Music and Drama.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIV, Issue 10, 9 March 1910, Page 15

Music and Drama.

By J

BAYREUTH.

BOOKINGS. (Dates Subject to Alteration.) AUCKLAND—HIS MAJESTY’S. February 21 to March 12 —Carter the Magician. March 14 to 24—Harry Rickards’ Company. March 26 (Easter Saturday) to April 16— Marlow Dramatic Company. April 18 to 23—Amy Castles. April 28 to May 14—J. C. Williamson. May 16 to 29—Allan Hamilton. May 30 to June 18—Meynell and Gunn. June 20 to July 6 —J. C. Williamson. July 7 to 16—Meynell and Gunn. July 18 to 31 —Hugh J. Ward. August 1 to 13—J. C. Williamson. September 1 to 3 — Auckland Boxing Asso

elation. September 5 to 24—J. C. Williamson. September 26 to October 19—Allan Hamil-

ton. October 20 to November 4—Fred Graham,

THE OPERA HOUSE, In Season—Fuller’s Pictures.

ROYAL ALBERT HALL, In Season —Hayward's Pictures.

WELLINGTON.—OPERA HOUSE. March 26 to April 16. —J. C. Williamson. April 19 to April 27—Clarke and Meynell. April 28 to May 18.—J. C. Williamson. May 19 to June 3.—J. C. Williamson. June 4 to June 18.—Allan Hamilton. July 4 to July 23.—Clarke and Meynell. August 1 to August 13. —Hugh Ward. Sept. 1 to Sept. 14.— J. C. Williamson. Oct. 7 to Oct. 26.—J. C. Williamson. Oct. 27 to November s.—Allan Hamilton. Nov. 12 to November 24.—Fred H. Graham. December 24, six weeks’ season.—J. C. Williamson. THEATRE ROYAL. Vaudeville (permanent). TOWN HALL. March 17, 18, 19. —Besses o’ th’ Barn Band. Feb. 19 to 26—Fisk Jubilee Singers. Spiritual Plays—“ The Servant in the House.’’ IN the course of an article which we printed some time since on the subject of the censorship we remajked how few really fine pieces had been denied to the general public by reason of the existence of the Reader of Plays; and a case in point is Mr. Rann Kennedy’s remarkable drama "The Servant in the House.” We omitted mention of the play in our resume of the productions of the year, as any passing allusion to it could only be perfunctory and insufficient; but no one who heard the eloquent discourse which Mr. Kennedy recently delivered to the members of the O.P. Club eould have failed to be impressed with the idea that a writer had come amongst us with an entirely new conception of the importance and elevation of the art of the dramatist. We are all ready to acknowledge, in theory, that elevation and that importance; but few of us have either the ability or the enthusiasm to carry our principles into practice. Mr. Kennedy, as he told us, approached his task with all the enthusiasm and earnestness of a Bunyan or a Savonarola. In the lecture to which we have alluded he said: “It was in some mild appreciation of God's humour, not to mention His awful Love, His Irony and Will, that I gave up lying myself, and set out to obey Him in ’The Servant in the House.’ What I said was (and there is no real modesty about me, thank God!) : ‘Wouldn’t it be rather a fine thing, just at this very moment, when they are all talking a devil of lot about dramatic construction, the abolition of the Censor, and the need of a National Drama, for someone to pop up unbeknown, out of oblivion, and give them a real play to test them!’ So I did it, and wrote them a play so classsically constructed that none of them ever noticed it, so humbly obedient to the sacred law of the Censorship as to make disobedience look rather a fool by side of it, and so national that just ordinary men and women at once found in it the actual problems, the veritable experiences Of their own lives. I did it, and the Clergy and the common people heard me gladly. It was part of my very problem to bring people to cues on the high and sacred questions I was propounding, to stir them to separation point, to divide the sheep from the goats; and it camo out pat as I intended. I shall have seven such plays to give them before I’ve done. 1 shall have to pay for it, of course; but I expect that. Let us see, then, what

