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MUSICAL COURIER
SALZBURG “IDEALISM”
When Richard Strauss was in America we heard a great deal about the wonderful idealistic scheme of making Salzburg, the symbol of European eighteenth century culture, a permanent home of musical and dramatic art in the spirit of Mozart and Goethe and of folk art in the spirit of the old miracle plays—■ a second and larger Bayreuth dedicated to the greatest in the art of all nations. A wonderful dream, which so fascinated some good people that they contributed rather generously toward its realization by the Festival Playhouse committee. What gave them confidence were the names of Max Reinhardt and Richard Strauss, the most successful producer and the most successful musician in the world, who had assured them that they would devote their best efforts to the realization of this—their—dream. The cornerstone was laid in their presence and in that of the country’s president and the archbishop of the church, and their addresses convinced some people of the fitness of erecting a festival palace in a country that was starving and begging all over the world for bread. . . . This summer was to show, in a modest way, the blessings of such art manifestations as the world was to enjoy in Salzburg. People all over the world planned their summer so as to be there. Richard Strauss, made president of the association, was to conduct ; Max Reinhardt was to produce some old masterpiece. But see : suddenly neither President Strauss nor Max Reinhardt, nor Franz Schalk, nor the wonderful Vienna Philharmonic (also promised) are to be at Salzburg this summer. In fact, the festival committee, unable to find substitutes at this late date, sees itself minus an orchestra, a conductor and a producer, and therefore probably minus a festival. Reason? Strauss and Schalk and the orchestra are off to South America to gather pesetas, and Max Reinhardt is off to North America to gather dollars. The latter has at the same time discovered that Salzburg is anti-Semitic (though the Archbishop blessed the cornerstone and allowed the Collegiate Church to be used for the production of Reinhardt’s play), and therefore not worthy of Reinhardt’s efforts. It is possible, of course, that President Strauss, already richly blessed with this world’s goods, sees a better chance of furthering the realization of the dream by donating the earnings of his South American tour, but no announcement to that effect has been made.
Last year we warned certain Americans, who did not even reserve to themselves any influence upon the policy of the movement they were furthering against this ill-advised generosity. But there is no particular satisfaction in saying “I told you so.” It is to be regretted, on the other hand, that another truly idealistic scheme—that of the Salzburg International Festival, which is to further contemporary art, to support the young composer regardless of nationality and creed—should suffer by being coupled with the moribund Salzburg Playhouse idea. The chamber music festival of the International Society for Contemporary Music will take place there as announced.
R A VTN I /¿OPERA
President Eckstein of the Ravinia Opera Company told a reporter of this paper that the season this year would open on Saturday evening, June 23, with a performance of Puccini’s La Bohême. On that night Elizabeth Rethberg will make her first bow to a Ravinia audience as Mimi; Giacomo Lauri-Volpi, of whom much is expected during the season, will make his debut at Ravinia as Rodolfo; Giuseppe Danise, baritone, well remembered for his splendid work last season, will sing Marcello; Virgilio Lazzari, of the Chicago Civic Opera, will also make his first appearance; Louis D’Angelo and Margery Maxwell (the latter also of the Chicago Civic Opera) will return to Ravinia in roles in which they have often won the admiration of the public.
The second night is listed as a big event, as Florence Easton, after several years’ absence, is to make her re-entree as Elsa in Lohengrin, which will be sung in German. Mr. Eckstein boldly said : “I consider Florence Easton the greatest living Elsa, so the second night of our season should be an epoch in the history of Ravinia.”
The Ravinia Company is unique, as it stands apart from any other summer opera not only in this country, but in Europe as well; and Ravinia is the alma mater of the Chicago Civic Opera Company. Music lovers have been educated to enjoy opera, and the large patronage given in the last few years to the Chicago company is due in a large measure to the Ravinia seasons.
BURMEISTER IN NEED
A fresh appeal is made for assistance to former pupils and friends of Richard Burmeister, who is said to be in financial distress in Berlin. He is now sixty-three years- old and has suffered much during the last few years. His address is Am Erlenbusch, 6, Ber-lin-Dahlen, Germany.
system in the Performing Rights Gazette, Musical Times says : “There is nothing dishonest in the system itself. A performer who is paid for popularizing a song is first cousin to the commercial traveller, who is paid for furthering the sale of more useful things.” We are sorry to find this argument in the organ of a firm which we believe sets its face against the royalty system. The essence of this system is that it is a secret one. Messrs. Curwen have replied to more than one request that a condition precedent to the discussion of a royalty would be that the fact should be announced in the singer’s program, and in every case the request was at once withdrawn. A commercial traveller is not ashamed of the payment he receives, but then a commercial traveller, so far as our experience goes, does not undertake to sell goods which he believes bad.
We are reminded of a story told by the late Algernon St. John Brenon. Mrs. Brenon, he said, in her younger days a professional singer, was offered the choice of a royalty or an outright sum to introduce the English version of Tosti’s Goodby, when it was first issued—and unfortunately took the lump sum. -----------------------------
POOR KIDS!
Young America must be hanging its head in shame after the rap given it by members of the European Student Mission who are unanimous in the opinion that the appreciation and love of art and culture are sadly lacking in American boys. Hans Tiesler, representing the University of Berlin, is an especially efficient rapper, and hardest of all he raps our fraternities. In the fraternity houses he has seen “the stupidest and most terrible pictures upon the walls. That kind of art one does not see in European colleges.”
