Open Microphone

New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 764, 12 March 1954, Page 24

Open Microphone

NEWS OF BROADCASTERS, ON AND OFF THE RECORD,

By |

Swarf

N my rounds of the NZBS the other day I met a newcomer to the staff, Antony Vercoe, who has been appointed assistant programme officer, Head Office. A Nelson boy, Vercoe learned singing, and it wasn’t long before he was giving baritone recitals

over NZBS stations. Later he sang and , acted with the Old Vic Company, London. After war service with the New Zealand Forces he was awarded a bursary, and studied singing for 18 months under Kennedy Scott at Trinity College. Then came a scholarship which enabled him to study opera and drama at the Royal College of Music. In 1951 he had a leading role in a new opera, The Mayor of Casterbridge, at the Arts Theatre, Cambridge, and immediately after that season he was invited to sing at the Old Vic in Tyrone Guthrie’s production of Tamburlaine, which ran for seven weeks and a_ further week at Stratford-on-Avon. The Old Vic people asked him to stay for the rest of the season, and he took the baritone lead in some performances of the Scottish ballad opera The Highland Fair at the Edinburgh Festival. Next came broadcasting, television and concert work. After playing Beppo in The Maid of the Mountains at Petersfield, Antony Vercoe appeared with the Harrow Light Opera Company in excerpts from Merrie England and Tem Jones. He returned

to New Zealand at the beginning of this year. Antony told me that he composes songs, a little other music, and swims and plays tennis. Very few stage people escape awkward moments. Here is one of Vercoe’s, as he recounts it, and it occurred when he was playing in Timon of Athens at the Old Vic. "Tyrone Guthrie asked me to take up a guitar, walk across the stage just as the lights were coming up, and sing a couple of phrases. I had never even held a guitar before. Guthrie’s advice was not to bother about words, ‘Sing anything you like, he said. But it seemed to me that if I just carolled something unintelligible the audience would think my diction was bad, and that wouldn’t do my reputation as a singer any good, So I decided to sing two phrases in Maori, beginning with ‘Tahi nei taru kino’-using an ancient type of mode-and pluck a chord or two. I’m pleased to report that it seemed to fill the bill." Antony Vercoe added something that might interest Vic Oliver fans. "In his television shows the comedian really does conduct and he actually does rehearse the orchestra-quite capably," he said. "There’s a good deal more music behind Oliver than just playing the fool with a violin." 2 *>

KATHLEEN FERRIER" MEMORIAL

FUND is being raised to perpetuate the memory of Kathleen Ferrier, the famous British contralto, who died

recently. It will provide for an annual __ scholarship or scholar-

ships for British-born singers of all voices. It will be administered by the Royal Philharmonic Society, of which Kathleen Ferrier was a gold medallist. The trustees are Sir John’ Barbirolli, Hamish Hamilton, Roy Henderson, Gerald Moore and Sir Malcolm Sargent.

WOody HERMAN

* VIckKI ANDERSON (Miss), Opotiki: Woody Herman was born in Milwaukee and began playing the saxo- ; phone at nine. In

1936 he formed his . own orches-

tra, then known as "Ihe Band That Plays the Blues"’ Because swing was then at its height, blues found little

-_ public favour, and it was not for several years that the orchestra really got into its stride. The addition of many young men and their ideas to the band, the accumulation of a large number of original scores and a growing feeling among the public that popular music had lost much of its favour through over-standardisation, contributed to the swift success of Herman and his orchestra. He followed his success with a series of recordings in the modernist vein. They were greeted with both popular and critical approval, and the orchestra’s place in the front rank of American bands was secure. ad

ELECTRIC TENOR

PHOTOGRAPHS of the Italian tenor Ferruccio Tagliavini and the soprano Francka Sacchi are not available, but here is some information about these opera singers for (Mrs.) G. Leaning, of Papatoetoe, Auckland. ‘Tagliavini was born in 1913. When he made his debut at the Metropolitan

Opera in 1947, Irving Kolodin, New York Sun critic, wrote: "A quantity

of listeners iimited only by the fire laws, took Tagliavini to their

hearts almost immediately, and he responded by charming their hearts away ith the beauty of his voice and the rtistry of his singing." Tagliavini set out to be an electrical engineer, and he is licensed in that trade. But when he was a little over 20 his father lured him to Parma when some competitions were being held and the boy was dared to sing before the judges. He was offered a scholarship and in a few years became an artist of recognised stature, and a film star. When the Allies took over Italy, Tagliavini toured Army camps atid American GI’s took back to New York enthusiastic reports of their newest favourite. Like a good many other operatic tenors he is stocky. He

still enjoys straightening out complex electrical circuits needing repairs, and high on his list of pleasures are Italian football, swimming and _ prize-fighting. He is also something of a painter and sculptor. Tagliavini recalls that his first conversation of any length with a certain other singer named Pia Tassinari was during an opera which was interrupted by an air raid. Pia Tassinari. became his wife. Francka Sacchi, another Italian opera singer, appeared about 18 months ago at the Cambridge Theatre, London, in Tosca. Quite young, and handsome, she has been performing more recently at Genoa and Turin. (Note: Your local stations would answer your last question.) *

DANGEROUS STAGES

a. ONLY get hurt when I try to do something acrobatic. I tore a muscle -in my calf jumping on to a table in

The Beggar’s Opera, 1 spent most of Henry the Fifth on crutches, most of Hamlet in a

wheel chair, I was stabbed near the heart in Hamlet, tore a cartilage in Richard the Third, lve been cut and slashed and bashed in stage fights, and I was nearly killed in The Critic."-Sir Laurence Olivier in a BBC talk. *

WHO BLOWS THERE:

MISS H. ANDERSON (Opotiki): i 3 aynard Ferguson (trumpeter in Stan Kenton’s Orchestra). was born on

May 4, 1928, in Montreal.

At the age o seven he began to study the trumpet. His professional career was launched with the Black Watch Band. He has played with Boyd Raeburn, Jimmy Dorsey and Charlie Barnet. In 1950 he was recruited by Stan Kenton for his "Innovations" concert tour. Under Kenton’s sponsorship Ferguson has come to prominence in Jazz circles. *

REITH LECTURES

HERE is a photograph of Professor J. Robert Oppenheimer, distineuished physicist and atomic author-

ity, and Director of the Institute for Advanced Study at

Princeton, New Jersey, who gave the BBC series of Reith Lectures for 1953

on Science and the Common Understanding. The lectures will be heard from NZBS stations in due course.

VOCAL ELASTICITY

* MAURICE DENHAM, whose chameleon voice is heard often in BBC Variety Shows, is one of the manysided men in radio who can speak with both men’s and women’s voices as he chooses. Whenever any new character

with an odd voice appears in a show like Much-

Binding, for instance, listeners can safely bet that it’s Denham. A British film cartoon-a version of George Orwell’s satire, Animal Farm-used Denham for making some of the sounds. His voice was so astonishingly elastic, so easily able to produce all manner of strange growls, grunts, neighs and whistles from the zoological repertoire that he was asked to record every noise that was needed. It’s a great tribute to the versatility of a man who is a very successful comedian and also a straight ° actor of sufficient repute to play leading parts in the BBC’s Third Programme. Latest news of the vocal Denham is that a young actor-comedian, Nicholas Parsons, has taken over Denham’s MuchBinding parts, while Maurice is making a film in Ceylon. "I’m often asked how one sets about creating different voices," says Parsons. "The answer is you just devise them instinctively and discover afterwards that they belong to your local butcher or a distant relative."