MUSIC.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19257, 22 August 1924, Page 3

MUSIC.

NEWS AND NOTES. Nobody who has not a very active brain and a feeling heart (wrote P.A.S. recently in the Observer) is at all likely to ha\e realised what London music critics aie going through at present. After wine months without an opera of any kind there are now four opera seasons running. The only mitigation comes trom tho° fact that, like some other devices for passing the time, they run concurrently.” Thus the critic, fortunately for his sanity, does not sit out 30 operas per week (which is London’s present provision). Fortunately for his sanity, indeed ! Consider the subject matter of opera. Leaving out Gilbert and Sullivan, who are harmless and cheering, the other opera librettists and composers of the past week provided for our entertainment six murders, six suicides, six deaths by duel, four deaths by consumption (all girls °f course—one of them twice), two executions, one massacre of a whole templeful of people, and one death from a broken heart! This is London’s gaiety! This is the celebration of the happy arrival of our overseas cousins by the organisation of a “brighter London!” Apd all this time the Londoner or the overseas visitor can hardly hear a symphony for love or monev. Is it not absurd that for months we should have orchestral concerts and no opera, and then for months jjpera and no orchestral concerts. The proper and philosophic way to look at the matter, I suppose, is this—when strawberries are plentiful, gorge! Make the most oi a short season! That is my advice to readers. Speaking of the recent production of the “Talcs of Hofimann,” the Sydney Daily Telegraph remarks: —“Sydney opera-goers will remember more than one fascinating Olympia, but scarcely so delightful a doll as Toti Dal-Monte present ed ; so ingratiatingly humorous in the mechanical movements of the doll; a charming toy whose tiny emotions were just sufficient to let one guess it was not all clock-work within. As'her gestures, so her singing; its accents in keeping, and exquisite in its vocal charm, though it would bo no compliment to say that Toti-Dal-Monte was perfect in her vocalisation on this occasion. There was not always the same wonderfully true intonation ; that incomparable technique of hers, that nits tho centre of the note in the most florid passages, and keeps every note a distinct pearl in a rapid scale passage. Even so the ‘‘doll’s song,” with its abundant coloratura, was not without a brilliancy that thoroughly captivated the audience. ’ Experts of the entertainment world are agreed that tjiero is only one wav to solve the problem of the Royal Albert Hall, Kensington, W. —that is to make it a sound commercial undertaking. The Royal Albert Hall Corporation of Arts and Science, which controls the building, is not a profit-making concern, and it is looking to the Government and the public for support in raising £35,000 needed for structural alterations and rebuilding the great organ. Tho charters under which the hall is operated preclude many /things, notably theatrical and operatic performances, although boxing contests have slipped in under the section which permits exhibitions of science and art. But those with experience of the management of great buildings—and the Royal Albert Hall, with its accommodation for 10,000 people, is among the largest in the world—declare that a building of this size cannot be made to pay unless it is free of all restrictions. “To make a comparatively small place pay. ’ said Sir Walter Gibbons, the former musichall proprietor, ‘you want a free hand in its management; how much more, then, must you be unfettered when dealing with a place the size of the Albert Hall? Big things nftist be done on a big scale, but unfortunately we are'such a curious nation that directly anything is done on a big scale we are subjected to all sorts of inspection and grandmotherly control. 1 am quite certain that if the restrictions on tho Albert Hall were removed, it could be made to pay.” “Broadcasting is the biggest thing that has ever happened to music. It is as important as the birth of a new Beethoven.” This is the considered opinion of a leading London musician, who has had every opportunity of testing the possibilities of musical broadcasting.' “As a matter of fact, for thousands of people it has already been the birth of a Beethoven, for what percentage of the population of this country knew anything of Beethoven until the British Broadcasting Company came into existence and ran him into their homes like gas or water?” A new publishing firm in Vienna, the Paul Zsolnay Yerlag, has brought out a remarkable novel bv Franz Werfel, “Verdi Roman der Oper” (Verdi, a Novel about the Opera), which has a very good reception. With great visionary power Werfel contrasts Verdi and Wagner, not so much as the two greatest operatic composers of their time, but more as South and North, as two opposite worlds from every point of view. He shows likely, sensuous V enice during tho winter of 1882, when Wagner and Verdi stayed there simultaneously, the former having reached the zenith of his fame after finishing “Parsifal, ’ and the latter having been barren for 10 years after “Aida,” feeling forlorn and thoroughly shaken by Wagner’s idea of new music-drama and the tremendous success of tho German magician. There is Wagner, tho great speaker, tho dazzling genius, the brilliant man of life and vigour—and there is Verdi, old, shy, and timid, coming from the people, not wanting to be in the limelight, Verdi, who likes best to live far away from the crowd as a peasant on his estate, deeply devoted to his fields, his gardening and his horses. He is worse than frightened at the idea that Wagner’s music is going to ruin his beloved bel canto of the South. When, after a long struggle, the old Italian master has made up his mind to meet Wagner, it is too late—tho Bayreuth composer dies that very night, during which Verdi suddenly gets a heart attack, but survives. In tho end Italian opera, which was most gravely imperilled through “the music of the future,” comes forth triumphantly, although Verdi, driven desperate, burned all his preparatory sketches for his opera “King Lear,’’ at which he laboured many years. But after a long pause the great Italian creates “Othello, and when he is 80 his immortal “Falstaff” comes out, this work of the sunny South, uninfluenced by the Wagnerian North, despite tho chamourings of the Wagnorites; this opera, in which Werfel sees tl.c magnificent result of natural .art, as contrasted with the .artificiality and ffiatheticism of Northern music.