 2YA Orchestra. Their work is by this time familiar to the many who possess wireless sets, and last night they proved once again that as a small orchestra they have reached a very high level of' excellence. Miss Greta Stark and Miss Dorothy Newman were the two lady soloists, the former being Arline and the latter the gipsy queen. Both sang their parts with taste [ and feeling, the former's "I Dreamt that 1 Dwelt in Marble Halls" being delightfully rendered, and deservedly encored. "Come With the Gipsy Bride," sung with the chorus, was also very good, Miss New-' man's "Love Smiles But to Deceive" was another very fine solo which was encored. The male soloists as a whole were not quite as good as the others, but singers capable of sustaining operatic roles are not easily found. They, however, acquitted themselves well, Mr. W. Hancock (Florestein) being the best. Mr. Oscar Dyer was Thaddeus, Mr. James Corle the Count, and Mr. A. J. Baker, Dcvilshoof, chief of the gipsies. Mr. Len Barnes, who conducted, is to be congratulated upon the general excellence of the performance,