AN INTERVIEW WITH AN IMPRESARIO.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2366, 5 December 1908, Page 7

AN INTERVIEW WITH AN IMPRESARIO.

MELBA’S AUSTRALIAN TOUR

NEWS OF PADEREWSKI

[Special to “Times.”]

WELLINGTON, Dec. 4. Owing to tho enterprise of Mr. John Lemmone, New Zealanders, in April next, are to have the pleasure of hearing Madam Melba, who is now at the very zenith of her fame and power as a vocalist. During her British provincial tour she has been singing to audiences of from 4000 to 10,000, the people realising that, after all, there is only one Melba, and that she is still the finest soprano in the world. Her present British provincial tour ended last Thursday, at Aberdeen, whence she will proceed by a special train to Liverpool. There she will board the s.s. Mauretania for New York to fulfil an engagement of eight evenings in opera, for which she will receive the enormous fee of £BOOO. It may- be asked why, therefore, does Melba, when at the zenith of her fame, trouble to come to New Zealand and sing at such places, among others, as Invercargill, Oarnaru, Timaru, Masterton, Napier, Palmerston North, Wanganui, and New Plymouth. It is because she wishes as many of the British as possible to hear her magnificent voice while it is at its very best. “What I am anxious for,” she writes in a recent letter to Mr. Lemmone, “is that all shall hear me, because, of course, I shall never again make a trip like this.” The 10,000 audience at tho Albert Hall, on November 7th last, and the £Boo(LNewYork fee show that money-making'is not the main object of . her ' contemplated Australasian tour. She will even give a concert at Liilydale, quite a small Victorian village, wdiere she lived when a girl, and where ho aged father, now 82 years of age, still resides. “Whatever you do,” she writes to Mr. Lemmono, “don’t neglect Lilydale. I promised them that if ever I came back to Australia I would sing there and I must keep my promise,” and here, apx-opos, an incident not generally known in connection with Melba’s career and the character of old David Mitchell, her father, may be related. He -was very proud of his daughter’s -musical abilities and allowed her, at the age of six, to sing as an amateur in the Melbourne Town Hall, but he so strongly objected to her singing professionally that years afterwards, when she gave her first public concert, he marked his displeasure by closing his house and extinguishing the lights'at an early hour. It is six years since Melba was in New Zealand,, but she was in Australia last year. Six years ago her fourth concert in Sydney realised £2632, a -record for this part of the world. Last year, however, when she gave the two Peoples’ Concerts in the Exhibition Buildings at Melbourne, the attendance was enormous. The price was fixed at -5s and 2s 6d, but owing to request's for specially reserved seats it was decided to set-aside a number in the Vice-llegal reserve at a guinea each. So great was the demand that the number, even at this popular concert rose to almost a

thousand. There must have been from twelve to fourteen thousand people crowded into the building. The expenses in connection with such concerts were very great. The rent of the hall, with just the bare walls and floor was £2OO. It cost £53 to build a platform and £2O to build a Bounding board over the platform, to the building in the basement, and it cost £25 in labor alone to bring them into the hall. £llO was pajdd'or the hire of extra chairs. It needed £72 for electric light,, and £3O for gas, while for an orchestra £250 was paid. What with advertising etc., the total expenses for the two concerts exceeded £llOO. “And did you make anything out of it?” I asked Mr. Lemmone. “Did we?” he ejaculated, with his pleasant smile. “But I’m not going to tell you what we made.” In regard to Melba’s present tour there can be no doubt that Melba, from what all the critics say, is now singing in better style than ever before ana Australians at all events are becoming enthusiastic over her visit. Several towns in New South Wales are building special halls for no other reason than that Melba is coming . Lismore is building one to hold two thousand people. In Warwick they are enlarging the Town Hall in view of her visit, and several other halls are also being enlarged for the same purpose. Inquiries from Mr. Lemmone regarding our mutual friend Paderewski elicited the news that the famous . pianist is still in high favor in England, in America and on the Continent. Since he was in New Zealand he has been twice to America. His audiences wet’© as enthusiastic and as charmed' with his personal magnetism and his marvellous playing as ever. At present he is resting at his chalet liiondonbossan at Morges, in Switzerland. Paderweski was charmed with New Zealand and in his letters he often refers to the happy holiday lie and his party had at Rotorua, and the time when Maggie, the guide, dressed them as Maoris and they danced an impromptu haka in their weird costumes with rolling eyes and protruding tongues. They were photographed by Mr. lies on condition that when a number of copies were printed off for private circulation the negative should bo destroyed, which promise was honorably 'kept. It will be welcome news to musical people throughout the Dominion to know that, Mr. Lemmone may induce Paderewski to pay another visit to New Zealand at no distant date. Indeed he probably would have come out next year but for Madam© Melba’s visit. Of the other members of that delightltd party, whom to know intimately was a privilege, Ratynski, the clever Polish nerve specialist, is settled in the Rue Jouffrey, Paris, where he has a splendid practice, while Mr. Adlington, Paderewski’s private secretary,- recently sold, his Scottish private business for £IOO,OOO, and is now. as he himself exnresses it, “taking a fatherly interest in the great firm of Erard.” Madam© Paderewski is in" good' health and as solicitous as ever of, her husband’s wellfare.