MUSIC

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 458, 13 September 1928, Page 14

MUSIC

(By

“The last Covent Garden opera season was a great success. I was fortunate enough to hear Chaliapin sing in ‘Boris Godounov,’ ” stated Mr. W. Arundel Orchard, director of the New South Wales Conservatorium, in the “Sydney Herald” on his return from abroad. “His voice seemed to me to have sadly declined in vigour since his Australian tour; though one almost forgot to notice this amid the tremendous fire of his acting.”

The appreciation of Italo Montemezzi, the composer of the opera,

“L’Amore del tre.Re,” for the success of his work as produced by the Wil-liamson-Melba Grand Opera Company in Melbourne, is expressed in this letter to Mr. Nevin Tait, says the Sydney “Evening News.” The translation is: My Dear Mr. Tait, — Your kind telegram was sent to me in France and I am very glad to know about the splendid success of my opera, “L’Amore dei tre Re” in Melbourne. Many thanks to you, and will you please give to my artistic collaborators my sincere wishes. I hope that the success of your tournee will continue and that your season will bring great results. I shake you by the hand, (Sgd.) I. MONTEMEZZI.

John Brownlee, the famous Australian baritone, paid a flying visit to London before he sailed for Australia to join the Williamson-Melba Grand Opera Company. Mr. Brownlee’s success in Paris at the Grand Opera House was undoubted, and his superb singing in “Tannhauser," “Thais,” and other operas has placed him at the top of the operatic tree. In the near future, it is said, Mr. Brownlee will be singing at La Scala, Milan. He has also received an offer to appear at the Colon Theatre, Buenos Ayres, at 1,000 dollars a night, so it will be seen that the handsome and talented young Australian is well on the road to fame and fortune. Many are asking whether he will be heard in New Zealand before he leaves to fulfil his engagements abroad.

“On the Continent, music appeared everywhere to be flourishing; and nowhere else more than in Vienna—poor war-stricken Vienna, which seemed a year or two ago to have sunk under a load of poverty and despair for ever.” Thus Mr. W. Arundel Orchard on his return from the Continent. “At the State Opera House I was particularly interested in Stravinsky’s ‘Oedipus Rex.’ I must confess, though, that the staging and acting interested me more than the music. Occasionally Stravinsky seemed to be striving to reproduce the spirit of ancient Greek music with lightly scored passages in which tho harp predominated; but for the most part his score was rather incoherent. Tho more I hear of this very modern music the more tired of it f get. It gives me the impression that I have heard it all somewhere before, even though "in actual fact I may be hearing a piece for the first time. The idiom is so restricted that one cannot escape monotony.”