MUSICAL COURIER
7
June 2 9, 1922
Netti pluckily sticks to her tailor and marries him, living happily ever after.
Music Tuneful and Refined.
THREE INTERESTING OPERATIC
PREMIERES ENLIVEN PRAGUE SEASON
THE NEW GERMAN THEATER IN PRAGUE, used for German opera and concerts since the seizure of the German National Theater h>l the Czech freebooters. Zetnlinsky's new comic opera just had its premiere here.
stranger’s pricked finger tips. He starts inquiries in the neighboring town and soon, learns the truth. He unmasks the tailor at his engagement celebration with Netti and puts him to shame. But here the poor tailor proves himself to be the best man of them all, and boldly reproaches the burghers with their subservience to a title, come it from where it may. Nor does he need to give an account of himself to any one but his Netti, and his
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watchfulness of the psychological basis influences the harmonic and polyphonic structure of the music in every beat. There is hardly a note in the whole of the opera that is not polyphonic and closely connected to the inner and outer happenings of the drama. Hence the music is complicated in a manner for which there are not many instances in present day opera literature.
Zich even uses the fugue as a dramatic means׳ of expression, and with a power of conviction that has no equal. The fugue is used in the moment where Mina has vainly sought advice from her mother and now resolves to tell her husband all. It describes Mina’s mental sufferings while writing the letter to her husband. The second part of the fugue is of a programmatic nature. Here the composer
their long pipes and clouds of smoke rise into the air to the strains of a sentimental waltz decorated with interesting harmonies, the thought invariably arises that those times were certainly happier ones than ours.
Despite its rich polyphony, Zemlinsky’s music contains a wealth of popular elements : plain, simple music that settles in one’s brain and is not easily forgotten. The most attractive of all are the little ensembles in which the short speeches of the different persons are carried on with perfect assurance. These passages are extremely difficult, but of such a dramatic veritude that one quite forgets the studies and rehearsals necessary to attain such plastic effects. Zemlinsky was given a great ovation on the night of the première, and every repetition of the work means new honors for him.
Revivals and Guests.
The Czech Theater also brought out a revival of Debussy’s “Pelleas and Melisande” that was first given here in 1908 at the New German Theater in honor of Angelo Neumann’s seventieth birthday. The German Theater brought out Korngold’s “Dead City,” of which so much has been written, and Pfitzner’s Christmas opera, “Das Chris-telfelein,” but neither has maintained itself on the repertory. Both weekly bills, moreover, are enhanced by guest performances. Thus the lengthy visit of the Marak-Cavan couple attracted people to the Czech Theater, while Richard Kubla, engaged for forty nights at the German Theater, sings the many favorite tenor roles. _
Other successful visitors are Aline Sanden, of Leipsic, as Salome, Elektra and Martha (in “Tiefland”) ; Marie Gutheil-Schoder, of Vienna, as Rosenkavalier, Salome and Martha; Vera Schwarz, of Berlin, as Recha, Aida and Elizabeth; Curt Taucher as Tristan; Richard Mayr, of Vienna, as Ochs von Lerchenau; Jerger, of Vienna, as Don Giovanni; Ooestvig, of Vienna, as Canio, Don José and Lohengrin; Slezak as Eleazar, Radames, Canio and Tannhäuser. But the greatest success of all was gained by Michael Bohnen as Hans Sachs in “The Meistersinger,” a truly brilliant performance, although his Mephisto, Scarpia and Kaspar (“Freischütz”) were equally successful.
Rudolf Polk Pleases.
The number of virtuosi who appeared in Prague during the last few months is legion. Artists old and new competed for public favor, harder to obtain than ever since people are wary of new names. Numerous concerts an-
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Independent Expression.
Nemecek’s music plainly follows in Smetana’s and Fie-bich’s footsteps, and this is by no means its least charm. It is astonishing that this young composer really writes like a youth without being affected by slogans or styles that happen to be the fashion today. This independence in expression and the natural flow of the music betrays the individual value of this early musical talent, which shows the unschooled and non-routined writer only in certain exaggerations in instrumentation and coloring. But there are ways that lead him to safety out of such complexities. The success was a decisive one. Trembling with excitement, the slight youth appeared at least a dozen times before the footlights to receive the ovation of the public.
Zemlinsky’s New Comic Opera Successful.
Meantime, the New German Theater had its big night with the premiere of Alexander Zemlinsky’s musical comedy, “Clothes Make People” (“Kleider machen Lente”). Zemlinsky must be counted among the leading musicians and conductors of Central Europe today, and as he is bringing up a promising generation of conductors in his capacity as head of the German Academy of Music, it is natural that the latest work of so many sided a personality attracted the attention of the musical world.
