AUSTRAL’S TOUR

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 996, 12 June 1930, Page 16

AUSTRAL’S TOUR

Soprano’s Rapid Rise to Fame LIFTi HISTORY On Saturday next Madame Florence Austral will open her Australian tour with a recital at the Sydney Town Hall. Later, Madame Austral will visit New Zealand. Melbourne and its environs were the scenes of Florence Austral’s youthful years. She was born in Vaucluse, Richmond (not very far from Doon side), where Dame Nellie Melba first opened her eyes. At the age of 16 we find her winning a scholarship at the Ballarat Competition, with Mr. Fritz Hart as judge, and later, encouraged by Madame Wiedermait’i, she became attached to the Melbourne University Choir, where she won other scholarships, and on the advice of her mentor, who was also a oncefamous singer and friend of the elder Marchesi, she left Melbourne to seek a wider field for her talents abroad. In London she found opera dead and concerts moribund. A round of the music halls found her without any hope of engagement, but she was still of good heart. Aylmer Buesst. another compatriot, heard her, and was so impressed by her voice and the manner of its use that he begged Harry Higgins, of Covent Garden, to give her an appointment. Higgins was then considering the production of “The Ring” in English. Meanwhile the young singer’s slender funds were approaching vanishing point, and with great elation she accepted her first London engagement for a Sunday League concert at the Alhambra for a fee of two guineas. This was in the autumn of 1919. RETAINED FOR TWO YEARS On the morning following the Sunday League concert, Mr. Higgins called her to an audition at Covent Garden. She sang “Elizabeth’s Greeting,” and at its'close, he asked her if she could sing “Brunnhilde.” He promptly promised her a contract, and on hearing of her two guineas debut said “You must never sing for that again.” He handed her a cheque for £3O as a fortnight’s advance of a retaining fee at £ls a week. Owing to vari-

ous unforeseen circumstances this was continued for two years, and in addition he paid for 150 lessons at a guinea a lesson, before she actually appeared at the historic Covent Garden Opera of which he had been the very a.ble chairman for so many years. It was on the suggestion of this very good friend that she assumed the name "Austral” to which she has since added such lustre. For a year Madame Austral sang all the dramatic prima donna roles with the British National Opera, and also several guest performances in between her appearances in Mr. Lionel Powell’s celebrity concerts. The strain of this heavy work told on her health and under medical advice she took six months’ rest. AMERICAN TOUR America meanwhile had been loudly calling, and on the recommendation of Sir Edward Elgar she was engaged for the Cincinnati Festival in 1925, where she made her American debut on May 19, the birthday of her famous compatriot, Dame Nellie Melba. The selections were “Brahms’s Requiem,” which Melba herself had often sung in the States, and the big "Brunnhilde” air from the Valkyrie. The following year she enthralled her American audiences in opera, “Aida” and “The Ring” being the vehicles in which she soared in triumph to popular favour. Since then Florence Austral has become a famous international star, and the stories of her success in London, New York, Berlin and the other great cities of the world are familiar to all lovers of music. Her voice has been described by more than one authority as the most phenomenal of the day. In commenting on the approaching production of Wagner’s masterpiece at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, London’s best-known critic said it seemed “grotesque to think of it without Florence Austral." This is one of the sacrifices she has made in order to undertake the Australian tour. Although cosmopolitan in her musical tastes this great Australian singer does not disguise her love for liedr|. nor that “Tristan and Isolde” is her favourite opera.