1933-08-30 — Page 5

Page

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 30, 1933.

ART & DRAMA.

GOLDEN AGE OF

OPERA

Herman Klein's Memories.

London.

The "father" of the Covent Gar den audience must surely be Mr. Herman Klein, who in the yestibule recently confessed to sixty-one sum- mers of opera

Mr. Bernard Shaw has remarked in his book of collected criticisms how to many peole "extinct tenors more interesting than mighty conquerors." Such people will want to read Mr. Klein's new book of re- miniscences, "The Gulden Age of Opera" (Routledge).

Winston Churchill

-

As Painter

Tells How His Ambitions

Were First

First Aroused

PAINTING AS A HOBBY.

(By Winston Churchill.)`

THE CHINA MAIL

OPERATIC SALARIES SHOW DECLINE

Exceptionally Low On The Continent.

The salaries of operatic stars' are mera fractions of what they used to be in the "golden age." Pro- bably the best paid singer in those days Was Adelina Patti, who received £1,000 a performance, and Insisted on having the money in advance and is notes. Madame Patti WILS not trusting in any cheques. She sang at Covent Garden for over 20 years, and her, earnings between 1861 and 1889 averaged £35,000 a year.

To have reached the age of 40 canvas; the canvas is all the bet- Nowadays the leading dramatic without ever handling a brush, ter for past

at Covent Garden, which impressions, soprano

is easily the best pitca in Europe Mr. Klein begins by calling to to have regarded the painting of Secondly, you can approach your for an operatic singer, gets some mind Jenny Lind. Tietjens, and pictures as a mystery, and then ginning, if you will, with a mo- problem from any direction, be

thing like £190 a performance: Trebelli. He heard Patti's first

while the most eminent heroic, Aida; stalls fetched £10 apiece that suddenly to find oneself plunged derate central arrangement of

perfor night. He can compare memories in the middle of a new interest middle tones, and then hurling in tenor clears about £150 a

mance. These Agures would be of such a succession of Marguerites, [with paints and palettes and the extremes when the psycho-doubled, perhaps trebled, in New logical moment comes. Lastly, York. In Berlin and Vienna the the courage to appear when he is inged by results, is an astonish-handle. You can build them on only a fraction of those paid in New

ling and enriching experience. Ilaver after layer, if you like and York and London.

hope it may be shared by others. can change your plan to meet the

jexigencies of time and weather. Even Signor Gigh now finds that Matching them with what you opera does not pay. The concert For. to be really happy and to see is fascinating. Try it, if you platform plus gramophone records, have not done so before you

however, enables him still to keep the wolf from the door.

Violettas, and Carmens that the canvases, and not to be discour the pigments are wonder is any modern singer has

the house.

"Lohengrin" sons Telramund.

In the days he recalls sentries furnished by the Brigade of Guards? were posted in the vestibule at

Need of "Hobbies."

Covent Garden. The audience talk-avoid worry and mental over-die.

of the golden seventies, 100, seem

so nice to

come into view. One is astonish-

fees of the most famous singers are

John McCormack's gramophone royalties were said at one time tol amount to £10,000 a year.

MEDIAEVAL GLASS FROM AMERICA,

Salisbury Cathedral Panels Returned.

ad throughout the performance, dur- strain. we ought all to have ing "the golden age." Other habits hobbies and they must all be real

The Revelation Of Colours. As one slowly begins to escape strange. The first production of Best of all, and easiest to take from the difficuties of choosing "Lohengrin" was m Itakan.. Later up, are sketching and painting. the right colours and laying them on the opera was given at Covent They came to my rescue late in on in the right places and in the Garden without a Telramund.

The year 1982 was "golden" musi-life, at a most trying time. When right way, wider considerations cally, with three different opera en-I left the Admiralty at the ended to find out how many things terprises the first London "Ring" at of May, 1915, I still remained a there are in the landscape one Her Majesty's, more German opera, member of the Cabinet and of the never noticed before." And this under Richter, at Drury Lane, andį

is a tremendous new. pleasure halian opera

War Council. In this position I at Covent Garden.i

that invests every walk or drive Fortunes were lost, but Mr. Klein knew everything and could do with an added object. So many

nothing: I had vehement con colours on the hillside, each dif- of Salisbury Cathedral, has received Dr. Stanley Baker. Vicar Choral victions and no power to give ferent in shadow and in sunlight; from America two small panels of the 1870's a baritone, "Signor de effect to them; I had enforced such brilliant reflections in the medineral glass for the cathedral. Reschi." who later became a tenor leisure at a moment when every pool, each a key lower than what named Jean de Reszke.

fibre of my being was inflamed they repeat; such lovely lights There was!

The donor, Dr. Roderick Terry, of soprano, Josephine de Reszke, his to action.

gilding or silvering surface or Newport, Rhode Island, stated in 'a sister, "who displayed the family First Experiments With Paint outline. I found myself instinc-letter that they were bought in Eng-

And then it was, one Sunday tively, as I walked, noting the

land many years ago by Dr. Terry's in the country, that the children's tint and character of a leaf, the then President of the Metropolitan father-in-law, Mr. Henry Marquand, paint box came to my aid. My dreamy purple shades of moun-Museum of Art, New York,. and first experiments with their toy tains, the exquisite lacery of

gained a harvest of memories.

He can also tell how he heard in

talent as Aida, then departed -quickly as she had arrived." Ktein assures us that Melba "decidedly amateurish mediocre" when she first sang London, at Princes' Hall.

book.