there is about this play, which has really been so successful in America, in Sweden, in Finland, and many other countries, both in book form and on the stage, to make some people in my native land dislike it so intensely and others to claim for it quite a respectable place among dramas, as dramas go. . . . There will always be a very serious division among men the moment you make any very vital demand upon their religious and social faith, the moment you pin them down, as I did in ‘The Servant ir the House,’ to the realities of the creeds and prayers and professions they make so glibly, and force them to face the truth which they themselves are supposed to represent. You saw in ‘The Servant in the House’ the actual struggle in which your own lives are at present involved—not merely the external obvious struggle of your conflicting creeds and parties, but the deep inward vital struggle of your souls for the possession of that which alone can bring you peace, for the lack of which you and all of us are being damned —namely, the realisation of our brotherhood towards aU mankind. ‘The hunger for brotherhood is at the bottom of the unrest of the modern civilised world,’ wrote George Frederick Watts —a text I take for the title-page of the play. Now, it would be very easy —particularly easy on the stage—to teil lies about this, to flatter ourselves and others into the imagination that all is right with us or with them, when all is palpably wrong; to deal out smug smile? and dearly-beloved-brethrens, and little doles of Sunday-school charity, and dream that we have saved the world. But I don’t find God’s world built that way; no more do you. Things are not made so easy for us. We live in a world of men, not milksops—fierce, pitiful, terrible, sinning, skiving men who live actual lives, not pleasant Sunday afternoons. The faet is, this realisation of brotherhood, for which our whole life cries out. is a devilishly difficult piece of business.”

Are Stage Managers Short-lived? Discussing the arduous work attendant on stage management, Mr. Arthur Collins says:—“l don’t know whether managers are long-lived men, but I shouldn’t think so. Sir Augustus Harris was only forty-five when he died; H. J. Leslie, who produced “Dorothy,” also died young; Charles Harris was about the same age as his brother when he died; Charlie Wilson, lately with Stoll’s and one time of the Alhambra here and Hammerstean’s, New York, was also quite a young man, and the news of his death a few days ago came quite as a shock. The late Augustus Daly was yet another of the great managers and prodjueers who died while still comparatively young.

“It is very engrossing work, as this little story! of young Shubert, head ,of Shubert Bros., New York, shows. Young Shubert, then a man under thirty, was badly smashed up in an accident. He wouldn’t let the doctors deceive him, but asked them point blank how long he had. to live. They told him the enu could not (be more than an hour or so away, upon which he ordered them, despite their protests, to carry him to the telephone, and he spent his last moments fixing up what was to he done ■with the various theatrical companies' and enterprises in which he 'was interested, literally dying at his post as much as any soldier had ever done on tire battlefield.”

Miss Tempest On Oysters. Miss Marie Tempest has been praising American cooking. To a representative of the “New York Herald” she said: “I think all your food over here is heavenly. Your cooking is superb. Your oysters are divine. I would as soon paint my tongue with iodine as eat a London oyster. It has much the same taste. But the oysters one gets here! The flavour is maddening! I love to contemplate them lying in their liquid depths calmly awaiting interment. Doesn’t it seem cruel to jab a fork into them? It seems as if I had been living on the half shell since I reached this city. And your oyster cocktails! I adore them. You may think it unpatriotic on my part to hit the English oyster when it is down,” said Miss Tempest earnestly, “but it is

the most dangerous thing in England today.” “Except the suffragette.” “I accept your amendment. The English oyster doesn’t wear hatpins.” Two Musical Auaniases.

The “Week End,” a rising and spirited little paper, is full of theatrical tit-bits, and we take from it the following: — “Two professional pianists were anxious to impress each other, and one remarked, ‘Do you know, the other night I sat at my piano and wandered idly over the keys, until I found myself playing ‘Home Sweet Home,’ and I played it as it has never been played before. Its pathos even affected me. Suddenly I became conscious of another sound, proceeding from the cage of a canary that I had covered up for the night. On withdrawing the cover I found the poor little bird with tears rolling from its eyes, and sobbing its heart out!* After listening in pained silence to this touching story, the other man replied, ‘Yes, I can well believe it, for I, too, have had a strange experience. The other evening, filled with all the fire and ardour of a musician’s soul, I sat at my instrument and played as I had never played before. “The Village Blacksmith” was my theme, and I could see with my mental vision all the animation and life of the noisy forge. Presently 1 became aware of another sound in the room, and on lifting the cover from my canary’s cage, I found the dear little bird with sparks flying out of its tail.’ ”

Mr. Weedon Grossmith. There was a time when Mr. ForbesRobertson and Mr. Weedon Grossmith shared a studio in Gower-street. Mr. Grossmith is quite prepared to return to his first love, should necessity arise.

