Music and Drama

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLII, Issue 20, 19 May 1909, Page 14

Music and Drama

BOOKINGS. (Oates Subject to Alteration.) AUCKLAND—HIS MAJESTY'S. May IT to jiftie 5— J. ff. Williamson. June 7 to June 26 West's Pictures. June 28 to July 3—Hamilton Dramatis Company. July 5 to July 24— Hamilton Dramatic Company. July 26 to August 7 -J. C. yVllllamson. lAugust 24 to September T—Hamilton Dramatic Company. WEI JANGTOX.—OI‘I UA HO USB. May 19 to 27—H. RLkards. May 29 to June 18—Flemming Company. June 19 to July 24—Allan Hamilton. July 26 to August 13—Pollard Opera Co. ■August 16 to 28—G. Musgrove. August 30 to September 12 —J. C. Williamson. September 14 to October I—J. C. Williamson. October 2 lo Ift—Allan Hamilton. October X» to November 13—J. C. William son. November 15 to December 9—J. O. Williamson. December 27 to January 16—J. C. WlUlamsou. TOWN HALL. July 1 to 28 —Weal’s Pictures. PALMERSTON NORTH — MUNICIPAL OPERA HOUSE. ‘J' - • . O May 21 <’> 25 Sfeyuelt and Guan's “Hook of Holland” Co. lAugust 4, s—Allan Hamilton's Dramatic CO. 'August 12. 13—J. C. 'Williamson's “Jack and .HU" Co. lAugust 27—Mischa Elman’s Concert. Sept. 20, 21 —J. C. Williamson's Julius Knight Co. October 6 and 7—J. C. Williamson. Nov. 1 to B—Hugh8—Hugh Ward's Musical Comedy Co. Nov. 20 to 22—J. C. Williamson. Jan. 17, 18 - Carter, the Magician. Jan. 99 to 24—J. Williamson. Feb. 14, 15—The Scarlet Troubadors. March 28 to 31—Allan Hamilton. May 19, 20—J. C. Williamson. June 8. 9—J. C. Williamson. June 20 to 25 —Fred H. Graham’s Musical Comedy Co. June 29, 80—J. C. Williamson. July 1, 2—Meynell and Gann, August 18. 19—J. C. WMliamssn. Sept. 80 —J. C. Williamson. October I—J. C. Williamson. Nov. 1 to s—Allan Hamilton Nov. 10, 11—J. C. Williamses. Some Plain Truths About Singers. Z'T’X ISS AGNES MURPHY, an AusS I a tralian journalist, who, at ths .J I F instigation of the late Mr. / Seddon, went to America to lecture on and write about- New Zealand, has lately given an Adelaide paper an interesting interview about Melba and singers in general. She has some hard things to say that are welt worth reading. Miss Murphy is ’.veil-known as Melba's ■biographer, and also as a keen, enthusiastic admirer of the famous prima donna. “There has never been a voice like Melba's, I feel sure. There certainly has been no such technique in the past fifty years, and in th? whole history of music there has never been such a career as that of this great woman, who for twenty successive years has been of the .greatest opera house in the world,” says Miss Murphy. “Only the few widely-travelled Australians can really understand the unequalled position of Melba, who, no matter Where she goes—Paris, London, Vienna, Berlin, New York, St. Petersburg, Stockholm, Milan, or Nice —is equally .well-known and equally welcome as the Superlative artist and greatest boxoffice draw of our generation. No Australian singer comes next or near her. No singer of any country, and I often think what an injustice it Is to Melba to advertise every Australian mediocrity l,y tacking their names on to hers. With the exception of Melba no great singing etar has ever come to Australia, such •s her splendid colleagues, Patti, Ternina, Schuman Heink. Ikwlinn, Cal re and •Nordic*, therefore local audiences, having no knowledge of worthy compeers, snake the grave mistake of linking Melba's name with concert singers whose statue stands whole worlds beneath her. 'All Spanish born Bingers ere not likened to Parti, nor alt Polish pianists to Paderewski. “In London, Paris, and New York

