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1729; Momus Turned Fabulist, 1729; The Chambermaid, 1730; Fashionable Lady, 1730; The Devil to Pay, 1731; Generous Freemason, 1731; Jovial Crew, 1731; Silvia, 1731; Devil of a Duke, 1732; The Lottery, 1732; Flora, 1732; Achilles, 1733; The Boarding School, 1733; The Cobbler’s Opera, 1733 ; Livery Rake, 1733 ; The Whim, 1734; The Plot, 1735 ; Trick for Trick, 1735; Coffee House, 1737; The Beggar’s Wedding, 1739; Hospital for Fools, 1739; Intriguing Chamber Maid, 1750; The Lover His Own Rival, 1753; The Mock Doctor, 1753.
John Gay wrote a ballad opera as a second part of his famous success. It was never very successful at its revivals in 1777, 1782 and 1813. The opera is called Polly, and it is now in rehearsal to take the place of The Beggar’s Opera, which is to be withdrawn for a season or two. If Polly fails again, perhaps the indestructible old work may be revived once more. (Late word from London brings news of the tremendous success of the Polly revival. C. S. calls it the “hit of the season” there.)
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G. SMITH, FAKE MUSIC PUBLISHER
The following information is furnished by the National Vigilance Committee, 110 West Fortieth street, New York:
The Better Business Commission of Toledo, Ohio, recently successfully exposed the activities of one C. Smith, music publisher, working in the above named cities. The bureau’s investigation disclosed the information that Smith periodically would go to St. Louis, and under an assumed name would insert advertising in various publications, asking song writers to send in their manuscripts to him for examination. After a number had been received, he would write to the song writers and tell them that their songs had been found to have exceptional merit and that they had been forwarded to a famous music publisher by the name of C. Smith of Toledo.
Thereafter Smith would drop his assumed name and return to Toledo, where he operated from a room in the Snead Hotel on Canton avenue. Smith would write to his .victims assuring them that their song had exceptional merit and was to be introduced by A1 Jolson, Eddie Cantor and others. To secure this introduction for the song, however, it was necessary to remit $10.00 or $15.00 to Smith, which was to be used as a tip for these famous singers. Later. Smith would inform the victims that the song had been sold for sums ranging from $5,000 to $30,000 and request substantial amounts to pay attorney’s fees, and his expenses to New York to collect the fabulous payment for the song. While this scheme sounded very simple, and although Smith is a negro, he was able to defraud people from all over the United States out of sums ranging from $10.00 to $50.00.
Working in connection with Post Office inspectors, sufficient evidence was gathered upon which a warrant was served and Smith was arrested. At his trial he pleaded guilty to a charge of using the mails to defraud and was sent for three and a half years to the Atlanta Prison by Federal Judge Killts, on Monday, January 22.
The scheme worked by Smith is typical of many being advertised by various individuals. Publications should ascertain the reliability of song writers and so-called song publishers before accepting their advertising copy.
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BALTIMORE TO SUPPORT DIPPEL
Andreas Dippel, determined to revive his grand opera scheme for next season, has been in Baltimore prospecting for support there and, according to an article in the Baltimore American, has received an assurance that Baltimore will form one of a circuit, the other cities of which are to be Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Milwaukee and St. Paul. (It’s a long and costly jump to those last two cities, Mr. D.!) In Baltimore Mr. Dippel has been consulting with F. R. Huber, the municipal director of music, who would have charge of the local season, and, according to the American: “At a final conference with Mr. Huber yesterday (February 6), he (Mr. Dip-pel) was assured that Baltimore would become a member of the association and give the project its sincere support. Mr. Huber was able to give Mr. Dippel this assurance after conferences with several of. the local guarantors and grand opera patrons.” Undoubtedly opera in this country will some day become established on this system of a circuit of cities more or less near each other. Mr. Dippel is working hard to succeed; he proved this season that he could give performances of a high standard with a cast of practically all American artists, and one wishes him better luck next season.
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A STEP FORWARD
A long step in the right direction is being taken by the American Music Committee of the New York Federation of Music Clubs, Caroline Lowe, chairman, in proposing to give a series of recitals of American music performed by American artists. They will be given about every two weeks at Wana-maker’s. Following is the first program: Two groups of organ selections by Edward Shippen Barnes, composer at the organ; two groups of songs by James MacDermid, sung by Sibyl Sammis MacDermid, accompanied by the composer; a group of MacDowell compositions played by Hans Barth, and three piano numbers by Hans Barth, interpreted by himself.
