Screen and Stags

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27096, 2 June 1949, Page 2

Screen and Stags

Bv lAXON

OPERA ON THE SCREEN

Most types of story and mediums of art have been reproduced successfully on the screen. But, up to date, that has not been the .case with grand opera, in spite of the fact that one of the first short talking pictures, Giovanni Martinelli singing an excerpt from " Le Juive," suggested that opera would become one of the most important functions of the vocal cinema. The many tentative efforts to introduce music in the grand manner into films in a readily assimilable form—such as when Deanna Durbin, Jane Powell or Lauritz Melchior sing an aria or two —have not been opera or anything like opera. But should we encourage the introduction of opera to the screen if the medium is to suffer by the adaptation? It seems that if opera is to be handled in a manner to please the average cinema-goer it will suffer artistically. And, conversely, if it is presented in a manner to meet with the full approval of the true musician, it will be a box-office failure. In short, it would appear to be impossible to have it both ways. The screen, like the radio, has done incalculable harm to musical appreciation. Although both these mediums of entertainment have undoubtedly brought better-class music to people who had never bothered about it before, they have brought it in a form that has benefited neither the art nor the listener and in a quantity that has dulled the critical faculty, the ability to be able to switch on a knob at any time of the day and get a symphony, an operatic selection,

and an assortment of famous singers saturates the mind instead of stimulating it. It is all too easy to be enjoyed: too mechanical to be significant. And music on the screen has a similar cloying effect on the senses , . . _ The ready use of music in films and on the radio has had the dire effect of cluttering up the place with juvenile prodigies who have acquired a synthetic musical education through these mediums. They imagine they can take all sorts ot short cuts to vocal and instrumental fame that will convert them into Jane Powells, Deanna Durbins and Jose Iturbis overnight without any necessity for serious study. ... t... The “ popularising of music by mechanical means has produced this unfortunate state of affairs among young “ musicians ” designed to have brief artistic careers. It has also had a “ familiarising ” effect on the young, which (coupled with modern arrangements of the music), has denuded the offerings of their original beauty and sienificance. So with these thoughts in rrdnd and the recollection of past pseudoopera on the screen, one cannot help but be cautious about Accepting the current drive for opera on the screen with enthusiasm. . , *

One of the most stupendous playwritIng projects of modern times was seen on the stage for the first time recently at the experimental Pasadena Playhouse, California, when the American Poet Percy Mackayes Erie’s Four Plays on the Hamlet Legend were presented on four successive nights. The first production was “ The Ghost of Ellsore, which opens 30. years before the time of Shakespeare's ‘ Hamlet,” and ends on the night of Prince Hamlets birth. The remaining three plays cover the peri l up to the time Shakespeare s play starts.

“Annie Get Your Gun ” passed its 750th Australian performance recently and a matinee marked the 300th performance at the Theatre

Royal, " Sydney. “Annie ” will tour New Zealand at the end of its Sydney season, but the end is-not yet in sl & ht - * .

The usual summer languor of Hollywood's great has been upset by the knowledge that the silent screen ;tar Pola Negri has written a book called, As Much as I Dare.” The beach has not the same charm since above the. heights of Malibu Miss Negri is reading Proofs. She has lived most of her life in Hollywood. It will be interesting if she has really dared as much as might.

Evelyn Keyes Is still smarting over the insult she received at the Academy Award ceremony. Walter Huston, her father-in-law, handed her his " Oscar 1 to hold. Later, John Huston, her director husband, gave her two more. An official called her back as she was leaving the building, and had to be convinced that she had not stolen them. • • •

Elliot Paul is working on the book for an operetta based on incidents in the life of Puccini, the composer. Deems Taylor, himself a composer of some standing, continues to stand by. It will be his task to assemble the proper score when the book is ready. • • • Even with an Academy award behind it as the best two-reeler made in 1948, Walt Disney’s " Seal Island,” a documentary study in colour of the life cycle of seals on Pribiloff Island, has not been able as yet to get theatre bookings in America. Theatre operators are reluctant to show the picture because of its odd length, 28 minutes. Mr Disney could not be blamed for hating double features in such circumstances. • • * There is no sign yet of a change in the Kiwis’ programme in Sydney, where their first show, “Alamein,” is still attracting the crowds. It may be another five or six weeks before their second show, “ Tripoli,” gets under way. # m * Parents of some students at Trinity College, University of Melbourne, have complained to the College Council about the college presentation of Saroyan’s Pulitzer Prize play, “ Time of Your Life.” “It is an unmoral play, without any theme, and lacking even any subtlety to make one curious,” one parent said. “ There is no humour in it; it contains blasphemy. Like many other parents, I think it was in very poor taste for a church college to sponsor such a play, particularly as ’teen-age students took part in it." • • • Walt Disney is to forsake his cartoon technique for the first time to make in Britain this summer a full-length film ersion of Robert Louis Stevenson’s ” Treasure Island.” Although certain liberties will have to be taken with the text, every effort, it is said will be made to preserve the essential spirit of the story. Besides this film, Disney also hopes to produce within the next year or two a full-length cartoon based on the story of Cinderella, as well as another cartoon based on the story of Ichabod and Mr Toad.