Opera International
Sip,—Your music critic, Mr. Colin Mason, complains that "Covent Garden continues fo offer Italian opera with guest singers from anywhere but Italy. These presumably are being kept for Wozzek." Mr. Mason cannot be aware of the difficulties of finding the right singers for the right operas and, above all, of the fees that respective opera-houses can afford to pay. But his remarks might lead new opera-goers to think that the conductor and the singers ought to be of the same nationality as the composer of the opera concerned.
May I be allowed to point out some facts. To begin with, it happens that the Italian Tito Gobbi, who sang Wozzek some years ago in Naples, is regarded by the experts as the best Wozzek since the first performance of this opera in the middle of the 'twenties. Concerning conductors, one of the finest performances of Die Meistersinger I have heard in my 35 years' experience was conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham. Toscanini conducted wonderful performances of the same opera in the 'thirties at the Salzburg Festival, whereas Furtvvfingler, conducting Otello there this year, proved—against all prophecies—that he has all the fire of his Italian colleagues. And, celebrities apart, we in Vienna are very pleased that in January we are to have the young and promising English conductor, John Pritchard, on the rostrum of the Vienna. Staatsoper, where he will conduct La Forza del Destino.
And now for some examples among, the singers. The great Eva Turner, I think the best Turandot of her time, was singing Italian roles must of the year in Italy. One of the first guest singers after the war in Vienna was Joan Hammond, who sang there Tosco and Traviata in Italian, and Butterfly and Bohlone in German. Nobody, not even the critics, asked why we got a singer for Italian parts from England and, by the way, why she was singing in different languages. Vinay, who is Chilean, not only sings Italian roles at the Metropolitan and the Scala, but next year is to sing Tristan in Bayreuth. The young Murray Dickie, a member of Covent Garden, starts on December 1st a three- months engagement--at the Vienna Staatsoper to take over the parts of David (Meistersinger), Pedrillo (II Seraglio), Jaquino (Fidelio), &c., and Constance Shacklock, who sang the Fricke under Erich Kleibar in Holland, will follow him probably very soon. And what about Kathleen Ferrier, who is recognised all over the world as one of the best interpreters of Deutschen Liedern 7 And would anybody waste tirne asking about the origin of Marion Andersen after having heard her singing Lieder of Brahms ?
Let me finish my letter with the following—perhaps most signific/ant-
episode. The singer who will sing Turandot at Covent Garden on November 22nd, Madame Kinasiewicz, is Polish born and a member of the opera-house in Stuttgart. After her engagement at Covent Garden was made known, she was engaged at once to sing the same r6le in Florence. Either Covent Garden has got already the reputation of discovering or choosing the right singers, or there is a terrible shortage
of Turandots—or both.—Yours faithfully, ALFRED DIEZ. 64 Holland Park, W.11.
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