THE OPERA IS POPULAR

Grey River Argus, 23 March 1949, Page 5

THE OPERA IS POPULAR

WELLINGTON, March 22.

Nearly 24 hours before the ordinary box plans opened, a queue started to form for seats for the grand opera season starting, in Wellington next Monday. The first arrivals were outside the D.1.C., and were joined by others who spent the night, in various degrees of comfort, outside‘the doors in Lam/oton Quay. There was a large queue at 9 a.m. yesterday, when the box plans opened for the first six nights, beginning with the performance of “La Boheme”. At 9.30 a.m. there were still about 150 people in the Queue, and others continued to join it as the morning progressed.

Mr John Farrell, touring manager of the company, said that he thought the Wellington bookings would exceed those at Auckland, where the company was greeted enthusiastically. There had been particularly heavy demands for some operas—particularly “Aida”—indicating that the people of Wellington had their favourite operas. Mr Farrell added that “Aida” was such a huge production that lengthy consideration was given before it was decided to produce it in New Zealand. Besides the full cast of 180, an extra 80 local people had to be engaged for each performance of the opera.