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Musical Courier 1902-06-04: Vol 44 Iss 1158, 1902
43 lines. Read by computer on 21 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
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1vocalists were Miss Sara Etta Roberts, R. H. Bourne, Miss Mabelle Walker, Miss Bertha Pearl Hobson, Arthur B. Joy and T. H. Maguire, and the quartet from the State School for Boys, composed of Masters Pierson, La Har, Freeman and Terhune. The instrumental selections were played by: Violins, E. D. Korn, Ellis Linder; viola, John H. Hill; 'cello, Joseph A. Hill; double bass, James Hancock; flute, Henry Winter Davis; cornet, Alexander Hart.
3The Rock Island (Ill.) Choral Society includes eighty-four sopranos, fifty-six altos, twenty-two tenors and thirty basses. The officers of the society are: President, S. Edwards; first vice-president, George H. Sheldon; second vice-president, Mrs. G. W. Cash; secretary, L. A. Schillinger; treasurer, Adison Gest; librarian, Walker Karr; conductor, C. F. Toennges; pianist, Miss Mae Culton, and organist, Mrs. J. W. Cook.
5DAVID BAXTER'S RECITAL.
6[BY CABLE.]
7LONDON, May 31, 1902.
8Musical Courier, New York:
9VOCAL recital David Baxter, last night, Bechstein Hall; great artistic and popular success.
10CHESTER.
12FROM THE LANKOW STUDIO.
13ARTISTS emanating from this studio who have had success in Europe this winter are: Alma Webster Powell, who has made a most successful tour through Russia, Austria, Germany and France. She received high praise at Prague, where she created the title role in Eugenio de Pirani's opera, "Das Hexenlind." Later on she made a sensation in concert at Paris, where in the fall she will sing in "Das Hexenlind." She will sing in London at Bechstein Hall in June, and has been engaged for the first Philharmonic concert, to be given at Warsaw, Poland, in November.
15Martha Hofacker, first juvenile dramatic soprano at the Strassburg Stadt Theatre, has won the place of prime favorite with the public in this her first season. She has closed her winter's work with great eclat as Eva in Wagner's "Meistersinger," and will sing in all of the principal juvenile dramatic roles at the same theatre for the next two seasons.
17Marie van Gelder, first high dramatic soprano at the Stadt Theatre in Metz, closed her season with success as Isolde, after which she was offered contracts from twenty-two German opera houses—a most gratifying proof of her ability as both actress and singer.
19Madame Lankow closed her studio June 1 and will rest for two months at Far Rockaway. On August 9 she sails for Europe, where she will "place" Andreas Schneider, the lyric baritone, and her second phenomenal coloratura soprano, Beatrice Flint, in grand opera. Miss Edna Stern, the well-known mezzo soprano, and Miss Pauline French, a high dramatic soprano, will also be with Madame Lankow during her stay in Europe.
21The fame of Madame Lankow's method of voice training has grown wonderfully, and recognized pedagogues who have been studying with her are Prof. H. Harrison and Miss Grace Tyler, his assistant, of Cleveland, Ohio, and William Shaw, of Olean, N. Y.
23Madame Lankow's assistants who have accepted summer engagements are: Mrs. Jennie K. Gordon, at Kansas City, Mo.; Miss Blanche Ullman, at Appleton, Wis., and Mrs. Josephine Mulligan, at Green Bay, Wis. The studios at 800 Park avenue, New York city, will open October 1, where S. T. Ritter will have his studio also.
25Mrs. M. Samuel.—Mrs. M. Samuel, piano and vocal teacher, of New Orleans, and correspondent of THE MUSICAL COURIER, left for France on the Savoie on Thursday last to be absent until the end of October.
27THE MUSICAL COURIER.
29HOTEL CECIL, LONDON.
30May 24, 1902.
32HE performances at Covent Garden this year have been a strange mixture of the good and the bad. Hitherto we have had no performance that could be called great even by the widest stretch of imagination. We have had several that were good, some that were indifferent, and not a few that were outrageously bad. The "Carmen" of May 16 was one of the best, but even in such an old familiar opera as "Carmen" Covent Garden did not distinguish itself very greatly. Mlle. Zélie de Lussan was, of course, splendid as the gypsy girl. We had been promised Madame Fremstad, whom, up to the present, we have not seen in the part. The weather, however, which is execrable, proved too much for her, and she had to retire to the sea. We were, of course, sorry to lose the chance of making Madame Fremstad's acquaintance, but, upon the other hand, Mlle. Zélie de Lussan is always delightful in the part. She has played it here over and over again, but her reading of it does not pall, and she acted on Friday with all her old vivacity and "go." Saléza, the Don José, was still rather out of voice—in fact, Saléza never seems to be in voice at the beginning of the London season. He sang, however, a great deal better than in "Faust" or "Romeo," and he is, apparently, recovering.