the connoisseurs say:—‘There is only one Melba.’ It is only in her native land that every local warbler is rushed up on to a Melba pedestal. I said this in a ‘Register’ interview and elsewhere when I was here last. I say it again with emphasis.” Maori Folk Songs, Dr. Pomare, the Maori doctor, who, with his wife, made so many friends with his wife, made so many friends here Medical Conference last year, Ims, with Maggie the guide and Dr. Buck, been most kind in giving Mr. Percy Grainger assistance in pursuance of his valuable hobby in collecting the Maori and South Sea Island melodies for his folk-song library, says an Australian. Out Australian pianist, in writing from Invercargill of the Polynesian South Sea Island native Raratonga part songs, says:— “This Raratonga music is genuinely polyphonic. shows much sense of harmony, end bespeaks a musical civilisation of its own, of which I know no scientific record; and I may say does not seem ■to lag behind their legends, carvings, decorative patterns, fighting powers, and poetry, all of which show the influence of energetic and original individuality.” Percy Grainger has worked day and night to secure phonograph records of this music, taking notes of their songs, which he intends to recopy and send to the Polynesian Society. Australian Singers In England. “A few of the Australian singers are doing well in concert and oratorio work, notably Madame Mary Conly, but the great majority are doing no more than getting their daily food by a system of glorified touring among their friends. The Australian papers adopt an extraordinary attitude with regard to these singers, and pensistently exaggerate their doings to an inconceivable degree. If an Australian singer gets a £5 fee, it is published as £5O or £75, whereas it should ’be known that, except for the few great stars, concert fees in England are small. A singer on the Harrison concert tours or the London Ballad Concerts rarely gets more than £lO or £l5 a concert, and they are looked on as among the attractive engagements. In the Australian Press I have seen £lOO mentioned as fees for Australian artists on these tours. Then,, again, when an Australian singer has been lucky enough to secure a few of these English engagements, the Antipodean newspapers at once describe such a vocalist as worldfamed, distinguished, even illustrious. Well, England is not the world, and these ballad concerts do not stand for much in the way of art even in England. Royal Commands. “The chronicling of ‘Royal commands’ is equally loose. No Australian sin&ger, with the exception of Melba, has ever received a Royal command from Queen Victoria or King Edward, yet by reading the local papers one would imagine that the feet of some Australian vocalist were always planted on the Royal mat. Four or five years ago, during the week of the Cowes Regatta, a party of Australians, in a small boat, sailed round the King’s yacht singing as they went. Soon afterwards I read in the Australian papers of their having ‘sung before His Majesty.’ Reckless Description. “ ‘Diva’ is the -term of honour used to describe in Europe and America the supreme operatic soprano of the day, and as such is the prerogative of Melba, as It was of Patti in her day. In /Australia this term, and also the descriptive words, ‘prima donna,’ are recklessly attached to every songster who has warbled a ditty in London suburbia. Her Continental Success. “I have known an Australian who sang for nothing at a friend’s party in Dresden to have a cable sent out here about ber Continental success. No discretion 1s used to differentiate between the petty little concerts given in liondon halls, such as ths Steinway, ths Salle Krard, and the Bechstefn, which accommodate at the most 600 people, and the magnificent orchestral concerts given in Royal Albert Hall by Melba,

when ths vast auditorium with its 10,000 capacity is ail too small to accommodate her admirers.” “I don’t know why this misrepresentation with regard to Australian singers is given such rope out here. I cannot understand the matter at aU. Now. take on the other hand a really remarkable dramatic artist like Nellie Stewart. She never allows this trumpeting of her foreign doings to be blazoned forth. And we have another actress like Alice Crawford playing lead in the finest- companies of London, yet in the case of her great and genuine success the Press of her native land has very little to say.” At Covent Garden. “Melba is received with greatest, enthuasm, I think, at Covent Garden, where -she is always wildly cheered and where hundreds wait at the stage door and run after her carriage. Yet her farewell at the Manhattan Opera in January and her reappearance at the Paris Opera in June last were scenes of riotous ardour—quite indescribable indeed. Her appearances at the Imperial Opeia House, St. Petersburg, and at La Scala, Milan, will be known in musical history for the unprecedented demonstrations made by the enraptured audiences.” The Reckless Boomer. Miss Murphy is obviously a whole bogger. In the main her assertions about the reckless booming of so-called artists are correct. The reason why is very simple. With most singers and other public performers who go Home to get trained, it is a question of £s. d. Economic necessity compels them to commercialise their art. It is part of the process involved in going Home and making a bid for fame that they should be boomed. There are men at- Home who, for a fee, make it their business to boom any persons with pretensions to particular talents and a fat purse. The Australasian papers are sedulously fed with boom pars from concert agents. Some discriminate what shall appear of these highly-specialised and attractive items —some do not. It is the misfortune of the majority of the Australasian public not- to have heard great artists, such as Miss Murphy enumerates. The people are therefore fair game for the arts of the “boomer,” and will be so long as commercial ends is the final goal of the artist, who has to make his or her living, and the concert agent- who is anxious to wax fat- on the profits of big bouses. The Latest London Music Hall Sensation, The music hall sensation of the moment in London is Mr A. M. Moore’s miniature melodrama, “The Price of a Girl,” at the Oxford, which is received with rapturous applause every evening. Mr. Moore is well qualified to give the public something they can appreciate, for he has had many years of wide and varied experience in catering for the popular taste. He has written plays, edited newspapers of all kinds, and is one of the most accomplished journalists of the day. Apparently, melodrama is played out, except for the suburbs, and while the homoeopathic dose supplied by the Oxford thrills many, it has. of course, its amusing side for older people who recognise all the fine, old stereotyped situations. Mr Moore’s ingenuity has been shown, not in writing a melodrama, but in compressing it within the absurd limits required by a still more absurd law. A stage play cannot be produced on the music hall if it occupies more than half-an-hour in its performance; but a theatre may introduce as many music hall turns as it pleases, so long as it strings them together and calls them a play. Very soon, let us hope, this farcical situation wilt be ended, and any place of amusement will be at liberty to produce the kind of entertainment its patrons call for. A Time Will Come. Mr Moore’s plot is of the most primitive kind —a mere expansion of the old idea of “The villain still pursued her!” The villain in this instance is of the most conventional sort. He smokes cigarettes and wears a fur-lined coat —which everyone knows is the hall-mark of villainy. His aim in this melodrama is to betray the daughter of the village parson, but it is perhaps unnecessary to observe that in this he is foiled again, ha. hat as usual. For there is the hero to reckon* with. The hero has already saved the girl from drowning, and he has paid her father’s debts. These things have happened before the play begins, so that there will be no doubt that the hero hM had a good start in the heroic business, j

