St. Louis & Atlanta

St. Louis has recently become the scene of a successful musical experiment. In a cup-shaped auditorium seating 10,000, opera, grand or comic, has been given nightly. The principal singers and comedians are imported; the choruses are local talent -- St. Louis boys and maidens, trained throughout the Winter months. Velvet Summer twilights in St. Louis thrill to the strains of Verdi, Mascagni, Gilbert and Sullivan; the moon, that vision of still music in the sky, looks down upon declamatory stars in tinsel and brocade.

Atlanta sent a scout, one C. B. Bidwell, over to find how it was done. On the first evening of his visit, rain deluged the city at seven o'clock. At eight, he went to the auditorium, found 5,000 people there, heard the light opera The Lilac Domino finely performed. The scout returned to Atlanta and reported to his chief, Asa G. Candler, Coca-Cola man. The latter was astounded by the revelations he received.

Now he has announced that in future Summers the citizens of Atlanta are to be an open-air auditorium, to hold mony as the inhabitants of St. Louis. A municipal opera is planned, with imported stars, local choruses; there is to be an open-air auditorium, to hold 8,000.