GREAT IRISH-AUSTRALIAN TENOR

Evening Star, Issue 19931, 30 July 1928, Page 2

GREAT IRISH-AUSTRALIAN TENOR

There comes to His Majesty’s, Dunedin, to give three concerts on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, August 1,3, and 4, the great Irish-Australian tenor, Alfred O’Shea, who is at present causing something in the nature of a sensation in musical circles at Auckland, and of whom the critic of the New Zealand ‘ Herald ’ prefaced a lengthy and highly eulogistic notice as follows’:—Before one of the largest and most enthusiastic “ first-night ” audiences ever gathered inside the Town Hall the illustrious tenor, Mr Alfred O’Shea, gave the, lisst of what promises to be a brilliant series of recitals last evening. There was no uncertainty about the preliminary publicity associated with the famous artist, whose excellent gramophone records have given pleasure in many homes, so that it was but natural that the assembly was on the tip-toe of expectation. Mr O’Shea’s first appearance upon the platform was the signal for a prolonged demonstration, which repeated itself many times as the programme ran its course. His voice is a pure lyric tenor of singular beauty and without a trace of that baritone taint which is the property of so many vocalists of this class. At Mr O’Shea’s first concert he will sing ‘Che Gelida Manina ’ (‘La Boheme’), ‘Berceuse de Joselyn’ (Godard), ‘My Desire’ (Cadman), ‘ Life and Death ’ (Colendge-Taylor), ‘La Donna o Mobile.’ ‘ Questa o Quello ’ (‘ Rigoletto ’), ‘Fairy Tales of Ireland’ (Coates), ‘The Snowybreasted Tenrl,’ ‘The Low-backed Car,’ ‘I Hear a Thrush at Eve,' and other old Irish melodies. Mr O’Shea is supported by Miss Claire Hartge (violinist) and Miss Kathleen Fitzgerald (pianiste), who will play respectively Schubert’s 1 Ave Maria ’ and Brahms’s ‘Hungarian Dance’ and ‘Ballade in A Flat ’ (Chopin), and the first movement of Beethoven’s ‘ Appasionata ’ sonata. The box plans for the three concerts are now open.