34No doubt the syndicate had great difficulties to contend with on Saturday. "Tannhäuser" was announced. At midday van Dyck discovered that he had too bad a cold to sing, so Pennarini was asked to take his place. At the last moment he, too, fell ill, and the curtain, on rising, found Kraemer-Helm reposing in Venus' lap. The episode gave one cause to ponder on the lack of tenors at Covent Garden this year. With the exception of van Dyck not one of the Wagnerian tenors who have appeared so far is in the least worth hearing. Pennarini's production would disgrace a student at the academy; Kraemer-Helm's voice would scarcely fill the Savoy. The syndicate takes immense pains to provide new and, be it said, very beautiful scenery, and descends from the sublime to the ridiculous by providing a Tannhäuser whom no one would suspect of being a minstrel and a Lohengrin whose godlike attributes are conspicuous by their absence. If the outlay on the scenery has to be so great that it is impossible to engage good tenors, we would rather have had the old scenery and better performances. We want either the picture and the frame or the picture alone. The frame by itself is of no use to anyone. But even the scenery itself gave cause for complaint. Apparently the painter had not consulted Wagner's directions very carefully, for one of the tableaux supposed to represent a grot in the Venusberg pictured a sketch of seashore with a grand expanse of blue sky in the background, and it was in these surroundings that Tannhäuser had to pine for the light of day. Hitches, too, constantly occurred. The drops caught upon Venus' electrically lit shell, the voice of the scene shifter was heard in the land, and the legs of the scene shifter were seen in the background. Covent Garden, indeed, has but little reason to be proud of Saturday's performance of "Tannhäuser."
36Monday being bank holiday, and consequently an off night at the opera, "Faust" was staged with practically the same cast as last week. On Tuesday "Tristan" was once again announced and once again postponed owing to apparently interminable colds on the part of van Dyck and Fraulein Dönges. "Lohengrin" was substituted, with Louis Arens as Lohengrin, Frau Louise as Elsa and David Bispham as Telramund. Arens is a better Lohengrin than Pennarini, but that is not saying very much. He has a fine, ringing voice, a good presence and a very fair idea of how to act the part. His production, however, is by no means perfect, and though he occasionally sang very well indeed, he appeared to lose all control over his voice in the mezzo voce passages. Frau Louise has rapidly won her way into popularity. She is a good though not a first rate singer, and her voice has a slight tremolo which it would be better without. She is, however, a very charming actress, and her Elsa was delightfully fresh and graceful.
38Bispham, for some reason best known to himself, elected to make himself up like a coal heaver. Bispham, indeed, generally prepares some fresh surprise for us in this department, and in Wednesday's "Siegfried" he gave us a rubicund, full blooded Alberich which was the exact reverse of our preconceived notions of that character. But to return to "Lohengrin." The performance was the best of the season in some ways, in that the ensemble showed a very marked improvement on anything that has hitherto been achieved. The principals worked together well, and they actually succeeded in infusing some of their enthusiasm into the body of old fogies which does duty for a chorus. Indeed, the choral parts were sung in a key not very remote from that in which they were written, while the crowd of courtiers consented to show some interest in the events which were taking place on the stage.
40On Wednesday we had "Siegfried," with Pennarini as the hero. We may say at once that he is far more presentable as the youthful Siegfried than as Siegmund or Lohengrin. The part seems to suit him better, and he played it with freshness and vigor. It is hard, however, to become reconciled to the vagaries of his voice production, and strange and weird were the sounds which he emitted in the Forge Song. Once again one could not help contrasting him with van Rooy, who was, of course, the Wanderer. In the scene with Mime, and in the duologue with Fricka, his magnificent voice told as it has rarely told before. While Teutonic sopranos and tenors fall easy victims to the slightest change in the weather, van Rooy seems to pursue the even tenor of his way quite unaffected, and the more trying the conditions the better he sings. Madame Nordica, too, affords another instance of the value of a perfect method, and as Brünnhilde she scored one of her greatest successes. Her clear, pure voice; her perfect singing and her excellent acting combined to make her performance memorable. The Mime was Herr Reiss, who hit off the gnomish dwarf to perfection; while Herr Blass as Fafner and Madame Sobrino as the "Stimme aus Waldvogels" were also excellent.
42Friday's performance of "Tristan und Isolde" showed yet another marked improvement, and Nordica scored
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