Page 3 Advertisements Column 1

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2746, 26 February 1910, Page 3 (Supplement)

NEW OPERA BY MASCAGNI. Maestro Mascagni, it is announced, signed a contract with the American firm of Messrs X-iebler and Co., according to -which a new opera, which the composer of “Cavalleria Rusticana” is writing, will be first performed in A me-, rica, and he himself will go to the United States to direct the rehearsals and to conduct. The chief role will bo taken by Mis* Bessie Abott, a young American prima donna, who sang for several seasons at the Metropolitan Opera House, and whom the maestro heard there. The titlo of th e new opera will be “Ysobel,” and the scene will be laid in England, the story being based on Tennyson’s poem “Godiva,” from which Luigi Illica, the well-known librettist, took the subject. It will be the first time that Mascagni has selected not only an English theme, but one that is not Italian. Maestro Mascagni has pledged- himself to hare the new opera ready in October, in order, that the first . performance may take place in New York at the beginning of December, 1910, The contract involves the largest fee -ever ’•Sid as a royalty for a musical and the largest salary over pai-b co a composer to act as musical director. The new opera will afterwards he | given in Rome in 1811, during the celebrations of the fiftieth anniversary of the proclamation of Rome as the capi-. tal of Italy.

A matchcutting machine is an automatic curiosity. It cuts 10,000,000 a day, and then arranges thorn over a vat, where the heads are put on at a surprising rate of speed.