The Damnation of Faust must have been an impressive piece to put the new Caird Hall through its paces. The three hundred members of the Choral Union were joined by a children's choir of two hundred as well as eight choirboys from St Paul's Episcopal Cathedral round the corner. The hall was duly packed - well over two thousand in the audience, which was an even greater achievement given that the Carl Rosa were in Dundee (up the road at the equally crowded King's Theatre) that week, and that the role of Elsa in that evening's Lohengrin was sung by the splendid young soprano Eva Turner, a few months before she was whisked off to La Scala, Milan.
The soloists were notable, with Frank Mullings one of the leading British tenors of the day. Agnes Nicholls had been recognized as one of the greatest British sopranos since playing leading roles (Sieglinde and the Siegfried Brünnhilde) at Covent Garden in 1908.
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