“I think,” he said a short time ago, “that if anything prevented my appearance on the stage I coul dmanage to earn two or three hundred a year by my brush. What first led me to go on the stage? That is rather a curious story. At one time my reputation as .a painter of children's portraits was such that I felt justified in moving into a more commodious, studio in Harley-street. From that moment, however, bad luck seemed to set in. Commissions fell through owing to a variety of adverse circumstances, and at last I was obliged to" seek the stage for an addition to my income. But although after a time it seemed that stage work was my forte, I always continued my painting; in fact, still do so. When I have been in management, however, I have not had a great deal of time. . ‘The New Lord of the Manor’ was one of my earliest efforts, and I wished, in after years, I had not sold it. The manner ill which I bought it baek forms a rather curious story. I was in Liverpool, and heard that it was being put up at a certain sale in London. I asked a friend of mine to bid for me up to seventy pounds, thinking that the picture would

be going for thirty or forty pounds. TM bidding, however, started at sixty pounds, and went up to one hundred and fifty pounds. Some years later, however, the picture was again put up for sale,’ and this time I succeeded in buying it for seventy pounds.” Poetic Justice. “No,” remarks the editor, with a mocking smile, “I cannot use your verses. You will pardon me for saying that they utterly lack sense, rhythm, metre, idea, form, construction, and everything else that should be in a poem.” With a proud though peeved heart the poet strode from the magazine office, took his verses to a popular song publisher, had them printed, and within six months, a millionaire, came back, bought the magazine, and fired the editor. Ode to the Orchestra. I like to hear the player play His big bassoon. To make it roar in awesome way Or sadly croon. The music of the fife is shrill; It may be fine, But it can never send a chill Adown my spine. The fiddle often squeaks and gasps; Scant joy affords When an unskillful player rasps Its catgut cords. The music that I really love And deem a boon Is instanced in the rumbling of The big bassoon. The "Unco Guid” Again, A few weeks ago a correspondent was kind enough to send us a newspaper cutting which showed that the Scotch prejudice against organs is not ye.t extinct. Apparently there was some pother over a certain congregation, which had resolved to sever itself from the Free Church. Into the merits of the ease a mere Southron is not qualified to enter, but we should judge that the “freedom” of the Free Church is. more external than internal. The rebellious congregation, which its enemies declare to number only six, had yearnings after a more attractive service, and had dared to erect an organ and to use hymns. No doubt they had got tired of the “Psalms of David in metre,” ami small blame to them either! If they really numbered only six, their courage and resource were worthy of all praise. But whatever satisfaction they may have derived from the unwonted indulgence in a modest freedom, proved to be but fleeting.. The eye of authority was upon them, and they were bidden to go their ways, leaving, of course, their church aud organ behind them; the hymns, no doubt, they were welcome to. One speaker remarked that he felt, as if one blot on the story of the Free. Church since 1904 had been erased. What this

blot was appeared In speech of a certain Scotch divine, v*ho said, “They could trace back the decay in the spiritual and temporal concerns of the congregation to t-he date when the minister of this eburch was found to be out of harmony with the declared attitude of the Free Church as to the use of hymna and iu.strumental music.” It i> to be feared that this reverend gentleman will be greatly shocked when he gets to heaven’

The amusing feature about this antagonistic attitude to music is that while the “unco guid” hold fort to the “Psalms of David in metre** as the only musical thing which is “generally necessary to salvation,” they ignore the fact that David was a very eminent instrumentalist, within the Tabernacle as well as without, while they persist in using a •‘versification” which would have made the accomplished Poet-King writhe in agony. However, we do not despair of even the Free. Church. One of these days music will find increasing support therein, but, alas! we shall not be alive to enjoy Um* discomfiture of its opponents.

The Source of Verdi's ■’’Miserere.”

On one occasion when Verdi was engaged on his well-known opera “11 Trovatore,” he stopped short at the passage of the “Miserere-,” being at a loss to combine notes of sufficient sadness and pathos to express the grief of the prisoner, Manrim.

Sitting at his piano in the deep stillness of the winter night, his imagination wandered back to the stormy days of his youth, endeavouring to extract from the past a plaint, a groan, like those which escaped from his breast when be saw himself forsaken by the world. All in vain!

