Music and Drama.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIII, Issue 8, 25 August 1909, Page 14

Music and Drama.

By

BAYREUTH.

BOOKINGS. (Bates Subject to Alteration.) AUCKLAND—HIS MAJESTY'S. lAuguSlt 24 to September 7—Hamilton Dramatic Company. ' THE OPERA HOUSE, tn Season -— Fuller’s Pictuies Wellington opera house. (Xngust 16 to 28—Nellie "Stewart. 'August 30 to 31 — Miss Hardinge Maltby. September 2 to 16 — J. C. Williamson. Sept. 17 to Oct. 1G ; — Allan Hamilton. Oct. 25 to Nov. 13 — J. C. Williamson. (Nov. 15 to Dec. 9 — J. C. Williamson. December 10 to 18 — M. Branscombe. 'Dec. 26 (for six weeks) — J. C. Williamson. THEATRE ROYAL. In Season — Fuller’s Pictures. . PALMERSTON NORTH MUNICIPAL r _ opera house. 1900. Aug. 30 and 31 — Julius Knight. ■Sept. 1 — Hayward's Pictures. 'Sept. 3 — Children’s Ball. ;flept. 7 —- Orchestral Concert. .Sept. 8 — Hayward’s Pictures. .Sept. 13 — Taylor-Carrington Dramatic ©S. i .Sept. 15 Hayward’s Pictures. ■Sept. 21 — Boxing Association. Sept. 22 — Hayward’s Pictures. Sept. 23 and 24 — Technical School. Sept. 28 — Hayward’s Pictures. (Sept. 29 and 30 — Jack and Jill Panto. Oct. 5 — Hayward's Pictures. Oct. 6 and 7 — J. C. Williamson. Oct. 13 to 27 — Hayward's Pictures. Nov. 1 to 6 — Hugh Ward Musical Comedy, Nov. 29 to Dec. 1 — Pollard Opera Co. Dec. 9 — Local Concert. (Dec. 27 to 29 — Carter, the Magician. « 1910. 3an. 20 to 24 — J. C. Williamson, ■web. 14 and 15, — Scarlet Troubadours. March 28 to 31 — Allan Hamilton. •April 21 and 22 —- Geo. Marlow. May 19 and 2Q — J. C. Williamson. 'June 4 to 6 — Mcynell and Gunn ‘June 8 and 9 — J. C. Williamson.' June 20 to 25 — Fred. Graham Musical Comedy. June 30 to July 2— Meynell and Gunn. Aug. 18 and 19 —J. C. Williamson. > ■Aug. 25 and 26 J. C. Williamson. Sept. 30 to Oct. 1 — J. C. Williamson. Oct. 31 to Nov. 5 — Allah Hamilton. INov. 10 and 11 — J. C. 'Williamson. ;TC " The Newest Music. • OV ELTY never dies. The newest I B music is spoken of by, the London B, 1 press as emanating from Mon- / sieur Debussy, whose opera, .’DeHeas and Melisande,” founded on Maeterlinck’s beautiful and pathetic play, has lately been given in the metropolis. Debussy has had some vogue in England, thanks to Mr Thomas "Beecham;-ttie conductor of the New Symphony Orchestra. Whilst the older bodies, like the London Symphony, Queen’s Hall,' and Philharmonic Orchestra, have only given casual f>rominence to living composers, Beecham las gone into the • modern school of Writers with whole-souled enthusiasm. Debussy and Frederick Delius (cine of the most promising men of the day) has been brought prominently under the notice of the British musical public, together with a number of other,composers, Buch as Landon, lionaid. and Bantock. ~: t;! . , ‘After the performance of his now celebrated opera at Co ven t Garden, M. Debussy was interviewed by the Press, lie has something very interesting to say, but before proceeding further it is necessary to look over the evolutions of the opera before we can get the composer into focus with more familiar names. The landmarks of the evolution of opera have been placed by original and fearless composers, and every one of them, as is the case in all branches of art, brought the art world, and then the general public, but slowly to his views. The first “opera” Was the work of an Italian, the Florentine Monteverde. It was called “Orfeo,” and the orchestra comprised only thirtysix instruments, which merely played a modest accompaniment to the singing. The next step was taken by Rameau, whose orchestral score completed and emphasised the words, added new meaning to them, and even commented on them at length. Mozart went further still. The orchestra is no longer there to beautify, »3 it were, and sustain the lyrics; the music is part of the “action” itself, and pften the main part. Beethoven, too, understood what “opera” should be, and in his “Fidelio” we have vague but interfating suggestions of what was to become that “symphonic opera” which was created by the genius of Berlioz and Wag-

