ALICE MOXON (Soprano) ; HEDDLE NASH (Tenor); THE WIRELESS ORCHESTRA (Leader, S. KNEALE KELLEY ). Conducted by JOHN BARBIROLLI
THE children's Opera, Hansel and Gretel, is
A Humperdinck's most typical and charming work. Its plot, from Grimm's fairy tales, tells of the witch who enticed boys and girls to her gingerbread house, and then cooked and ate them.
The Dream Music (also called Dream Pantomime) comes in the Second Act. Two children have lost their way in the forest. They fall asleep and dream that angels descend a golden staircase and move in procession around them.
In Humperdinck's music to this scene we hear two leading themes, one a cradle-song and the other a hymn-like tune—a prayer.
THE hero of Aida is Radames, an Egyptian
Captain, who is made leader of the Egyptian Army, and, when he returns victorious, is offered the hand of the King's Daughter, who loves him. The tragedy which
' follows is due to the love which Radames and Aida, daughter of the captive Ethiopian King, bear for one another.
Radames sings Heavenly Aida near the beginning of the Opera. He dreams of his return, as victorious .leader, to his beloved Aida.
THE Countess Almaviva has found her husband fickle, and in this rather pathetic air she expresses her longing for the restoration of the love she once knew; if that cannot be, she does not wish to live.