Bayreuth

Last Winter Siegfried Wagner (TIME, Jan. 28), son of the most imperial figure in the musical life of the last generation, visited the U. S.. His mission was essentially identical with that of every British lecturer, Russian ex-noble, Italian banana-vendor, who breaks through the barriers at Ellis Island: first, the uplifting of American taste, and secondarily, the collection of a bankroll.

Siegfried's visit was eminently successful. He is now back in the town of Bayreuth, Bavaria, famed for the first presentations of the great Wagner-cycles. There the fruits of Siegfried's U. S. journey have made possible the resumption of the Bayreuth Festivals, under the auspices of Frau Cosima Wagner, natural daughter of Abbe Liszt, divorced wife of Dr. Hans von Bulow, widow of Richard Wagner, mother of Siegfried. Eighty-six years old, she dominates everything. Though her once sharp eyes are filmed with age, her aristocratic nose appears to be more pointed than ever. She attends rehearsals, but no one is allowed to speak to her. A performance of Tristan was scheduled. She vetoed it. It was cancelled. She is still jealous of Mathilde Wesendonck, the composer's inspiration for the figure of love-sick Isolde.

The first offering was Die Meistersinger, sung by artists selected for stature as well as for voice. All were six-or seven-footers, of Prussian-grenadier proportions. Herr Hermann Weil, of the Metropolitan's pre-War staff, took the role of Hans Sachs, the shoemaker-singer of Nuernberg.

At the climax of the opera, Sachs intoned these lines:

Verging im Dunft das heilige Romische Reich,

So blieb uns gleich die heilige deutsche Kunst.

which a famed colyumist paraphrased as:

What though Catholicism wanes

To zero, German Art remains.

Whereupon, the entire audience arose electrified, and bellowed three stanzas of Deutschland uber Alles, while the old Imperial standard was raised over the Festival Hall. The American old-time habitues, who formed a small faithful group, joined in with small enthusiasm. One of these, Mr. Maurice Halperson, has attended every Festival since the first, in 1876. This is the 27th.

Maestro Fritz Busch, General Director of the Dresden Opera House, led the orchestra, which was said to have "glowed like a colorful piece of tapestry." Though the bulk of the audience was German middleclass, former Tsar Ferdinand of Bulgaria and General Ludendorff glittered in the Wagner box. There, too, were Hugh Walpole, English author, and Count Albert Apponyi, towering Hungarian. Parsifal, Das Rheingold, Die Walkuere, other masterpieces followed.

"Agits"

Will "serious" composers ever write music to accompany the cinema--to drown out the eerie whir of the projection machine as the heroine's gentle hand decapitates the Bad Man?

Would Beethoven have done it, for instance? His Egmont Overture, at any rate, is excellent cinema-stuff, full of "agits" and breathless climaxes. And once an enterprising cinema-organist played through old 'Bach's austere Fugue in G Minor while William S. Hart wrestled with bandits in the shadow of the Nevada mountains. The combination was astoundingly suc- cessful.

And now Deems Taylor (TIME, June 30), after a few days' furious travail, has completed the score which will accompany Miss Marion Davies' stellar antics in the new Cosmopolitan production, Janice Meredith, to be released Aug. 5. About four-fifths of the composition is "original." Each of the protagonists in the film drama has been appropriately labeled with a musical Leitmotif. Miss Davies' theme, one suspects, will be something very suave and scintillating--a luscious melody.