AMUSEMENTS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 266, 31 March 1911, Page 2

AMUSEMENTS

DOLORES. Says the Walsh and Tinaroo Miner: Mareeba forgot for the space of two hours on Tuesday night that it is some 2000 miles distant from Sydney; and for once felt it could stand up and say to the City of the Beautiful Harbor, "I am as good as you are, for I have Dolores." We've been turning up our ditcionary of adjectives, and have got a few we propose to use regarding our delightful visitor. To save the agony of suspense, we'll just rim them „/f all 'together: '-Beautiful, charming, sweet, captivating, entrancing—and those of our readers possessing a still more voluminous vocabulary may feel quite safe in adding to the list ad infinitum. Dolores looks like an artist, sings like an artist, laughs like an artist—and she is an artist. Her personality is—which of the adjectives shall we use?—and her voice is divine. In one of her encore items she sang ''Follow me" —and, like Browning's Pied Piper, whose magic music drew the little children from their play, Mademoiselle Antonia compelled a willing audience to concentrate its gaze on the face of the singer and its soul on the voice divine. The appearance of Dolores was the signal for a great outburst of applause from the large audience; and Mademoiselle's face, lit with a winning smile, indicated her appreciation of the warmth of the welcome. The first was ,1 bracketed number: (a) ■'Komm Susser Tod"; (b) "Hein Glaubiges iierze" (J, S. Bach); (c) "I've been Roaming" (Horn); "The Lass with the Delicate Air" (Arne). In the first the pathos of the invitation to Death to ''Come blest repose, conic for my life is weary," at once proclaimed the artist in the singer and the woman above her art. And yet this was the singer 'whose concluding item convulsed with" laughter an audience tense with music, though it bad been for two hours in her almost boisterous rendition of a laughiii" sow "Laugh and the word laughs with yoif; weep and you weep alone," says* the. doleful proverb; but laughter and tears from Dolores are infectious. 'Tve been roaming" was a gem of daintiness and sweetness; and Arne's "Lass with the delicate air,' though as old as "Rule Britannia," composed by the same writer iii seventeen hundred and something, was new to the audience; and was one°of the prettiest items on the programme. The "Mermaid's Song" was given in response to the demands of an already eager audience. The Recit and Aria from Linda de Clinmounix is one of the finest gems from Dolores' extensive repertoire." and the purity of tone, the scope, the elegance of the human voice were showi to perfection here. Mademoiselle articulates the Jinglish language so delightfully that one could wish to bear more"of ityet the beauty of the music would likely suffer by a translation even if it were possible; and the range of English composition is so limited when compared with the Italian, French or German. But the delight of Ihe audience we feel sure was as much at the recognition of the "mother tongue'' as at the popularity of the airs when "Killarney" and "Co'min' thro' the Rye" were given as encores "Oh to Remember" is an item which will long remain in the memory of numbers of last night'* audience. ' Then came the churchyard—and here the full dramatic power of that illimitable voice told again of the artist and her soul for music. In the "Echo Song" Mareeba folkhave the opportunity to hear one of the songs for which Dolores is famous, and the enthusiasm at the conclusion of this item was unbounded. Mr. Selwvn Shrimplm accompanied throughout,'and rendered several piano solos, for that exquisite composition of Shutts', "A ia Bein Acmee," receiving a well merited and imperative encore, for which he "avc "Barchetta," by Nevin.