Open Microphone

New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 768, 9 April 1954, Page 24

Open Microphone

NEWS OF BROADCASTERS, mn ON AND OFF THE RECORD,

By

Swarf

URING their visits to this country many _ touring pianists, other instrumentalists, and singers, have met Allan Young, whose association with broadcasting goes back to 1933

when he was eppointed to the staff of 3YA. And many a local artist has benefited from his kindly advice and help. At the end of last month he retired from his position of Supervisor of Programme Organisation, for the NZBS to give much more attention, no doubt, to his favourite pastime-bowls-a game in which he has won high honours. In earlier days Allan Young frequently acted as station manager at 3YA, and he _ undertook special assignments, for example, the radio commentary on the departure from Lyttelton of H.R.H. the Duke of Gloucester. To the children he used to be known as Uncle Allan. A good deal of announcing came his way at Christchurch, and he will forgive me, I know, if I mention his famous description of a wool sale in which he told anxious farmer listeners and others how much their "corrugated ewes" had brought. During the war he was actingmanager of Station 2YA. Allan Young was born at Cheviot, North Canterbury. From 1910 he was keenly interested in amateur theatricals. He played a leading part in the old Christchurch Comedy Club and in several musical organisations. In 1919 his round, rolling vocal tones won him the men’s elocutionary championship, and the gold medal of the Christchurch Competitions. From 1912 until he joined the Broadcasting Service Mr. Young was in the music business in Dunedin and later moved to Oamaru as manager of a wellknown firm. There he stayed unti) 1933. » «'

TRAMS TUNE UP

NOT very long ago a strap-hanger on 1 / ; a tram fellow passengers by using two straps as a gymnast uses the "rings," making a full head-over-heels turn. This feat accom- | plished. he cravely took a bow and a

seat. But the latest about strap hangers is that the exe-

cutants in Milan (Italy) put the straps to a more aesthetic use. As they sway along their city journeys they are treated to soothing melodies. Music producing units are installed inside over-

head metal’ tubes from. which metal arms extend, As the standing passenger grabs one of these arms for support, the mechanism starts grinding out its canned tunes through a small sound box slightly above ear level. Each arm .unit has a different set of tunes, so that strapholders can get a varied programme by circulating up and down the aisles of the car. "Commercials" are sandwiched in between the musical selections. *

VARIETY AHOY!

Sal "HE British comedian Eric Barker, who appears in the BBC’s Variety Ahoy! (now going the rounds of the main National stations) is a little over

4$VU. He started his career in his father’s wholesale paper

business, but didn’t like it, so he went into repertory theatre, concert party work and eventually radio. Barker has written short stories, novels, plays and tadio scripts. With his wife Pearl Hackney and their one daughter Petronella, he lives in a secluded part of the North Downs of England. He does a bit of gardening and makes a hobby of collecting pipes and antique furniture. *

ANNA RUSSELL FOR N.Z.

NNA RUSSELL continues to break recital records in America. This versatile entertainer who also writés the inimitable text and music of her satiric programmes, has appeared repeatedly in

the main cities. Her current season schedules three concerts for Boston. Philadel-

phia two, San Francisco four, New York four, San Antonio two, Los Angeles

two, Chicago three. During 1954-55, Musical Courier announces; Miss Rus sell will embark on a far-flung tour of

Great Britain, New Zealand and Australia. Listeners to 2ZB at 5,30 p.m. on April 16 (Good Friday), will hear her in Anna Russell Sings Again — "The Ring of the Nibelung," "Introduction by a Women’s Club President," and "How to Write Your Own Gilbert and Sullivan: Opera." a

| 1LY PONS, born at Cannes, started her musical studies as a pianist. She spent a few years playing ingenue roles on the stage before she decided to study}

TOWN NAMED AFTER HER

singing with Albert do Gorostiaga in Paris. In 1928 she made her operatic

debut in Lakme, in Mulhouse, and other 2ngagements in France followed. Her first ap-

pearance in America was in the title role of Lucia di Lammermoor at the Metropolitan Opera House on January 2, 1931, and the following season Lakmé and La Sonnambula_ were both revived at the Metropolitan as vehicles for her. In the last twenty years Lily Pons has toured extensively and she has made appearances with leading orchestras conducted by her husband, Andre Kostelanetz, whorh she married in 1938. She has the distinction of having had a town named after herLilypons, Maryland. adie,

DOWN DEEP

a 2OR many of the world’s bassos Moussorgsky’s Boris Godounov is a "gift," and they warmly welcome an opportunity to sing it in public. Not only do they have a chance to wear some of the most magnificent costumes, but they have two long and meaty scenes in

which to show off the full richness of the voice, rave through a

couple of bloody hallucinations (as Time puts it), and finally fall down dead on a flight of stairs. Last month at the Metgopolitan the part was taken by Jerome Hines, aged 32, the first U.S.born basso to try it there. Hines’s voice was as big, dark and smooth as the best of them, and his basketball player’s height (6ft. 642in.) gave him a properly commanding appearance. . . The crowd yelled itself hoarse after the death scene, and called Hines back for seven curtain calls. Hines took singing lessons as a boy, but spent his spare time pottering in a chemistry lab. + When he got his first role in H.M.S. Pinafore he knew he wanted to be a singer. . . His theory about Boris is } that he was a hysteric and manic-depres- " sive whose chest-heaving and temple-

thumping came about as natural results. His death. which is not clear in the libretto, was almost surely due to a cerebral haemorrhage. "a &

HOME FIRE’S BUKNING

N ELL TAYLOR (Auckland) writes: "I "was very pleased to read in The Listener a patagraph about Charlie Kunz. He and his wife Pat are great ‘friends of mine. The fast letter I received from Pat said that they had re-

turned home from the hospital in Wales where Charlie had been for 18 weeks.

Treatment of Charlie’s right hand has not been successful yet, as stated.in your paragraph; his left fingers are just movable. When Pat and Charlie arrived home from the hospital the plaster cast was taken off his right hand. When he saw his fingers he said, "They’re just like wet, cold pork sausages,’ and glancing at the piano, remarked, ‘Dampness is no good in a piano.’ Their house is closed, but someone goes in every day to light a fire to keep the piano aired. Charlie, who has been ready three times to visit New Zealand and Australia, is having further treatment which may take some weeks. "Charlie has earned big money: not everyone knows how much of it he has given away or of the hard work he cid during the war for the sick and wounded. When he himself was in hospital for two years, Flanagan and Allen visited him. One day they were listening to the radio when ‘Lord Haw-Haw’ announced that Charlie would be playing the next recording from the Berlin station. At Charlie’s first appearance after his illness two men in the audience shouted

to him to get off the stage, saying, *You’re a German!’ Charlie was born in the U.S.A., and two sons, Peter and Gerald, served in the R.A.F, during the war. Charlie Kunz is now in his middle fifties." tr

BALANCED

NE of the guest artists in the BBC’s Songs From the Shows now going round NZBS stations, is Evelyn Laye,

who, in New York played the part. of Sari Lynden in Noel Cow-

ard’s immensely’ successful operetta Bitter Sweet. The international balance was restored by the American actress Peggy Wood playing the part in London.