RATS AND MUSIC.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21165, 23 April 1932, Page 11

RATS AND MUSIC.

OPERA SCORES GNAWED.

DELAY IN A PRODUCTION.

The production of the opera. "Carmen'* at Her Majesty's Theatre, Sydney, was lately postponed for a week, because, it was explained, the orchestral scores had been no badly eaten by rats a:3 to be useless.

These band parts were in store in Melbourne for five months, and were then brought to Sydney in preparation for the opera season. It is not quite certain whether the rats of Melbourne or those of Sydney .were mainly responsible for the damage, but when the scores were produced in order that Signor Emilio Rossi, the conductor, might begin the rehearsals of the opera, he looked at them sadly, and asked, more in sorrow than in anger, "Am I to use these?" An examination revealed, it is said, that" 75 per cent, of the pages had been riddled by the rats. "The members of an opera orchestra are occasionally expected to perform miracles," mused Signor Ros:ri, "but I do not quite see how they can make harmonious relations of the holes left in these scores." Twenty men were set to work at once to make new copies of the band parts, since none could be purchased in Sydney.;