ner. Those who have heard and understood “Tristan” or “Siegfried,” for instance, must have realised the victorious force of the blow which the German giant dealt to the purely "melodic” opera so dear to the Italians. The last stage in the evolution of the lyrical drama is represented by M. Debussy’s “Pelleas et Melisande,” which is almost as distant from Wagner’s ideals as those are from the old Italian notion of opera. Indeed, the French composer is the creator of the “newest” music, ■which many already consider as the music of the future. M. Claude Achille Debussy is the most talked-of French composer of the day. He is a broadshouldered man of about forty-five years of age, with a strong, ■round face; dark, sunken eyes—stern, but not devoid of a gleam of humour—and a thoughtful brow, over which hangs thick, black, waving hair. His dark beard is curly and pointed, and his heavy moustache throws a shadow over full and mobile lips. He reminds one of a musketeer of the days of Louis XIII., or of one of those healthy and jovial Dutch gentlemen whom Franz Hals painted so well. Speaking of the production of “Pelleas and Melisande,” to an interviewer, M. Debussy said: “It reminds me of the controversy seven years ago when my opera was produced in Paris at the Opera Comique “As a rule,” the composer continued in answer to a question about his music, “the public seems to make no distinction between music and song. According to the public, all that is not song is not music. My view is precisely the contrary When one writes lyrical music one must not write songs, for the simple reason that the rhythm and the definite ‘shape’ of a song cannot adapt themselves to the sentiment and the atmosphere. If, in an opera, you deal on one hand with the music and on the other with the sentiment, thus making a distinction between the two, the result must needs be a failure. I know that my “Pelleas et Melisande’ has called forth more criticisms than any other work in recent years. I have been, and am still, accused of having forgotten to place any melody in my opera. (Here, M. Debussy burst into good-humoured laughter.) The fact is, there is nothing else but melody in ‘Pelleas.’ Only, it is not cut, it is not divided into slices, according to the old—and absurd—rules of opera. My melody is intentionally uninterrupted, neverceasing, for it aims at reproducing life itself. I know it is impossible to hum or whistle an air from my opera after having heard it, and I am aware that the barrel organs will never adopt fragments from my music. Needless to say I am delighted at this thought. There are no songs in life. It has rhythm, atmosphere, and colour; but these, though always varying, go on for ever without pause.” “I sat at Covent Garden,” I said, “next one who remarked that as Melisande appears alone near a lake at the opening of the first act she might ‘give us a song.’ ” “How could she?” the composer exclaimed. “She is exhausted and has lost her way in the forest. Did your neighbour really think that in these conditions Melisande could feel like shouting a pretty aria in three or four verses, not counting the ‘encore’? In the fourth act I have been told that Pelleas, who is waiting for the woman he adores, in a sylvan haunt at night, and by a romantic fountain, ought really to burst out into a thrilling love song. Those who make such suggestions have no imagination. Otherwise they would not expect my unfortunate young hero to supply them ■with a cavatina at a moment when his soul is impatient, fearful, and a prey to conflicting emotions. Music for the stage is not drawing-room music.” Are Choruses Necessary ? “•Several English critics,” I said, “have ■wondered whether you object to choruses. There are none to speak of in your lyric drama.” M. Debussy smiled. “I take no exception to them; on the contrary. But I had no occasion to put any in ‘Pelleas.’ Wagner, by the way, after he had completed the Tetralogy, resolved never to write a chorus again, and published a volume on their absurdity; but he filled ‘Parsifal* with them. A chorus is a very

