Siegfried

Last week, Siegfried was performed at the Metropolitan Opera House, Manhattan. Wagner lovers, packed like olives, heard the great score greatly interpreted by Conductor Bodanzky, heard Frederick Schoor resonantly represent Wotan, Mme. Larsen-Todsen awake with sweet screams in her circle of fire, George Meader shiver with the impotent cunning of Mime, the dwarf. They witnessed, in addition, an accidental and well-nigh tragic incident which concerned Curt Taucher, tenor, who sang Siegfried, favorite of the Gods.

Tenor Taucher has, it is true, never been the favorite of Metropolitan goers. His acting has been characterized as rococo, his singing as pompous. Yet, in last week's performance, he was singing, acting, better than ever before. The great house warmed to him, he took many curtain calls. In the last act, there was a change of scene in which the stage, masked only by volutes of steam, was transformed from "a wild region at the foot of a rocky mountain" to "the summit of the Valkyries' rock." Taucher, about to make his exit from the former setting, took a step into the steam, trod upon emptiness, plunged down 25 feet to the mouldy basement of the Metropolitan through a trap which had just been opened to receive scenery. Stagehands, mechanics, saw Taucher's 200-pound shape crash to the stone floor; hurried to his aid as he incredibly rose to his feet. Supported by six strong men, suffering from a broken finger, swollen wrists, many bruises, he shouted for his sword, staggered up the iron steps and again into the circle of steam, sang with great beauty his scene with Bruennhilde Next day he read, in the columns of thitherto hostile newspapers, comments on his "superb performance," his "consummate courage."