Greenroom Gossip.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XVIII, Issue 1056, 2 June 1910, Page 17

Greenroom Gossip.

JIE. HARKY EOBEETS. Messrs- Clarke and Meynell’s production of Hall Caine’s celebrated drama of pathos and passion, “Pete,” at His Majesty’s Theatre oh Monday, promises to mark an epoch in the theatrical annals of New' Zealand. Mr. H- R. Roberts (the author’s ideal) will be seen as Pete, and this clever and popular actoi’ will be called upon to enact a very difficult but congenial role. The successful pourtraying of Pete calls upon all the qualities of the experienced and inherent actor, and Mr- Roberts is not only a born actor, but has profited by his training and experience in New York and London, where he starred among the world’s stars. « * * • MISS BEATBICE DAY. Miss Beatrice Day is well and favourably known throughout New Zealand, and can look forward to a hearty reception from her legion of friends. Miss Day was specially selected to play the part of Kate Cregeen in “ Pete,” her pretty face and handsome figure, together with her histrionic ability, all making for a superb interpretation of this great character of a loving but passionately human woman. TAKING FART IN "PETE.” Mr. Conway Wingfield will play Phillip Christian, Mr. Harry Sweeney, Ross Christian; Mr. Greenaway, Black Tom; Mr. W. J. Montgomery, Dr. Mylchreest; and Mr. John F- Forde, Caesar Gregeeir. Miss Lorna Forbes will be seen as Nancy, Miss Elwyn Harvey as Mary, Miss Katie Towers as Grannie, Miss Mary Laing-Meeson as Sarah, and Miss Ethel Bashford as Meg. Miss Ethel Bashford, a protegee of Miss Maggie Moore, will be the

ingenue of the Harry Roberts-Beat-rice Day Company, producing “Pete” and “The Hypocrites” throughout 'New Zealand. Miss Bashford first appeared as the Nipper. in “ Struck Oil,” which part she played for some years until her age. outgrew her utility for child parts. Like Miss Marie Lohr, Miss Bashford intends going to London to perfect her theatrical education whilst she is in her teens. She and her chaperone will leave for England by the R-M.S. Moldavia, which leaves Sydney in December. Before leaving for England Mr. Clyde Meynell personally supervised the rehearsals of “ Pete,” and Mr. J. W- Deverell, assisted by Mr. Syd Smith, directed. Three producers of their experience should just about perfect any performance. * * * » THE “ ALADDIN” PANTOMIME CO. The Pantomime Company were accorded the heartiest of send-offs at the termination of their successful ten weeks’ season in Sydney- A packed house assembled to see the last of the popular organisation, and there was noticeable that stir which marks the special occasion in theatrical annals- All the artists were at their very best, and the comedians especially took advantage of the occasion to draw a few additional laughs from the audience. Mr. Jimmy Campbell, with a laudable ambition to be right up to date with his gags, mildly requested the limelight man to give him “ some of the comet,” The limelight man certainly did not comply with the request, but the audience enjoyed the joke immensely, and Mr. Campbell had the satisfaction of knowing that his joke was not ill-timed. * * « * EXPENSIVE DBESSES. The Melbourne “ Age,” referring to the Clarke and Meynell production of “ The Arcadians,” said: “ The dresses in ‘The Arcadians’ cost a fabulous sum. The cheapest of them in the race scene cost £3O- The ‘Chanticler’ hats run into more than £250, and cannot be made use of after the play has had its season. The cost of staging such a production is enormous, but the prices have not been raised to the public. Theatre-goers in this country have nothing to grumble about- The standard is high, and the prices of admission low.” * * * # AN IMPOSING FIGURE. An imposing figure in “ The Night of the Party” is Mr- Hugh C- Buckler. Some years back he was one of the London and provincial monologue entertainers, and was noted for his versatility. He has also figured prominently in Shaksperian plays. His wife is Miss Violet Paget- * ■ w « A DISTINGUISHED ACTBESS. Miss Violet Paget, who takes the part of Lady Hampshire in “ The Night of the Party,” is as clever and popular as her husband. Her father was for some years Governor of some of the West India islands, and before that was Chief Justice of Mauritius. Miss Paget is a first cousin to the Marquis of Anglesea. Theatrically, she has made a name for herself, and has played in Sir Herbert Tree’s Shaksperian revivals, taking the lead in “ Anthony and Cleopatra” at a couple of hours’ notice with instant success. This is her first trip to New Zealand, and she is taking it partly for health reasons. « * o « MISS KATHERINE GBAY. Speaking of Miss Katherine Grey’s performance in “ The Third Degree,” Mr. Julius Knight says he has never been held by any other impersonation in a play as by that of Mrs. Jerffries, jun. He acknowledges that when Miss Grey comes into the office which he occupies as Richard Brewster, the lawyer, he feels his heart go out to her and experience a choking sensation in his throat. He considers that in Mrs- Jeffries, jun-, Charles Klein has created the loneliest woman in the world, and Miss Grey conveys her. He thinks that her portrayal of the part is further accentuated by the fact that she always appears in the same dress, in her manner and gestures and even by her forced cheerfulness which bespeaks the aching heart which she vainly endeavours to hide. Altogether Mr. Knight feels that nobody could be proof against the convincing power which Miss Grey throws into the part. « A JOLLY AMERICAN GIRL.” A newspaper man described ‘Miss Grace Edmonds on her arrival in : Sydney by the last Vancouver boat as “ a jolly American girl,” and aptly hit off the latest addition to J. C- Williamson’s new Comic Opera Company.

