When a Box Office Grieved

New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 777, 11 June 1954, Page 29

When a Box Office Grieved

HAVE to thank H. Temple White, of Wellington, for this interesting photograph of Galli-Curci. She is being welcomed by him at Wellington when she arrived on the R.M.S. Makura for her second visit to New Zealand in 1932. Mr. Temple White was then President of the Wellington Registered Music Teachers’ Association-a position he holds today. According to a newspaper report the singer's reception at the Wellington Grand Opera House was "sensational,"

but it was apparently not lacking in a little box office sadness. "There was not a vacant seat anywhere in the theatre and though it grieved the management to do so, money had to be turned away at the doors," said the reporter. At the end of the recital and before Galli-Curci left the stage, the Apollo Singers, under the conductorship of Mr. Temple White, with Ernest Jenner as accompanist, went on to the stage and sang "Lift Thine. Eyes" and "The Soldiers Farewell." The tribute to Galli-Curci was warmly. applauded. Recalling Galli-Curci’s first visit to New Zealand in 1925, "J.K.%. (Ngaio, Wellington), writes-for the benefit of "Music Lover" (Auckland)-that half way

through the last half of a recital at the Grand Opera House in Christchurch the lights failed. A single candle was placed on the grand piano and Galli-Curci came on "looking so tiny against the dark background. She sang, and played her own accompaniments for the rest of the evening without a_ sheet of music. . . She changed her dresses several times. and looked more charming with each change. It was said that she had not a good ear for music, and that often recordings had to be done over and over again."