GRAND OPERA

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 256, 19 January 1928, Page 16

GRAND OPERA

EXTENSIVE REPERTOIRE I OF THE GONSALEZ OPERA COY.

FULLER’S NEW VENTURE An extensive repertoire of grand opera is to be presented by the Gonsalez Opera Company, which is to open in Australia in March next. Following the Australian season a tour of New Zealand has been announced. Most of the 28 operas which the Gonsalez Company intends to produce are now announced. A welcome novelty will be Delibes’s “Lakme.” “Lohengrin” is the most popular of Wagner’s operas in Italy. This is the only German work listed for production. The Gonsalez Company, which appeared at the Princess Theatre in 1916, staged a number of operas that are seldom heard. One was Donizetti’s “La Favorita,” which was very well performed. This work is included in the repertoire of the present company. Other old operas that will be novelties to most people are Auber’s “Fra Diavolo,” the libretto of which is amusing and the score sparkling, and Bellini’s “Norma,” some of the numbers of which are still frequently performed. French operas besides Auber’s work will be Gounod's “Faust,” Bizet’s “Carmen,” and Thomas’s “Mignon.” Six operas by Verdi and four by Puccini are included amog the old and modern Italian works. Verdi’s “Rigoletto,” “Ernani,” “Un Ballo in Maschera,” and “Aida.”; Puccini’s “Manon Lescaut,” “La Boheme,” “Madame Butterfly” and “La Tosca.” Giordano will be represented by “Fedora’* and “Andrea Chenier.” Rossini’s, “The Barber of Seville”; Donizetti’s, “Lucia di Lammermoor”; Mascagni’s “Cavalieria Rusticana,” and Leoncavallo’s “I Pagliacci,” will also be performed. The conductors will be Giovanni and Ernesto Gonsalez, who were the conductors of the 1916 company. Two songs by an Auckland composer, “The Home of the Prince of Wales” and “The Jungle Song” have recently been published. These are from the pen of Mr. F. A. Bartholomew, who has been advised by various broadcasting stations in the United States that his numbers have been accepted for performing purposes. A copy of the former number has been accepted by the Prince of Wales.

Igor Stravinsky’s latest work —said to be his greatest—is his opera, “Oedipus Rex” (Oedipus the King), which has the rare quality of being composed to a Latin text. The first performance was given recently in Paris, and it evidently excited much interest, as it is to be performed in London this season as an opera-cantata, and has been secured for Vienna as the novelty of next season’s State opera festival. It will also make its American debut next year, and it has been booked for most of the Continental grand opera seasons/ Stravinsky says that, although “Oedipus” is his largest work, in it he has carried simplification to a further degree than in any of his previous compositions. This is welcome news from the composer of “L’Oiseau de Feu,” “Petrouchta,” and “Le Sacre de Printemps.” The Paris production caused great controversy between Stravinsky’s admirers and enemies.