Music and Drama.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XIX, Issue XIX, 30 October 1897, Page 586

Music and Drama.

On Monday next the Auckland Opera House will be occupied by the Original Banjo, Mandolin, and Guitar Club. The entertainments provided by this club are of the most enjoyable description, the decorations themselves being unique as a rule. On this occasion the club, we understand, have determined to excel all previous efforts. They have now dispensed with the piano, so that the instruments of the club are now as its title would indicate—banjo, mandolin and guitar. At the coming concert the club will play Henry Parker’s Tn the Dusk of the Twilight.’ and, judging from the manner in which they performed Asher’s ‘Alice Where Art Thou,’ at their last concert, the number selected will no doubt prove a most enjoyable item. Miss Sybil Lewis and Herr Zimmermann are down for violin solos. Miss T. Hargraves and Mr Reg. Norman are the vocalists. The box plan is open at Wildman and Lyell’s. The club have had a new set of scenery painted by Herr Vennermark. The Bracey Opera Company, which is now in South Australia, had a most successful season in the Golden West.

During their next tour of New Zealand the Pollards will play ‘Madame Angot,’ ‘Manola,’ ‘Nadgy,’ Tn Town,’ and ‘Djin-Djin.’ Miss Edith Pinces, of Wanganui, who recently went to England to study voice cultivation, is coming back to the colony, being in indifferent health.

The recent performance of Haydn’s ‘Creation’ at Palmerston North is well spoken of. The chorus is a very good one, and the able assistance rendered by Madame Carlton and Messrs Hill and Prouse, who sang the solos, made the performance an unqualified success. Mrs Gilbert Laing - Meason, of Timaru, has written a drama which it is proposed to stage in a few months’ time. A comedietta, written expressly by this lady for Mr Bland Holt, is to be produced in Australia shortly.

At last, says the Sydney ‘Bulletin,’ Albani will' really visit Australia. This time Williamson has secured her, and he states that the prima donna will arrive here in March next, and will give 16 concerts. As a big figure alone tempted Albani to accept, the management is reconsidering prices of admission.

‘Two Little Vagabonds.’ with Titheradge and daughter in the east, is to get a fair chance of catching on in Sydney. The Melbourne production of Simms’ sentimental melodrama was obviously spoilt in the acting, although the pantomimic water-pipe scene appeared bound to discount its prospects, anyway.— ‘Bulletin.’

The Corbett - Fitzsimmons’ Veriscope, we hear, has not been a great success in Melbourne. ‘The light is defective, with too much silvery snowshimmer.’

It is said that Mr and Mrs Brough propose to return to Australia in two years.

Wagner’s original intention was that the representations in the theatre at Bayreuth were to be for students only, who would l>e charged a small admission fee, pro]s>rtionate to their means. It was not to l>e a business enterprise, but solely for the sake of art. Philistines, unsympathetic tourists and the uniesthetic public generally were not to l>e invited. But all this has changed, and the present managers seek to offer every necessary inducement to the hitherto despised ‘ glol>e-trotter,’ whose money they need to insure the financial success of the festivals. The Widow Cosima likes money. In truth, it is a greater consideration with her than art. The liox-oftice receipts must be kept up. As a part of this new scheme, the De Reszke brothers were ottered leading roles. What would they charge for the great honour of api>earing on the Bayreuth stage ’ ‘ But the price named is out of the quesion !’ That is the simple explanation of

their non-appearance. Year after year they are invited, and year after year they accept upon certain terms, whereupon Cosima has a tit and the matter is dropped. The famous Polish tenor and his suave brother do not care to sing for glory. Bayreuth’s prestige is naught to them. The economical widow can employ a score of Germans at the price they ask ; hence the deadlock. Think of Jean de Keszke singing twenty times (the festival season), not to mention rehearsals, for .$4OO, which the limit.

A movement has been started in New York to do away with window lithographs and the free tickets which accompany them. It has the sympathy of many’ prominent managers. A circular which has l>een sent to managers all over the country says, in effect, that nolssly looks at window lithographs, and that their only use is to create deadheads. ‘ A deadhead,’ it says, ‘ criticises more acutely than one who pays his admission, and as window lithos cause deadheads, by not using them you destroy the main factor for deadheads.’ A literary’ Bohemian is at work on a great naturalistic novel, says a French paper. ‘ The marchioness,’ he writes, ‘ became as white as a shirt.’ Glancing at that very moment at his own wristbands he is seized by a scruple, and adds, “ Whiter even than a shirt.’ From time immemorial the stage has been recruited from the democracy. Peg Woffington’s father was a bricklayer. Henry Irving’s father was a shoemaker. Constant Coquelin’s father was a baker. Sara Bernhardt’s father was a wood peddler. Eleonora Duse’s father was a barnstormer. The democracy breeds genius. The aristocracy seldom bequeaths anything except distinction of air. But politeness also has a place in the economy of nature, and for this reason Mrs Langtry and Mrs Potter have each earned a fortune, and Miss de Wolf is employed at the Empire Theatre. We observed that these new players conveyed with grace and naturalness that dignity’ of carriage and gesture which actresses lacking their training had spent a lifetime in imitating. Bernhardt can give us every phase of womanhood except the well-bred woman ; Duse can illustrate with consummate dexterity of skill all the emotions of her sex except those whose expression is absolutely governed by social training.

