STAGELAND

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 295, 10 November 1934, Page 9

STAGELAND

(By “Call Boy.”) Eight hundred costumes are required for tho Cochran revue, “Streamlines,” in London. The Wanganui Technical College pupils have preparations in hand fqr the production of “Tho Mikado” in December.

Following a preliminary season in Brussels “The Barretts of Wimpole Street” was to be presented in Paris in October.

Sir Harry Lauder recently made an appearance at the Alhambra Theatre, London—the first at this theatre in his long career. “The Firefly” is in active rehearsal by the Hawera Operatic Society, and will be produced during the month. Mr Harrison Cook, of Wellington, is to produce the presentation. Mr J. D. Swan has launched, as president of the Auckland Little Theatre Society, a scheme for providing a repertory theatre building and headquarters for Auckland’s many amateur societies.

Richard Tauber’s own operetta, “The Singing Dream,” has scored a considerable success at the Theatre am der Wien, Vienna. Tauber plays the leading role-—that of a magician, for which purpose he had to acquire some knowledge of the conjuror’s art. In nominating George Arliss, the actor, as a Fellow of the Royal College Society of Arts, the Society says his “Disraeli” and “Rothschild” had been distinguished in the most modern of arts, on which, at various meetings, the society had had authoritative papers. Five one-act plays were presented by members of the Wellington Repertory Theatre Society at the Concert Chamber recently. The plays, and authors, were ns follows:—“Mild Oats” (Noel Coward); “E. and 0. E.” (Eliot Craw-shay-Wiliiams) ; “So this is Paris Green” (Kenyon Nicholson); “The Twelve-Pound Look” (,T. M. Barrie); “The Dumb and the Blind” (Harold Chapin). Dr. Heinz Unger has been appointed musical director of the Leningrad Broadcasting Orchestra, and has invited a number of English artists and conductors to Russia next season, among them Mr John Hunt, Mr Lionel Tertis, Mr Leslie Heward, and Mr John Barbirolli. Dr. Unger has arranged also for a number of British works to be performed during the season, says a London report.

GRAND OPERA

So far, the operas presented in Melbourne by the Fuller Grand Opera Company have included “Aida,” “Madame Butterfly,” “11 Trovatore,” “La Tosca,” and “Die Fledermaus.” In “Aida,” Miss Muriel Brunskill made a great impression as Amneris—a role to which Bruna Castagna imparted much dignity and vocal power during the last J. C. _ Williamson Imperial opera season. Since then, Castagna has been acclaimed at a highly successiul series of operas at the Hippodrome in New York. She repeated there her Sydney triumph as Carmen, with Ralph Errole singing tho role of Don Jose; and she was heard, also, in “Samson and Delilah,” “La Gioconda,” “Norma,” “Un Ballo in Maschera,” and other operas. Grace Angelau appeared as Amneris, and Lawrence Power was the tenor in such performances as “Madame Butterfly” and “liigoletto.” This was a season of opera at popular prices, which regularly drew audiences of 5000 or more. In producing “Fledermaus” in Melbourne, Mr Charles Moor has followed his practice abroad, and introduced into the second art concert scene a ballet of eight performing the “Blue Danube” waltzes.

THE RUSSIAN BALLET.

1 n the programme of the Bussian Ballet at present appearing in Australia, and likely to be seen in New Zealand later, are two numbers entirely new to the Antipodes. These are the Polovtsian Dances from “Prince Igor and “Le Lac des Cygnes.” The former may be regarded as one of the greatest climaxes in the course of Russian national art. It is not a mere exotic diveitissement, artificially loaded with local colour, like the dance-creations of Igor Stravinsky. It is an explosion of the tumultuous forces which agitate the unconscious mind of a people. Russia has always been a battle-ground between the Eastern and Western points of view. Peter the Great imposed on his subjects European culture, and as much as he could of the European attitude to life. Since that epoch the process of Westernisation has gone steadily on, and it has reached its zenith iu the tremendous industrial development initiated by the Soviet. But, deeply hidden, the Oriental element persists. Alexander Borodin, the composer of “Prince Igor,” was a professor of chemistry.. Yet in this ballet lie sets forth, with supreme eloquence, the point of view of Asia. The music is thus at once historic and prophetic. It evokes an immemorial legendary past, but it also establishes contact with one of the burning racial questions of the day . The subject of Borodin’s opera —or which the Polovtsian Dances form the culminating point—is the temptation of Igor, a virile descendant of the Vikings, by the demon of the steppe. Taken prisoner by the Khan of an Oriental tribe, lie is entertained in royal style, and is fascinated by the wild, barbaric glamour of what lie sees in the camp. Gripped by nostalgia lor the nomadic life across the boundless plains, he must summon up all the fortitude of his Byzantine faith and feudal honour in order to tear himself from this Eastern fairy tale, and return to file settled traditions ol civilisation. The opera in its complete version shows him making a sober return to his own people; but in the Polovtsian Dances the savage brilliance of the Mongol tribe rules triumphant. During the Russian opera season which Sir Thomas Beecham organised at the Lyceum Theatre, London, in 1931, “Prince Igor” was one of the. most popular offerings, and no one who saw it, with Beecham conducting and Feodor Chaliapin singing the role of the Khan, is likely to forget the experience.