CHALIAPINE’S FIRST THEATRE

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6844, 23 February 1929, Page 6

CHALIAPINE’S FIRST THEATRE

Thus I found myself in the gallery of the theatre. It was a holiday and there was a large audience. I had to stand, maintaining my position by holding on to the ceiling with my hands.

I looked down with astonishment into an immense well surrounded by semicircular benches, and saw that its dark floor was covered with rows of chairs, amongst which people were moving about. The theatre was lighted with gas. . . . The design on the curtain represented a quotation from Poushkin’s Russian and Lludrnilla: • ‘ ‘By the sea is a green oak with a golden chain upon it, and a trained cat tied by tho golden chain prowls ceaselessly around it.” The orchestra was playing. Suddenly the curtain shook, then wont up, and I stood stupefied, enchanted—as if a fairy tale which I dimly recollected had suddenly come to life. In a wonderfully decorated room, 'magnificently dressed people wearing travelling costumes of the seventeenth or eighteenth

century promenaded, conversing, as it seemed, in the most beautiful language. T did not understand all that they said. What I saw shook me to the depths of my being and I looked on at these wonders unwinkingly, without & thought for anything else.

When tho final curtain fell I stood there, enchanted by a waking dream—a dream I had never dreamt before, but which I had always anticipated. Feoplc shouted, pusiied me about, went out and came in again, but I still stood there. When they began to put out the lights I felt very sad. ... It was strange to sec that it was still daylight out of doors, and to notice the rays of tlie setting sun gleaming on the bronze statue of Derjavin, our great Russian poet. ,1 went back to the theatre and bought a ticket for the evening performance.

In the evening they played ‘ Medea, ’ with Palchikova in the title role, and Strielsky as Jason. I had a comfortable seat and could place my elbows on the railing. Again I gazed without once removing my eyes from tho stage, where the moon shone as if taken from tho skies and where. . . I looked literally open-mouthed.—From "Pages from My Rife, ” by Feodor Ivanovitsch Chaliapine.