LOOK BEFORE YOU LISTEN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 83, 24 January 1941, Page 14

LOOK BEFORE YOU LISTEN

A Run Through The Records

By

B.

W.

On Nature’s Own Location ELSON EDDY, who was born in Providence, Rhode Island, and brought up mostly in Philadelphia, had to work too hard trying to keep body and soul together to find much time for communing with Nature. So the making of films like "Rose Marie’ and "New Moon" on outdoor locations could have been no picnic. When all the backdrops are done by Nature, the sun has to be just so, and the sky has to be just so; breakfast is at 4.30 a.m., and work begins at 5 o'clock. Shaw, Strauss, Rosing N antediluvian gramophong and some records of three famous Russian singers-a tenor, a soprano, and a baritone-started Vladimir Rosing many years ago imitating the three voices, Here is the sequel in a letter from Bernard Shaw to Richard Strauss in 1921: "My excuse for writing you this letter is that I want to call your attention to Vladimir Rosing . . . But we are such damnable barbarians that we have wasted his extraordinary dramatic talents on concert singing and tried to make a drawing-room tenor of him, But

this sort of work is intolerable to hims his proper place is on the stage, and his proper work the interpretation of musical drama. Technically, he is a tenor, but really he is much more than that; he can and will do anything with his voice that will produce the right

tone colour for the passage he is singing. He behaves like an orchestra rather than like a singer." Viadimir Rosing, tenor, will be heard at 1YA on Wednesday, January 29. O Lisa Perli . A FEW years ago, Dora Labbette, popular singer in recital, oratorio, ballad concerts, big orchestral concerts, and musical festivals, turned to. grand opera, changed her name to Lisa Perli, and fooled a Covent Garden audience in her debut as Mimi in "La Boheme." Next day, the critics gave her "staggering" notices. No one knew they had seen and heard their one and own Dora, Labbette! An admirer enjoyed this superb bit of artistic spoofing so much that he wrote: "QO Dora Labbette, Dora. Labbette, O, We rather like our pocket prima donna, Who sings as well as any twenty-tonner Will Perli last? Will she become a habit, Or dwindle back into Miss Dora Labbette? O Lisa Perli! Dora Labbette O! On Monday, January 27, listeners to 4YA will answer Dora Labbette, soprano, A Neat Answer ROFESSIONAL musicians have always been worried by people who want them to attend social affairs and then play, without fee, for the entertainment of the other guests. They call it playing for their supper. Chopin’s reply to his host after dinner, who pointed to the open piano when all the guests had reached the drawing room, is a classic in its cutting brevity. "Ah! sir, I have just dined, but hospitality, I see, demands payment." Casals the great Spanish ‘cellist dealt almost as neatly with a would-be hostess. In answer to an invitation to dine, followed by the crude "Do not forget to bring your instrument," he answered: " Mad. ame, I am very sorry that I shall not be able to accept your invitation to dine at your house, but I shall have my ’cello sent on to you." On Wednesday, January 29, listeners to 3YA will hear Pau Casals, ’cellist.