Gitta Alpar

Radio Record, Volume V, Issue 35, 11 March 1932, Page 15

Gitta Alpar

Ex-Auckiander, Now Idol of Berlin: -- SOME years ago Gitta Alpar, of Hungarian birth, was well known in Auckland, where popular appreciation of her undoubted vocal talents enabled her to further her musical studies on the Continent. She is the possessor of a wonderful voice and she is now the idol of Berlin. The first recordings by Gitta Alpar to reach New Zealand will be broadcast from 2YA on Wednesday, March 16. She will then be heard in the "Doll’s Song" (from "Tales of Hoffmann") sung in German, and "Villanelle"’ (by Dell’ Acqua), sung in French with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra under Dr. Felix Gunther. . Gitta Alpar gives a remarkable interpretation, The art of singing the "Dolls Song," from the "Tales of Hoffmann," as Offenbach intended it to be sung, lies in the assumption of a tone and manner suggestive of a piece of mechanism and not a human being. The effect of this is an air which itself imitates the jerky movements of an automaton, and can be best appreciated in the theatre, where we can see the corre-

sponding looks and gestures of Hoffmann’s absurd "flame’’ as she displays her quaint little stock of vocal. ornaments and gewgaws. Apart from the stage, in a gramophone record, the idea is most successfully realised. by force of contrast, as we have it here, thanks to a clever artist who has known how to place it side by side with a thoroughly natural, human rendering of Dell’ Acqua’s wellknown Villanelle. Compare the dull, listless expression of the Doll (note that queer tumble of the voice when her machinery "runs down’), with the bright and animated feeling which pervades her voice in the other piece.. The florid singing in both is neat and accurate, without perhaps being exceptionally brilliant; the staccato, for instance, is far superior to the shake, yet on the whole there is no serious blemish to be found. anywhere. The Berlin Symphony Orchestra, under Dr, Felix Gunther, has treated the accompaniments in the right delicate spirit.