CHARLES SANTLEY ON HIS COLONIAL EXPERIENCES.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume L, Issue 12186, 30 March 1909, Page 3

CHARLES SANTLEY ON HIS COLONIAL EXPERIENCES.

In a volume of chatty reminiscences of his professional career, just published, Mr. Charles Santley devotes half a dozen chapters to a description of the visit which he made to Australia twenty years ago, referring with pleasure to the hospitality he enjoyed in the country, and with some bitter humour to the business results of his tour. His troubles with one of his managers (who varied the proceedings at Sydney by spending a week in gaol) appear to have acr counted to a large extent for the partial failuro of the tour. In a number of the smaller towns in North Queensland and New Zealand, where unsubstantial wooden buildings were used, and the windows had to be kept open for ventilation, a section of the public preferred to enjoy the concerts from'outside. Adjoining the Townsville hall was a house where, after dinner, a large number of guests "emerged on the verandah and sat out our concert over their coffee, cigars and grog." They heard the music just as well as those who had paid for seats. This experience was repeated at Charters Towers. "In both places," Mr. Santley relates, "the outsiders insisted on sharing the rights of the insiders, demanding encores and putting a t stop to the concert until their demands were acceded to." He gives a lamentable account of the Australian hotels of the time. At Melbourne he was fed on on a monotonous diet of mutton chops. At Sydney his rooms were infested by rats, cockroaches, and mosquitoes—all of abnormal .size His meals, worse than ever, consisted of " beef fed on gnarled oak and fowls fed on pebbles," and he was being gradually starved until he happily discovered a French restaurant. Mr Santley was interviewed in Melbourne by a procession of musical aspirants, the great majority of whom showed little talent and less training, and had extravagant notions of their chances Of success. But there was one exception, a fragile girl, who has since won a European reputation as an operatic singer. "Her mother," he states, "brought the child for me to hear and give my opinion of her abilities and voice, and of the probability of her success as a professional singer. I heard her, and was exceptionally pleased with her graceful execution, but I -told her mother I did not think her voice sufficiently robust to be effective in a hall or theatre. However, as the girl was only a little over fifteen years of age, it was quite probable her voice would gradually acquire sufficient power, if properly used, as she developed in-physiqiie, I never heard any more of her until last October, when I was at a performance of Don Giovanni at Covent Garden. The only accomplished lady in the caste was the lady who played Zerlina. She sang the music as I had not heard it since Angelina-Bosio died, and she played the part exceedingly well, with great humour and' vivacity. She was the little fragile girl I had heard in Melbourne, and her name is Lalla Miranda. My prophecy was fulfilled. Her voice— clear, bright arid sympathetic—had acquired sufficient power to be effective in any theatre or hall."