One day, at Milan, he was unexpectedly called to the. bedside of a dying friend, one of the few who had. remained faithful him in adversity and prosperity. Verdi, at the sight of his dying friend, felt a lump rise in his throat; he wanted to weep, but so intense was his grief that not a tear flowed to the relief of his anguish. In an adjoining room stood a piano. Verdi, under one of those sudden impulses bi which men of genius are sometimes subject, sat down at the instrument, and there and then improvised the sublime “Miserere" of the “Trovatore.” The musician had given utterance to his grief. (Expensive Opera in New York. The merry game of cutting each ether’s throats, of course in a strictly operatic and financial sense, is still going on between the rival opera houses in New York, the Metropolitan and the Manhattan. The former is trying its hardest to steal away the artists from the latter, and. apparently, is succeeding to some extent. Mr. Kammerstein, however, is not easily daunted, and though his opponents declare that he is bankrupt. he retorts by offering to prove, on the authority of his bank book, that he is a very rich man. with £BO.OOO balance at his bank. He is certainly a man nf resource and pluck, but he has to fight a syndicate, and as the rivalry has caused the terms of operatic stars to mount with alarming rapidity, it would seem that running opera is as expensive an amusement as breaking the bank at Monte Carlo.

From figures lately published, the Metropolitan, despite all its advantages, is losing money at the rate of £2.000 a •k\eek, which, considering that the expenses run up to over £14,000 a week, is not surprising. The deficit is met by the directors, but as they are millionaires we need not waste pity on them; opera is probably their way of getting rid of some of their superfluous wealth. Out of this £14.000. some £B.OOO goes to the artists, the chorus being a long nvay below with £740 for 185 of them. The orchestra, numbering IGO, draws £1,200 a week. This number admits of division into two for simultaneous performances at different places, as we pointed out a week or ■two ago. There are. of course, many other expense* which swell the total. •It may be noted that the total staff, from stars down to call boys, amounts to something like 700 persons. YCs, opera is decidedly an expensive luxury a» it is run in New York.

The Success of Edmond Rost rand.

T.-Kf er<* not always p-xv, they do not always w<*nr I eng hair, nor are they always Seperdent on the whims of some urwympathetic publisher. Take, for toMise*, the

French poet. M Edmotrd Rostand. whose extraordinary sneers* has been uneqoaHed by any writer of verse in tie present generation, and who has made his name untveraalty illustrious at a time of life when most other successful literary men are only just beginning to feel their way. Rostand coir-ea of a rich family, of a father and grandfather learned in economics, deeply tn figures. and he himself, provided with an income which sufficed to keep him tn ease aird comfort, seemed destined to follow some official career.

His parents had planned that their son should enter the Diplomatic Service, but early in life Rostand heard the fascinating voice of the Muses, and he quickly became their spoilt child. T'icy did not allow Rostand to suffer the long, nphlll, weary path that is the lot of most of their votaries, for the very first poems of his that were published, rhe “ Snmaritaine," the “ Romanesques,’• and especially the “ Prtncesee Lotntaine," won for him the approval and admiration of tha literary world. Even then, however, it was impossible to foretell the astonishing career that in store for him. It was not until the production of his first play. “ Cyrano de Bergerac,” that be leapt into universal fame, and in the short space of a few hours appeared in the public eye as a poetic star of the first magnitude.

“ Cyrano, an heroic comedy fh verse, tn five acts,” was translated into every tongue, and the books of the Autlrore* Society show that close upon £300,000 has been paid in royalties to the author. But “ Cyrano de Bergerac " by no means represents tl*e whole of the poet's efforts tn the direction ot play-writing, nor the total of profit he has derived from the stage. Another production* of his, “ L’Aigton,” although containing many lengthy passages and long tirades which try the patience of an audience, was considered to possess great literary merit and poetic beauty. It enjoyed a tremendous run, and, like “Cyrano." was produced all over the world. It is estimated that Rostand's share of the profits of these two plays has exceeded half a million sterling, and to this sum must be added the profits he has made out of the enormous sale of his poems.

