MUSICAL AND DRAMATIC.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 15002, 25 May 1912, Page 4 (Supplement)

MUSICAL AND DRAMATIC.

BOOKINGS.

HIS MAJESTY'S THEATRE. Wvkehain-Xable Company. June 10 to June l'ortim and Talbot's Mm-

strels. Juno 24 to July 3—" Ben Hiu." ,1 illv 22 to August &~" The Blue Bird." September 20 to October la-Oscar Ascne • I4jf Brayton.

THE kinemacolour pictures, which fell rather flat in Auckland and other New Zealand centres, and which were shortly abandoned, are to be shown at a new theatre in Melbourne as the feature of the programmes.

Russian dancers have at length come to Australia, A troupe of them provide the latest— not the attraction with Wirth's Circus.

Another amusement house — ninth is now being erected in Wellington on a site in Customshouse Quay. Christchurch is having built for it a continuous picture theatre on Hereford-street. *

" Peter Pan" is regarded 'by a largesection of theatre-lovers as one of the almost immortal plays, and it is evidently not likely to be left off the boards for long at a time for many years. A few weeks ago Miss Paulino Chase played the name-part for the thousandth time.

Miss Ada Ward, who is enjoying that notoriety which to some extent replaces fame and its satisfactions, has announced that she has undertaken what most people will imagine a tremendous task. She wants to bring the church and the stago together. In this attempt to make a mixture out of an oil and water that will not even emulsify, she is going to take up her stage work in London where she left it off ten years ago, but she is going to keep on with her church work at the same time. Few people take Miss Ward very seriously, but a great many are deeply interested.

It is stated by a recent visitor from the Old Country that the moving pictures have " worked themselves out" at Home, the public having tired of them. Australia and New Zealand are still a long way from being exhausted in this respect, for new theatres are still being built, and even the small towns make shift to keep a more or less permanently-installed kinematograph employed.

Mme. de Cisneros, who will commence a tour of Australasia next month, and who is expected in New Zealand in July, is the subject of most glowing references in the American papers. The enthusiasm seems to have been fairly divided between her vocal performances and her stage appearance; and her success in America was such that she has been booked for another season there after the Australasian one is oyer. Among those who will be associated with the singer is Pau\ Dufoult, a FrenchCanadian tenor, who has a voice of beautiful quality and a splendid virile style. Mr. James Liebling, a 'cellist with a high reputation in Europe and America, and declared to be the equal of Gerardy.

Madame Kirkby Lunn, the eminent contralto, who is preparing for. a tour of Australasia, occupies a higher position than any other English artist on the operatic stage to-day. For several years, both at Covent Garden and also at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, tho name of Kirkby Lunn has been the star so far as contraltos are concerned. Sir Charles Santley regards her as the finest English artist now before the public. Probably one of her most notable achievements has been her creation of the part of Delilah in the opera "Samson and Delilah," her 'performance of which is said to be superb ; and whilst it will not be possible for her to appear in the opera during her coming tour of New Zealand, she will include a great deal of the chief numbers from tho opera on her concert programme. A complete English concert party will bo brought out with the famous contralto.

Bedrooms, bad girls, and other familiar properties of the modern type of melodrama having been exhausted, the Marlow management have had to take a bint from a popular sort of moving picture drama. One of their latest will be entitled "Queen of the Redskins." While two acts show an Indian encampment, and another the road which leads to Great Bears camp, a third will have its setting in a drawingroom. Meanwhile William Anderson and Co., not to be outdone, are busy with a military spectacular drama based on the Boy Scout movement. The setting is duly Australian, and there are scenes in it which should thrill folk even if they do not happen to be the fathers or mothers of scouts.

Messrs. Dix and Baker, who have lately taken a 10 years' lease of the Victoria Theatre, Newcastle, are about to institute a tour of Australia and New Zealand by several celebrities of the lecture platform. Amongst these are Franklyn Matthews, the well-known American pressman; Miss Mary Proctor, who makes a platform specialty of astronomical subjects, and is the author of various works on popular astronomy; and Elbert Hubbard, a prominent man in American literature, and the founder and leader of the Roycroft Fraternity of East Aurora, in the State of Now York. Mr. Matthews, it will be remembered, paid a visit to Auckland with the American Fleet as representative of the New York Sun. Miss Proctor is a daughter of the eminent astronomer, tho late Richard Anthony Proctor, and has lectured with great success both in England and throughout the United States.

Concerning "The Blue Bird," a Sydney commentator observes: —"Though the theatre is still crowded night after night, the comment one hears by and large is that of people whom the meaning of ' The Blue Bird' eludes as completely as the bird itself eludes the children of the play. Many still bclievo it to be a new and rather dull brand of pantomime. Many others openly yawn their inability to get, as they put it, "the hang of it."' Truth to tell, though wo are a'great people in some ways, _ neither tho imaginative nor the artistic is a strong point even of our stalls and dress circles. There are so many among us, that is to eay, who get rich easily enough, but alas! get nothing else. And so there are many who go out to see ' The Blue Bird '" even in motor cars and fine raiment, but never see it at all. For, though money may buy some things, it cannot buy a share'in Tyltyl's diamond, and without that no one may hope to walk within tho wonderland of Maeterlinck's dream."

Miss Felice Lyne is hopelessly spoiling the London theatre-goer for those matronly prima donnas whose voices are their one qualification for the representation of girlish and guileless operatic heroines like (Jilda, Annna, Lucia, Rosina, and Marguerite. As Marguerite in Gounod's " Faust" recently she sang as one who has never exerted herself in learning how to sing, singing coming to her as naturally as to a thrush. She was different from every Marguerite that ever was, and was bewitching. She was a slight, pathetic, helpless figure that lent a new emotional appeal to the part, and etherialised it.

Madame Mathilda Marchesi, the famous teacher of singing, who trained Calve, Melba. Yremelli, Eames, Sanderson, Emma Nevada, Ada Crowley, Felice Lyne, and other notable vocalists is over ninety years old, but is still able to interest herself in the life around her. She was a pupil of Manuel Garcia so long ago as 1845 ; and, if sho lives another eight years, will pass a century. Her famous'teacher failed to reach that age by only a few months.

The Berlin Philharmonic, one of the greatest orchestras in the world, has accepted a £3000 annual subsidy from its municipality. In return it agrees to give 35 concerts each year at popular prices, as well as to admit students free at matinees and to participate without charge to municipal celebrations. In addition to this the programme must be approved by the magistrate. MtrSICO-DBAMATICTTS.