CHAUTAUQUA

Southland Times, Issue 19772, 21 February 1923, Page 6

CHAUTAUQUA

OPENS ON MONDAY

The Chautauqua season will oj>en at the Municipal Theatre, Invercargill, on Monday next. It is a high-class educational entertainment conducted on unique lines, and the following extract from a synopsis of the programme regarding the various performers should prove of interest. Dr Frank Bolin was originally a teacher of history, especially economic history, and received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Michigan in 1904. Unlike most members of his profession he has pursued a varied career, and became an active worker in the. Labour movement in the lumber camps of the Pacific NorthWest and among the miners of the Mexican Border, and a few years later again took up teaching economic history in Columbia at New York, and in 1915 was sent by the New York Evening Post to study the situation in Germany and Austria. In answer to the invitation extended to him to lecture in Australia and New Zealand he replied that in undertaking the tour he would go to learn more than to teach. It is his purpose to prepare a lecture on Australia and New Zealand explaining the methods and results of their reforms to the American people. The Colonial Concert Co. consists of three talented young New Zealanders. Miss Elsie Kell, of Wellington, soprano, Mr Edward Angel, of Auckland, ‘cellist, and Miss Mariam Woolf, solo pianiste and accompaniste. Miss Keil is already known as one of our leading sopranos, having toured the DorninI ion with the Italian tenor Notariello, under ; the management of J. and N. Tait, whilst Mr Edward Angel has already made a name for himself as Auckland’s leading ‘cellist. He comes of a brilliant musical family, and plays with remarkable expression and power, and brilliant technique. The last of the trio, Miss Woolf is well known in Southland as a promising young pianiste and accompaniste, whose playing is characterised by taste and feeling. Julius Caesar Nayphe is a native of Athens, the son of a Grecian nobleman, whose lecture-entertainment “The Oriental Pageant” is both intellectual and aesthetic. He is assisted by seven “campfire girls,” wearing gorgeous costumes, by which Mr Nayphe illustrates his vividly descriptive lecture.

Then there are the Australian mixed quartette, whose programme for the most part will consist of excerpts from well known operas, the personnel of the company is as follows: Miss Constance Neville Johns, who possesses a rich, full soprano voice; Miss Stella Beckman, contralto, who has appeared in both opera and oratoria; Mr B. E. Brudenell, tenor; Andrew Lawson, basso, and Miss Daisy Alday, A.L.C.M., accompanist?.

Drew Pearson brings to New Zealand a lecture on the North Pacific which will be illustrated and portrays the struggle of the Japanese labour class to overcome the traditions of feudalism, and the industrial revolution through which Japan is passing. Th? Western Players will present an English comedy entitled “The Mollusc,” by Hubert Henry Davies, who had gone to the animal kingdom to get a name for his comedy, and a definition of the besetting weakness of the principal character in it—Mrs Baxter. In the mollusc he found an animal of a kindred nature—hence “The Mollusc,” which sets forth in comical situations that the indolence of the idle rich become a disease of such a character that they use force to resist the effects of friendly efforts to cure them.

Royal Hawaiian quintette are true representatives of the land of flowers and sunshine, and faithful lo the musical traditions of their island home. They will represent the true native melodies, and pick out the haunting island tunes on the ukulele.

The junior programme this year will take the form of a little play in which elves, children and fairy gifts play prominent parts.

Altogether a good programme is provided and there is no reason to doubt that the attendance will be good.