THE OLD VIC
Sir,-In his letter to The Listener for November 12, I. R. Maxwell-Stewart says-in reference to Dame Sybil Thorndike-"That she worked from 1914 to 1918 at the Old Vic bears this out, as in those pre-Lilian Baylis days, etc." The fact is Lilian Baylis took over management of the Old Vic from her aunt, Miss Cons, as far back as 1898. Concerts were then the main form of entertainment; but after the production of The Bohemian Girl in 1900, under the baton of old Charles Corri, Grand Opera became Miss Baylis’s chief concern, and it was in connection with these operatic productions and the Sunday evening concerts that I became acquainted with Lilian Baylis in 1906 or thereabouts. It may interest your readers to know that in my time the Old Vic stage had no curtains; two wide wooden wings, set. about two-thirds down stage, were. pushed: across-as in Elizabethan times-and "casualties" in an opera or play sometimes forgot to "die" well up-stage! Since the old theatre could not obtain a full licence the "draw" had to be made every twenty minutes, and a soloist would move to the front to sing an aria, while the wings closed behind him.
F. G.
ARMSTRONG
Auckland).
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 803, 10 December 1954, Page 5
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206THE OLD VIC New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 803, 10 December 1954, Page 5
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