ROSINA BUCKMAN

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 38, 8 November 1919, Page 8

ROSINA BUCKMAN

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ENGLISH IMPRESSIONS OF A NEW

ZEALAND SINGER

A SIGNAL HONOUR

(From tho Liverpool "Echo" of August 11 last.) When Miss Rosina Buckman was asked to take Melba's place in "La Eoheme" at Covent Garden, she was accorded a signal honour, a recognition as it was of the ability of.native operatic singers by a management which had relied almost exclusively on foreign artistes, was a welcome result of the war and of Sir Thomas Beecham's wonderfully successful seasons, for as his prima donna Miss Buckman had long made a name for herself. She subsequently appeared in several other Eoyal opera productions, and with great success. "To hear Miss Buckman sing," says the Liverpool "Echo." "is not ah experience to be lightly valued. Her appearances in Liverpool have been all too few, and perhaps that is why she was so genorous in her responses to iho repeated demands for more from the audience. Miss Buckman possesses in her voice a beauty not shared by many singers. It is not easy to define, but it is a peculiar sweetness.of the voice itself which casts its. spell over the greatest musical Philistine, while it sends the musician into eestacies of delight. Her singing is the quintessence of that music-which hath the vaunted charms to soothe the savage breast—musical or otherwise.' As in all really great singers, one is entirely unconscious' of any technical defelopment in Miss Buckman's vocalism. The singer can recognise, but only by consciously listening for it, the faultless technique which is' embodied deep down in her singing for it is never apparent. "There are no gasps for breath—indeed, it seems almost an impossibility that she should breathe at all, so even is the flow of her voice-there is no 'scooping up' of high notes, no slurring of words into one nnother (a terribly common fault among the. most exalted And yet—tho secret is Miss Buckman's own-all this, and much more, is accomplished without the listener being aware, unless he deliberately sets up a careful analysis, that there is anything beyond a profound naturalness in'her manner of singing.. It is, indeed, a perfect example of the.oft-quoted art which conceals art.' For the rest she sings, like Keat's nightingale, in 'fullthroated ease,' and one listens in rapture, to great swelling, sweeping curves of sound following each other with wonderful effortlessness and with that extraordinary palpitating, yet unbroken line of melody which is her greatest gift. It arouses in the musician something of the same ardent joy which the low purring of a powerful engine 'running . sweetlv' insnires in the engineer— ri iov which, behind the sense appeal, one dimlv grasps as an appreciation of 'what we 'take to be tho nearest approach to perfection. Perhaps in the 'One Fine Day* song from Tiladam Butterfly' in the repeated cadences and long-drawn .notes of thk.tvnical Puccini melody one heard Miss Buckman's voice in its most ravishing aspects. It is not easy to detach any of Puccini's music from its context and give an effect of comnleteness, but one did lint mind this when Miss Buckman and Mr. Maurice d'Oisly sang the concluding portions of that hnuntinpr duet which closes the first act of 'Butterfly,' and followed it with the similarly-placed duet in 'Bolieme.' They were so nerfectlv siing, so exnressivelv phrased, that one almost for got to wish there was an orchestra—for not' even Mr. Freeman, fine accompanist though he is, can get anything from a Puccini piano score. .Miss Buckman sail? altogether about a dozen times, and Mr. d'Oisly did not get off with much less."

Miss Buckman is a Now Zealand singer, nnd'had played responsible parts in grand opera excellently 'well before she went to England. As a matter of fact, it was, in a way, due to the recognition of lier talent and canacity for work by her many friends and admirers in Wellington that Mis? Buckman was able to go to England when she did, and to do the diva, justice, she does not forget it. Sliakosneare says,' "There is a tide in Hie affairs of man, which, taken at the flood, lead on to fortune." Miss BiirVmnn's flood-tide was when she was in Wellington, after the Melba opera season 'in Australia, and she received n cable from Mr. John M'Cormack' advising her to come Home as there were chances' at Covent Garden. Melba. then in Svdney, was cabled to for' advice, and she, too, urged Miss Buckman to go. «o a big benpfit concert was arranged bore, the result of which enabled Afiss Buckman to "take the flood," which has at least elevated her fo the diva class in London.