SANTLEY IN NEW ZEALAND.

Evening Star, Issue 14003, 9 March 1909, Page 7

SANTLEY IN NEW ZEALAND.

FAMOUS SINGER'S STORIES OF \ COLONIAL TOUR, [From Our Special Correspondent.] LONDON, Januarv 29. I am indebted to the publishers, Sir Isaac Pitman and Sods, for an advance ccpy of Sir Charles Santlev's •Reminiscences,' a volume which is to be published on February 4. It contains some interesting anecdotes relating to tho Australasian tour which the famous baritone made in Ido9-SO.

In Auckland Santley sang in 'Elijah' i i, Messiiih.' performed by the Auckland Chora! Society. "The chorus." he says, "were good, the orchestra, limp, and the conductor what we commonly designate 'a caution..' He came to run through the two works with me, and suggested so many cuts that at last I asked him if it woukl not be better perhaps to leave ' Elijah' out altogether; to which he mildly remarked that ' wc must cut something.' He reached his climax in the air •Is not His word like a tire?' which lie declared must be omitted. ' Why on earth shall we leave that but?' said I. *• If I don't sing the people will throw tho benches at me.' 'Oh,' he replied verv piteously, 'it goes so fast!' For tlie same reason he won Id have insisted on leaving out 'Why do the nations?' in 'The Messiah.' He was a great Gorman professor, and held the 'Chair of Music' at the College or University.''

Sir_ Charles hat, very little else to say of his New Zealand tour. His interview with the Auckland conductor 6ee.ms to be about the only incident that impressed itself upon him as worthy of record. At Nelson so many people were turned away from the concert that he gave a second concert. " when the audience assembled outside the room and enjoyed the concert gratis."

Santley eay» that the oratorios in which he took part in Dunedin were very creditably performed by the local choirs and orchestra.

Of a teetotal breakfast given as a welcome to him in Melbourne, Sir Charles Santley says with questionable taste: "The affair was of such a fuDereal character that I jumped for joy at tlie termination of the proceedings. So dismal an entertainment I had never taken part in, not even a funeral. It might have been an augury of what was to follow. I must not omit to mention that I was the recipient of bouquets and wreaths, intended by the donors to make my heart rejoice, but they only succeeded in intensifying the duliiess of tho solemn function."*

Santley's sense of humor does not appear to have been particularly keen, and he tcok himself very seriously. When an interviewer asked him, six" hours after his arrival from F.ngland, "What do you think of Australia?" Santley might very well have treated the question jocularly. He might have sa.id "Well, I've been here six hours, but I haven't seen half of it vet," or something equally light-hearted." Instead of that lie replied in his solemn way: '" As I only set my foot on shoTe a. few hours ago I really cannot tell you." Then by way of turning the tables o"n the interviewer, he got off this portentous jest: " 1 notice the eky is overcast, do you think there is any probability of a snowstorm?" "Oh, dear, no," said the reporter, staring hard, "we never have snow here." Having made the interviewer thoroughly nervous and uneasy, Santley bowed him out. feeling, no doubt, that he himself had '' scored."

A second interviewer was announced. He. t<x>. was uneasy in the singer's presence. The idej, o{ putting him at his ease never .seems to have occurred to the celebrity. Instead, he inquired formally: "Might I renuost tho honor of knowing what you wish to ask me?" The enibarrawed young man Teplied: "Upon my word, 1 don't know. I was sent here to interview you. but I have no idea how to begin." Santley tdd him he had better " arrange the interview according tq his own fancy." and bowed him out. No doubt the nervous interviewers did not show to advantage, but I cannot see that Santley did either. Santley speaks of hie Australian tour as his "exile." He disliked the look of Melbourne. The hotel he stayed in "deserved anathema." In Sydney his hotel was "infested with rats, cockroache6, and swarms of mosquitos," and the food was of a quality that mad-j him fear "starvation by inches." ;\t Brisbane "the bedrooms would have been condemned by the workhouse, authorities at Homo, the cookery was wi etched, and other apartments could only be described by forbidden expletives." The hotel nt Broken Hill was "the most sublimely di&mal habitation I ever slept in." And .so on. and so on—a monotonous series of grumbles the whole way through. But he cheers himself up by announcing, with the modesty so characteristic of famous singers, that his tour might be in Julius Caspar's cliiNsic phrase; "Veni, vidi, vici!" Santley ha.s numerous anecdotes to tell of his colonial iouc, but they lack the sprightliness that a more lively sense of humor would have given to them. In contrast, for example, with the vivacious reminiscences of Madame Emilv Soldene. they are as Hat soda water to freshly.cpened champagne. * :