Relayed from the Queen's Hall, London
(Sole Lessees, Messrs. Chappell and Co., Lid.)
35th Season
MARGARET CHAMPNEYS (Contralto)
JOHN TURNER (Tenor)
EUNICE NORTON (Pianoforte)
SIR HENRY WOOD and his SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
(Leader, CHARLES WOODHOUSE )
THE Overture has always been popular, though the opera itself was one of the direst failures on record. Produced in Paris, the year after Queen Victoria came to the throne of Britain, and a fortnight later in London, it fell hopelessly flat. Sixteen years afterwards Berlioz conducted it himself at Covent Garden and everyone expected
- a pronounced success for it. Arrangements were made for a supper after the opera, at which the principal performers and many other distinguished people of the world of music were to meet Berlioz, but so dire was the failure which attended the work, that no one had the courage to face the unlucky composer and conductor except the then music critic of The Times, James William Davison.