15
J une 7, 1923	MUSICAL COURIER
HOLST’S OPERA, THE PERFECT FOOL,
ACHIEVES SUCCESS AT LONDON PREMIERE
JOHN STEELE
is making a coast-to-coast concert tour and the next two months he will he in Los Angeles and San Francisco. During the week of June J he is the feature attraction at the McVickers Theater, Chicago. On June 16 he begins a four weeks’ engagement at Grauman’s Metropolitan Theater, Los Angeles, and beginning July 21 the popular tenor will have a four weeks’ engagement at the Warfield, San Francisco. In both of these theaters Mr. Steele will be the special musical feature. His principal ballads will be Love Sends a Little Gift of Roses (Openshaw) and Kiss in the Dark (Victor Herbert’s sensational ballad).
Brilliant Music
• *s ^0^s.t s music that invests this fastasia with a peculiar air of rich, romantic beauty. Holstian rhythms and harmonies are quite unmistakable in their craggy boldness and directness.
The scoring is most incisive and brilliant. Holst’s writing for the brass is audacious. And there are numbers of first-rate tunes—for Holst is a prime melodist.
Performance of The Perfect Fool is very hard, because its complicated difficulties must be carried off carelessly, without labor or solemnity. The British National Opera Company has done a great deal e comPoser• The setting is rich and the parts well cast.
No one could be more the fairy-tale Princess than charming Maggie leyte. Robert Parker’s incisive singing suits the Wizard, who looks like a rather sinister relation of George Robey. Walter Hyde was the suave Donizettian Troubador, and Frederic Collier the rugged Wagnerian suitor. Edna Thornton had an important part and some rather difficult music as the Fool’s mother. To Raymond Ellis fell the exceptional operatic part of one who has to sleep most of the time and say but one word.
To the admirably vivid, spirited conducting of Eugene Goossens was due much of the musical effect. The composer’s absence was the one shortcoming of this brilliant evening.
It will be noticed that the principal role was sung by an American singer, Robert Parker, the bass. Mr. Parker is much better known across the water than in his own country, having been principal bass at the Cologne Opera for several years, as well as having appeared before at Covent Garden. Maggie Teyte, who sang the principal role, also lived and sang in America for many years and is well known here.	__________
Detroit Engagement for Emma Roberts
Emma Roberts has been engaged to sing the contralto part in Verdi’s Requiem in Detroit on Armistice Day, November 11, with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and the Detroit Symphony Choir, Gabrilowitsch conducting.
Regneas Using Strickland and Taylor Songs
Joseph Regneas, New York vocal teacher, is using the songs of Lily Strickland and Deems Taylor extensively in his teaching. The works of both composers have also met with unusual success on the concert platform this past season.
Berge to Make Bust of Cherkassky
Edward Berge, the American sculptor, will make a bust of Shura Cherkassky, the young pianist who is making such a profound impression upon the music lovers of the East.
The production of The Perfect Fool, an opera in English, words and music by Gustav Holst, who is now in this country, having come here to conduct his own works at the Ann Arbor Festival, took place at Covent Garden, London, on Monday evening, May 14. The occasion was a brilliant success. The London papers were unanimous in their praise of the new work. An excellent account, signed R. C, of the première, appeared in the Daily Mail of May IS, from which the following is extracted :
The Perfect Fool, last night’s new opera at Covent Garden, ought to have a sweeping success if musical people can command enough sense cf humor and if people of humor have ears open to the splendor of the music. Gustav Holst is author both of the splendid music and the playfully mocking, allusive, fantastic libretto.
It is above all an Englishman’s opera—the work of a man who, with the best of wills, cannot take grand opera too desperately seriously. Last night s audience—all artistic London—gave it a delighted welcome, but were possibly a thought baffled by the extraordinary mixture of innocuous fun and riotous fancy.
The central situation of The Perfect Fool is out-and-out parody. It is a Tournament of Song, and (as in Tannhäuser and The Mastersing-ers) the first prize is the heroine. And here again, as in Wagner, the first prize herself chooses the winner. And the winner naturally ls a perfect fool. Donizetti and Wagner are the two composers who are whimsically “guyed” in the competition scene. The Donizettian tenor competes with an innocent Sicilian, and the effect of its naivete, after half an hour of pure Holst, is extraordinarily funny.
