THE STAGING OF "FAUST"

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 31, 6 February 1940, Page 8

THE STAGING OF "FAUST"

(To the Editor.)

Sir—Some comment is being made in the city over some aspects of the announcement of concert performances of Gounod's opera • "Faust" here in June. Of course, it may be said that the performance of .any standard opera or oratorio is not the prerogative of any particular body, but the National Broadcasting Service proposes to present the opera, with the aid of imported artists from England, with a meagre chorus of forty voices, when the public have been used to hearing such performances with a backing of at least 200 voices. When it was first mooted that the Government was likely to do something for music in connection with the Centennial, it was assumtfl that it would be only too pleased to work in with the established choral societies throughout the Dominion. This, it seems, is not to be done. Are those societies who have, year in and out, striven to maintain a good standard in choral music, to be .ignored, whilst money collected through radio licences is being employed to engage artists from England for National Broadcasting Service entertainments, not Centennial musical occasions? Can anyone imagine from 15 to 20 male singers doing justice to the "Soldiers' Chorus" in the Town Hall, when time after time we have heard it sung by a hundred voices? After all, does not this insular arrangement, which ignores the biggest and best choral society in New Zealand, place Mr. Andersen Tyrer in a difficult position? There is little doubt that he imagined these performances would be done in the biggest way possible.—l am, etc.,

808 THE BASSO.

[It should be explained that Mr. Andersen Tyrer, who is to conduct the performances of Gounod's opera "Faust," has first-hand experience of New Zealand solo, choral, and orchestral resources. The opera as usually

staged would have a chorus of 4Q or even fewer picked voices and, in France, even a corps de ballet, but it has also been adapted for concert performances in which case no limit is placed on the size of the chorus. The difficulty of obtaining in New Zealand soloists suitable for a stage presentation of "Faust," that is, people who can not only sing but ast as well as they can sine, has no doubt been considered by Mr. Andersen Tyrer, and may explain the selection of some well-known London artists for the principal roles in the stage production of "Faust."—Ed.3