Open Microphone

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 798, 5 November 1954, Page 28

Open Microphone

ALL ROUNDER

ANY listeners who heard IV the H. G. Wells serial The First Men in the Moon when it was broadcast from 2YA recently-it is to start this month from 2YD-may not know that Cecil Trouncer, who made such a convincine iob of the leading part of

Wells’s fictional scientist Cavor, died suddenly last December, a few months . 2a ae ee

Me S$€liai VORA from the BBC. When it was suggested to him, while the serial was running, that he might have been chosen for the part because one of his most successful stage roles had been as another scientist, Sir Isaac Newton, Trouncer chuckled and said he might equally well have been chosen because a couple of years before he had played in a radio serial called The Other Side of the Sun. The real reason for the choice was given by David Godfrey, who produced the Wells serial. The part called for a professional manner, vague but obviously enlightened, he said, and Trouncer had the perfect voice for suggesting a highly intelligent man. Cecil Trouncer’s voice was much heard even on this side of the ‘world, for though he was trained for the London stage, where he first appeared in 1920 after coming out of the army as a young

man, he also had a long connection with broadcasting. One of his best remembered parts was as Geoffrey Chaucer in the BBC production of The Canterbury Tales, a series in which he was also the Merchant. Another was as Gilbert in the BBC transcription Gilbert and Sullivan. In a tribute after his death the Radio Times described him as a skilled and versatile actor who never gave a bad performance, adding that "he articulated every syllable with meticulous care ... yet his voice was capable of emotional warmth when the part called for it." In the early days of the war Trouncer was a mainstay of the BBC Drama Repertory Company, where he played a wide variety of parts but was particularly successful in the characters of crusty old men. One of his last microphone parts was that of Hieronimo, Marshal of Spain, in the BBC World Theatre version of Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy-a production not yet heard from NZBS stations.

CINDERELLA GIRL

nw ""[ RAPEZE artist of the Metropolitan Opera,’ are the words -.used by Opera News to describe Lily Pons, the tiny coloratura soprano "who can trill on a sixteenth note and take a scale from middle C to the F sharp above high C." But the seemingly effortless manner in which she meets difficult vocal requirements is in reality the result of strenu-

ous training and a disciplined programme of living. Lily Pons,

who plays the leading part of Melanie opposite Noel Coward in Coward’s Conversation Piece (a musical play in three acts which will be broadcast in the ZB Sunday Showcase at.9.35 p.m. on Sunday, November 14see page 17) was born near Cannes 50 years ago. Her mother was Italian and her father French. Her first ambition was to be a concert pianist, but after she won a prize at the Paris Conservatoire an illness interrupted her study for two years. She began a new career as a singer, then deserted the stage to marry August Mesritz, a wealthy, papddle-ered Dutchman.

Nevertheless, she..continued to study with Alberti di Gorostiaga, and in 1928 made her operatic debut in Lakme. In 1931 her American debut at the Metropolitan was described in the newspapers as "sensational." Thereafter she became one of the most popular singers of her time. In Rio de Janiero, frantic

adedians twice tore artes "dou from her car; in Europe she received medals and honours; in America two _ Ilqcomotives and a town in Maryland were named after her. She made films and won radio polls, but she has remained immune to the lure of easy success. he petite soprano is now married to Ahdré Kostelanetz, the noted conductor. She is five feet one tall, weighs 104 pounds and wears a size two shoe. She exercises for an hour and a half every day, neither drinks nor smokes, and Cinder-ella-like, retires from the gayest gatherings before midnight.

* NEVILLE FRIEDLANDER, author of the NZBS-produced feature Antarctica: The Unconquered Continent,

AWARD WINNER

which is at present being broadcast by National Stations, is at 30 an experienced radio man and journalist. After

war service in the Pacific Islands and the United Kingdom, he spent several

years with the sydney oun before going to Canada. From 1947 to

1951 he was producer in charge of the Pacific Service of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which is familiar to shortwave listeners in New Zealand who tune to weekend broadcasts from Montreal. During his CBC stay, Neville Friedlander was presented with a Canadian Radio Award for _ production (1948) and a Columbis, Ohio, Radio Award for promoting international goodwill. At present he is Education and Public Relations Officer of the New South Wales Anti-Tuberculosis Association. His nights and weekends, he tells us, are spent battling with a stubborn typewriter, trying to put together short stories and radio plays.

THAT SONG AGAIN

MONG the curiosities of a songwriter’s life was the recent experience of Fred Rauch, the Viennese author of the lyrics for "Answer Me, My Love," one of today’s most popular tunes. The melody was originally composed by Gerhard Winkler, a resident of Berlin, and

Fred Kauch wrote tne words under the title Mutterlein Weisst Du

Noch, Wie’s Fruher War ("Mother Mine, Do You Remember, Times Gone By?). In France, where it soon caught on, the song was titled "Graziella." In the Netherlands they called it "Moeder Niin,’’ and in the

Scandinavian countries "Lille Mor." The first English version was titled "Answer Me, Lord Above." In America the title was changed to the one we know out here, "Answer Me, My Love," and recorded by Nat King Cole. Soon "Answer Me" became a hit in America, its success spread back to Europe, and German listeners began asking for a German version of the English lyric. Who should they turn to? Naturally, Fred Rauch was the ideal man for the job, so he set to work and turned out a new version of the words he had originally written himself,~- which ~ had changed considerably in moe journey around the world. *

O, PIONEERS!

"NOTHING in our national character strikes me so forcibly as the change it has undergone in my lifetime," said Helen Wilson in a Listener symposium on the New Zealand character a vear or

so ago. Helen Wilson, who is now 86, tells the story of her life in

a programme in the NZBS series Portrait from Life (all YAs and 3YZ, 11.0

a.m., Wednesday, Novemher 10). It is as rich and full a story as any in this country, beginning with her childhood on a Timaru sheep station in the 1870s, and continuing with her marriage to C K. Wilson in Levin. and her years as a pioneering housewife in the North

Island. She also has much to say, as she did in her book, My First Eighty Years, about the political and social life of the last half-century which she and her husband, who became M.P. for the King Country, were much involved in. Despite failing eyesight, Mrs. Wilson is still a remarkably alert and upright woman, with lively memories and a vigorous manner of describing them.

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