(From Birmingham)
Conducted by E. A. PARSONS
OFFENBACH'S success as a composer of comic operas of that slight order for which we have no exact equivalent in this country, was almost unique. His industry was also astonishing, and the number of successful works which he produced in his busy life is well-nigh incredible. It was his ambition, however, to write at least one work of a rather serious order, and he was at work on this Tales of Hoffmann when he died. It was completed by Guiraud and produced in Paris in 1881, the year after its composer's death, and was given over a hundred times in that same year. It has ever since been in the repertory in Paris and is regularly played in most countries of Europe, even in our own.
Offenbach's music enjoyed an extraordinary vogue in this country in the latter part of last century, although, to any who knows it at the fountain head it inevitably loses something of its delicate flavour in crossing the Channel. None the less, Tales of Hoffmann bids fair to keep its hold on our affections, and either as a whole opera, or m part, is well known to the ordinary listener.
There is a Prologue in a wine cellar in which his friends twit Hoffmann, the poet, about his many love affairs, and each of the three acts is his recounting of them, always with an evil spirit at his elbow, somewhat after the manner of Mepbistopheles in Faust.
LULU and NORA
(Hawaiian Guitar Duete)
MARIE THOMSON (Soprano)
LEONARD ASHDOWN (Baritone)
(From Birmingham)
' The Tortoise Boy,' by Agnes Taunton
Songs by JOHN RORKE (Baritone)
' The Theatre's Lamplighter,' by John Anderson
COLLEEN CLIFFORD (Soprano)
(From Birmingham)
THE BIRMINGHAM STUDIO ORCHESTRA
Conducted by FRANK CANTELL
This listing contains language that some may find offensive.
(From Birmingham)
G. H. CREWS (Tenor)
THE BIRMINGHAM STUDIO CHORUS
Conducted by JOSEPH Lewis
(From Birmingham)