MUSICAL COURIER
attracts outsiders. It reminds them that Boston, after all, is not a city of the living dead.
But an opera company of high rank will not come to Boston unless it is sure that Bostonians will go to the Boston Opera House during the engagement.
The result was that Mr. Hale was fluttered with letters protesting that the Chicago Opera tickets in Boston had gotten to a great extent into the hands of speculators. Here is the letter sent by a principal in a leading school in Boston:
I read with great interest your article in yesterday’s Herald, appealing for support for the opera. I rather took this to myself in a way, and thought I should like, if possible, to get two seats for the opera of Saturday afternoon.
I went to the office at the Opera House yesterday afternoon and, reaching its window finally, asked if I could get two $2.50 seats for Saturday afternoon. The reply was: “Nothing but $10 seats left.” Ridiculous, of course, on the face of it!	.
But here is the interesting touch of my little experience. I did not get the $10 seats; but as I approached the door a chap (inside the lobby) sidled past me and whispered: “Plenty of seats for Saturday at the Chateau, just a few doors up.” I did not avail myself of his kindness.
I presume this experience of mine is nothing strange in Boston or in any other city. But what do you think of it? It doesn’t tend toward “popular” support, does it?”
On these letters Mr. Hale comments as follows:
We do not believe for a moment that Mr. Mudgett, the manager of the Boston Opera House, or any one connected with the management of the Chicago Civic Opera Company had anything to do with the speculators. Mr. Mudgett’s long and honorable career as a manager is a sufficient answer, as far as he is concerned; nor would those instrumental ini bringing the company here countenance spec-
How is anyone to prevent speculation? Suppose 20, 40, 60, 100 persons call at the box office early in the season and purchase, each one, two tickets for the lower priced seats, and then sell them at a higher price in a drugstore, the lobby or the “Chateau,” how is the management to prevent it? Must each purchaser be asked the absurd question, “Are these for your own use?”
What Mr. Hale says is perfectly true; but one cannot at the same time help recalling the Chicago Opera Company’s last visit here a year ago and of the talk about box office and speculation that occurred then.
AN INDESTRUCTIBLE OPERA
Why does The Beggar’s Opera continue to draw the public? It surely is not kept alive by the unpretentious music alone. And the play does not hold up the mirror to nature as we know nature in these more cultured days. In 1727 the dialogue, which seems so vulgar and even coarse today, was a more or less perfect model of ordinary conversation. French plays of the same period were equally, if not more, suggestive and lax in morals. Yet innumerable plays have disappeared since The Beggar’s Opera took London by storm nearly two centuries ago. There must be something in a musical play which refuses to die. Its present revival in London has now stood 1,200 performances and is still running.
It has been toned down a little for modern tastes, but it is still more vulgar than any of the musical comedies which are often so roughly handled by the critics.
Dr. Johnson says that Herring, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, found fault with the opera for encouraging vice and crime. When the new opera was at the zenith of its popularity “gangs of robbers were evidently multiplied.”
Sir John Fielding, the magistrate, proved by the records of Bow Street “that the number of thieves was greatly increased at the time” when 1 he Beggar’s Opera was popular.
Many years later, in 1818, Oxberry said of it that:
Some critics give it the most unqualified praise for its many merits and not much less to themselves for their well played admiration; while others, perhaps not very far their inferiors in acuteness, consider it as a mass of vulgar and brutal profligacy, without the least pretensions to wit, sense, or humor. . . . Filch, Peachum, Lockit and Macheath, with his drunken train of wives and mistresses, are the mire and filth of society. ... To sum up, the play is totally subversive of the chief object of the drama. It can improve none but thieves and,—for it exhibits the vices of such people only; the lessen is addressed but to them . . .
Some philosophers have asserted that women in general find more interest in a Don Juan than in a cold and cloistered saint. The German, Otto Weinin-ger, in his Sex and Character, goes so far as to say that woman’s chief interest in life is match-making. We, of course, dare not express an opinion on such a delicate subject, but we are creditably informed that the audiences at the present London performances of The Beggar’s Opera are composed mostly of women. But the women outnumber the men in England anyhow, and so we must confess our inability to explain the phenomenal life of Gay’s play.
