“AIDA”

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 121, 12 August 1927, Page 15

“AIDA”

CHORAL SOCIETY CONCERT The Town Hall contained a very large audience last night, when the Choral Society gave its first performance of Verdi’s “Aida,” under Mr. Colin Muston’s direction. A concert rendering of opera is not of course altogether commendable, but apparently it “pays” better than cantata or oratorio. And, further, “Aida” requires a very elaborate and costly setting, for which reason there has never been a stage production in Auckland. It is frankly old-fashioned, in several respects. The big concerted pieces, the soliloquies and asides, and the punctual interjections of the chorus, are all true to an outworn type. But other pages are wonderfully fresh and independent, presaging that greater Verdi who had yet to write the Manzoni Requiem and “Otello” and “Falstaff.” The Nile scenes are worth waiting for, and the rest is all more or less effective and interesting. Miss Etta Field had been given a very difficult task in the title part, but she had the root of the matter, and sang with a conviction and fire that belong especially to Italian opera. Her work was not at its best, however,

vibrato, and the forcing of her upper notes possibly being due to nervousness. Madame Winnie Fraser sang the mezzo-soprano part of Amneris. The music is well suited to her full, smooth tone, produced with an exemplary ease, but Madame Fraser’s conception of the part was not so striking, for the changing moods of Amneris — jealousy and rage and despair—were not allowed to colour sufficiently the flow of placid tone, and the tempi were sometimes allowed to drag. Mr. Birrell O’Malley is improving, and with further development will be a really acceptable tenor. He is not ripe for such a trying part as Radames. This is, at any rate, an unmistakable masculine voice, which is something as tenors go. Mr. Barry Coney interpreted with his usual intelligence the somewhat thankless part of Amonasro. The song at his first entrance. “Quest’ assisa ch’io vesto.” was very well done. Miss Laura Walker sang with pure tone the few repeated phrases of the high priestess. Mr. John de Montalk has a rich but insufficiently resonant or Varied bass-baritone, not the right voice for his part, the fiercely fanatical high priest. Mr. Frank Sutherland, the king of Egypt, has a genuine bass quality, which requires further cultivation. Mr. R. J. Peter was the tenor messenger. The choruses had far more tone than we shall ever hear from a visiting opera company, but their effect was curiously non-KgyptW*. A healthy, full-bodied volume wad desired, evidently, and too keen a regard for the meaning of the words or for nuances of expression would have counted as pedantry. The orchestra came '' rh satisfactorily. The accompaniments were too loud at times, and the wood-wind had its bad moments. The “Sacred Dance of Priestesses” was much affected by wind deficiencies, and might well be omitted from the next performance The score has been already quite freely cut, and these two pages more wiil pass unnoticed. R.J.B.