The plot is taken from Gottfried Keller’s charming short story of the same name. The Swiss author humorously describes how a poor starving tailor named Strapinski is given a lift by a nobleman’s coachman and alights from
!the carriage at a Goldach inn, where everybody from the landlord down to the kitchen boy takes him to be a real count, and how the leading citizens of the little town hasten to sun themselves in “His Grace’s” favor. Reluctantly at first, then entering into the joke, the tailor allows himself to be honored and feted, and even falls in love with the mayor’s daughter, while she, too, is smitten with the interesting “aristocrat.”
One person alone stands aloof: Bohni, who himself has hopes of Netti’s love, and who feels sus-. picious on catching sight of the
THE CZECH NATIONAL THEATER IN PRAGUE, the leading opera house of the Republic.
In Leo Feld’s adaptation of the story much of the epiclike discursiveness of the tale itself is naturally lost, but the librettist dared not go too far into detail without weighting down the music. Zemlinsky’s music is refined in the truest sense of the word, and reveals the experienced stage dramatist acquainted with the laws and demands of the scenic art. He describes the little town and its narrow-minded citizens with utmost faithfulness, and when the notables meet with
PROFESSOR OTTOKAR ZICH,
composer of the opera “Guilt," which had its premiere at the Czech National Theater.
Zich’s “Guilt” and Sixteen Year Old Nemecek’s “Queen’s Error” at Czech National Opera—Zemlinsky Comic Opera at New German Theater a Lasting Success—“Pelleas” Revived, Korngold and Pfitzner Works Fail to Please —Many Virtuosi and Guest Conductors—Czech Philharmonic Gives Big Czech Historical
Cycle—Choral Activities
EMIL NEMECEK,
the sixteen-year-old composer of the opera “The Queen’s Error," produced in Prague.
describes the heedless life of the woman in her youth, and then her “guilt.” At this point the fugue attains its culmination. Mina writes down the words confessing her sin.
It is obvious that this opera with its well defined physiognomy is difficult for the average audience to digest. The material renders the coloring necessarily somber and gray. The technic of mono-thematics used by Zich for the first time harbors a danger of monotony that even so rich an artist in ideas as Zich cannot always escape. Ostrcil took tremendous pains with the production of the opera, and it is due to him that it remains on the bills, although it is anything but a work for the public in general.
A Successful Opera Composer at Sixteen.
One of the season’s sensations at the Czech National Theater was the first performance of an opera written by a lad of sixteen. The opera is in one act and entitled “The Queen’s Error”; the composer is Emil Nemecek. He wrote it in 1917 and 1918, when he was the age mentioned, and even then he could claim it was not his first, for he had written an opera of several acts—not yet performed—after a novel by Jirasek, the leading Czech writer. The work that was recently performed at the National Theater with every sign of a sensational success is indeed an exceptional specimen of talent. Since completing this opera Nemecek has been busy with other things, and the initiated know that today he regards “The Queen’s Error” as a juvenile piece of work by which his talent may not be measured. But, even though no really permanent values may be contained in it, this one act opera signalizes a rare talent striving for dramatic expression, a talent that, if it continues to develop on these lines, will certainly have a great future. And if one learns that up to the time Nemecek wrote his opera he had never had proper music lessons, being absolutely self-taught, one may be justly astonished at the intuitive certainty with which he sets forth emotions he could never have experienced himself.
indecision, by which the heroine, Mina, meets with dire disaster. For Mina erred in her youth and is a guilty woman. Later she marries a man she dearly loves, and this love by turns makes her want to confess to • her husband and restrains her from such a step. Then she meets the man who once led her astray and resists his wooing at first, until he recalls the past. She confesses in a letter to her husband ; the two men have a stormy encounter, and the husband learns of his wife’s sin. Mother and brother, too, are told in the third act of her guilt, and then only is the demon in Mina’s breast satisfied and she contentedly breathes her last.
Dramatic Polyphony.
Zich’s musical setting makes full use of the proceedings on the stage. His music accentuates the psychological traits outlined in the above and lucidly expresses all the subcurrents in the heroine’s nature. The guilt of her youthful mistake feeds like a demon in her breast and the slightest reference awakens it to gigantic force. This continuous
Prague, May 30.—Ottokar Zich’s three act opera, “Guilt,” recently had its première in the Czech National Theater. Zich hitherto belonged to the little known and little esteemed Czech composers, who had a small circle of admirers aware of his peculiar gifts, but too-weak in themselves to help him along. Zich himself was opposed to his friends’ exertions on his behalf; he had handed in his opera at the Czech National Theater as far back as 1914, but it was refused by Director Kovarovic, now deceased. His successor, the present head of the opera, Ostrcil, however, was of a different opinion, accepted the work, and brought it out.
It is a difficult piece of writing and strikes out in new and partly untrodden paths. The libretto is a drama by Hilbert, played frequently even today. It is a tragedy of