THEATRE AND MUSIC.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1189, 26 July 1911, Page 4

THEATRE AND MUSIC.

(By Sxlvihs.) A Great Company. When the English version of (he grand opera, "Olio Vi'dis." goes on tour next scasun (siiy.N the Mew York "Theatre"), a special train of eleven baggage cars will be required lo carry the scenery and baggage, while another special will Iμ nrcdnl far the company and orchestra. M'he entiro personnel will number nearly Ihreo hundred people. A corps of sixty stage hands and twenty electricians will be needed to operate tho scenery at each performance. (Ivor forty thousand feel, of painted canvas and set scenery is required to stage this spectacular grand opera, and it will require six mammoth set 5 , the largest beiug the Cqllisenm scene, where Nero en-. Icrtiiin.s his nobles and the Roman mob by feeding the Christians to the boasts. Tho panoramic back.curtain for. this one picture contains four thousand feet of canvas .alone.

Gilbert's Old Woman. In the course of its obituary sketch of Sir William Gilbert, tho "Athenaeum" comments upon his "extraordinary presentment of woman gniwn old and ugly. In every one of the operas, except, perhaps, 'Trial by Jury' nnd 'The Sorcerer,' where Mrs. Partlet- is hardly a case in point, we find some elderly lady held up to merciless ridicule. 'The Lady Jane,' 'Ruth,' 'Katisha,' and 'Lady Blanche , will readily suggest themselves as examples of a cruelty of treatment bordering on vindietiveness, and altogether at variance with the kindly note characteristic of Gilbertian whimsicality."

iVhether this element in Gilbertian characterisation can properly be called "vindictive" is open to question. Gilbert was rather kind, in providing for tho future of "Buttercup" and "Lady Jane" at least. Where it must have struck many people that the librettist was really severe was in his dealings with the luckless Captain Corcoran in "Pinafore." This "really popular commander" has always seemed entitled to sympathy. He treats his crew with exquisite consideration, yet in their presence has to submit to brow-beating and insult from the egregious Sir Joseph Porter, to say nothing of being required to perform a, hornpipe upon the cabin-table. The acme of his desire is to save his daughter from a glaring mesalliance, and through no fault of his own his crew become mutinous, and things are so grievously "at sixes or at sevens" that he confides to Buttercup that he is "sad and sorry," and is driven to address a despairing apostrophe to tho "fair moon," assisted by tho strains of a light guitar. Nor is any poetic justice inetctl out to this unfortunate officer in the end. On the contrary, he is stripped of his epaulettes, disrated, and made a fore-topmast' hand, just because somebody * else in-the dim fiast has "practised baby-farming." Here lilbert's fair play unquestionably failed. Instead of wrecking, the fortunes of tho captain, he ought trt have provided something very "lingerins" for that amusing but. pestilent old party, Sir Joseph Porter.

The Kaiser as a Composer. The "Hymn to Aegir," which those Londoners who were privileged to bo present with Koyalty at the recent, great Drur.v Lane performance of ".Money" applauded as the Kaiser's- own com position, is really a work of collaboration, in which the Kaiser is only entitled to a third share. Prince's* Charlotte of SaseMeiningen, .tlm Kaiser's sister,' who was present at.'the birth of the "Hymn," gives the following account of its origin:—"William," says the Princess, "was seated one day at the piano, strumming, over all kinds of popular melodies-with, one'- finger.Kvery now■ and." then-he would-bring- both hands' into play and- develop: the "theme" , with variations of -his owii. ■Suddenly a' certain blond "giant (the -Imperial' aide-de-camp, vdii Plueskow) crept up behind the Kaiser and struck into the music, taking-up the Imperial melody and turning it cleverly into a highly successful florid passage. Several gentlemen, well known figures at Court, were present .in the room, and when the Kaiser left '.he piano it was suggested that rne Tmpoml impromptu would accord splendid v.ilh Count von Eulenbnrg's 'Hymn to Aegir.' The Count. (now Grand Marshal of tho Court) was sent, for, fell'in with -the -idea, and there and then the Kaiser, von Plueskow, and the Count set to work to compose the now.famous piece. Of the three," adds the. Princess, "the only skilled musician was the blond giant, to whom fell tho additional task of transcribing Hits score." During the following year or jo the Kaiser .must, often, liavo regretted the day when he posed'as a.composer, wherever. :he.went. tho. "Hyjnii of Aegir" greeted him. Brass, strings, and wood blared and shrilled it at him, massed choirs roared it at him, trim battalions of school childrpii squeaked it at him. It is recorded that on one occasion at Frankfort,, when thirty-five choirs simultaneously hurled the " "Hymn" at him from the lowest depths of 'their inflated bosoms, the Kaiser turned to a friend and said: "Some of those fellows sang themselves black and blue in the face. I shall have to forbid the composition of this high-pressure music in Germany for the next ten years."

Melba on Singers' English

On May 19 Madame Melba, at the Guildhall School of Music, London, presented the scholarship which she'has founded for sopranos. .She congratulated. Mr.. Landon Eonald, the new principal, but declined to make a .speech," saying: "1 can't, go'ion; lam too nervous. "I;liavo. never niado a speech before, and.l can't dp it now." A paper was read for the brilliant singer by Mr. Ronald,-and'in the course of it Mine. Melba expressed the. opinion that English, as a musical language, though inferior to Italian, was at least equal "to French, and was superior to .German. But thero were no rules governing the expression, and the result was lamentable: —The English language should Iμ sung as it should be spoken—with just sufficient added distinctness, or one might oven use the word "exaggeration," to counteract the obscuring effect of the singer's voice and the piano or other musical accompaniment. If you wish to sing your native language beautifully, you must love your native language; and the nearer you get to it the more you will love it. Fill your minds with Shakespeare's Sonnets, Ke'ats's "Ode to a Grecian Urn," Shelley's "Ode to a Skylark," Matthew Arnold's "Forsaken Merman," Swinburne's "Spring Song" in "Atalanta," and many of the poetic ecstasies with which your beautiful language is so rich. Learn to speak them aloud with distinction and understanding, and so enable yourselves to bring to your singing the added glory of a perfect diction.