difficult thing to compose. It is the voice of a crowd; a voice that must be spontaneous and instinctive. Have you ever heard in any opera that strange and mighty voice?" “What about one or two of the choruses in ‘Carmen,’ or the voice of the crowd in Charpentier’s ‘Louise’t” I suggested. Here M. Debussy hesitated. “You cannot have the men on one side and the women on the other,” he said at last, “singing the same words, in turns or together. The voice of the crowd is made up in a'thousand different expressions and various shades of feeling. The musician must aim at giving an impression sudden and vivid, yet subtle and mysterious. Only an impression; never more than that.” “You are an impressionist, M. Debussy.” “I have been called the ‘Whistler of music.’ ” And he added whimsically, “They have dubbed my friend Maeterlinck the ‘Belgian Shakespeare.’ People love such pompous names. This has not prevented Nordau from calling Maeterlinck degenerate, and many critics from considering me as a visionary or an ‘apostle of oddity and self-advertisement.’ So far as I am concerned, I can only say that my one engrossing ambition in music is to bring it as near as passible to a representation of life itself." No Duets. “Then that is why there are no duets in your ‘Pelleas’?” • “Exactly. When two persons talk at the same time they cannot hear one another. Besides, it is not polite, and the one who interrupts should stop. I have never written a duet, and I never shall! ” M. Debussy, whose favourite composer is Bach, has already achieved much, and will no doubt achieve more in the future. He is a sincere, independent, and fearless artist. His sympathies are wide, and the aim he pursues is jar from deficient in higher motives. It may be pronounced revolutionary or subversive, but his originality is genuine. The man who composed “Pelleas et Melisande” has not only done something new, he has done something well. His work is the latest, if not the final, stage in that dominating endeavour of the age in all forms of art to reproduce as closely and as faithfully as possible human life. “ A Modern Aspasia.” Mr H. Hamilton Fyfe, one ,of the more promising and struggling English playwrights of the present generation has had a new play, entitled “A Modern Aspasia,” produced by the London Stage Society. “The Daily Telegraph” does not give it a kind reception, for the reason that its dramatic critic is notoriously British. That.is to say, it is impossible to get past his prejudices, and one of his prejudices is that plays dealing with sex questions ought to be banned. “Mr. H. Hamilton Fyfe’s play, produced by the Stage Society, is interesting but uncomfortable. It starts a problem for which it offers no solution: it deals with some of the gravest elements of human nature, leading up to the most serious issues, and leaves them precisely where they were before the discussion began. This, of course is precisely the method of the Socratic dialogue; but there is all the difference in the world between a philosophical discussion which can be perused at leisure and returned to again and again, and a stage piece which must make its effect at once, if at all, and which more likely than not is written from a partial and arbitrary point of view. Possibly the present generation does not read Charles Reades’ novels, and is, therefore, not acquainted with one of the very best of them all, ‘Griffith Gaunt.’ In ‘Griffith Gaunt’ you have a hero, balanced, as it were, between two different kinds of women, to both of whom he is, in a sense, married. Katherine Gaunt, the legal wife, is the embodiment of haughty pride, passionate haste, and religious devotion. Mercy Vint is the incarnation of sweetness, humility, and tenderness. And the hero himself, who is thus tossed to and fro between opposite poles of love and devotion is a brave, lusty, Englishman, mad in anger, mad in jealousy—in short, a sort of English Othello. Mr. Hamilton Fyfe’s theme is precisely that of ‘Griffith Gaunt,’ but his characters are not so firmly drawn. • Edward Meredith possesses as his wife, Muriel, a selfish, casual, easy-going woman, unwilling to bear the responsibilities of-matrimony, utterly regardless of what her husband does in his times of leisure, so long as she is happy and contented. Edward Meredith

is by no means a Griffith Gaunt; his temperament does not offer the same excuse* for his lapses as that of the hero of Charles Reade. But because his ideal of marriage is that of mother and children, he .establishes Margaret Warren, a tender, innocent; domesticated creature, in a cottage in Surrey, where he has two children, adored by both mother and father. This double menage has been going on for some years when the play opens, but the arrival of an old friend and spiritual father, the Bishop of Patagonia, brings matters to a crisis. The cottage in Surrey is discovered, together with its occupants and when, in a subsequent act, the two women, Muriel and Margaret, confront one another, Merediths’ double life stands revealed to the naked eye. Here is a man who practically has two wives to suit apparently opposite sides of his nateure, one of whom he respects without loving, the other whom he loves without any great respect. What is to be done now that concealment is no longer possible? We turn to the Bishop of Patagonia to solve the problem for us. For all practical purposes he is as dumb as the oracle of Delphi. None of the others can offer a suggestion—not Edward Meredith, nor Muriel, nor a very foolish young man, Walter Bretherton, who calls himself her friend. So as there is nothing to be done, the only resource is to ring down the curtain, to shrug one’s shoulders, and proclaim, as though it were a virtue, our helplessness.”