It may be interesting to recall a few of the operas which were written in the ballad opera style, not one of which is alive today to keep The Beggar’s Opera company: The Quaker’s Opera, 1728; Penelope, 1728; Love in a Riddle, 1729; The Village Opera,
February 15, 1923
gives no B. M. degree and allows nothing for music for the A. B. degree. The University of Pennsylvania has the following figures for the A. B.: 0—15,
8—53, and for the B. M. degree 0—15, 36—72, so the embryo Bachelor of Music gets no credit for his knowledge of music on entrance, and knows twice as much about other things as he does about music on graduation, and it is seen that of these big colleges only Notre Dame and the University of Pennsylvania give the B. M. degree.
The whole thing is evidently chaotic and it will undoubtedly depend largely upon such institutions as the Art Publication Society to standardize music study in such a way and to such an extent that colleges and universities generally will include it in their regular curriculum and accord it the respect it deserves.
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CHAMBER OPERA TO CONTINUE
On February 3, received too late for publication in our issue of February 8, Mrs. Freer wrote to say that the Chicago performances of American opera would have to be abandoned. Two days later a telegram was received saying that the Playhouse matinees would continue. 1 his is good news. 1 his is the first effort that has ever' been made to give a series of performances of American opera. It is a small, but important, beginning, and if it can be continued it will in time lead to permanent American opera. Her letter follows:
OPERA IN OUR LANGUAGE FOUNDATION, INC.,
AND DAVID BISPHAM MEMORIAL FUND, INC.
National Officers:
Mrs. Archibald Freer	Mrs. Albert J. Ochsner
Mrs. Rockefeller McCormick	Mrs. Louis h. Yager
T™K| °iFomsE De0LLyAaRge°rR
NATIONAL CAMPAIGN HEADQUARTERS, 300 iOREST AVENUE, OAK PARK, ILLINOIS.
To the Editor:	.
The above notice, with list of subscribers, having appeared in the columns of the Musical CoURiER-thanks to the generous courtesy of its staff-almost weekly since last lune, must have reached well nigh a million readers. Ou subsequent performances of American operas at I he Chicago Playhouse—which has proven our ability to give opera as“ well written, sung, acted and staged, as any people added to the wide publicity our activities have been given would, it might seem, awaken a public consciousness of a duty towards the development of our national field of opera or music. As the returns have reached but a few thousand dollars, and these have been spent for the purposes, for which we are incorporated—to further opera or American, in our vernacular—as a campaign cannot continue longer than a year without tiring the public, we will soon end the same with no feeling of defeat, but a desire to await a better moment to carry out our purpose. We are astonished that the many millions left for educational purposes do not include music—so vast in its educational field and that we have been forced to turn away from such organizations as the Carnegie, Russell Sage, Rockefeller and Tuilliard for the reason that our great appeal—our National field of opera—(and be it remembered that opera includes almost all of the arts) does not come within the purposes of these vastly' endowed institutional organizations We must evidently wait until some individual—with rea vision—sees the value ot our aims and helps us carry them out Art depends upon its creator, whose works must be heard or the vocation of the artist is in vam. And Art is the expression of the life and thoughts of a people Suppress it and what trace can a nation leave behind? Can such a nation as ours leave merely a memory, to be sopn forgotten? Surely we are a proud people, unwilling to
1TJm be my privilege to go on with this work in whatever way my time and strength permit ; and m the meantime, may the American spirit, in which I have absolute
confidence, awaken to its duty.	״
(Signed) Eleanor Everest Freer V	(Mrs. Archibald Freer)
National chairman Opera in Our Language Foundation and the David Bispham Memorial bund.
Chicago, February 3, 1923.
BOSTON AND CHICAGO
At the end of the first week of the Chicago Opera season in Boston the box office wore rather a woebegone face. Evidently the word went out to the newspapers that it was a shame for Boston not to support any better the first grand opera it had had in years on a large scale, lhe critics rallied valiantly to its support, Philip Hale having an article on the front page of the Herald in which he extolled the excellence from every standpoint of the performances. Said he:
The question naturally arises, Do the people of Boston wish the visit of the Chicago company to be repeated, to be an annual event? Or is Boston careless of its former fame as a patron of opera? Will Boston favor only musical comedies and bedroom farces ? In Chicago one may see in the windows of even humble shops-at least one might have seenTa"t spring-a placard to this effect: We are supporters of the Chicago opera. Not without reason does the visiting organization ^called itself a “Civic” company. It would be a pity if at the end of this week the Chicago company, ahem/ to leave Boston, should be able to״say:	We have
oined unto you and you have not danced.	.
Let alone the question of art: from a business standpoint, a״ arrangement with the Chicago, company or any opera company equal in rank and reputation should be encouraged by every one in trade. The presence of an opera company