A LONG WAIT.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1390, 16 March 1912, Page 11

A LONG WAIT.

It was an Australian, lady, impressed with the extent of the field for singers in London (says a writer in an Australian paper), who declared on her.return, after a visit to this city,. "There is concert work in London every day and every night. Anyone who has a voice can get on."' These two sentences seem to harmonise with each other, but though tho first is quite true the secend does not harmonise with fact, In the musical season in London, which extends throughout the long winter, with a short break at Christmas and the early part of January, there are concerts 1 every day and every night, including Sunday, but an Australian singer who expects to make a living out of concert work in London must be prepared to put in two or three in making herself known in concert circles before her engagements become numerous enough to enable her to meet her expense out of her earnings. If she has acquired a ' considerable reputation 3n Australia, before leaving for England, for if she ia taken up jn London by ono :of the leading concert-singers, the period •of probation will be much shorter, but it i cannot be entirely dispensed with. Aus.tralia has produced in Madame Melba'a ; einger who still stands supreme - in the operatic world; in Miss Ada Crossloy and Miss Amy Castles Australia has produced singers of high quality, who have won distinction in London;'but Australia has also sent, and'is continuing to send, to thi3 country a comparatively large number of young ladies with voices that are not destined to carry them very far in tho musical world, though good onough to enable them to earn their living by singing if they can get concert engagements. Some of these singers havo made public appearances before critical audiences such as can bo assembled in cities like Sydney and Melbourne; but others have only won distinction in tho country towns in which they have lived, By benefit concerts and other means their-friends and tho general firiblio provide them with the'funds to try heir fortune in London, or to undergo training at the hands of an experienced • einging master in Paris or elsewhere, with tho object of making a successful debut In , London at a lator stage.