Sweet, Bell-like and British

New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 731, 17 July 1953, Page 24

Sweet, Bell-like and British

EADERS of The Listener have been asking Who, When, Where and How is Anna Russell. To the last two questions the answer is "Nicely, thank you," for the latest news of Miss R. is. her embarkation on a_ seéries of coast-to-coast concert engagements in the U.S., performances at the Brevard Music Festival, with the New Orleans and Cincinnati Symphonies, and further recitals in the New York City Town Hall. To the first query the reply is that Anna Russell is an English soprano whose superb satire has brought a re-

newal of an almost lost form of art; to the second it is that she will be heard again from at. least two NZBS stations this month — 2YA, Monday, July 20, at 3.15 p.m., and 2YD, Tuesday, July 21, at 8.55 p.m. When readers were recently confronted with the programme item, Anna Russell Sings -Advice on Song Selections for Concert Singers, including the following arias and art songs: Schlumph, Ah = Lover! | (from The Prince of Philadelphia), Je n'ai

pas la plume de ma Tante-they settled down to something which Owen Jensen had described in The Listener as "a bit of a handful." They were delighted, shocked or amused, as their mood and the artist’s took them. Born in London, the first girl child in several generations of an Indian Army career family, Anna was "incarcerated," as she puts it, in a girls’ school, presented at Court, and ‘proved a "dismal failure" *in social life. On

leaving the Royal Academy of Music she started to carve out a career as a singer and pianist. One of her early engagements was to sing at a gala concert during the Coronation of the late King George VI. Miss Russell says that she used her "sweet, bell-like British soprano" in an extensive radio series, and did some "excruciating". opera and operetta touring. She has confessed that she would go home and laugh at herself as well as "cringe at the gestures and actions perpetrated and permitted on the stage." Anna Russell went to North America

and during the war she gave, for soldier entertainment and fund-raising, "takeoffs’ of serious recitals. Some critics have called her voice "astonishing" and "unbelievable," even "unearthly." Miss Russell’s favourite among the adjectives hurled at her is "unearthly." Vocally she stops at nothing. She , likes to seize on Teutonic music drama and wring its emotional contents until she leaves the composition and the audience limp. Miss Russell, who writes her own

material, text and music, went to New York almost unknown, was auditioned, and persuaded to appear in a Town Hall. recital. Next morning the "diva’s" name was in headlines in all the Press concert reports. The recording we have heard so far was made at one of Miss Russell’s actual seances at the Town Hall in New York. As _ one of her critics has said, "she leavens the high tension~ of the. times with pleasant ‘laughter and good cheer,"