ROSINA BUCKMAN.

Taranaki Daily News, 15 November 1919, Page 11

ROSINA BUCKMAN.

ENGLISH IMPRESSIONS OF A NEW ZEALAND SINGER. A SIGNAL HONOR (From the Liverpool Echo of August 11 last). When Miss Rosina Buekman was asked to take Melba's place in "La Bohenie" at Covent Garden, she was accorded a signal honor, a recognition as it was of the ability of native operatic singers by a management which had relied almost exclusively on foreign artistes, was a welcome result of tne war and of Sir Thomas Boecham's wonderI fully successful'seasons, for as his prima donna Miss Buekman had long made a name for herself. She subsequently appeared in several other Royal opera productions, and with great success. "To hear Miss Buekman sing,V says the Liverpool Echo, "is not an experience to be lightly valued. Her appearances in Liverpool have been all too few, and perhaps that is why she was so generous in her responses to the. repeated demands for more from the audience Miss Buekman possesses in her voice a beauty not shared by many singers. It is not easy to define, but it is a peculiar sweetness of the voice itself which easts its spell over the greatest musical Philistine, while it sends the musician into 'eestacies of delight. Her singing is the quintessence of that music which hath ■ the vaunted charms to soothe the savage I breast—musical or otherwise. As in all really great singers, one is entirely unconscious of any technical development in Miss Buckman's vocal ism. The singer can recognise, but only by consciously listening for it, the faultless technique which is embodied deep, down in her singing for it is never apparent. "There are no gasps for breath —indeed, it seems almost an impossibility that she should breathe at all,, so even is the flow of her voice—there is no 'scooping up' of high notes, no slurring of words into one another (a terribly common fault among the most exalted singers). And yet—the secret is Miss Buckman's own—all this; and much more, is accomplished without the listener being aware, unless he de'.iberataly sets up a careful analysis, chat'there is anything beyond a profound naturalness in her manner of singing. It is, indeed, a perfect example of the oft-quoted 'art which conceals art.' For the rest she sings, like Keat's nightingale, in 'fullthroated ease,' and one listens in rapture to great swelling, sweeping curves of sound following each other with wonderful effortlessness and with that extraordinary palpitating, yet unbroken line of melody which is her greatest gift. It arouses in the musician something of the same ardent joy which the low purring of a powerful engine 'running sweetly' inspires in the engineer—a joy which, behind the sense appeal, one dimly grasps as an appreciation of what we take to be the nearest approach to perfection. Perhaps in the 'One Fine Day' song from 'Madam Butterfly' in the repeated cadences and long-drawn notes of .this typical Puccini melody one heard Miss Buckman's voice in its most ravishing aspects. It is not easy to detach any of Puccini's music from its context and give an effect of completeness, but one did not mind this when Miss Buckman and Mr. Maurice d'Oisly sang the concluding portions of that haunting duet which closes the first act of 'Butterfly,' and followed it with the simi-larly-placed duet in 'Boheme.' They were so perfectly sung, so expressively phrased, that one almost forgot to wish there was an orchestra—for not even Mr. Freeman, fine accompanist though he is, can get anything from a Puccini piano ! score. Miss Buekman sang altogether about a dozen times, and Mr. d'Oisly did not get off with much less."

Miss Buckman is a New Zealand singer, and had' played responsible parts in grand opera excellently well before she went to England. As a matter of fact, it was, in a way, due to the recognition of her talent and capacity for work by her many friends and admirers in Wellington that Miss Buckman was able to go to England when she did, and to do the diva justice, she does not forget it. Shakespeare says ''There is a tide in the affairs of man," which, taken at the flood, lead on to fortune." 'Miss Buckman's flood-tide was when she was in Wellington, after the Meiba opera season in Australia, and she received a cable from Mr. John M'Cormack advising her to come Home as there were chances at Covent Garden. Melba, then in Sydney, was cabled to for advice, and she, too, urged Miss Buckman to go, so a big benefit concert was arranged here, the result of which enabled Miss Buckman to "take the flood," which has at least elevated her to the diva class in London.