She won’t foe twenty-one till the fall, and it’s spring in America now. Full of youthful enthusiasm, Miss Edmonds is certainly a jolly companion. She was a great favourite on hoard the s.s. Marama, from the deck of which she twice saw the comet. Her mother is travelling with her, and has always done so since her daughter began her stage career. That was at the age of fourteen. “We begin early in America,” said Miss Edmonds, “ I was in dramatic work first, my ambition being to become an emotional actress. Then I discovered—or, rather, it was discovered for me—that I had a voice, and I stepped right into the prima donna role in “ The Girl from Broadway.’ Yes, I missed the chorus drudgery. Then I decided to have my voice trained” (and she did under Clemente de Mecchi, who coaches grand opera artists). “The rest has all been easy.” Miss Edmonds’ Australian debut will be as Alice Condor in “The Dollar Princess.”

FABEWELLED AU SYDNEY. ’ The popularity which the Grand Opera Company has gained with audiences in Sydney was demonstrated by the large crowd of admirers and wellwishers who gathered at the wharf, to say farewell to the members of that organisation on the occasion of their departure in the Ulimaroa for New Zealand. There was (writes an esteemed correspondent) much handshaking, and bouquets of flowers were in abundance- Just as the boat was leaving Bel Sorel showered her friends on the wharf with loose violets. Autograph hunters were busy among the principals, and succeeded in gathering into their albums quite a sheaf of signatures. The strains of “ Auld Lang Syne,” sung by the company, mingled with “ Say Au Revoir and Not Good-bye” by the ship’s trumpeter, were to be heard as the boat swung out from her moorings and steamed down the harbour. .•• • • • ATTEE NUGGETS, David James says there are still some Londoners who imagine that gold can be picked up in the streets of Melbourne. The principal comedian made his first joke immediately he stepped off the Orontes. “ Can any one inform me,” he asked a pas-ser-by, gently, “ where I can find a few of those nuggets I have heard about?” The stranger smiled. “ I can tell you where can lose some gold, if you have any. Just walk down the street, and some of the ‘ tugs’ will catch you. They’re always on the look-out for distinguished-looking visitors.”

PRODUCING GRAND OPERA.

“MADAM BUTTERFLY” IN AUS-

TRALIA.

