AMUSEMENTS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2191, 21 September 1907, Page 1 (Supplement)

AMUSEMENTS.

LOCAL FIXTURES. HIS MAJESTY’S. October 2, 3 and 4—Jessie MacLachlan. Oct. 30 to Nov. I—Willoughby-Wardl—Willoughby-Ward Company. Nov. 16 to 19—Pollard’s Lilliputians. 1908. February 17, 18 and 19—J. C. Williamson’s Company. March 11 to 14—Brough Flemming Company. Mr. Ernest Fitts, the baritone singer, lias rejoined Mr. Harry Rickard’s company at the Opera Hons Madame Carreno has decided to spend her holiday at Rotorua instead of Vancouver, as at first intended. Her daughters arrived in Auckland by tlic Taviuni on September 16 to join their mother. In Melbourne last week, Madame Clara Butt told the story of Etelka Cerster, who was her instructor in Berlin. She is never heard of now, and people sometimes wonder why such a bright particular star was eclipsed. She was singing one night-, Madame Butt states, and was in magnificent voice. She had got through

one or two acts in brilliant style, and the house literally rose at her. During tlio interval her husband came to her and began to berate her for something she had done or left undone. Words rose high, and he quickly reduced her to tears. AYhen the curtain rose she wont on to sing, but something has snapped. The performance which had begun so well ended in disaster, or rather it did not end at all; and from that day to this Etelka Gerster lias never sung on tlie stage. “.But she has never really lost her voice; and her art is a part of herself, which sho will keep after her voice has really gone. What she suffers from is some kind of paralysis brought on by that brutal husband’s abuse. I have heard her sing as divinely as ever she did—in tho morning. As'ked to ‘try her voico’ in the evening there was literally not a trace of it left to try. Whether the injury is mental or physical, or both, I don’t know; but tlio world lost a great singer tho night that Etelka Gerster was so untimely stricken down.”

Deferring to Madame Albani’s opening concert at -Christchurch, the Lyttelton Times says Naturally, the chief interest centred round the appearance of the celebrated soprano herself, and here frank disappointment was in store. Madame Albani is a magnificent artist, and her singing was the perfection of technique. But “time the taker, time the thief” has ravelled her voice at the edges, and whilst her singing is still delightfully clear and pure and her production in every way artistic and admirable 'he has lost something of the qual. j and something of the liquid richness which were hers at the zenith of her career. Everything she sang was sung with grace and fading, but the opening aria, “L’Amero,” from Mozart’s “II no Pastore.” showed at once that while the difficulties of her art were still hers to conquer, her vocal triumphs would in future bo won in less florid fields. The “Ave Maria” of Guonod, which she selected as an encore, was infinitely preferable, and was sung with warmth and deep expression. AVilleby’s setting of “Crossing the Bar” was another excellent number, but perhaps the gem of her contribution was the delightfully quiet and impressive, “Songs My Mother Taught Mo” (Dvorak). In this class of vocalisation the popular soprano is still supreme.