AMUSEMENTS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 59, 5 April 1907, Page 4

AMUSEMENTS.

ISLAN'CIIL' AliliAL. This is the tribute of an enthusiast: ■•.Madame Blanche Anal does not come, lo New Zealand with a reputation to make. but. only an artist of the first excellence could sustain the reputation that as already hers. She is, lirst ami foremost (her glorious gift of song conShe has not a banal movement; her slightest gesture is leagues above the co nplaee. Her admirable elfeels are spontaiieoii.-, and never forced. Even in Ihe most passional.' passages of the art; she treads bv instinct, like Agag. 'delicately.' To hear her is a liberal education, even to those who du not ,iii" or seek t« make vocal noises. Her voice lifts the dullest of her listeners to a plane immaculate, where is nothing sordid or superlluous, nothing artificial or discordant, a plane of demi-gods and ihe song celestial. Here is no cxlrara-gau.-e of praise. Blanche Arral is incarnate music, melodv made visible in ■•lines and dimples. She takes her audiences into her coiilidcmv, and I brills them till th"ir very corpuscles lift in chorus. Never was a more winsome and "omiueing creature than this dainty French woman. On her lips the masters of melodv proclaim the very necessary gospel thai oilier things in addition to politiis and grim 'moralities and uoliolstered hiiiahg ami g.'ttin-on-iu-llie-w'orhl. She teaches that music is not a pretty plaything or a mare distraction. But. will: all that. h"f glorious voice is a wonilerfiil instrument of pleasure. In an age of gramaphunes and pianolas, or circular saws aud fog-horns, she comes as a boon and a benediction." .Madame jArral appears at New Plymouth on .Mav 110.