FRANCES ALDA

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 163, 30 September 1927, Page 15

FRANCES ALDA

OPERATIC PROGRAMME It is a platitude that the prophet lacks honour in his (or her) own country, and so Madame Frances Alda, like our other best soprano, Miss Rosina Buckraan, has been heard by but a small proportion of Auckland’s intelligent, music-loving people. Perhaps the programme last night was partly to blame. It was certainly not a very artistic one. These arias of Clou nod 2and Puccini have their points, their scenic effectivenesses, and show all the cunning of a practised operatic hand, but they have precious little purely musical value. Divorced from stage setting and action, the essential poverty and vulgarity of these things become most evident. Hut they helped us to realise, again, what a truly splendid artist Madame Alda must be in her proper environment. The soprano had not "struck form” in the first unfamiliar number, “Sempre Cosi,” from Giordano’s "La Cena delle Beffe.” At this first hearing the music seemed no better than it should be, like so much of modern Italy, and we might easily have heard a more desirable novelty, as one of those delightful little songs from "The Snow Maiden,” or a finer moment of Massenet. In the two arias from "Boh erne,” “Mi Chiamano Mimi,” and “Donde Lieta,” Madame Alda had found her tone, and gave some absolutely firstrate singing, the last “Addio! . . senza rancor!” was wonderfully expressive. This did not commend itself as the ideal voice for Mimi, or tor Gounod’s Marguerite; it suggested at times a somewhat too experienced virgin, a maiden completely mistress of her fate. Yet the "Jewel Song” (with the preliminary, and far finer, "King of Thule”) was most enjoyably done. There is nothing fresh lo say about Butterfly’s eternal “Un Bel Di,” or Tosca's indestructible “Vissi d’Arte.” Both performances were fully as excellent as those of the first concert, and even better perhaps were the Handel "Q Sleep, Why Dost Thou Leave Me?” and the Rachmanionov “Soldier’s Bride,” repeated by request. This latter song may have had some unknown fault of diction or interpretation, but to us, in dark ignorance of the terrific Russian language, it seemed a quite perfect piece of work. One last word remains. We hope devoutly that no fledgling soprano will think it "good form” to breathe as audibly as Madame Alda does in quick passages. Once the breath has been acquired she controls it, often exceptionally well, sometimes only well enough. She takes it in, however, with a really surprising resonance, as does the divine Elena Gerhardt —and as people take soup in comic papers. But that, after all, is no more than an eccentricity of genius, a mere spot on the sun. Piano arrangements of operatic scores are not the most grateful things to play, and Madame Alda's ideas of tempo and pausation are often highly individual. But Mr. Cyril Towsey, as accompanist, came through his task with all success. As solo pianist he gave very agreeable readings of Debussy’s two Arabesques, and of Schumann’s “Papillons,” a charming early work (Op. 2), which suffers a little from the shortness of its movements and the length of its totality. R.J.B. The life of the Roman conquerors, of Jewish princes, of Egyptian slaves, of sheiks of the Arabian desert, and of the hundreds of nationalities and types along the east coasts of the Mediterranean, during the world of the ancient Romans, are all in "Ben Hur,” the mighty Metro-Goldwyn picture. Ramon Novarro has the title role, and the cast ncludes Francis X. Bushman, May McAvoy, Claire McDowell, Nigel be Brulier, and Carmel .Myers* ----- ,