PREPARING FOR PUCCINI’S

WORK.

G'rand opera has its musical side, though one is apt to lose sight of it unless one keeps in touch with the conductor. If, however, he is kept too closely in view one may lose sight of the fact that there is any other side to an operatic production. What, therefore, seems most necessary in the man directing the performances is a nicely-balanced sense of proportion. The commencement of his duties antedates the season by many months, and even then he begins after others have worked long on the general scheme. The J. C. Williamson venture, which has introduced to Australasia “ Madam Butterfly,” will help to an understanding of what is entailed in the organisation of grand opera for the territory that the enterprise of that management covers- For it must be remembered that the conditions obtaining here are not as favourable as those governing the operations of impressarios in Europe and America where opera is concerned. We are farther from the musical centres whence the artists have to be enticed than Buenos Ayres. Five complete companies are recruited in Milan every year for South America. As Dooley’s friend Hogan would probably say: “It is the regular migratory flight of gregarious song birds.” He would mean thereby that the Italian artists had “ the full band parts of the place,” and knew what exactly to expect. Australian managers are met only in the Galeria at Intervals of several years. Artists are conservative — their business is voice production, and they study our geography no more than Sharpless studied ornithology. Our immigration literature has not as yet formed part of their daily mail- With these disabilities managers have to reckon. Signor Hazon was not long in discovering this- Mr. J. C. Williamson had held the Australian rights of “ Madam Butterfly” for three years before the distinguished conductor suggested the possibility to the manager of something being done with Puccini’s work. He wrote to Signor Hazon, telling him to meet him at Genoa some months after the receipt of his letter, and in the interim to get busy. What he wanted was artists who could sing in English. Do you know Signor

Hazon ? Then you can hear him say, “ But to sing in English ! That is impossible!” And, knowing Signor Hazon, you can see him getting busy just the same This was the time when Signor Hazon would have liked the combined Tourist Department of the Commonwealth and New Zealand to have bombarded him with their most alluring arguments in the “ Come to Australia” chorus. As they didn’t, he prepared a rhapsody in his mother tongue which he fired off at the sopranos, the tenors, the baritones of Milan. “What’s wrong with us remaining here under the shadow of ‘La Scala ?’ ” they replied in their own idiom. And if you can forget you are a New Zealander for the moment, you can see that the maestro needed to be ready with something attractive. If the editor of this paper were offered a similar post on the Howard Island “ Bi-valve,” the chances are he would turn it down, whatever money was forthcoming. Signor Hazon found the game he was trying to bag very shy. When he pointed out that Melba came from Australia, he was reminded that she didn’t stay there, and that topic was irreparable. “ Come and I will make you a Melba!” he urged. “Melba was made at this end of the world,” was the answer.

But Signor Hazon has a genuine love for Australia. His rhapsodies had “ heart” in them, and his hearers were emotional. When Mr. Williamson arrived at Genoa his musical director had “ options” on a number of operatic singers, one of whom was Bel Sorel. He had her sign an undertaking to tour not a day too soon; the agent of the Manhattan Opera. House, New York, was bidding for her. Signor Hazon was one of many on a similar quest for prima donnas. Mr. Williamson completed the engagements for the company, and visiting England and America, was back in Australia before the final selection of artists embarked at Genoa on their voyage here. The tour was booked and everything set in train. It was, of course, necessary that, on the arrival of the imported principals, everything should foe so far forward that no time be lost in opening the season. An orchestra of 43 had to be secured, in itself no light matter. The supply of musicians for grand opera is limited- Instruments of the rarer order are required for Puccini’s orchestral effects. The players were gathered from all over Australia, with Ernest Toy, the young Queensland violinist, as leader. Sydney and Melbourne supplied the chorus. Voice trials continued over

weeks. Many were “ called,” but few were chosen- Sydney was strong in contraltos and weak in sopranos, Melbourne vice versa. Nothing could be done with orchestra or chorus nntil Signor Hazon arrived. He came on two boats ahead of the principals. Passing through Melbourne he gave Mrs. Taylor Darbyshire the tempi, and she immediately began rehearsing the Melbourne chorus contingent. The musical director wasted no time reaching Sydney, where, in addition to approving of the chorus and orchestra, he put “ the small-part people” for “ Madam Butterfly” through their vocal work. These Mr. Henry Bracy, the stage director, had carefully selected from Australian sources.

