Mermaid Playhouse
LARGE, ramshackle house that nad once been a boarding school and still had an assembly hall attached is the sort of home that might give any man of the theatre ideas. and when Bernard Miles, the actor and film director. went to live in such a place in North London in 1945 he began to think of that assembly hall as a small theatre. About three vears later Kirsten Flagstad was stayine with Miles and his. family when he told her about their plans. She said that if they carried them out she hoped she would be invited to come and sing there. That was how the Mermaid. London’s only Elizabethan plavhouse, was born. It was financed by neighbours friends and well-wishers who included a great number of the bestknown» names in-the world of the arts in England. and there. on September 9, 1951, with a cast that followed her example by giving their services free. Kirsten Flagstad made her debut on English opera — Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. With several of the original soloists, including Miss Flagstad as Dido and Thomas Hemsley as Aeneas. the Mermaid Theatre Company and the Mermaid Singers and orchestra under Geraint Jones have now recorded Purcell’s opera on long-plaving discs which will be heard from 2YC at 8.28 p-m. on Friday, October 2.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19530925.2.20
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 741, 25 September 1953, Page 9
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220Mermaid Playhouse New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 741, 25 September 1953, Page 9
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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