PERCY WHITEHEAD (Baritone)
THE GERSHOM PARKINGTON QUINTET
ANDRÉ MESSAGER, who died in the spring of this year at the good old age of seventy-six, was for long a familiar figure in the London musical world, apart from the successful productions here of some of his best light operas. The first of these, La Bernaise, enjoyed a long run at the Prince of Wales's Theatre, with Miss Florence St. John and Miss Marie Tempest in the principal parts. The dignity and musicianship with which it presented its fresh tunefulness was something new to British audiences, and the high standard which Messager's work reached in that very way has earned him the title of the ' aristocrat' of the comic opera stage. Some years later he achieved a still more important success with La Basoche, which was given in an English version at d'Oyly Carte's Royal English Opera House-the theatre which had opened with such a flourish of trumpets, to produce a long run of English opera. In later years we remember his Little Michus and Veronique, and his ballet The Two Pigeon8 is often heard as orchestral music. But besides his composing, he did distinguished work as conductor too, not only in Paris, but in London. For some six years he was Artistic Director at Covent Garden Opera House, conducting many of the important operas. He was succeeded there by our Mr. Percy Pitt.
The only new opera of his which English audiences have heard since then was his Monsieur Beaucaire ; it began a run at Prince's Theatre, London, in the spring of 1919.