NEW YORK, THURSDAY, January 19, 1922.
/V\VSICAL(Öl/RIER
VOL. LXXXIV—No. 3. ' Whole No. 2180.
Saturday (night), “Carmen,” Garden, Muratore, Mary McCormic (debut), Baklanoff, Polacco.
The first performance of “Salome” is announced for Saturday evening, February 4, and will be given for the benefit of the American Committee for Devastated France.
BRAUNFELS’ “BIRDS’’ HAS BERLIN PREMIERE
Unoriginal Music, But Well Made-Prettily Staged—Busoni’s Six Mozart Concertos—Elman Plays—Mayo Wadler, Too,
and Many Other Fiddlers—Chamber Music
is Prometheus’ rather lengthy monologue, which is powerful. A musically charming but unconvincing bird ballet, representing a dove’s wedding, and a most realistic stage (Continued on page 58)
Chicago Opera’s New York Opening
The repertory for the opening week of the Chicago Opera Association at the Manhattan Opera House is as follows : Monday, January 23, “Samson and Delilah,” with D’Alyarez, Muratore, Polacco; Tuesday, “La Traviata,” Graziella Pareto (debut), Schipa, Schwarz, Polacco; Wednesday, “The Girl of the Golden West,” Raisa, Ulysses Lappas (debut), Rimini, Polacco; Thursday, “Thais,”
CHICAGO OPERA ASSOCIATION REORGANIZED
WITH SAMUEL INSULL AS ITS NEW HEAD
Dissolution of the Old Company and Inauguration of a New Business Administration Announced—New Organization to Be Known as the Civic Opera Association of Chicago—Mary Garden Retained as General Director and Clark A. Shaw as Business Manager—New Arrangement to Be Effective May 1 and Efforts Made at Once to Complete Annual $500,000 Guarantee
Chicago 111 January 12, 1922.—Complete reorganization of the Chicago Opera management with Samuel Insull as its head, dissolution of the old Chicago Opera Association and the inauguration of a business administration was announced yesterday, January 11. The new sponsors, to be known as the Civic Opera Association of Chicago, with Ali . Insull as president, will take over the opera May 1 and immediately start to raise the remaining half of the” guaranty of $500,000 per year. Mary Garden is retained as general director and Clark A. Shatv as business manager.
(Continued on page 38)
Berlin, December 21, 1921—We were optimists; we had hope. After waiting half a season for a real operatic novelty we felt sure that this novelty would be not only new but also valuable—filled with the divine fluidum of genius. We had read newspaper reports from Munich and from Cologne that confirmed our hopes; we were going to wander in untrodden paths, above the clouds, in the realm of true fantasy, inhabited by high-soaring birds We were going to witness a bold experiment indeed—an opera wherein the characters are birds, a “lyric-fantastic play” by Walter Braunfels, after Aristophanes.
“After Aristophanes.” Unfortunately Braunfels and Aristophanes don’t mix. If Strauss can make Aeschylus live again—via Hofmannsthal—it is because, like Aeschylus, Strauss is a genius. If Braunfels makes Aristophanes, who was a genius, seem much deader than he really is, it is because Braunfels is not one.
We imagine there is between genltises a mystic tie of sympathy, of respect, which reaches across the centuries. Strauss, jokester that he is, would certainly never have hit upon the idea to turn “Elektra” into a farce. With the vision and comprehension of genius he intensified the tragic effect by the power of music. But Braunfels, who is a professor, seeing Aristophanes through his German spectacles, denatures him, extracts the satire and the irony, leaving only the purely incidental “milieu,’ the dead body of Aristophanes’ play, and tries to make it live by virtue of an artificial “soul”—of pseudo-romance and pseudo-philosophy ä la Braunfels. This is what the Germans call “Vertiefung” and “Verinnerlichung.”
Aristophanes Revised.
To be brief: Two citizens of anywhere (Hoffegut and Rate-freund) explore the land of the birds and persuade its inhabitants, with the help of their king, the Woodhop (formerly a man), to build a city and fortify themselves between heaven and earth, the realms of the gods and of men, declare war upon both and become masters of the world. In Aristophanes they succeed, and politics, human nature, religion, everything is deliciously travestied. In Braunfels they don’t succeed, for, after the city is built, Prometheus pronounces the wrath of Zeus, and a noisy thunder storm, through which Zeus’ megaphoned curse is heard, destroys their handiwork. The two citizens wander home again, but Hoffegut, tenor, a poet seeking a new world of beauty and art, is a changed man, for he has heard the song of the nightingale. In his dream he has even made love to her (a new operatic per-, versity) and he carries her message of longing and happiness in his soul. His friend Ratefreund, however, a real German philistine with a thirst for power, sounds the motto in these lines: “Ach, welch ein Blödsinn hierher zu wandern .	.	.” (“Ah, what nonsense to
wander here”), the truth of which was attested by the audience’s own experience.