With the advent of Signor Hazon there was great activity. He worked late at night on his score and lived laborious days with the chorus and “ band.” With the former he sang himself hoarse, with the latter he reduced his voice to a fibrous whisper. Mr. Williamson, crossing the stage one day when the conductor was doing violent calisthenics on his stand, cheerily remarked, “ Music seems to be in the air, Hazon.” “But I try hard, Mr. Williamson, to get air in the music” was sent back by the energetic Italian. His method with both the vocal and instrumental forces was to take a few bars over and over again and never pass a mistake. “If you once get them in you can’t get them out” was his diction. To a much-abused instrument he would remark, when his patience was about giving out, “J don’t know whether you are right or I am wrong, but I hope you are right!” And Jack Johnson could not send his left more promptly to a weak spot than the same Signor Hazon sent his baton to a discordant instrument. At rehearsals he was always worth watching, for the reason that his attitude seldom conveyed to the onlooker his real feelings. For example, his hands at times would be spread as if he were pronouncing a benediction, but his lips would mutter an imprecation, for Puccini’s score is lyric and full of melody. Discord cannot be hid or passed for profound musical expression—“ the sound of the universal laws promulgated”—as in the “ abattoir” operas of Wagner and Strauss.

Puccini eschews cacophonic orperitis for a more genial flow of exquisite feelings. There is never a time when the' conductor can shudder and say, “ That must be right, it’s so tuneless.” All the time the music was coming on; the other branches of production were steadily advancing. Life at the

paint frame —Mr. John Gordon, his models of the scenes showing evei*y stage detail, long since completed to his conception of Japanese ‘settings, splashed at something very like a ten-league canvas, even though his brushes were not of “ comet’s hair.” His work in the light of day does not stand for beautiful —there is a raw unloveliness and an aggressive smeariness that even close range does not wholly explain. When the stage lighting—limes and electrics —illuminate it, however, the transformation is wholly wonderful. This lighting has to be allowed for, and to be able to intuitively do so is the scenic artist’s sixth sense. The beautiful first set in “ Madam Butterfly” to depict the wane of the long day, the climb of the slow moon, and the harbour lights of Nagasaki plumbing the mystic ocean, had little romance in it when seen in the paint room. Stage illusion is a wonderful thing; it mostly comes from where it is most easily lost —the same paintroom. Another illusionist is the property master, Mr. Rocke Phillips- He made the set of Japanese gods of whom Suzuki, while she rings her prayer bell, asks to grant that Butterfly shall weep no more. He also does much to give verisimilitude to “ the background of varnish and lacquer.” Pinkerton, in ecstatic . song, gives Butterfly. Every chattel on the stage emanates from this department, and when it is not the genuine article it shows that Mr. Rocke Phillips wasn’t born in Birmingham to no purposeAll the properties come within the general artistic scheme of colour and atmosphere, and this is so also with the costuming. Bel Sorel’s dresses were designed by Caramhra, whose art is a big feature of the production at La Scala, Milan, and the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, while the kimonos of the Australian prima donna, Amy Castles, and those of the chorus were purchased in Japan. As rehearsals progressed the scenery and properties came to the theatre, so that everybody should become used to both. Mr. Bracy then was confronted with the task of contriving stage “business” that fitted with the music. All the time the rehearsals were in progress the theatre was full of workmen —painters and decorators, who performed their brushwork to Signor Hazon’s all-com-pelling beat. The action of the opera interested them all so greatly that at an exciting movement they would all take a few bars’ rest. One day when “ Sharpless” had just urged Butterfly to accept the hand of the wealthy Yamadori, Bel Sorel sang her amazed, “ Your Augustness, you tell me this!” there was a general thrill of surprise. Even the theatre watchman, who is remarkably like E- K. Chesterton, turned round in the stalls and regarded the Consul with pained astonishment.

