GRAND OPERA COMPANY

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 451, 5 September 1928, Page 15

GRAND OPERA COMPANY

AUGMENTED CHORUS The magnificent chorus of the Grand Opera Company, wfiich has been a feature of the tour includes seven “Aussie” girls, who were chosen in Sydney by Alfred Hill, Roland Foster, and Maestro Giovanni Gonsalez (conductor of the opera) from many hundred aspirants. The final choice of 15 Australians to supplement the chorus brought from Italy with the company, was made after an exhaustive test at the St James Theatre, Sydney, and the result is that the freshest, youngest and best voices in Australia to-day are to be heai'd with the opera. Of the 15 who appeared in Sydney and Melbourne, the best seven were selected for the New Zealand tour. Those who have heard them in solo work declare that they are the equal of almost any voices that Australia has produced. The Australians who will thus be heard in Auckland next week include Dorothy Benbow, who hails from the New South Wales Conservatoriurn of Music, Evelyin Hall, like Miss Benbow, is a contralto, also a ‘Sydney girl who has done much public singing in that city. Hilda Lane, known as the Queensland songbird from Toowoomba, is a scholarship holder in the New South Wales State Conservatoriurn, who appeared in Grand Opera in that institution. Miss Lane is a brilliant coloratura soprano. Nora. Mack is another Sydney Conservatoriurn pupil, and is a dramatic soprano, and has also appeared in Grand Opera at the Conservatoriurn in its annual season. Poppy Nash is a 'Soprano from the Melba Conservatorium, Melbourne, and has travelled with the Gilbert and Sullivan Opera. Flor Novelo Mails from Perth (Western Australia), and is a fine-voiced soprano of whom much is expected in the near future in the operatic world. Freda Peifer, soprano, is also a Sydney girl who has ha,d much experience in opera. She has also studied in London, and has had the advantage of becoming acquainted with the best continental methods of voice production. Auckland is fortunate in getting the opportunity to hear these lovely v dees, if only in choral work.