GRAND OPERA IN ENGLISH.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 824, 24 May 1910, Page 6

GRAND OPERA IN ENGLISH.

"LA BOHEME." On Thursday J. C. "Williamson's fine opera organisation will present for the first time in Wellington Puccini's great opera "La Boherne."

"La Boheme" (Bohemia) is the student quarter of Paris. It is located in the old part of the capital, closo to the village of ' buildings which . that artistic country of Prance sustains for the free instruction of gifted youth. Students of freo art institutions are seldom millionaires. Those of Paris carry their treasures in heart and head. They shiver and grope in the dark as a body. In a small top-loft room, "whose walls were the chief furniture, a nice little girl (With blue eyes, fluffy hair, small hands and feet, pale face and a cough, embroidered flowers on cloth for a living. In a big barracky room below, which served as studio, living-room, entertainment' hall, club, and tryst-bower, roomed three rollicking young students, thinking little about themselves and much about everythiuk else in the universe, and a fourth a, poetic, sentimental sort of fellow. One day the three jolly fellows went out, leaving the other alone and half asleep.- The nice little girl, Jlimi, going upstairs candle in hand, caught a corner draught' which blew her candle out, leaving her in total darkness upon the stair. Knocking at the first spot ?> 7, , reacll > ■ opened by liudo.ph. Had she been a scrawny, fiatfooted, putty-faced girl, the flower embroiderer would have had her candle lighted gracefully, have offered many thanks and apologies, received insistant assurance of the pleasure thereby won, and would have gone her way as sho Ci ' l ?, e - Being small, pretty, pink and white, with fluffy hair and appealing blue eyes, sho was invited to remain. When the boys came back they were told to go elsewhere,.and they politely obeyed, while «r. Poet went 011 with his wooing. Before the evening was,over the girl would have died for the : man, and she never got over the feeling. Always ailing, Mimi soon became ill and tailed looking. Rudolph got tired of it, not of her particularly but of the strain or taking care of her without anv money, always a hard task for a man, involving teeling without '.possible action. Pity worry, want, and desire all got mixed lip together with him, he wanted to get rid of the worry, not of the girl, is the one could not be shaken off without the other, both must go. It is the. story of the petted house-eat, sheltered, caressed, fed, and cared for, till some change m family arrangements makes the poor, small, helpless thing a burden. All lovo her, of course, but no one is willing to take the trouble of her, so out Mini] goes to die by degrees in the alley, Tilth her eyes fastened upon the lights' of the window she dare not approach. ,Jj.'. Bn sr n 1 ?[ ana Pampari will bo the , Jlrai ot the occasion, and according •n? fi ; 2 stjral i an - C W? S ', hcr interpretation of the paits is both from a singing and actine point entirely delightful and highly artistic.