Forthcoming Events—■“ The Breed of the Treshams.” On Monday, September 6th, Mr. J. C. Williamson will present at H.M. Theatre, Auckland, Mr. Julius Knight and a fine supporting company in Dix and Sutherland’s play, “The Breed of the Tresiiams.” The drama deals with a romantic period of English history in thoroughly romantic fashion, when Cavalier and Roundhead fought for supremacy. It runs through four acts, and the plot is said to he strong in tragic, emotional elements. Mr. Julius Knight will appear as the Royalist adventurer, Lieutenant Reresby, “The Rat.” It is asserted that of all the varied things Mr. Knight has done in Australia, Reresby is the best of all. A complex rascal is this free lance and debonnair soldier of fortune.

A man at variance with the world, every man’s hand against his, and his against every man’s—cynical, reckless, devil-may-care, disappointed man, caring not a jot for the world’s opinion, but really a gentle creature at.hea.rt, and full of human kindness. The character has been moulded upon that of Sydney Carter in “The Only Way” (which in turn derives its inspiration from Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities”). The dominant note is unselfish and heroic'self-sacrifiee.

Bengough. Bengough, Canadian cartoonist and entertainer, is to arrive in New Zealand shortly from a tour of Australia, and will commence a tour of the Dominion at Wellington on the 27th inst. This is what the Sydney “Star” says of him:—“Bengcugh proved the most delightful of entertainers. His great gift for the humorous in art has been developed to its perfection, so that from a sweep or two of his crayons, and' a few touches of colour, on the white sheets of his easel, takes sudden shape, some queer figure, whose humour tickles the fancy of the audience upon the instant. The cartoon with Bengough is as ready as the uttered jest of the ordinary humorist. The quaint fancy or airy trip of wit, chancing to strike him, is expressed with the facile strokes of a magic crayon, that gives a jest a shape, and emphasises its humour. His methods seem of the simplest, but his simplicity is the mere perfection of the artist. The line and the curve have their deliberate meaning. Signatures, he will declare, appear to him to suggest the personality of their owners. The audience ponders upon his meaning, while he writes down some signature in chalk upon the sheet. Then they realise. The name ‘Cohen,’ he tells them, suggest? a Hebrew friend of his. ‘Cohen,’ he writes, and there is certainly something Hebraic in the. shaping of the letter “C” as he forms it; and when he deftly tinges the letters with red chalk, marks forth a figure in a few strokes, accentuates this or that point, a gentleman of the race of Abraham is represented, who certainly looks like ‘Cohen.’ Similarly the word ‘coon’ suggests the coloured champion. The word is written down, the crayon glides hither and thither, and in a trice, affable and beaming, stands Johnson over his fallen opponent. Bengough has discovered humour in most things. Who would believe there is humour in Euclid? There is a triangle, according to Bengough. The triangle is lined forth, its sides curve slightly; a dot, a few dashes, and the head of a Cheshire cat grins at the audience. The continuous shading blots out the feline smile, a barn-door fowl replaces it, the whole sketch develops thence through an ingenious dissertation upon the hidden political economy of the rhymes of “Mother Goose,” to conclude suddenly with a pointed admonition to young would-be benedicts of the perils of henpecking. Putting himself by his easy geniality into touch with his audience, Bengough plays upon their tastes and prejudices. For his Australian audiences a few blurs and smudges develop magically into a squatter, with a truly Australian waistcoat. He has a store of witty anecdotes to draw upon; he mimics excellently the Scottish accent or the Italian; as cartoonist, traveller, light and airy poet, and musician, Bengough is in himself a host—-and a host of the most genial entertaining order. Bengough is assisted by Miss Rosina Buckmann and Mr. Philip Newbury, with Miss Lilian Delany as accompanist. Miss Amy Castles.

Now that Miss Amy Castles is home again in Australia, it is somewhat difficult to realise that this artist been absent for seven years. It is a period, however, that has brought to maturity a voice already known to Australians as a rich and pure soprano, and now we are to hear her at its full strength. Miss Castles brings back the reputation, based on the assertion of a German critic, of being one of only three great be] canto singers living, while her temperament, methods, and voice have earned her the title of “The Australian Jenny Lind.” In these circumstances it is as appropriate as it is gratifying to find that she has been accorded' a welcome in keeping with her high reputation. Starting at Perth, where the Governor of the Western State and Lady Strickland invited her to lunch, and where the Mayor of the city paid her the distinguished compliment of a civic reception, she came on to Adelaide and Melbourne to meet equally cordial demonstrations of welcome. She will subsequently visit New Zealand.