Geod Old Villain. The villain’s idea is to lure the heroine to London. Here she enters the service of a wicked milliner who is in league with the villain, and for the moment the prospect looks very black for the poor heroine. Has any human being ever really suffered so much as the heroine of the average melodrama t Fortunately for the heroine, the conspiracy to ruin her is detected by one of the workgirls, who promptly puts the hero on the track of events. This leads to a meeting between the two men, and a terrific midnight struggle in Bond-street, from which the hero emerges splendidly triumphant, as, indeed, a hero should. It is unfortunate that in the moment of his triumph he should find himself in custody for an offence that he has not committed, but. as we know, stone wails do not a prison make for the hero of a melodrama, and there are no iron bars than can cage him for long. The Halo of Snow. Incident follows incident in this very, moving drama at a breathless rate of speed. Indeed, its chief interest lies in the miracle of compression which Mr Moore has accomplished. All the essentials of traditional melodrama are, there, and, as usual, the good people are very good indeed, while the- bad ones are shocking examples of moral obliquity. The four acts are brimful of excitement and sensation, and the last act, which represents Christmas Day at the vicarage, with peace and goodwill and forgiveness and carol-singers and snow, must surely satisfy the most exacting. The sentimental English populace do not ask for much in a melodrama, but they do insist on snow at the finish. And when you consider that in addition to all this sensation there is a story of a missing will, and the author finds time to prove that the hero is the long-lost heir to fabulous wealth, it will be admitted that the Oxford melodrama establishes a record that will be hard to beat. Municipal Theatre in Napier. While. Mr. Bert Royle (Mr. J. C. Williamson’s manager) was in Napier, he discussed with the Borough Council a proposal for the erection of a municipal

theatre. He stated that to enable Mr. Williamson to stage all his big pieces in the town on the same scale as In the four large centres the Napier theatre should provide seating accommodation for 1200. The depth of the stage should be 60ft, and the width between the walls of the theatre 60ft. The proscenium should be 20ft wide and 23ft high, with a width between the fly galleries of 38ft. The fly doors should be 22ft, and the gridirons, for pulleys, etc., 54ft from the stage. He advised that there should be three tiers of dressing rooms, and scene docks to admit lorjries at the back of the stage. If nothing had to be paid for the site, £25,000 would be ample to cover the cost of a theatre, municipal offices, ete. '• The Dairymaids.”

"The Dairymaids” is a musical comedy, characterised by catchy songs which will become popular, and a very bright evening's entertainment throughout. The large audience (which included Madame Melba and suite, who occupied two private boxes) was kept In a simmer of merriment from the time the curtain rose to its fall. The piece is exceptionally well staged, the scenery being very light and artistic and the ballets novel and refined. The gymnasium scene is particularly good, and the Sandow ballet and Kimona ballet deserve special praise. Tho best songs are "Wild Rose” and "Dear Little Girl in Dreamland,” ■which are sure to be heard more of. Miss Fanny Dango made an excellently natural Peggy, and is a very pretty and dainty dancer. Mr. Andrew Higginson acted Sam Brudenell very well indeed, and Miss Musgrove made a handsome and dignified Lady Brudenell. Mr. W. S. Percy was all that could be desired as Joe Mivens, and Mr. Bantock made a capital Dr. O’Byrne. The musio is excellent, and said to be better from a musical point of view than even the much-talked-about “Merry Widow,” which starts on Saturday next. This delightful play has just concluded a record season in Wellington, where the public response and appreciation were equal to the Widow’s experience throughout her Australian tour. The story is said to have more coherence in its dramatic development than most light works of this kind, with a thrilling love interest throughout. It is possible to follow the fortunes of .Sonia (the Merry Widow) with sympathetic and sustained interest, and to wish success to the fascinating wiles by which she overcomes the obstinacy and'pride of her lover.