No. Nor in German fraternity houses, whose only interior decoration consists of beer mugs and pipes large and small, also perhaps corps colors, fighting sabres and, formerly, portraits of the old and young kaiser and Bismarck. To any one familiar with German university life, any talk of art among the students sounds like the purest piffle. Herr Tiesler must imagine that none of us Americans ever went to German universities. He forgets that, though it is a rare thing for a German to come to an American university, it is an every day affair for Americans to go to Germany for study.
He goes on to point out that upon a certain day at the University of Michigan a football game and a symphony concert were scheduled to take place. And just think of it! The entire student body went to the football game—“And to almost every university man, it appears to me, a basketball game is of far more importance than the League of Nations.” It ought to be. If the people of Europe would get more interested in such things as football and basketball there would be no need for a League of Nations.
Finally Herr Tiesler patronizingly says: “I do not think the American youth is dead, despite the fact that there is no youth movement here such as exists in Europe.” Thank you, Herr Tiesler. We are pleased to know that we are not dead. But will you kindly show us any movement in the German colleges in any way comparable to our choral organizations, our bands and orchestras, our glee clubs, our dramatic clubs, not to speak of the healthy outdoor spirit that Tiesler so deplores?
William A. Robson, of the London School of Economics, another member of the mission, speaks not of art or music, but says that practically all the activities of the college men here relate to the world of action. In this, he says, we are far ahead of England. He has found that “almost all the students here drive an automobile and use a typewriter”—it is funny to think of anyone seeing anything remarkable in that! “Another achievement of your young men that we cannot boast of in Great Britain is your publication of college newspapers and magazines. They are very fine. Furthermore, all the applied sciences seem to be better taught and learned in America than in England. We have nothing to compare with the Harvard Law School, nor have we the remarkable medical schools or engineering institutions that you have.”
It would be interesting to hear what the other members of the mission thought about it all, though, after all, it does not matter much. We have our ways of accomplishing certain things and they have theirs. They separate their instruction. Athletics, in Germany, is conducted in the Turnverein, not in the college. Music is taught in conservatories, not in the university. The continental university student is not looked upon as a boy, but is supposed to be a man and is treated as such. The whole method of instruction differs from school methods, while in America the school classes are generally continued on into university years without much change. We prefer our methods, and a good many of us believe that we are better off for our clean athletics than we would be with too much art and philosophy.
J un e 7, 192 3
TWO OF A KIND
New York and London both possess theaters which have lost their former grandeur and become cheap, popular resorts of the masses after the classes departed for more fashionable quarters.
No one passing through the drab and dingy street called Waterloo Road on the south side of the Thames would imagine that fashion and wealth once frequented that part of London when great concerts and high class dramatic performances made the Victoria Theater a center of art. Paganini gave his last concert in London there, June 17, 1832, at fabulous prices. A wit of the period wrote:
Who are these* who pay five guineas To hear this tune of Paganini’s?
Echo answers—“Pack o’ ninnies.”
Five guineas in 1832 were worth very much more than $25 in 1923.
If I am not misinformed, the Victoria Theater became at one time in its checkered career the scene of prize fights. It certainly was what the English call a Music Hall, which corresponds with the American vaudeville. Fashion went no more to Waterloo Road when the railway station in the same street began to expand and lay its sooty commercial fingers on the mansions and gardens in the neighborhood. Today the Old Vic. calls itself the Home of Shakespeare and Opera in English, but the patrician title is not corroborated by the plebeian prices of admission. The best that can be said of the Old Vic. performances is that they are extraordinarily good for the money. The rich man can go elsewhere over the river, but the poor man, the beggar man, and the thief—if there are any thieves in such inspiring surroundings—can hear Hamlet or Bohemian Girl for 20 cents, performed in a style fully worthy of a 20 cent outlay.
I have no desire to belittle the Old Vic. It does its chosen work well and gives great satisfaction to thousands who otherwise would never hear a Shakespeare drama or any kind of opera. But when Americans sometimes write to me and ask why I do not say much about the Old Vic. operas in my London letters I invariably reply: “When the New York staff reports the musical doings of the Bowery Theater.”
Those who have ridden on the Third Avenue Elevated trains through the Bowery, going south, must have noticed the old Bowery Theater on the west side of the street. It is now the home of dramatic performances in Yiddish. Forty years ago it was the German Thalia. In the middle of last century it was the people’s theater and the dramas were played in the English language. Here the young John Drew appeared. Lester Wallack and the elder Booth formerly trod the stage of the old Bowery Theater. Earlier still appears the name of Charlotte Cushman, and Miss Clifton, who is said to be the first American actress to play in London. The once famous Vestris dancers displayed their art here long ago. In 1830 the righteous indignation of fashionable New York was roused by the scandalous appearance of the French ballet dancer, Mme. Hutin, who wore one of those picturesque little dresses which are said to “begin too late and end too soon.” The brazen creature actually exhibited the lower limbs with which she danced. New York, true to its reputation for propriety, compelled the French lady to wear Turkish trousers for the rest of her engagement at the New York Theater, as it was then .called.
Here, too, sang the golden throated Malibran for the staggering sum of $600 for one performance. New York gasped at such fees in 1827. For the space of a year the building was known as the American Theater. The greatest American actor to appear at this theater, in its earlier days at any rate, was Edwin Forrest.
Like the Old Vic. in London, the old Bowery Theater in New York has a crown of faded glory. Like the Old Vic., it began its career in a fashionable quarter surrounded by mansions and gardens; for the Bouwerie was once a Dutch garden. The old Bowery Theater stands on the site of the Bull’s Head Tavern, which the English successors to the Dutchmen built at the north end of the Bouwerie gardens. And it was to this same Bull’s Head Tavern that George Washington went to receive many “ardent addresses” when the last British soldier had sailed away across the lower bay.
Clarence Lucas.