Kuling, Aug. 19.
Yesterday evening the Auditorium was full, so that some of the audience were standing throughout the performance, for a rendering of the overture and a selection of the songs of Gounod's Faust. The whole of the music was well rendered. -It would be very ungracious to criticize any of the work in a finaicking spirit. The musicians had given up hours of their holiday to practices which have extended over weeks in order to afford the hearers a happy evening, and that being their only reward, they fully attained their aim. It is really praise and not depreciate ing to say that the whole evening showed an absence of the professional touch. It was amateur work of a high order. The highest word of appreciation must certainly be given to the entire self-restraint of all the performers, instrumental and vocal. It is true that once a tenor singer gave us just a note or two of falsetto (but even that note or two was in tune). At no other point was there any indication that the limit of the performers' power over voice or instrument was reached.
The overture was capitally done. Mr. Kepler's use of the baton was such that one could imagine even poor performers would have at least kept in line. Happily the performers who responded to the able conductor were very far from poor. Mr. Maslyn read a brief outline of Goethe's great work, interrupting from point to point, at the places at which the selected solos, duets or trio occurred. When all did well, it would be invidious to select any single soloist, yet all would agree to the particular mention of the excellence of Miss Currie's piano—accompaniment throughout.
Probably the evening is the high water mark attained in the musical world of Kuling.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.