G
THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1950.
Are opera audiences getting
THE
LONDON.
of
MOST momen- Lous operatic event of postwar England is at Hand-the season the La Scala company at Covent Garden. But are the opera lovers-the regu- lars-happy? They are not.
a raw deal?
to make a full and frank sinte- meni about the "finances of this visit.
Covent Garden's answer, 60 that Ln Scula is
far, on been bringing over a company of be tween 459 and 500 prople, which has sent costs up.
WORDS and MUSIC
by MARIUS POPE
The
almost-mised contract But that lo for from the whole was on the following lines: La Why, for example, are Senta would pay the salaries and
fares. Chief expense the promoter 150 people coming over? Is this the number necessary?
this she would
A great number of the most consistent of opera lovers who have Bat
countless ory. through Indifferent and tired produc tions at Covent Garden in order to keep opera-uny alive in London.
opera→→→ feel they are
ΠΟΣ are asked to pay three times the e
ormat palces in order to hear the Italian company,
Eetting a raw deal when they
Hush-hush
give a complete answer, Here tenaner
Riven
ma;
of
the
company In
of
have supported Covent Garden through some very lean years have a right to be told.
I suppose it is too late to alter the plan basically now, but a scheme put forward by Mr Pomeroy deserves serious con- alderation.
Surgio (who
Goossens,
has
Lince died) and Gerald Moore, and the Harry Isases Trio are in the programmes for this year's concerts.
promoters how it is done.
Perhaps they will tell other
Dy
New season productions
the Sadler's
Wells opera include a new vers Don of Verdi's -Carlos, and the first per- formance in England of Janacek's opera Katya Kaba-
Ti is for the La Scata com- pany to give four matinee per- for formances at which seats would be priced between 23. 60, and To this Covent Garden will have been the cost of main- 16. the seats to be distributed are the figures that they have Landon. A number of ecceptable by lot if necessary.
Orchestra of.108 schemes were
They would holp discussed, player; ☐ stage unnd of 24 which the most expensive was the orchestra), 60s. a day for each member of (separate from chorus of about 180, Lallet com- the company. pany of about 20, and about 20 Principals. That leaves more than 100 members unaccounted for
Here are some comparisons: usuntly 2s, Od. Gallery Meats, will be da amphitheatre price Covent Garden think the rest Ene from 2s. 6d. to 10 may be made up of "adminisira orchestra stails from 15s, and five miast nad technicians." This 178, d. to $25. grand tier rests aspect seems beyond the wildes from 20 to £33.
dreams of the most extravagani bureaucrat.
3- no secret that the Italian Government look upon the visit na gontwitt mission, and have Rubsidised the visit accordingly, But the rest of "Operation L Scala" throuded in something. remiat scent of wartime hush
tus.
£3 a day
Tell them!
On that basis, adding a-chorus of 120 and 30 permanent per- tinet, the cost of, say, 270 for 16 days would have been
for the soloists and £2,000 for the
£20,000-including £5,000
conductor'N
The new Den
Carlos,
of
nova. produced in commemoration of the 50th Daniversary Verdi's death, will include music composed some of the I am sure that the entire La for the original Paris production not now usually Seala company, from Dr Antonio of 1867 and Ghiringhell downwards, would heard.
American organist Virgil Fox be only too happy to co-operate. is to give the Ari London per-
of Salle's Messe des
solo with
nt
St.
WIMBLEDON Concert formance Club now three years Pauvres for organ
and singers old, say defiantly in their plano new season's prospectus: Gabriel's Church, Cricklewood, "The club aims to provide N.W, standard at the lowest possible concerts of the highest
post.
Diamond jubilee
Complete cycle of Beethoven
Its only source of incoine At the present inflated reating 1: Hekel and programme sales. prices such a tour would have Its 1,300 members pay no violin and pinno sonatas will The answer to the quetion meant a profit for Covent Gar- subseription, and no
at the Wigmore Hall grant is be given froin the Borough by John Pinnington and New is all this necessary?" should den in the region of £17,000. At received
would have Council, the Arts Le simple to answer, For we their usual prices
Council, the Zealand pianist Richard Far- have only to remember that the incant a negligible defcit, easily County Council
or any outside rrll. La Scala Orchestra nearly came evered by their public subsidy, source whatever."
