A RUSSIAN SINGER.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1011, 29 December 1910, Page 4

A RUSSIAN SINGER.

FROM THE MOSCOW GRAND OPERA. Those who have been 'fortunate enough to hear M. Eugene Ossipoff, iwho is singing in conjunction with Mr. Lawrence Camnbell, the gifted elocutionist,'will be interested to know something of the, Russian artist, whose pervervid dramatic treatment of his songs is something so entirely, different to what we are, accustomed to' in New Zealand. "I do not alone sing my .songs.- Yes— thev are written to be sung—so, but after that their is interpretation—that is what likes me," siid Monsieur, to, a Dominion reporter in his quaint English. "Someone sing 'X love You' just so— not like lie love her at all. That is not right. I sing ,'I Love You,' so—l try to look I love you—so !" The difference was illuminating. ' — "You play the accompaniment tum-tum-tum, and, the singer sing like that—. 110 animation, no feeling in ' the face, eh? I like to sing with my laoo and. with my voice—that is my way; I do. not like to'lose it. Miss Lees plays my acivmpaniraents beautiful—l try five, six,- m Melbourne—oil, terrible. - Miss Lees, she understands me. I am afraid to lose her, so she come to New Zealand to play for me." M. Ossipoff, who certainly acts up to his gospel of art, stated that he was horn in Moscow, and received his musical training in that historical and-artistic centre. He.'.was for some years-attached to . the Moscow Grand Opera, where he sang most of the baritone roles in' the dramatic repertoire, including Mephistophelee in "Raust," "Rigoletto, • "Aida," "LaTraviata," and a big rango .of Etissian operatic roles, including those, of Tschaikovsky and Glinka.- He also confesses to a great love for Russian folk-lore songs, of which , lie has quite a number repertoire. Asked how lie came to leave Russia; lie said that a few artists got-together, and decided to tour Siberia and the East, and played very ■ successfully through to Vladivostok, and then went down: the ■ China coast; playing at Shanghai, Hankow, and Hong-Kong,'but gradually'as they moved farther away from their mother country their numbers became beautifully less, until finally the pianist left for Russia, when at Colombo. M. Ossipoff; who had a desire to see the whole of the world, came on to Australia; and here he was quite' alone. After a tour' of New Zealand, lie proposes' to visit America and Soutli Africa,' arid then return to Russia.