PUCCINI SOCIETY

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 530, 6 December 1928, Page 14

PUCCINI SOCIETY

FIRST CONCERT THIS EVENING AM OPERATIC FEAST For Its first concert to be given at the Town Hall Concert Chamber this evening the Puccini Musical % Society promises a feast of operatic music. This society was formed early in the year, and under the direction of Signor Costantini has made rapid progress. This evening an extensive programme will be submitted. It will consist principally of operatic excerpts, a wide and interesting selection, including works of Verdi, Puccini, Gounod, Thomas and Bizet having been selected. The solists will be as follow: Misses L. Rae, C. Brown, C. Duncan, E. Herbert, D. Jenkins, G. Ryan, G. Ross, Mrs. Herbert and Messrs. W. Dickson, Hadley, E. Mitchell, G. Fagan, M. Caldwell, J. Ford, A. C. Gracie, Valentine and G. Ford. Miss E. Ironside will be the organist.

Jascha Heifetz, returning to London from America, reports that the people of the States are “cooling off wireless.” “Enthusiasm for it,” he said, “is not nearly so strong as it was. I always much prefer the gramophone to wireless. It is impossible to get perfect music on wireless unless you have apparatus costing hundreds of pounds, but on the gramophone you can get it very near to perfection. I don’t agree with Sir Thomas Beeeham that gramophone music is bad. It is a great necessity—for how else can you get the best music to the far-away places, where the great artists or orchestras are never heard?”