Mark Hambourg will cole- here last year, when negotiations But at the moment there is no
the club finance the brate, his diamond jubileus a were almost completed between way of knowing exactly what Wimbledon Philharmonie pianist with a Beethoven-Chopli
the the them and
The London opera
Inancial arrangemejls för Orchestra, and such unmes as recital at Covent Garden, frappesado, Mr Jay Pomeroy,
This toter are. Those people who Claudio Arrau, Poulshnoit, Leon Sunday October 22.
Fore this I blame Covent Gar- den. A a national theatre heavily subsidised from publje pitas, they have a duly
Five towns face five riddles
U'
indus-
P five sooly hills in
the heart of trial Britain range five sooty towns Hanley, Burslem, Tunstall, Longton, Stoke-the Five Town of the
མ{{-{lk»j»H!1-1+ti1-}4l-j-1-1-—“{{$t{e{-ı-t}{{e+43;
By MARK PRIESTLEY
ralo
of
Day and to saucers. In the Potteries earthenware monsters, Cups Itteries.
torn are pouring from the pot night a thousand bottle-like men and women are
Rt the kins belch Dinek smoke, either for cups, saucers or ters symbol of prosperity from se plate-spinning,' glazing 24,000,000 a month.
world's breakfast or decrating. That's why
china sale-men say replace produce ments are difficult.
War
years
have
soared
A year.
011
total output is drab, undecorat- The skilled painting, the second ed wure for the English market. "øring" in fix the design, the When Ethel Rox Inishes her Intensive scrutinising for faults, working day of endowing tea- all
spell extra bel, killed
Bris
there.
the
Sheer
SAUCIER SPECTACLES-
not
"At parties und the like sho did wear spectacles as often as she should, being a silly girl and therefore given over to vanity. But when
she did just slip them on
she found that
1
queerly ag-
gressive look · само over the
By ca
of her partner. This queerly unstvasive look,
she found, was directly due to an uncontrol- Iable access Di tenderness. ller spectacles seemed to fas- cinate young At one men.
time she found
to her horror
that she was
engngod to three."
-NEWEST DESIGNS CATCH UP ON WHAT
MICHAEL Arlen once said
THE
mother
But that was
renson mong
ton.
wite
And even Errol Flynn-Holly- they are made to look decora- years wood's most publicised lover- tive,
John French pictures here has now fallen for a girl who can scarcely see him properly some of the latest designs to Nr Arlen was ahead of without her specs.
reach London. the One-sentence summary from Maybe Garbo started his time. For spectacles
large, dark an opilelan: "A wise woman fusion with those nowadays are smart accesses, which added to her air selects her specs at least as Apries instend of purely of mantle mystery,
carefully as she chooses a hat." Spectacle practical props.
Most people know at least buy on glassen other than the
variety, who believes that un-shielding ane person
started pulting pretty "my glasses suit me."
Indeed one of the smartest round those which had to do a London spectacle makers anys rerous job of work.
Intelligent co-operation from for her that it is not unusual fashionable cilents who do not, oculists saw to it that
makers soon
got
and
frames
with charming and in labour, higher production Costs trienfe patterns, she goes home and time. On the other Band, THE quotation above frames from her fitted with plain that screwed-up frown to a kitchen of plain utillly fine china is amoi oll
crows' feet round the eyes, comes from Michael glas.
Tuxfay's
mart china, some of it chipped and export profit.
spectacle which result from peering From the pure white chima
Arlen describing the wist- cracked with years of usage.
wearers include Douglas Fair through Icases of inadequato Some of the
folk
Kay Hammond, arca pottery
Delay shipped from Cornwall by fal appeal of the heroine of banks manage to enrich their homes.
12 sea and canal, all but a
famous frac his
Modern spectacle frames are novel "Lily Bete Daniels, Margaret Leigh- with 'reconds'-lecorated china
not intended to look unobtrusivo In which some slight flaw en tion of the paint, pigments and
Christine." the
20 In all, the Five Towns now tails rejection for export. Yet Blaze comes from the tables,
nearly £50,000,000 there's a Five Towns Joke that earth of Britain.
that's the Perhors worth of china
It the best decoration on a plate for the new confidence When people leave the No industry in Britala ranges from bath equipment to j egits and bacon, and
these
shrowel Five Townsmen. North everyday Talk take Five
the five banquet sets-and world sales ober Towns, as novelist has boomed in
America now his more modern to 25 percent quiet pride in helping to put it Arnold Bennett did, they postwar years with the above 1938 levels.
factories, eflictent pottery ANTE but even the Unlled States has rarely return. During the whirling fervour of pottery.