Honours began to fall thickly upon him; he had already been appointed a Knight of the Legion of Honour, and the Government, without waiting for the usual period of four years to elapse, promoted him to the degree of an officership in the same Order. Many foreign decorations, too, were showered upon him, and when, tn 1900. the Czar and Czarina visited France for the second time, Rcstaud vtas selected to compose the ode of wetccme to the Empress. The ode was recited before their Imperia! Majesties at the Palace of Complezne. Soon afterwards. the French Academy honoured Rostand by electlug him to be one of its forty members, let his health gave way, and, in the midst of his glory, Rostand left Parts for good, to settle in the Pyrenees, at Cambo -les-Bains, half way between Bayonne and St- Jean I’ied du Port, where he rented a house in the village.

He was perhaps wise in leaving Paris, for, quite apart from the state of his health, there were many who could not forgive him bis sudden leap into fame, and official consecration of his talent by the French Academy had left the door open to every critic. The poet's disappearance from the scene took ail the poison out of the shafts that were levelled at him.

For four years Rostand “let himself live,” as they say in France. He simply led a lazy life and rested on his laurels, but he did not remain entirely idle, for, enthralled with the beauty of Cambo and the surrounding Basque country, he built himself a beautiful and costly home not far from Cambo, on a rocky height overlooking the valley.

It was at Cambo that he recovered hts health and began five years ago to write his latest masterpiece — for so it is called by the few who know anything about the manuscript — “Chanticleer,” which was produced about Christinas at the Porte St. Martin Theatre.

The conception of “Chanticleer" rose one day in Rostand's mind after reading an old French poem entitled “Le Roman du Renard,” or the Romance of the Fox, an allegorical poem attributed to Pierre de St. Cloud, who lived In the thirteenth century.

This poem Is an Ingenions satire on the manners and customs of the Middle Ages, tn wMch the principal eharactesn are Vulpin, the fox, and Ysengrin. the wolf, while the other characters are Noble, the Hon; Tlbert, tha cat; Brun, the bear; and Chanteclalr, the cock.

Inspired by Wils satirical poem Rostand reserved to write a similar satirical poem, but brought up to date, and dealing with

the manners and customs of our own age. All the personages are. as in Pierre de St. Cloud's poem, animate or birds, and, borrowing the title of his play from one of the characters of the old; poem, Rostand calls his play “Chantecler.” The scene of Rostand's play is laid is the faimyard, and the story is that of a cock, who induced all the other denizens of the farmyard to believe that if he, the cock, were to eease to erww in the morning, the sun would not rise; bat one fine day the cock falls in lore, and he becomes dumb and cannot crew. Yet the sun shines as brightly as before. Such is the story, and there are probably few of us to whom It would not apply.

Stray Notes. Carter, the Magician, concluded an immensely uscoessfui seasen in Auckland on Saturday. He has been succeeded by “The Scarlet Troubadours.”

Mr. H. B, Irving has acquired from Mr. J. Cornyns Carr the acting rights in a new version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s story “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” It was at Che Lyceum, while under the management of the late Sir Henry Irving, in 1888, that a version by T. Russell Sullivan of Stevenson's blood-curdling novel was produced, the title role being played by Mr. Richard Mausfeeki, the famous ABseriesai actor, in strikingly weird fashion. Mr. 11. B. Irving has given ample proof that nothing in the range of dramatic characterisation is beyond him, and his newest assumption wiD be awaited with interest. Beethoven’s letters, to the number of twenty-four, and one long memorial in the handwriting of the composer, realised £660 at Messrs. Sotheby’s on the 19th inst- All the documents dated from that unhappy time from ISI6 onwards which followed his few years of prosperity and fame.

Mr. Lewis Waller is credited with an encouraging offer to the aspiring playwright. If by the means of a competition he can secure a comedy of modern interest —not a problem play, but one suitable to himself with an element of light comedy in it—he will give, it is stated, to the author the sum of £ 100 as a prize and pay him 5 per cent of the gross receipts on ail its performances. Rural farmer (at Scottish orchestral concert): “I canna mak’ heid nor tail oot o’ that tune the fiddlers are playin’. What is’t?” City Niece (in a whisper): “It’s a symphony.” “It does’na seem very funny. Wha wrote it?” “Bee tiro ven." “Wha’s he “A great German composer, uncle.” “Nae wunner I canna understaun’t. Wi’ the price they clrairge 1 think they micht play 5 ! in English'.”