"FACADE"
Sir,-Most enjoyable was the NZDS production of Fagade, a work which is unfortunately too often separated into performances of either words or music. I thought that the musical production tended to become a mere background to the narration at times-a little too timid? Not that the voice was too much in the ascendant: Keith Faulkner’s narration was perfect. But neither should be in ascendancy over the other. As Osbert Sitwell said of the work, "Its primary objects were to exalt the speaking voice to the level of the instruments supporting it, to obtain an absolute balance between the volume of music... and the
sound of the words-neither music nor words were to be treated or taken as a separate entity." In the original productions. the words were spoken through a sengerphone, not the usual megaphone that your article indicated. It is a type of megaphone; but the Sitwells went to some trouble to acquire it from its inventor, a Swiss opera singer named Senger. Made from a fibre derived from compressed grasses, it was supposed to preserve the purity of the tonal quality it magnified and remove the metallic timbre associated with a megaphone. Also the mouthpiece covered not only the mouth, but lips and nostrils of the speaker, thereby retaining the resonance caused by the nasal cavities.
JOSETTE
BRYAN
(Upper Hutt).
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19570329.2.19.6
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 920, 29 March 1957, Page 11
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223"FACADE" New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 920, 29 March 1957, Page 11
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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