SAVOY MEMORIES

Taranaki Daily News, 21 December 1931, Page 7

SAVOY MEMORIES

STORIES OF GILBERT. THE FRIEND OF SULLIVAN. Memories of the early Savoy days and personal reminiscences of Sir William Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan give a vivid and richly-flavoured quality to a conversation with Mr. Gustav Slaponski, the veteran orchestral conductor, who arrived in Auckland last week to prepare for the forthcoming Gilbert and Sullivan season. Few living men can speak so authentically about the first great theatrical triumphs of those two unrivalled operatic .collaborators, for Mr. Slapoffski was a boy of seven when Sullivan first heard him play the violin at Oxford, and during his early manhood he was the protege of Sullivan and a welcome guest at his London home. At the age of 70, says the New Zealand Herald, Mr. Slapoffski is known throughout the musical world as a Gilbert and Sullivan interpreter whose inspiration is derived directly and personally from their creators. Vigorous, in mind and body, for he was a champion .amateur boxer as a youth and still keeps himself fit with SandoW exercises and ten-mile walks, he talks of the old days of the opera with an enthusiasm and a wealth of curt comment that leaves no doubt of the fire’that burns unquenchably in his musical soul. The first meeting with Sir Arthur Sullivan was related by Mr. Slapdlfski with a reminiscent twinkle, tinged with the reverential regard he has held all his .life for. the great composed. It. was while he was attending Christ Church School : in Oxford that he was invited, with‘ another boy, Richard Harris, who afterwards became a great organist, to visit the home of Prince Leopold, fourth son of Queen. Victoria, and afterwards the Duke of Albany, then an undergraduate at Oxford. Spoken of in Oxford as “the .boy wonder,” Mr. Slapoffski was in great demand as a .violinist, arid for many Sunday afternoons he entertained the guests' at Prince Leopolds house with chamber music. “I—remember one Sunday as though it were yesterday,” said Mr. Slapoffski. “Among the guests was a very nice gentleman who seemed to take a great interest in my playing. ’ After I had finished, he came up to me and said, ‘Can you read at sight?’ When I said I could, he brought out a piece of music I afterwards learned was the ‘Graceful Dance,’ from his own score to ‘Henry the Eighth.’ He played, the piano and. I played the fiddle, and he seemed quite pleased with the result. “Three or four years elapsed, and I forgot all about the incident; Then I. joined the Royal Academy of Music. One day the secretary called me into his office, and who should be there but the gentleman I had met 'at Prince Leopold’s. He asked me to come into' his class at the academy, and from that moment I was with him almost continuously for years, and was privileged to be consulted in many of his musical and theatrical decisions.”

Mr. Slapoffski was present on the famous occasion when George Grosismith was engaged to play the role of John Wellington Wells in the early Savoy opera, “The Sorcerer,” and he himself played second violin at the premiere at* the Opera Comique in 1877. “I will never forget the morning that Grossmith ■ walked into Sullivan’s house in Victoria Street and set us into fits of laughing at his quaint clothes,” said Mr. Slapoffski. “Gilbert was looking for a comedian to suit the chief comic role, and one day he was told to have & look at an entertainer who was appearing at the Langham Hall. I went round with him and Sullivan and we saw a funny little fellow sitting at the piano whom Gilbert said might suit. He was asked to meet Gilbert and Sullivan at breakfast, that being the fashionable visiting hour, especially for university men, in London at that time. Grossmith walked into the room in his ordinary walking cloth—silk hat, long frock coat, which we used to call an Albert, shepherd’s plaid trousers and spats—and he looked so funny that Gilbert, who had been wondering before he came in what costume the comedian should wear, shouted, ‘He’s got ’em on!’. Grossmith was a made man from that moment, and when he appeared on the stage in “The Sorcerer’ all London laughed.” Acting on the suggestion of Sullivan, who said he should learn something of French opera, Mr. Slapoffski toured the provinces as leader of the orchestra with Offenbach’s “Madam Favart,” with Beerbohm Tree, Fred Leslie, the famous comedian, and Walter Fisher, probably the greatest comic opera tenor who ever lived. Afterwards he went to Dresden to continue his studies with the violin, he toured America with Madam Patti, joined the Carl Rosa Grand Opera Company, and was then engaged by George Musgrove to conduct Wagnerian operas through Australia and New Zealand in 1900, with Madam Slapoffski as one of the leading vocalists. He was musical director for Melba in Australia, he assisted Musgrove to select his German grand opera company which toured New Zealand in 1007, and he conducted the orchestra in the first Australian and New Zealand performances of “The Merry Widow.”