“HAPPY TO BE GOING BACK”

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12431, 27 April 1926, Page 6

“HAPPY TO BE GOING BACK”

TOTI DAL MONTE RETURNS BOUND FOR AUSTRALIA. (By Telegraph—Special to “Times.”) AUCKLAND, April 26. “I am very happy to be going back to sunny Australia, and I have heard so much about the beauty of your New Zealand that I want to see all I can of it,” said Signorina Toti dal Monte on the deck of the Niagara in Auckland Harbour this morning. The famous, authough youthful, operatic soprano did her best to give expression to-’the feelings of gratitude which she lias towards the Australian audiences who received her so warmly last year when, she sang with such success in the Melba Grand Opera Company. When she. was last' in Australia her command ;of the English language amounted to about ten words, but by dint of hard study and the conversational efforts of her friends she has made _ considerable progress. The signorina would be the last to claim that she has yet mastered the subject, but her conversation is charmingly accurate and her words well chosen. She now sings a number of songs in English. No one had the temerity to ask the signorina her age, but it is fairly safe to say that she. has some years to go before she passes out of the twenties, and she has vivacity and an unspoiled outlook that is distinctly youthful. It is not often that noted singers find time to come so far away from the musical capitals of the world until they are at least twice her age, but her successes at Covent Garden and in the United States have not weakened Signorina Dal Monte’s longing to again visit the countries under the Southern Cross, and she is now on her way to Australia to give a series of concerts to be followed by a tour of New Zealand.

The signorina chatted gaily about her tours in flie Northern Hemisphere, and was especially proud of her debut at Covent Garden last June and her reception at the Albert Hall, while her 22 oonrerta in the United States last winter were recalled with evident joy.

Signorina Dal Monte is travelling under the chaperonage of Mrs J. J. Keenan, of Sydney, an aunt of Laurie Kennedy, the ’cellist, and Dorothy Kennedy, the pianist. Dorothy Kennedy was the signorina’s accompanist in England and the United States, and although it was intended that she should make a visit to Australia she was unable to go at the lost moment.