MISS MAUD ALLAN

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2138, 2 May 1914, Page 13

MISS MAUD ALLAN

LAST APPEARANCE TO-NIGHT. Tlio spell of enchantment that Miss Maud Allan casts over her admirers — and in that category must. lm numbered most of those who witness her dancing —is a thing difficult to explain, and yet not tlio less real oil tliat awotnvt. In lier performance last evening at Die Grand Opera House-, she was seen in many moods, but from first to last never failed to capture ilia attention and touch tlio imagination. Tho rising curtain found her kneeling upon her green draped and' carpeted st&go, a forlorn, yet wonderfully graceful, figure. This item, "Am Meer" (By the Sea) is not exactly a dance, but 0110 beautiful poso flows gracefully into another iu a manner suggesting tlio undulations-of the waves. Hard upon this spectacle, which owed much to tha beauty of colouring and lighting affects, canto a madcap valso which at tiroes came perilously near to mere childish romping, and yet never wholly lost a certain. Sprightly grace. Its prettiest- features, however, were thrown into tbo shads by the morry, graceful, capering in tlio "Moment Musical." Miss Allan was at her best iu the dance for which the chosen accompaniment -is M-cndelssolin's "Spring Song." Iu this she was a fat-try sprite exulting in the sunshine, drinking nectar from the flowers a»d chasing butterflies. These and tiwny other things appropriate to the- inspiration of the moment were pictured or suggested with wonderful realism in, a series of movements and rippling body undulations which never for a indent lapsed from perfect grafle. In the "Valse Triste (Sibelius), Miss Allan touched tho other extreme of emotion, and, dressed in trailing weeds, showed that sho could be as graceful ill slow afid infinitely melancholy aiovements a& when interpreting happier themes, Her last programme item was tho Blue Danube VaTse (Strauss), in, ... which her charmiug art was witnescd-' in its high-! est perfestion. Unlike the musk-iiai members of her compaift> Miss Allan steadfastly refused to respond to noisy ■ encoro calls, white tlio prograiiinio fan, its course, though time find agftiti she • camo stealing back to tho stage to bow her ' acknowledgments of rapturous applause. At tho 1 end of the evening^.-,.-however, she repented and supplenieftwd lier programme itenis with tho Barcarolle (Offenbach), and a. Brahms Valsq. Tho Barcarolle dance was a, slow and stately measure, but in tho valse Miss Allan tripped over tho stag© with light and airy tread and was as pretty as a dancing; sunbeam. The Cherniavsky brothers, Leo, J an, and Misehel, played the- d.rico accompaniments with finished skill irtd expression, and we,-re no less successful in their individual items. A-li' three were repeatedly encored and in fact tho audienco was somewhat unreasonable in its insistent demands for more. In addition to tho programme items Mr. Leo Clierniavsky played, by request, the "Nocturno in,E Flat" (Chopin), and "Ziegeunerweisen" (Sarasate), the lnt» ter, perhaps, his best perfomanto of the evening. Encore items included: "Larghetto" - (Weber-Kreisler) by Leo Clierniavsky, "Mi.riuettc-" (Padercffski), by his brother Jan, svnd "Massnrka" (Popper), by Mischel. .'The programme for this evening,' when the company will make its last. appearance in Wellington, consists largely of items inserted ,bv special request, and includes: "Am Meer," '"Co lit re Tans®" (Minuetto and Bacchanal)-, (Bcetlioven), arid tho "Peer Gynt" Suito "Morning," "Aso's Death," "An-itra's- Dante," and "Danco of tho Gjio-mes" afid "False," Op. 42, A Major (Chopin), Sir. Misriiel Clierniavsky will -play "Variation" (Boellman), Mr. Jnn "Evigen Onegimr' (Tschaikovsky-Pabst),' {intl Mr. too the violin concoriOj "Andante" and "Finale" (Mendelssohn)."