Anne Ziegler. Webster Booth Will Broadcast

New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 466, 28 May 1948, Page 20

Anne Ziegler. Webster Booth Will Broadcast

WO of the most popular radio singers in England today are Anne Ziegler and Webster Booth, who specialise in musical comedy duets, operatic arias of the lighter kind, and ballads and traditional airs. The couple (seen above in a recent portrait) will visit New. Zealand next month for an eight weeks’ tour that will include most of the provincial centres as well as the cities. Their first concert will be in Wellington on June 2. Arrangements _ have been made for portions of several | of their concerts to be broadcast, and they will give one studio recital, from Station 2ZA, Palmerston North, on June 13. The items chosen by them for the tour include songs from Carmen, Madame Butterfly, Merrie England, and La Boheme, and duets from such musical comedies as The Student Prince, Rose Marie, The Belle of New York, The Maid of the Mountains, and The Desert Song. They will be accompanied by the Australian pianist Clarence Black. Anne Ziegler and Webster Booth (who are man and wife in private life) are now at the zenith of their singing career, and in 1946 they won first prize in two public opinion polls conducted to find out (among other things) who were the most popular radio singers in England. Bing Crosby, incidentally, came third, and the late Richard Tauber was second. Recently they completed a technicolour film, The Laughing Lady, in which they played the leading roles. As a boy, Webster Booth possessed a soprano voice of high quality, and for a short period until his voice broke was solo chorister at the Lincoln Cathedral. After working as a clerk in a Birmingham accountant’s office he joined the D’Oyley Carte Company and toured England and Canada with them’ for

four years. Following an engagement to sing in Messiah with the Royal Choral Society he sang for a few seasons with. the International Opera Company at Covent Garden, appearing in Der Rosenkavaljer and The Magic Flute, under the baton of Sir Thomas Beecham. Anne Ziegler, who is described as a "fair-haired Lancashire lass," appeared on the concert stage at an early age. She made a name for herself in pantomime -critics called her ‘the best Principal Boy in the country"-before going to America -to star in the musical comedy Virginia. She scored a great personal success on Broadway, and on her return to England appeared in oratorio with the Huddersfield Choir and the Liverpool: Philharmonic Society. She first met Webster Booth when she had been engaged to take the part of. Marguerite in a film of Faust, in which he also played a leading role, and since then they have appeared together in many film and stage successes. In 1944 they co-starred in the film Waltztime, and on the stage in The Vagabond King and Sweet Yesterday. In the radio world they are constant performers for the BBC, and are well known%to New Zealand listeners through their recordings and their singing in such BBC Variety features as Songs from the Shows. The dates of their broadcasts in New Zealand are as follows: June 2, relay by 2YA from concert at Wellington Town Hall; June 13, studio broadcast from 2ZA; June 19, relay by 2YH from concert at Napier Municipal Theatre; July 1, relay by 1YA from concert at Auckland Town Hall; July 8, relay by 4YA from concert at Dunedin Town Hall; July 14, relay by 4YZ from concert at Invercargill Civic Theatre; July 23, relay by 3YA from concert at Christchurch Civic Theatre. In each case the relays from concerts will be limited to half-an-hour, featuring duets only.