AMUSEMENTS.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXVII, Issue 3435, 17 May 1898, Page 2

AMUSEMENTS.

DURWARD LELY. A FAMOUS TENOR*

Durward Lely was horn at Arbroath, on the Scottish coast, in 1857. When quite a youth he was sent to Milan, where he studied under the best masters for five years. When he returned he was immediately engaged by the veteran opera director, Colonel Mapleson, for Her Majesty’s Theatre. Here he sang for two years. A brilliant engagement with Mr D’Oyly Carte followed the Mapleson contract, and Mr Lely played the principal tec or parts in “The Sorcerer," “Patience,” “Pirates of Penzance," “ The Mikado" and other Savoy operas. The role of Nanki Poo in Sir Arthur Sullivan’s masterpiece he sang for two years. He afterward accepted an engagement with Patti, and when the wealthy predecessor of Madame Melba built a bijou theatre at Craig-y-Nos, her oastle home in the Welsh mountains, Mr Lely sang tho tenor parts in the operas performed there. The Carl Rosa Company next engaged Durward Lely. His operatic repertoire now included “Norma,” “Lucia,” “La Sonnmnbula,” "Don Pasquale,” “ Eigoletti,” “La Pavorita,” “Martha.” “11 Ttovatoro," “ Faust,” “ Carman,” “ Maritana,” “ The Bohemian Girl,” and most of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. At was just at this time, when his voice was at its best, and his artistic reputation at its highest, that the artist resolved to quit the stage. A new and brighter career, involving more congenial and less fatiguing work, opened out before him. In fact, ho " fell to his old love,” for the poetry, traditions, humour and music of Scotland had always been a favourite study from bis youth np ; so that it is not only as an opera, concert and oratorio singer of the very front rank that Durward Lely comes to Australia and New Zealand, tbs adopted homo of so many of hia countrymen, but as the greatest Scottish lytio tenor of the day. The Lely entertainments have proved a gold mine on both sides of ths Atlantic. In New Zealand, where ho made hia first appearance in this part of the world, ho has been equally successful. Ia Dunedin ho gave 10 thronged recitals in the Garrison Hall, which holds 2000 people ; and in Christchurch last wees his audiences were very enthusiastic. He makes his first appearance ia Wellington at the Opera House to-morrow evening.