There are various kinds of music critics besides good and bad. There are the heavy and uninteresting, the learned and unintelligible, whose technical words perhaps please some people, like the old woman who confessed she did not understand the sermon, but she did like to hear the Latin rolling over her head. And then there are the light and frivolous. The following, from the “Raconteur,” is a good specimen of the latter: —

HOW I HEARD PADEREWSKI. “Of course I heard Paderewski. Let me tell you all about it. I had quarrelled with my' dear one early in the day over a pneumatic tyre, so I determined to forget it and go and listen to some music.

“Music always soothes my nenes. “Does it soothe yours, gentle reader? “I went to hear Paderewski.

“Taking the Broadway cable car, me and my liver —my liver is my worst enemy; terrible things, livers; is life really worth the liver? —I sat down and paid my fare to a burly ruffian in a grimy uniform. “Some day I shall tell you about my adventure with a cable car. Dear Lord, what an adventure it was!

“Ah. the bitter-sweet days, the long ago days, when we were young and cabled! Let me tell you how Paderewski played.

“After I reached my seat 4000 women cheered, and I was the only man in the house; but. being modest, I stood the strain as long as I could, and then —Paderewski was bowing and T forgot all about the women and their enthusiasm at the sight of me. “Fancy a slender-hipped, orchidaceous person in ‘pants,’ an epicene youth with Botticellian hair and a

Nietschke walk. Fancy ten fluted figures, and then—oh, you didn’t care whnt he was playing—indeed. I mislaid my programme—and then it was time to go home.”

A Parliamentary committee of France which was appointed to investigate the subject of theatrical passes has recommended to the Chamber of Deputies the adoption of a law to abolish season tickets for all dramatic and musical entertainments, and for imposing a heavy stamp tax on all free passes and a moderate tax on all tickets. The rate proposed for passes is 50 centimes. On this basis the income is reckoned at 1,445,000 francs on free passes in Paris alone, and a total of 3,543,750 francs on all classes of tickets. Sir Henry Irving has already begun to study the literary and pictorial records by the aid of which he hopes to present us with a life-like iiortrait of Peter the Great. He has received unexpected and valuable aid in his researches, for most opportunely there has just been opened at Zaandam, in Holland, a fine exhibition of relies of Peter the Great, which, of course, our actor intends to visit.

When the King and Queen of Italy visit the German Emperor at Wiesbaden they will lie shown, at the Wiesbaden Theatre, a ‘ Festspiel,’ the idea of which—so it is stated —the Kaiser himself has supplied. The first allegorical tableau will show a thick forest, in which Germania and Italia clasp hands in friendship and swear eternal fidelity. To this scene there will lie an accompaniment of ‘ Festmusik,’ composed by Herr Schlar, the Court orchestral director. At a word from Italia the forest will disappear, and Rome slowly rise from earth in a second tableau. The talk of Berlin lately was the decision of the Government censor forbidding the piesentation of Sunderman’s new play, ‘ John the Baptist,’ on the ground that it was offensive to religious susceptibilities. The dramatist read the rejected piece to a small audience of his friends in Berlin on Wednesday evening. Those who heard it describe it as an exceedingly powerful drama, and they are at a loss to account for the official prohibition. The critics agree that it is in every respect a serious, moral and religious piece of work. The censor, by the way, intimates in his ruling that no dramatization of any portion of the Bible will lie permitted in Germany. An appeal has been entered from his decision. The position of the player at the piano and the position of his hand on the piano are of vital importance. The elbows should always be on a level with the keyboard, and the fingers of the hand, especially the second finger or finger near the thumb, should lie gracefully curved. When first studying a piece one should never use the pedal, and before the piece is placed on the music desk the student should decipher the rhythm, for very often supposed difficulties in technique are merely rhythm misunderstood. No matter how well know-n, the piece to be studied should always lie played slowly, and gone over in the most painstaking fashion. No other piece should be studied until the first has been thoroughly mastered. The indiscriminate running over of several pieces during practising hours is most unfortunate, for the students who do this invariably blunder through some half dozen pieces and play all abominably.

Mr Charles Morton, the ‘ father of the music halls,’ celebrated his 78th birthday a few weeks ago. Mr Morton’s first experience dates to 1848, when, at the Canterbury Arms Tavern, he had a ‘ free and easy,’ in which the ball was kept rolling by two or three professionals. In 1861 Mr Morton, on the site of the Boar and Castle, erected the Oxford, which was subsequently burnt down, and then, with half a dozen broughams to carry the company backwards and forwards, he originated the ‘ turn ’ system. At the age of 78 he is still as quick to cater for the tastes of the rising generation, with its altered cast of’ thought and school of manners, as he proved himself in the Canterbury Tavern classical ‘ free and easy ’ of fifty years ago.