Tristan and Isolde

Another masterpiece, this time the crowning achievement of the "Father of Modern Music," was presented at the Metropolitan Opera House, Manhattan, last week, "The greatest music in the world," said Lawrence Gilman, famed critic of the New York Tribune. He added: "And now for a while all other music will sound a little drab, a little pallid in the ears of those who heard it."

The story which Wagner used for his Tristan is a story which has woven its spell around many another artist in tone or words. Poets without number have used it. It is perhaps the parent of the triangle-play; the plot is one which, if new, might cause as great a stir as that of Eugene O'Neill's All God's Chillun Got Wings (see Page 16). For Queen Isolde has been given in marriage to King Mark; yet after a sip of a magic and non-Volstead potion she falls into the arms of Knight Tristan, and--they have an "affair."

Eventually the lovers are foiled. They are surprised in a compromising situation in Mark's garden (after a lengthy love-duet). Tristan, badly wounded, dies in the last act. And Isolde expires on his body, chanting the famous Liebestod. Hardened operagoers are in the habit of arriving in time for Wagner's soul-stirring prelude, and then marching out. They reappear for the great love-duet, and go out again. Finally they slink into their seats--just in time for the Liebestod. But let it here be said that this last performance, featuring Herr Curt Taucher as Tristan, Florence Easton as Isolde, and Arthur Bodanzky as conductor, was so good that it compelled many of the most inveterate "duckers" to listen to every note, from the first in the prelude toi the last in the Liebestod.