G. AND S. OPERAS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 December 1940, Page 9

G. AND S. OPERAS

■COMPANY TO VISIT MASTERTON. The J. C. Williamson Gilbert and Sullivan Comic Opera Co. will appear in Masterton on January 31. Miss Minnie Everett, the J. C. Williamson producer of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, knows her Savoy operas so Well that she needs no script to rehearse them. Miss Everett first faced the footlights over 50 years ago. She remembers when she was 13 appearing in both pantomime and “Dorothy” at the same time, at different theatres. Miss Everett has produced for J. C. Williamson in South Africa, London and Australia and she is the only woman producer of both grand opera and Gilbert and Sullivan. She considers Nellie Stewart the world’s greatest “Princess Ida.” Miss Everett has coached and taught Australia’s great-' est stars, including Gladys Moncrieff, Florence Young and Carrie Moore. After 30 years direction she knows all there is to be learned about making recruits into stage favourites. “But,” said Miss Everett recently, “I prefer a girl in the rank and file, one who has been a dancer for preference, not one who has only thought of her voice. Dancers are quickest to pick up points of the game.”