Synthetic Music.
Our hopes are smashed. This, then, is the novelty for which we have waited, the novelty which seems to be regarded as the year’s contribution to German opera, as “Die tote Stadt” was last year’s. Korngold’s opera, at any rate, has some individual musical values, however badly they may be employed. But Braunfels’ music, while granting that it is “well made,” is the merest synthesis of Wagner and Strauss. Denatured, of course, like his Aristophanes. There is a remarkable absence of a definite style, except for an attempt at Wagnerian continuity and an exasperating tendency to be “symphonic” (choruses and ensembles in fugato, etc.). Ratefreund talks like Hans Sachs or Pogner and there are snatches of old-fashioned coloratura as well. Braunfels’ avowed purpose to create a “new orchestral melody carried by the voice" seems to be based upon a distressing lack of feeling for the latter, for the dialogue, when it is- not prosy declamation, has a decidedly instrumental character.
The only definitely lyrical portions are the Nightingale’s prologue, a moderately successful imitation of Zerbinetta’s aria in Strauss’ “Ariadne,” which as a sort of leit-motif supplies the leading element of musical beauty; the love duet, and the Nightingale’s epilogue. The dramatic climax
COSIMA WAGNER SAYS SHE IS DETERMINED TO LIVE UNTIL BAYREUTH REOPENS
Eighty-four Year Old Daughter of Liszt Vigorous Mentally, but Subject to Heart Attacks
Rumors that Cosima Wagner is dead have recently been current again in Germany, and they have aroused particular attention in view of the announcement that the Bayreuth festivals are to be resumed in 1923. These rumors have now been definitely set at rest once more by the visit of the Musical Courier’s Vienna correspondent to Bayreuth, whither he had been called to confer with the Wagner family upon ways and means to realize the festive projects.
Mr. Karpath has told his Bayreuth experiences in detail in the Neue Freie Press of Vienna, and we quote here only the portions referring to the “Meisterin” herself who, according to Mr. Karpath, has just celebrated her eighty-fourth birthday on Christmas Day and who, despite her invalid condition, expects to see the reopening of the Bayreuth playhouse with her own eyes.
“It is true that Cosima Wagner suffers,” says Mr. Karpath; “her body is sick. However, her spirit is as fresh and animated as ever, her vitality unbroken. For more than ten years she has kept away from all public matters, especially from the playhouse, which since her last illness she has not been allowed to enter. Prof. Schweninger, who visits her from time to time, is a very strict physician, and to him alone it is due that his by no means easy patient has been able to overcome again and again the frequent heart attacks.
“Cosima’s desire for spiritual nourishment is as keen as ever. She mostly asks for Goethe. Her children, who surround her with loving care and watch over every breath she draws, take turns in reading to her.
“When I asked her how she felt, she replied with rather gay resignation: ‘Over eighty. That will tell you everything.’ I found her apparently vigorous and lively. It was in the forenoon. The winter sun brought warmth and light into the great salon. Cosima lay upon a divan wrapped in blankets, and held an ostrich fan in her left hand. The viola tone of her voice is .unchanged.
(Continued on page 23)
“SNEGOUROTCHKA” PREMIERE JAN. 23
The first performance in America of Rimsky-Korsakoff’s fan-t a s t i c opera; “Snegourotchka” (“The Snow Maiden”), will be given at the Metropolitan Opera, Monday evening, January 23. The settings have been designed and painted by Boris Anisfeld. The cast is as follows: Snegourotchka, Lucrezia Bori; the Czar, Orville Harrold; and Marion Telva, Leon Rothier, Mario Laurent¡, Ray-monde Delaunois, Angelo Bada, Kathleen Howard, Yvonne D’Arle, Giordano Paltrinieri, Louis D’Angelo,’ George Meader, Grace Anthony, Vincenzo Reschiglian and Pietro Audisio in supporting roles. Bodanzky will conduct.
Garden, Martin, Dufranne, Gabriel Grovlez (debut) ; Friday, “Madame Butterfly,” Edith Mason, Johnson, Pavlovska,’ Rimini, Polacco; Saturday (matinee), “The Barber of Seville,” Maria Ivogiin (debut), Schipa, Ballester, Ferrari;
PIETRO A. YON,
eminent organist-composer, wlw was recently elected honorary organist of the Vatican, Rome. This is an honor which was never before conferred upon any one in the history of the Vatican.
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