CONCERT SINGER’S VISIT.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 160, 8 June 1939, Page 9

CONCERT SINGER’S VISIT.

MADAME LOTTE LEHMANN. Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, June 3. Madame Lotte Lehmann has arrived to give a series of concerts in New Zealand. Ininterviewed at an hotel (where her love of animals was very noticeably displayed by a removal to other quarters so that she would not overlook some railway trucks containing horses) she said she always reacted to the mood of her audience. She expressed the hope that New Zealand audiences would like her singing and show their feelings unmistakably. Some thought that to look for warmth in an audience was a form of vanity, but in reality it was the opposite. If the audience were cold she immediately felt there was something wrong with her singing. She did not blame the audience. On the other hand, if the audience liked her and her singing, she felt she must give all she possibly could. Paul Alanoswky, her accompanist, who was present, supported this view. Madame Lehmann also explained that she is not singing for the critics or the solely “Ilia'll brow” and musically educated. She knew she was a high priestess of a great art and believed it to be her duty to make use of her art and give enjoyment to as wide a section of people as she could.