There is another competitor for the Princess’ hand, a wizard, whom, at the beginning of the opera, we have found brewing a love potion. But the potion (like Isolde’s) goes astray. It is drunk by the village idiot, enabling him, in the words of the incantation, “to win a bride with a glance of his éye, with a look to kill a foe.”
The lovely Princess succumbs to the perfect fool the minute she sees him The infuriated wizard summons his spirits of fire and devastates the land—only to be annihilated by the glance of the fool.
The charming Princess woos the victorious idiot, but he is more
indifferent than Parsifal in Kundry’s bower. “I ask one thing_________do
you loye me?” The fool yawns and declares, “No”—the only word he has in the whole opera! Kundry in Act III of Parsifal did, after all, have two.
The embarrassing situation is saved with a pure operatic touch An old legend has hereby come true, declares the fool’s mother—an operatic contralto—“He has achieved where others failed, with one word.” Rapture of the Princess and general rejoicing! The opera ends on a delicious anti-climax. The Arch-Druid comes to crown the Fool, but at the moment of the ceremony he again yawns and falls asleep. Curtain!	y
Thetitle of The Perfect Fool takes all minds to Parsifal (“der reine Ihor ), but the work is, of course, no parody of Parsifal. It is sheer
fantasia, exquisitely amusing, and if there is a “meaning” in it_____that
battles are won by luck, and that the most charming women like most the stupidest men—it is not labored.
EARLE] CHESTER SMITH
As director of the piano department of the Atlanta Conservatory of Music for several years, Mr. Smith has made a strong contribution to musical development in the South. Among the teachers with whom he studied both in this country and abroad are Rudolph Ganz, Felix Borowski, Robert Teichmueller and Maurice Aronson. Mr. Smith is also one of the first teachers to utilize The University Course in his studio work and is thoroughly familiar with its many and varied resources.
MOISSAYE BOGUSLAWSKI
As one of the leading piano virtuosi of the younger generation, Mr. Bogus-lawski has received unusual acclaim from critics and public, and his appearances in concert have made his name a familiar one throughout the entire Middle West. As a teacher he lias been much sought, and his classes at the Chicago Musical College are always filled to capacity. This is his second season as co-instructor with Mr. Collins of the Chicago Summer Normal Class based upon The University Course.
EDWARD COLLINS
As a member of the faculty of the Chicago Musical College, Mr. Collins has further added to his reputation as a pianist. He is a former pupil of Rudolph Ganz, in this country and in Berlin, where he also studied composition in the Hochshule under Max Bruch. Returning to America, he toured with Schumann-Heink and was assistant conductor of the Century Opera Company. This is his third consecutive season as a normal instructor of The University Course.
HAGUE KINSEY
In seven years’ residence in this country Mr. Kinsey has become one of the most important teachers on the Pacific Coast. In 1917 he took the Clemson Gold Medal for composition awarded by the American Guild of Organists: also prizes offered by the Baton Club of Chicago and the Matinee Club of Los Angeles. On his graduation from Liverpool College (England) he won the Crowe Scholarship. After three years at Leipsic Conservatory under Richter, Paul, Mass, Rein-ecke and Jadassohn he coneertized in England and taught piano in various schools.
KATE S. CHITTENDEN
As Director of the American Institute of Applied Music and Head of the Piano Department of Vassar College, Miss Chittenden has for years been one of the foremost authorities on normal training methods. Valuable exercises which are the fruits of many years of actual class room work are contained in The University Course and will be authoritatively explained in this class by Miss Chittenden herself and her associate teacher, Annabel Wood, a member of the faculty of the American Institute of Applied Music.
Summer Normal Classes for Piano Teachers
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With increasing co-operation between school systems and the private music teachers and conservatories, the serious forward-looking piano teacher dees not neglect opportunity to gain new inspiration, new ideas and acquaintance with new material and standardized methods. These mean added preparation for another season and added prestige in the profession.
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