There was only one dress rehearsal for each prima donna for “ Madam Butterfly.” At all the others the members of the company wore ordinary street costumes. To see them all thus attired, acting their characters was to witness what was often laughably incongruous. That Pinkerton should offer Sharpless a whisky lost its “ easy-dayness” under such circumstances. To watch the tenor grasping a chair while he sang an exultant love song also had its humorous side, and a prima donna reaching for and finding a top note, when her face to her nose was hidden with a huge hat, while the birds looked down from the fresco, was to momentarily lose control of one’s features. But the earnestness of everybody caused one to forget all but the work in hand, after the first shock, and to catch the prevailing enthusiasm. The chorus master, with his head through an interstice in the shosi, one eye on Signor Hazon’s beat, the other on his invisible choir, while the bouche fermee effect was being tried, likewise became part of a serious piece of work. You only had to hear the musical director say, “The attack, ladies, is faulty. That will never do” to understand that the occasion iwas not one for levity. If further confirmation of this were needed the books of the management would show that before the curtain rose on the production several thousand pounds had been sunk in the enterprise.

CHRISTCHURCH NOTES.

My. Christchurch, dramatic correspondent writes:—“Peter Pan” is making quite as big a hit in Christchurch as it has made in the other Australasian centres where it has been produced. It is just a nursery tale dramatised, and while it never fails to delight the little folks, in whose interest it is supposed to have been written/ it appeals no less irresistibly to “children of a larger growth.” It is a beautiful story, beautifully told, full of fun, full of quaint conceits, and with more than a suspicion of pathos. The lessons it teaches are admirable. All of which has so impressed the playgoers of this “livery” town that they are rolling up, hundreds upon hundreds of them, nightly to see one of the most successful theatrical productions of recent years Latest advices from Wellington are to the effect that “Madame Butterfly” is taking the Windy City by storm. The Christchurch season begins on July 13 and ends on July 23. . . . We had hoped to have seen Harold Ashton in advance of “Peter Pan,” but Harold has other fish to fry, and but newly returned from ’Murka, is once more on his travels in quest of “novelties,” having accompanied Mr. Williamson to England and the Continent. By the way, did you know that Mr. Ashton is now a partner with J. C. Williamson? He is, I believe, with characteristic modesty, keeping this very quiet, but I have learned on excellent authority that it is true. That so, Harold? If so, hearty congratulations. . . . . The Marlow Dramatic Company open here in June and say good-by on June 22. You Aucklanders have already seen these clever people, so I need say no more anent them now.

. . . . The Theatre Royal will not be disengaged for some time. Present bookings run right up to Boxing Night, almost without a break. . . .

May Beattie and hubby (Ed. Laurie) are playing at the London Halls with a good deal of success. Present bookings run well into 1914. May would much like to return to the Colonies, but sees small prospects of doing so for the next few years, anyhow. . . . West’s Pictures are filling the New King’s Theatre, in Gloucester-street, every night. A very popular film just now shows the late King Edward opening the new museum in London. He was accompanied by Queen Alexandra, Queen Mary and the present King, and excellent “counterfeit presentments” of all are thrown upon the screen. . . . Fuller’s Pictures are still drawing over-flowing audiences to the Colosseum. Rival theatrical shows in the same town and playing on the same nights often “kill” each other. Not so with picture shows, because people visit each in turn, and then compare notes. The Fuller management certainly gives splendid value for money, not only at the Colosseum, but at the Opera House also —our permanent home of vaudeville.