TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Issue 14828, 20 November 1913, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

It is curious that while Great grand opera wan being r£oOoera duced with financial as well Failure, as artistic success in a

country so far away from musical centres as Australia, an enterprise on similar lines failed in Birmingham and Manchester. Mr Denhef started off on his tour of the English provinces with Very high ambitions. His scheme, indeed, was heroic. IV> repertoire included not only the "Ring" and other Wagnerian works, but Strauss's "Electra," and as many other pr_eent--day operas as were available to him. He travelled with a big company of well-known principals, a large chorus, and an orchestra of 65, increased to 80 for the larger works. Before leaving London he announced that his expenses -would amount to £2300 a week, but ho had every confidence in provincial appreciation of grand opera. Birmingham and Manchester, however, failed him lament-

ably, and after losing £1000 weekly for two weeks in succession, he abandoned the enterprise at the end of tho third week. At latest advices Mr Thomas Beecham, the well-known conductor, was negotiating to carry on the tour "with modifications." Such a heavy loss in Birmingham and Manchester, which claim to be musical, and are the homo of much good music, is surprising. Mr Denhof cannot account for tho failure. "The most difficult critics to please have given tho company generous praise. I have been told that this is the wrong time of the year. When is the right time? Grand opera, given iv first-rate style, cannot be given at cheap theatre prices. At Manchester seats at half a crown and eighteenpenco have not filled. On financial details I was advised by one or two of the chief theatrical experts of the day that for the scheme as I had planned it my capital was adequate. These experts aro as surprised as I am. Tho capital was sufficient to stand a strain of the loss of a few hundreds a week, but not of a few thousands." It. is very probable that lack of tho right kind of advertising had much to do with the failure. The public imagination was not struck; the magnitude and artistic importance of the tour should have been kept before tho public for months beforehand—at least so say some. And knowing how much publicity is needed in some eases if the public's attention is to be attracted in this part of the. world, one can easily see tho force of this contention.

If San Francisco recovered A from the effects of its great City earthquake with astonishing of tho rapidity, and is now a Dead, greater and fairer city than

before, tho reverse is the case with Messina, which the upheaval of December, 190 S. laid in ruins. Close upon five years have gone by and little has been done even towards removing the rubble and de*molishing dangerous buildings. The harbour works, says a writer in the "Daily Chronicle" who recently visited the great necropolis, though one of the first concerns to need reconstruction, are the most neglected. The Government gavo out £100.000 of repair work nearly a year ago, but the contractors have not yet started on the job. "Wavelets ripple over the sunken wharves, the quaysido and adjacent streets remain rent asunder in mighty gaps; the parado is all uphoven, smashed, nnd encumbered with rubbish as when the tidal wave, 150 ft in height, retired after its vent of herculean castigation." Yet such is Messina's natural position that, despite its present lack of facilities, its port trade is greater oven than before tho disaster. Perhaps the most striking monument of the ruined city is the old Norman cathedral, which "looks as though it had fallen prey to the iconoclasm of a barbarian horde." The art treasures of this cathedral were valued at two millions sterling. The gem-laden high altar, erected in 1628 for enshrining a letter said to havo been sent by the Virgin Mary to the people of Messina through St. Paul, promising their city everlasting protection against all calamities, may have been the costliest in Christendom, for bills recovered from the buried archives put the price at 3,800,000 lire, or £160,000. Indeed tho wealth of the city as a whole at the time of the calamity is astounding. It even came as a revelation to the Italians themselves, this writer says, for Messina turned out to the richest city in all Italy, except Rome. A total of £27,500,000 in treasure has so far been recovered from the wreckage. Few Sicilians bank or invest; they conceal their hoards. One 6raall firm had no less than £80,000 in cash on their premises on tho night of the disaster. Of the bodies of the dead thousands upon thousands have beei disinterred, but of the 108,000 supposed to have perished, some 30,000 still remain unrecovered.