In human terms, prosperity.
to import a proportion of Eng- some 20,000 Representing less than one
has meant overtime earnings Thorny Topic Jish china clay, and the de-1 Pottery - trained craftsmen percent of prewar British for decorators like 20-year-old
mand 1: still for English quality left in it mass
women products, exodus, exports, English puttery Ethel Bex or 76-year-old Annie vanishing into the plastic and fine china now fops im- terns in china as a girl of 13 corators, we could boost exports Japanese
Bloor, who began painting pat- "WITH 5.000 more
workers, especially de- "Until
and Czechs begin exporting anl electric industries port popularity polls in the and can still decorate with the by some 25 percent," says Afr again. Potteries factor told contred elsewhere. As a re- USA ́nid elsewhere. Coffee best. In statistics,
me "We've nothing to the pottery A, E, Hewitt, the white-overalled sult, in 1950, the world and cups in Teheran, dinner ser- paradox can be set in another manager of the Spode about.
Défore the war, the Potteries camol tits wife still
Copeland works. "That would buy vices in Hongkong....the form.
and knew the dark shadows of hard output of
more ears enough English china.
Wedgwood, Crowded In 訊 lew square pay for stifl
times. One potter in every 12 Worcester, miles beneath thic Spade, Minton,
eternal baron."
Was unemployed, and many Old Tel Fenton, of Stoke,
But the labour shortage re- Crown Derlay
and other smoke-pall, a group of 276 fac-
more worked on short time. Has been making teacups famous-name factories have worker-are producing 85 per- tars, for
tories come with 1,000 or more mains his thorny tople. Decora- Scures of family-Arm potteries
instance a presunt closed slown la face of all his life, tradling his
oner- failed to keep pace with the ccm of the total output. Cramp day bottleneck take Anding
getle competition from progres- potter's wheel, working the
ખી within these Five Towns and training. Packers Boud-tide of orders, ~
like sive
anci larger Arms who white clay to eggshell thin-
again are 300.000 people-dour, Royal Doulton's skilled Tom
electrically-tired ness with his inbred 'put-
plain-faced idealists, as Arnold Tyler, who can barrel up 2,000 bad installed His ter's thumb.'
father
Bennett described them and cups and saucers an hour, are tunnel king capable of handling crockery by the thousand instead haff the working population are almost irreplaceable. Despite a of the hundred. Can the present pottery operatives. 11 their comprehensive apprenticeship boom continue when the immic- dark Staffordshire beelive they scheine,
the diate world demand starts to and are producing some of the love school-leaving
sap, and quality has to be linked 18 with low prices?
the
raising of
Years Ahead And grandfather made tea (NE firm has orders for cups before him.
five years almal. In With un output of ten Burslem, teapot manufac
turning out times more cups and plates turers than steers, his employers 25,000,000 pols year, china is rich and beautiful. No. In value, of course, the de- would prefer him to switch from one-cup size to 40-cup less than
R-20
I
are
age lo 16
at liest things the world ever saw, continued conscription
Not that all Salfordshire both imply headaches,
two-thirds of
the corated china outvles the plain.
n the 1850's it was the Shipping Lists which drew public attention in Hongkong
Each issue of the "Friend of China & Hongkong Gazette" listed the ships duc, and each ship meant letters, news, entertainment, new subjects for gossip.. the Duke of Wellington's funeral, the speeches of Disraeli and Lord Derby, the war in the Crimea, the latest fashions...
Today it is Rediffusion which draws the public's attention. Programmes, free from all interference and distortion, bring to many thousands of Hongkong homes first class entertainment, the world's news, and market reports. For $10 a month, and a nominal installation fee, the subscriber is supplied with a perfect reception service.
TODAY ATTENTION IS FOCUSSED ON
REDIFFUSION
The
worry
Sternest Riddle PROBABLY the answer de-
pends on the sternent riddle of all the problem of the skilled young men and women who are turning their backs on Five Towns squalor and emigrating to inore attractive elties ke London and Birmingham.
One man may, stop the drift, A: retired pathologist of Stoke- on-Trent, Dr E. C. Myoit, grew tired of apologeting for the drab ness of his city and clean-up campaign.
glasses In fact, need spectacles-to buy were large enough to prevent
GLAMOUR.
in black -
-and in transparent specs.
GLAMOUR
in aparting while specs.
London Express Service
BLIND DATE
LAST with Saturday, Eleanor
by BILLY ROSE
a fellow named Ed Gilson, who occasionally sells elec
fact that Alice can't see doesn't headed a trical supplies to my bother us at all."
theatre.
