THE WEEK’S RADIO Maggie Teyte Talks About Her Career

Press, Volume C, Issue 29497, 26 April 1961, Page 10

THE WEEK’S RADIO Maggie Teyte Talks About Her Career

ne M«re» e Teyte, ft* soprano, owes perhaps her « rtateB t f«me to h«r interpretation o® the role of Mdisande in Debussy’s opera, Peileas et Melisande.” She was chosen by Debussy-hinseif to CC^L ano U ler « I S lt Scottish soprano, Mary Garden, who had created the part.. Dame Maggie Teyte talks about her early experiences Md the of singing in a conversation with Alec Robertsoi> John Bowen by B B C " “ *» b. heM ft«

Dome Maggie Teyte has written of her first meeting Witt Debussy in 1807. When the. composer came into thb sooMl otter keeping her waiting about 30 minutes, “he walked -stttiSto acroae tte tawn, without looking at me, and seated himself at the piano. Then he turned and looked at me, and I don’t know what- he expected to see if ft was a 12-stone prime donna, he must have been very disappointed, for in Jtect I was so small and thin that he evidently didn’t think I Should be able to sing at all.” After a pause, Debussy asked: “You are Mademoiselle Teyte?” When the singer replied that she was, he seemed puzzled. “You are Mademoiselle Maggie Teyte?” he asked. After she again replied “Yes” there was complete silence for “many, many seconds,” before Debussy said rather fiercely: “But, are you Mademoiselle Maggie Teyte of the OperaComique?” His next remark was rather curious: “I will have Melisande as I want her!” Dame Maggie Teyte thinks this may have been accounted for by the fact that—as she learned later—when told of her nationality, Debussy had said: “What? A Scot again?” Anyway he overcame his doubts and taught her the role for nine months, a role that became as closely associated with her name as it had with Mary Garden's. It was also with Debussy that she established a reputation early in her career for her singing of French songs. He often accompanied her at recitals in which she sang his own songs and works by Ravel, Faure and other French composers. “I learnt things from Debussy . that have remained with me ever since, though at the time I may not have realised what I was learning,” she says. She was born in 1882, Margaret Tait. She changed the spelling early in her career so that her surname would be pronounced correctly in France. She studied singing, first in London, then in Paris with the great Polish tenor, Jean de Reszke. There she made her debut at the Opera-Com-

i ique. Later she sang at ! Covent Garden and in. major i opera houses and concert i halls to America and Europe. - Dame Maggie Teyte is in ; retirement now, although ahe : still teaches ’ Before the 8.8. C. \peoi gramme Dame Maggie Teyte will be heard Ringing sones by Chausson, Faure and Reyi naldo Hahn, another composer whom she knew well. Aldeburgh A series of 8.8. C. record- ■ ings made at last year’s Alde- , burgh Festival begins on i Monday from 3YC at 7 p.m. . with a concert of music by i Bach given by the Nether- . lands Chamber Orchestra, s The orchestra is conducted by i Szymon Goldberg, who is ; also the violin soloist in , Bach’s Concerto in A minor ■ for violin, and, with Haakon Stotjin (oboe), in the Con- : certo in D minor for Violin and Oboe. Stotjin is also soloist in the Sinfonia from Cantata No. 21. The programme is completed by the Sixth Brandenburg Concerto, played by the authentic forces of two violas, two viols da gamba, ’cello, double bass and harpsichord. Comedy-Thriller Henry Cecil’s play, "Settled Out Of Court” (ZBs, 9.18 pjn., Sunday) is a comedythriller which is still running in London with Nigel Patrick in the leading part of Lonsdale Walsh, a millionaire ‘ financier who is given life imprisonment for murder on what he claims is perjured evidence. In prison he finds that money is still useful and with its help he arranges ; with the underworld to make his escape to hold a highly original re-trial with a kidnapped judge, barristers and i the witnesses he claims have . committed perjury at his original trial. It is soon obvi- : ous that what he claims is ; true and it is the wife of the murdered man, Mrs Barnwell, who has been the guid--1 ing hand in building’up the perjured evidence. In Roy . Leywood’s N.Z.B.S. produc- • tion of the play, which listeners will find has a sting in

its tail, Lcmsdglu’Walgh ; i» played by AetonjU Cfttiuer, Mrs BarWett by-Dorothy ««?*’* Eagliah Pm The Left-wingpateLCtola* topher LoguaThA* irttntotod much attention --Ml: London with, his outapoketmese,totensity, sincerity ant Wlib. He is an enthusiast tof spcjccn KIMIuIUeS OL EMS QWQ 'wrWtKS* which he tend to the aecom- ?““*“«** °5 the BJB.C. Third Frogrtmm4 and at the Roybl Court Theatre in London. 'These around *iwphbtic , ‘ ihin*HqihaHn the public, who packed the little, theatre and applauded vigorously. The critics doubted whether the poetry and the • music was fused satisfactorily ‘but agreed in general about the vitality and humanity of the poems. From 3YC at 7.31 tonight, Christopher Logue may be heard reading “The Story About the Road.” one of the longer poems in a book which he published in May, 1959. African Changes Philip Mason, who talks on “Africa at the Crossroads,” from 3YC at 9.30 p.m. next Monday, is a former Indian Civil Servant who was a member of the commission of inquiry to examine problems of minorities in Nigeria in 1957. For six years he was director of studies in race relations at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House, London, and in 1958 he became director of the Institute of Race Relationships in London. In Monday’s talk, the first of two, he discusses the changes that have taken place in Africa among people of different races and colours.