AMUSEMENTS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 91, 13 May 1909, Page 4

AMUSEMENTS.

MADAME MELBA. CONCERT TO-MORUOW NIGHT. This year Madame Melba, fresh from her crowning triumphs on the operatic stage, and radiant in all the glittering .■ graces of her art, is in her own i land and with her own people. Greater i than any other artist in everything she ( has undertaken, Madame Melba has so . arranged her plans that the tour of i Australasia, which commenced in March, : will be a memorable one. It has been said that wc in Australia see ana hear the world's great artiste when thoo'e , artists have outlived their prestige and have lost their power to charm. Not so in this instance. iMadnnie Melba is coming to us in the noonday glory of her fame and iwhile her voice'retains all its freshness and beauty. The earner of the splendid singer lias been an unbroken chain of triumphs for twenty years'. Competitors from every country hav e entered the lists against her. She has,answered each challenge and in no instance has she failed to maintain the proud pre-eminence of her position. .Many pretentious singers have glittered for a season and then burst into nothingness. Madame Melba has survived on a crescendo of sustained success. Madame Melba still reign* gloriously-the Queen of .Song. When the diva stepped upon the platform to sing her first number at the Wellington Town Hall last week, th e applause was so enthusiastic that several minutes must have elapsed before she could have heard a note of the few bars of introduction to Verdi's line recitative and aria, "Ah furs e lui," from the opera of 'Traviata.'' And then there was a stillness, for an instant, that was almost painful. A few chords, and the diva's voice, incomparable in its softness and sweetness, was heard in the plaintive strains' of the long recitative leading into the famous air. The recitative in itself was a splendid lesson to vocalists. Melba's method stood out as a splendid exemplification of the control which a cultured artist may have over her voice. Every tone was true and full, and the singer was for the nonce the actual cm- | bodinient of the character in the ope-a and in tones of the deepest feelin". : poured forth the volume of tendcrnos's i conveyed by tins words'. Melba's phrasing, as everyone knows, is perfection, there is never a syllable lost throuc-h ! slurring or faulty divisions, either of the words or of the musical intervals. Ilie story is told without any attempt at theatrical effect, and i„ a " wav thai seems to ,],,, ~uite effortless. The aria following ~-as something to be remembered, ft afforded opportunity for the ( soprano to -show that her voice has lost • nothing of its brilliancy and flexibility. J he cadenza closing the fust portion ', i the air was taken in an unbroken How > of the most delightfully true and de"i- , cutely shaded passages;' (lie shakes and ■ warbling (rills were purely artistic. The • triple-lime movement, succeeding, was • a marvel of joyous abandonment', and • the chromatic and iatonic runs were , beautifully even, whether they run up or down the scale.