"MANRU" A GREAT SUCCESS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11710, 20 July 1901, Page 1 (Supplement)

"MANRU" A GREAT SUCCESS.

PADEREWSKI CALLED BEFORE THE CURTAIN 48 TIMES. Dresden*, June 6.M. Paderewski's threeact opera, : " Manru," was produced here tonight and achieved a notable success. The story is briefly as follows. The gipsv Manru runs away with his wife Ulana to a village in the Tatr hills; he adores his wife, but she is also loved by Vrok, the hunch-backed village wizard. The gipsy husband Manru is faithful to his wife, but he is beguiled and enslaved by a magic song played on a gipsy fiddle, but a love philtre concocted by Urok sends him back to the arms of Ulana. But Manru's gipsy tribe find him out, and among them is the beautiful Asa, who is loved the Gipsy prince Oros. Asa craves for the love of Manru, and procures his election as king of the gipsies. Ulana throws herself into the sea, and Oros pushes Manru off the rocks into an abyss'. Paderewski's music is in the modern French style of Bizet, and there are many suggestions of Wagner in the musical descriptions of Nature. The score is masterly and the instrumentation magnificent.. Several old Slav songs are worked into the score, and the music becomes more entrancingly beautiful with every act. Especially the ballets and songs are of exquisite originality, and . full of the most captivating melody. The finale of the second act, in which a violin solo is most deftly introduced, and a love duet are perhaps the two gems of the •opera. Schuch conducted splendidly. The reception was great, and the success immediate and spontaneous. After the first act Paderewski was called before the curtain eight times, after the second act ten times, and after the third act thirty times.