Forthcoming Events—A Promising Production.

Events for New Zealand will be made at the Auckland Opera House on Monday, May 24, by Meynell and Gunn’s pantomime “Cinderella,” which has not only gained the world’s record run for pantomime, but also holds the distinction of beating all records tor any play by nearly 30 performances. The transportation of this company, which numbers 27 people, is a big theatrical undertaking. More than ordinary interest naturally attaches to the first appearance of "The Hook of Holland” Comic Opera cw., by which the pantomime will be interpreted. The principals come from England, and during the past 12 months Lave won great popularity in both Sydney and Melbourne in such plays as “The Belle of Mayfair,” “Miss Hook of Holland,” “The Girl Behind the Counter,” and a finishing touch has been given by their success in "Cinderella.’ The principals include Miss Meredith Meredro, principal boy from Drury Lane Theatre, London; Miss Ruth Lincoln, a leading soprano, who will appear as “Cinderella” j Miss Emmallne Orford, comedienne j Misses Essie Perrin, Helene Rose, Daisy Belmore, Tina Lincoln, Dora Denton, Margaret Nicholson; whilst the company possesses three notable comedians in Messrs William Cromwell, Edwin Brett, and Tom Payne, whilst the popular English ttenor who was such a favourite in Australia some years back will make his first appearance in N.Z. in the person of Mr Harold Thorley. Alterations are being made both to the stage and auditorium of the Opera House. The plans for the first six nights were opened at Messrs. Wildman and Arey’s on Tuesday. The first matinee will be given on the 29th Inst. The company will arrive on Sunday by the Mokoia. For years past efforts have been made to induce Madame Melba to visit South 'America, where she has an offer of fifty appearances at £l,OOO each with half the gross receipts above £1,500. Owing to her anxiety to complete the record of twenty successive seasons at

Covent Garden, London, she has allowed this offer to stand over, as the South American and English opera seasons run concurrently; but it is almost certain that Melba will accept the offer for 1911.

A Wellington Concert, As announced in our columns Misses Madeleine Webbe and Gertrude Spooner are to give two pianoforte recitals in Wellington on Friday, the 21st inst, and Tuesday, the 25th inst. Amongst the more important items in their programme are Tsehaikowsky’s Concerto in B flat minor, with orchestral accompaniment, to be played on second piano. Miss Spooner is to play Schumann’s “Carnival.” There will be several items by Liszt and MaeDowell. These talented young pianists will be assisted by Miss Peggy Bain, (violinist), Miss Blanche •Tarland (contralto), and Mr. F. J. Carr (tenor, Wellington). Stray Notes.

At the initial production of “The Merry Widow” in Constantinople, just a little while before the overthrow of the reigning monarch, a scene occurred which'caused quite a stir among the audience, and for the time being seriously retarded the progression of the famous opera. There were present a number of Montenegrins, who took exception to the flighty Danilio, and burlesqued Baron PopofT being represented as fellow countrymen, for in the Marsovian costumes which are worn in the second act these irate members of the audience saw a marked similarity to their own national dress, and accordingly they stamped and whistled and proved altogether a bar to the continuation of the evening’s entertainment until they were removed by a squad of local police. According to the London “Tattler,” the effect which “An Englishman’s Home”

has had upon Britishers in general ie little short of marvellous. Not so very long ago, before the advent of Du Mautier’s remarkable drama, It was next to impossible to get men willing to enter the ranks of the Territorial, and all the tactics which were med by the authorities proved practically successful. Then this stirring theatrical representation of “An Englishman’s Heme,” lying desolate and in ruins, flashed through the length and breadth of Great Britain, and now the clamour for enrolment as members of the citizen army is so great that at the present time it is impossible to cope with all the applicant?. Before "An Englishman’s Home” had been on a fortnight at Wyndham's Theatre, London, "pirates” were active

in trying to share in the boom that It created by trading on the name, and even on the Story of Major du Manner's play, and attempting to give unauthorised representations of it. The same thing has happened in Australia, and though the play is barely four weeks old in that country, J. C. Williamson hae already been compelled to set the law in motion to prevent Infringement of copyright in more than one direction. In fact, so keen apparently is the desire on the part of unauthorised persons to profit by the sensation, “An Englishman’s Home” has scored, that special instructions to keep a strict look out have had to be issued to the J. <J. Williamson representatives throughout Australia.