Of all types of concert the Wagner programme is undoubtedly the most popular: at all events this is abun-dautly true as far as Great Britain is concerned and appears to be no less true of Shanghai, On Sunday the S.M.C. orchestra under Signor Paci played to a full house and as I gazed upon row upon row of sunny open faces, I felt that Rupert Brook was perhaps a little unfair in depicting the Wagnerian enthusiast as no more than a paunchy and lecherous seeker after smutty musical thrills.
The concert opened with the Pre-ludo to Lohengrin. This seemed to me to have been taken slightly quicker than is usual, but I felt that the increased tempo was justified. Signor Paci's mildly lively rendering of a piece that is generally treated with overmuch religious awe, and i apt on that account to be a trifle tedious, was definitely pleasing, though the tone of the strings left much to be desired. This is to impute no blame to the orchestra which does its best with limited resources and a limited time for rehearsal The Prelude was followed by "Elsa's Dream." sung by Mme. J, Markovska. Mme Markovska has a fairly powerful, though by no means a Wagnerian voice, but, as is the case, with most Russian women singers, her voice lacks the purity and clarity of tone which distinguishes Austrian, British, French, German and I! in sopranos and which is absolutely essential for the interpretation of such a role as that of Elsa. Her intonation a left much to be desired bı it was a valiant attempt. The ter remark cannot be applied to Mr. Slobodskoy who followed with Lohengrin's "Far well to the Swan" The singer had apparently no understanding whatever of the implications of the music andan treated the song as if it were an excerpt from Gounod's "Faust" or of an opera from that early Verdi period which is best forgotten. 1 was forcibly reminded of that cartoon of Verdi, perpetrated by an admirer who resented his later Wagnerian leanings, depicting the composer playing a hurely-purdy in the tow of a swa Mr. Slobodskoy gave us the reverse, however Wagner performing the Tarentelia to his own guitar accompaniment on a cast drawn by a Sicilian donkey. Mr. Slobodskoy has a pleasant voice and some idea of how to use it, but Richard is obviously not his cup of tea, The selections from Lohengrin ended on a more} impressive note with a spirited interpretation of the Act TIL Vorspiel by the orchestra The second group was from "Die 1 will pass hastily over and "spring song" scenes for Sigmund, and Sieglind's love song with the criticism that faults already manifest were intensified, to Mr.
Shushlin's rendering of Wotan's farewell and the fire music. In this the singer was hardly up to his usual form, the tessitura being somewhat high for him. Moreover he frequent-took unjustifiable liberties with the I refer specially to the practice
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.