Читать книгу Set Down in Malice: A Book of Reminiscences онлайн

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Her great part is Salomé, in Richard Strauss’s opera of that name. With the wonderful intuition of a healthy, robust mind she has divined all the perverted wickedness of that most tortured woman. Her acting is among the finest things of our day.

ssss1No one could guess, in talking to this quiet, almost demure woman, that she has in her such fires of passion, such powers of portraying devastating wickedness. She has charm, graciousness, simplicity. Like Yvette Guilbert, she has worked hard almost every day of her life. Her talk is all of music and acting. She seems most unmodern. Her ingenuous love of praise is delightful, and if you notice the little subtleties in her singing and acting that most people do not notice, she is your friend for ever.

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But perhaps you have forgotten who Stanley Houghton was? Well, not so long before the Great War he was famous, both in England and America, as the author of Hindle Wakes, he was universally alluded to as a charming personality, and he promised to become one of the most prosperous playwrights in England. Then, while still young and not yet accustomed to his fame, he died in Italy. Thereupon some thousand newspaper-writers recorded his death and wrote about him some of the most lamentable nonsense it has ever been my misfortune to read.