STAGE AND SCREEN

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 3 January 1931, Page 4

STAGE AND SCREEN

Galli-Curci’s reappearance on the concert platform in England was made in October, when she gave a recital at the Bournemouth Pavilion. This recital was one :f a series which is to be given by such world-famed artists as herself, Krc-isler, McCormack, Chaliapane, and others. Writing on Galli-Curci’s opening concert, the musical critic of the London “Daily Telegraph” says:—“This afternoon it seemed that the great prima donna had brought some of the sunshine with her to the stage of the concert room. It is a few years since she has sung in England, and it may he that some will discover the voice to he less resonant and penetrating in the upper register, that something of the old freedom of coloratura has gone. But what matter if the beauty of the voice remains, the artistry is greater even than before, and the personality more than ever radiant. Certainly, I have seldom listened to a recital that has afforded me more pleasure than she gave with Gualticro Voltcrra as solo pianist, and her husband, Homer Samuels, as accompanist. At no moment was the singer dramatic or passionate—the stage, she seemed to suggest, is the place for that emotion —but she went from one light expression to another, sentimental, dainty, coquettish, and always the soul of rhythm. 1 know no singer who can break the canons of enunciation and slouch through a phrase as beautifully as she does even in her own language—and she sang in five this afternoon. Yet, when it comes to rapid diction, what woman singer is in her class to-day?”

A French radio journal, having asked for a general expression of opinion as to the instrument most favoured by its readers, says that in France the best-loved instrument is the concertina, followed in order by the violin, ’cello, guitar, cornet, flute, bugle and saxophone.