ZA

Was

•

And

They are beautiful. panels. richly

match seven of these patterns from

in water colours led me to secure, winter, branches, the dim, pale coloured, and one of them bears the

next morning, a complete outfit silhouettes of far horizons. The twilight of "the golden age." for painting in oils. The next I had lived for over 40 years and, with the fleur-de-lis of France mediaeval Royal Standard of Eng- he considers, set in soon after the step was

to begin. The palette without ever He holds it gleamed with beads of colours them except in a general way, as noticing any of turn of the century.

in the quarterings, surrounded ̈ byj to have ended with the death of fair and white rose the canvas one might look at a crowd and a patchwork of patterns. Edward VII. This is an engaging the empty brush hung poised, say, "What a lot of people!" Dr. Baker states that he can

heavy with destiny, irresolute in; the air. Very gingerly I mixed 1 think this heightened sense the old cathedral glass recently dis- a little blue paint with a very of observation of Nature is one covered in a ditch at Salisbury, and small brush, and then with in- of the chief delights that have he has no doubt that it is glass from finite precaution made a mark come to me through trying to Salisbury Catheral. about as big as a small bean upon paint. And if you do observe! Regarding one panel, Dr. Baker the affronted snow-white shield.2 accurately and with refinement, suggests the possibility of its com- At that moment a motor car was and if you do record what you ing from an old house in the close heard on the drive and from it have seen with tolerable corres- at Salisbury occdpled by a Greek, there stepped none other than pondence, the result follows on scholar, Pheidion, who was ordain- The cable sent to Herr Hitler at the gifled wife of Sir John the canvas with startling obe-ed in the Salisbury Diocese.

Lavery, the distinguished por- 'dience.

TOSCANINI NOT TO VISIT GERMANY. Declines To Conduct Bayreuth Festival.

Toscanmi and 10 other leading con-

the beginning of April, signed by trait painter. "Painting! But Studying The Great Painters. ductors and musicians and appeal-what are you hesitating about?

duct at Bayreuth this summer.

His name is carved in the oaki purlin of the hall of the house.

Then, the art galleries take on

You flections

a new and-to me at least-a

ing to him to cease persecutions of Let me have a brush, a big one." him to cease persecutions of their Splash into the turpentine, wal-

or from natural hue. colleagues in Germany, received no lop into the blue and white, fran-severely practical interest. response. After a wait of two tic flourish on my palette, and see the difficulty that baffled you You would be astonished, the months, Toscanini telegraphed to

then several large, fierce strokes yesterday; and you see how first time you tried this, to see Winifred Wagner, widow of Sieg-of blue on the absolutely cower-easily it has been overcome by a how many and what beautiful fried Wagner, his refusal to con- ing canvas. The spell was broken great painter. You look at the colours there are even in the

My sickly inhibitions rolled away.

masterpieces of art with an most commonplace objects. I seized the largest brush and analysing and a comprehending Painting The "Complete Hobby.” fell upon my victim with Berserk leye.

Obviously, then, armed fury. I have never felt any awe

Chance one day led me to al paint box, one cannot be bored or of a canvas since.

secluded rook near Marseilles left at a loose end. How much where I fell in with two disciples there is to admire and how little Oils v. Water Colours. of Cezanne. They viewed Nature time there is to see it in! For the lends attraction to the exhibition of I write no word in disparage as a mass of shimmering light irrst time one begins to envy the works of James Tissot, whichment of water colours. But which forms and surfaces are Methuselah.

GREAT VICTORIAN ARTIST

Revived interest in life and so-

clety of the late Victoria period

•

York Building Chater Road.

of

with a

will be opened at the Leicester Gal there is really nothing like oils. comparatively unimportant, in- Painting is complete as a distrac-| leries. Tissot was a French artist First of all, you can correct misdeed hardly visible, but which tion. I know of nothing which, who lived in London for 17 years, takes more easily. One sweep of gleams and glows with beautiful without exhausting the body, more and had a great vogue as a painter the palette-knife lifts the blood harmonies and contrasts

entirely absorbs the mind: What- of "conversation pictures."

and Lears of a morning from the colour. I had hitherto painted ever, the worries of the hour or the

the sea flat, with long, smooth threats of the future, once the pic strokes of mixed pigment. Now ture has begun to flow there is no I must try to represent it by in-room for them on the mental screen. numerable small separate patches

They pass out into shadow and dark- of pure colour. Each of these ess. All one's mental light be- little points of colour sets up a when I have stood up on parade, or come concentrated. on the task. strong radiation of which the eye leven, I regret to say, in church, for is conscious without detecting half an hour at a time. T have, nl- the cause. Look at the blue of the sea. How can you depict it? not natural to man and is only with ways felt that the erect position is Certainly not by any single colour fatigue and dificulty maintained. that was ever manufactured. The But no one who is fond of painting only way in which that luminous finds the slightest inconvenience in intenalty of blue can be simulat-standing to paint for three or four ed is by this multitude of tiny hours at a stretch... points of varied colour, all in true relation to the rest of the It would be a sad pity to shuffle Buy a paint box and have a try. scheme. Difficult? Fascinating along through one's playtime with I was shown a picture by golf and bridge, when all the while, Cezanne of a blank wall of a if you only knew, there is waiting house, which he had made in-for you close at hand the wonderful). stinct with the most delicate new world of thought and craft, lights and colours. Now I often sunlit garden gleaming with colour. amuse myself when I am looking Inexpensive, Independence, new at a wall or a flat surface of any mental food and exercise, an added. kind, by trying to distinguish all interest in every common acene, an the different tints which can be occupation for wyer idle, hour, an discerned upon it, and consider unceasing voyage of entrancing dix- ing whether these arise from recovery-these are high prizes. I

(Continued At Foot of Next Col. hope they may be yours.

KOMOR

&

KOMOR HONG KONG

ART

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CURIO

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