British Artist’s Success in Paris

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 72, 16 June 1927, Page 16

British Artist’s Success in Paris

HISLOP’S GREAT RECEPTION Joseph Hislop, the first British artist to sing at the Opera Comique, in Paris, secured a brilliant success in the role of Rudolio in “La Boheme,” on a recent evening. The occasion was billed as a gala performance, for which the prices were nearly doubled. The theatre was packed and an unusually large number of British and Americans were present to hear the famous Scottish tenor. Mr. Hislop, who sang in Italian—the rest of the cast singing in French —was in splendid voice, and sang with refreshing ease. The clarity and richness of his tone in the “Che Gelida Manina” —the aria in the first act —thrilled his audience, and brought forth a burst of applause which continued for some minutes.

The audience called repeatedly for an encore, but the conductor persistently refused, amid shouts of protest from disappointed persons in different parts of the hall. The enthusiasm was repeated after the first act, when Mr. Hislop had to take half a dozen curtain calls.

LISZT’S PRINCESS

AN OLD ROMANCE WAGNER THE EGOIST There lives on, at Bayreuth, in Bavaria, an old lady, Liszt’s daughter Wagner’s widow, who is the last survivor of a wonderful 19th century group of musicians and romantic comedians—Liszt, Marie d’Agoult, Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein, Wagner, Bulow. To a French writer, Guy de Pourtales, who proposed telling the story afresh, Cosima Wagner not long ago said: “Do not be hard on the princess.” The princess in the case was the great Carolyne, the Polish blue-stocking, who met Liszt at Kiev in 1847, fell to his fascination at once, carried him off to her country place (she was living apart from her husband the prince), and soon afterwards left everything for him, settling down at Weimar and sharing his life for the next 12 years. M. de Pourtales has lately told the tale in French, and Mr. William Wallace in English. Both are good reading. The Frenchman takes the more lenient view. lie remembered Cosima’s injunction. The Scotsman is very hard on the princess. An Extraordinary Woman

He is not hard on Liszt. His Liszt is the victim of an array of unscrupulous egoists—chief of them Wagner, who borrowed liis money and his musical ideas with barely an acknowledgment. The princess was an extraordinary woman, not beautiful, and indeed rather formidable. There was something masculine in her mind, as there was someFranz Liszt ™ s . feminine in For 16 years they did their utmost to gain the Church’s permission to marry, but when at length they were free it was too late. Neither really wanted what in 1847 had seemed the thing most desirable.

Compared with M. de Pourtales Mr. Wallace is too grudging to the Princess. There was a certain grandeur about her intellect and will. Who can doubt Liszt's devotion? For tears he was wrapped up in her. Then as time went on this devotion no doubt became strained, and Liszt—a great gentleman—had to exert all his genius to disguise the fatigue of the relationship.

In the princess's favour it should be remembered that all of Liszt's best music was written in their Weimar day". Mr. Wallace, who is very hard on t'osima as well as the princess, makes him out too much of a harassed figure.