GREAT TENOR COMING

Evening Star, Issue 19722, 24 November 1927, Page 4

GREAT TENOR COMING

JOSEPH HISLOP’S SEASON A report of the first "Wellington, recital by Joseph Ilislop, who sings here next Tuesday, states:^ “ There was nothing hail-hearted in Wellington's welcome to Mr Joseph Hi slop, the world-famous British tenor, at his opening concert in tho Town Hall last Saturday night. From the moment his voice was heard in Beethoven’s beautiful song-poem 1 Adelaide,’ rendered in German, the evening was a series .of triumphs. Three supreme qualities give Mr Hislop’s art its rare distinction. First, of course, his clear, glorious, flexible voice, which must rank to-day among tho two or three greatest tenors in the world; secondly, the limpid purity of his diction, making each word a line link in the golden chain of his song; thirdly, his superb power of dramatic interpretation, in which ho compares strikingly with the groat Russian basso Chaliapin, recently heard in Wellington. Opera was the domiuent element in Mr Hislop’s programme, but, being a Scotchman by birth, his native land was remembered in two or three of its old, famous songs, such as the tragic * Lord Randal,’ of Cyril Scott’s ‘ Kismul’s Gulley,’ from ‘ The Song of tho Hebrides,’ and, as an encore, Burns’s fragrant little lyric, ‘O. all tho Airts tho Wind can Blaw,’ which he made a thing of rare beauty. English songs were represented by Tennyson’s dainty ‘Go Not, Happy Day’ and Eric Coates’s ‘ I Heard You Singing ’; and Mr Hislop’s lighter, technique was displayed to perfection in the little Italian trifle, ‘ Fiocca La Neve ’ (Snowfall). It was in his excerpts from opera that Mr Hislop’s art was revealed in its full power. His first operatic piece was the ‘ Poet’s Song,’ from ‘ La Roheme,’ sung with intense feeling. As encore items he gave Cavaradossi’s glorious aria from the last scene of ‘La Tosca,’ and the famous ‘Vest! la Ginba,’ from ‘ Pagliacci,’ crowning all with that magnificent song of renunciation, ‘Ah, fuyez!’ from ‘ Manon,’ which was accompanied on the organ by Mr Bernard Page. Mr Hislop received an unforgettable ovation at the close.”