La Belle Dame Sans Merci

New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 821, 22 April 1955, Page 10

La Belle Dame Sans Merci

UESS who! Anna, of course. Musician friends of mine, while admitting Anna Russell’s superb gifts, her flair for satire, her eye for the incongruous, her wonderful ear and _ sense of style, have registered some uneasiness about the propriety and taste of satirising forms like Lieder and the French Art song before audiences here have become acquainted with the real thing. "Town Hall packed for Anna," said one, "but when Ninon Vallin comes, 200 people will shiver in the front block." All too true, but I wonder if the argument is as cogent as it sounds. To get the real flavour of "Schlumph" and "Je n’ai pas la plume de ma tante," one must have heard a good deal of Schubert and Chausson, and Anna will not prevent such people from going to hear Ninon Vallin if she comes again; those who think all serious music is pretentious tosh will certainly not be disabused by Anna, but would they have gone to hear Ninon anyway? For no one can say Anna is not catholic in her assaults. For those who find the Hit Parade the summit of musical achievement, a _ session with Anna’s hilarious "lousing up’ of the popular song might be instructive. Where I think Anna defaults is in her patter, which on a second hearing becomes obvious and on the third, wearing. Three times in a week we have heard that stentorian "Good Evening!" followed by the ritual discarding of her boa ("It was just to let you know I had one!"’) Her musical satire is sophisticated and extraordinarily perceptive; her verbal quips however are heavy-handed and

force the pace, bludgeoning you into finding her songs hilarious, where they are so good in themselves that such buttressing is supererogatory. Perhaps Anna does not realise that a joke delivered in AucRland is heard with perfect clarity at all points south to Invercargill, and that not many jokes will

stand repeating.

B.E.G.

M.