"That's
Looking back at it, I can sto why. For one thing, I was u a bit of a boob, and made him took
gond Ly comparison. For another, I was so happy to be in the company of a hot- shot that I didn't mind when he I pretty obvious."
stuck me with the check. He began by listing the likely
"but now that you've
"One
Franklo 11. places in the colourless streels
night The Gibson house was one of said.
how did you troduced me to a knockout of where paving stones could be these white-clapboard,
green brought it up. taken up and flowering shrubs shutter jobs, and he and
his know the marriage was going to a girl named Joyce and told me
work planted. Then he enlisted the wife, were on the porch as w
out that way nt the they were engaged. Later that 320 Joent youth clubs, drove up.
beginning?" ald of
evening, thanks to a couple of Alic: was o real e
something highballs, I found myself asking with their 12,000
"Well, that was members, to beauty, but when Ed introduced start tidying the senres of dére.
there were any
"Joyce does have a sister,' Neverthtiest, it turned out to "Mind telling me about it?".1 said Frankie, and she's quite a
dish. 1'11 Ax it for you.' be quite an evening-the grub said.
"That's not funny,! said Arst-rate, the talk WIN
us we could tell the was blind at was pretty obvious to me, Joyce whether llet sites-polbanks, blitz ruins by the way she looked right right from the evening when a more at home like her.
and
discarded factories which the city is dotted,
with
One club enthusiastically borrowed a bulldozer to level a hockey pitch. Hundreds of tons of topsoil have been carted to singheaps to help brighten them with tulips and daffodils.
The black country now shows sprouts of green. There is more colour and life in Staffordshire streets.
"We used to say our Ugly towns helped to rest our eyes, a Five Towns alderman cor- Alded. "Now we're trying to surroundingឌ us pleasant and gay as the china we're sending to export."
make
our
past us.
Wis
stinker nume<! Et us together."
Frankie Stearns
a 100k and gave me the
the next
evening tha the other end sold, Frankie tok me all about you and I'd be glad to met you."
at all," said Gilson. "I "Not analt but not microscopic, and happened to met Alice only Joyce, but Frankie shut her up bv
10 o'clock the girls were because this Frankle was trying with swapping recipes and gossip, to play a practical joke on me." tel:phone number. And when while Ed and I watched the "Give it to me in short takes," ealed fights on the television. An I said. hour later Eleanor announced she had a yen for chocolate ico cream, so Ed and I got into his Chevvy and drove to the village.
"How long live you kids and Frankle, who was a sales
mn for the electrical appilance been married?" I asked.
"Eight years," he said, "and oalt I worked for, took a shing in case you're wondering, the to me and showed me around.
by Leonard Gribble
Crime Quiz Skicher by A. E. Morley
"Well, I was a pretty grein kid when I first hit New York,
The Retired Farmer
“Well, Alice turned out to be every bit as attractive as her sister-in fact, maybe more so- and I was, so Dustered I didn't notice anything wrong until I asked her to go to the movies, When she told me sho blind, I realised Frankie had played a joko on me, but I stayed and gabbed for a while and had a pretty good limo at that.
WAS
Reported, in Presse-Police arrived! But Baas claimed ne nad sean. Höys
at the cultage of pid fokus Hays, a
retired farmer and found him ring Jead. He had beses attacked with a poker that bore no fingerprints. His son, from whom he was admitted leaving tin. father There were no signs of a struggle. The body remained where it sad-fatian -
on Tom call at the coffage, and out
al curiosity had creat un 10%der the window
He had heard 'angry worde spoken and had seen Tom Flays pick up the poker and strikes his father Tom Hays denied t
(Wolution: Page 28)
He sala the pærrei between external) and his father had been caused by the iles told by Dean, whom he had showst off the farm. – Hẹ hud told his "taifver the truth about Dean His father would not believe nim. When they had heard both statements the police man rent
Whommand why?”
"A few months later we got married' and I've NOVER 10- gretted It Frankle and Joyco got hitched too, but he gave her a rough time of it, and sho divorced film after a couple of years and hasn't married
since."
"Nice twist," I said, "Joyce. undoubtedly had plenty of boy friends choose fram and two good eyes to choose with, and ahe picked a jeman. Alice, on the other
the first try bicked a winner
ירי
"My issua has a corny way of explaining it," said Ed. "She says sometimes being blind helps you to me."
(World Copyright Remyont-Londen