MUSIC NOTES.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, 3 April 1913, Page 22

MUSIC NOTES.

(By

“G” String.)

Mr. Fritz Hart, formerly conductor of the J. C. Williamson theatre orchestras, ( is to direct the Marshall Hall Orchestra and Conservatorium during the absence of Professor Marshall Hall in Europe. Mr. John M’Cormack, the Irish tenor, who re-visits New Zealand this year, has been arousing fresh enthusiasm in America. One of his most recent concerts was at Trenton, New Jersey, where his singing of Irish songs was received with rapturous applause. At the Pabst Hall, Milwaukee, he gave a special recital, and was again warmly greeted. His programme included the beautiful songs of the poet in “La Boheme,” Lado’s “Aubade,” from “Le Roi d’Ys,” and a Leoncavallo aria, as well as such ballads as “ Mother Macree,” and “Molly Brannigan.” The Paris correspondent of the “Standard” says:—The “Temps” publishes an 1 extract from a letter sent by. Madame Emma Calve to one of her friends who had heard she was unwell. The great prima donna says:—■ “Let me reassure you at once about my health, and about my dear pretty voice, always sonorous and strong,

and more touching and intensely expressive than ever, doubtless just to make me regret it the more. Alas! Like myself, my voice is in its autumn. It will go on slowly weakening, as if reluctantly. I shall cry over it'as over a sister. I have come to look upon it as being independent of my own, something winged and mystic —how strange a thing! I fancy that even if I lose it, it will come back to me at the moment of death, and I shall sing my last breath. Think that so far back as I can remember it used to sing with us two, my. father and I, ‘Portant Pour La Syrie.’ Later, in my poor old convent, in the chapel on Christmas nights it gave me my first emotions and my first success! How far away all that now seems! Well, it is not happiness. I would rather have been the mother of five or six little ones, and my voice would have been their lullaby!” How often, is this the case, yet nothing seems to be able to cure the stage-struck girls when once the fever has entered their blood. If Madame Calve has not found true happiness in her career, who else can look for it in that thorny path.

Miss Rosina Buckmann, the New Zealand, soprano has been singing at the London Palladium in a concert programme which included Miss Ruth Vincent, the well-known opera singer.. Miss Buckmann has secured several engagements,, and recently took part in a concert in Londonderry.

Eugen d’Albert’s one-act-opera “The Dead Eyes” is to be produced in Berlin at an early date. The subject matter of the libretto is described as follows:—Tbe central figure is that of a blind .'-oung Greek , woman, who lives on the scene, and at the time of Christs entry into Jerusalem. The New Testament incident forms the background of the whole work. The Saviour himself will not be portrayed in person, His presence being expressed by the music and the phantasy of the work. Touched by the healing hand of Christ, the blind woman regains her sight, and her eyes, filled with the light of love and passion, fall first upon a magnificent Roman, whom she believes to be her husband. Her husband, however, is really a most repulsive figure, and it is in giving expression to the conflict of emotions in the woman’s heart, when she discovers her mistake, that the music of the new opera finds its vent. The final occurs at sunset on the same day. The woman, troubled and disturbed in spirit, stands gazing into the blazing glory of the western sky until she again becomes blind, and with her* loss regains her peace of mind.

A French journal recently instituted a popular tribunal to vote on the merits of the repertoire of the Paris Opera Comique. “Carmen” received 26,000 votes, “Manon” 20,000, “Louise” 15,000, “Lakme” 14,000, “Werther” 13,000, “Mignon” 12,000, “Mireille” 10,000, “Barber of Seville” 9000, “La Boheme” 6500, and “Traviata” 5000.