GALLI-CURCI

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 314, 30 August 1932, Page 7

GALLI-CURCI

NOTED SINGER IN DOMINION ON HER SECOND VISIT. INTERESTING INTERVIEW. Making her second visit to the Dominion, Madame Galli-Curci, the noted singer, arrived in Wellington last weelt from Sydncy. Interviewed on arrival, she said: "I ara really loolcing forward to my stay in New Zealani I lcnow that II am going to meet charming people. We .are old friends now, and don't have to 'brealc the ice'." First visits, she confessed, she dreaded, but second visits were a different matter. "There is something fresh about island people," she went on. "They are not. so sophisticated; and in. every island country I have found the same thing. I hate sophistry; it's a distortion of what God has given, us, and a caricature of what we should be. It's so against Nature, you ltnow." And she then went on to enlarge her thoughts, saying that she loved genuine people, and that as far as she was concerned there was no division of the classes, God having given all of us the same lcind of gifts. "I think a street sweeper is as much of an idealist as a novel writer, provided he is genuine and sincere." From this topic the conversation drifted to the concert platform and the singer's own splrere of life. "I want to reach everybody," said GalliCurci, with an expressive wave of her hands; "in my singing I want to appeal to all — to the idealist and the lay,man — they are both entitled to enjoyment, and joy is really the one thing to which: everybody is entitled. We all have to go after joy; but the real joys are the spiritual ones, the ones that endure. "In China, Japan, in the East, and West it is the same. The response one receives indicates that music is the universal language. It is not difficult to reach the artist — he meets you lialf way — but it is different trying to reach the layman. One can see the faces in the audience; some husband who has becn dragged hy his wife to a concerrt," she remarked with a laugh; "you see,.little hy little, his face light up; and I think that gives me more pleasure than the biggest applause. I can pielc them out in the audience, and il go after them," she added with a chuckle. "I am never content with my performances; one note, one phrase that I did not siiio' T Kbnnlfl bnvo wisbod. T want

to do as my spirit says, and I want the body to obey." Spealcing of her tour in the East in 1928, Galli-Curci said that 99 per cent. of the audiences in Japan were composed of Japanese, and to her great surprise they called for "Home, Sweet Ilome" at the conclusion of the pei'formances. "It had the appeal," she remarked, "a little song like that; it's wonderful the appeal the simple little things have." Future of Music. And the future of music? she was asked. "Well, I don't think music can go very much further, because it does not have the same spiritual influence it used to have," she replied. "All is outside noise; the radio and the gramophone are loud, and that takes away concentration, and concentration means that you get in touch with the spiritual influence. If you do not have contemplative moods, you cannot he an ax-tist." The work of composers, she considered, had suffered through their inability to get into touch with the subtle influence of the spiritual force. "We are like children with a new toy; we are all taken up with radio and aeroplanes, and everything has quickened. But there is a tendency to pull up, and when we do, and have that condition united with the comforts of modern life, it will be ideal. At present, we are a little unbalanced, hut I think poise is coming again, and there should he a leavening 1 of the spiritual with the physical | life." The radio and the gramophone, | she said, should have the effect of making people music-lovers, who were , not music-lovers bcfoi'e. Charmed with the appearance of Wellington from the harbour, the , great singcr saw in it some resem- | blance to her native Italy. "It's just i like Naples, with the houses one above ; the other up the hillsides," she reI marked. "It seems that everybody wants to go higher and have more outloolc; I think it helps one to philosophise. Space makes you hreathe better. When I feel cramped I say to myself, 'Get out, get out,' and have a heart to heart tallc with Nature."