In London

In London

At five o'clock one morning last week, a crooked line of sleepy humanity took form in the grey streets behind the Covent Garden Opera House, London. Some 15 hours later they, the gallery gods, got their reward in mighty rustling of finery, the silent but splendid music of diamonds that plays at the opening of Britain's opera season.

But for all that the tickets for downstairs were printed: "Evening Dress Indispensable," for all that some of the country's biggest whiskey and oil peers and their wives were on full view, some found it a disappointing first night. Fine old names were missing from the box plates. The stalls were full of middle-class folk to whom opera was a social rite, not an entertainment.

And in the royal box, no King, no Queen. Instead, Princess Mary smiled earnestly and collectively at the gathering.

The opera, not that it mattered, was Richard Strauss's Rosenkavalier, heralding a season of decidedly Germanic tone, including two complete revolutions of the Wagner Ring.

The London Opera Syndicate, which backs the opera at Covent Garden, presents Britain with its only season of truly "grand" opera.* Some two-thirds of the Syndicate's singers are well known to U. S. audiences for they come from the stage of the Metropolitan Opera in New York--Maria Jeritza, Nanny Larsen-Todsen, Lauritz Melchior, Rudolf Laubenthal and many another.

In Cincinnati

With Conductor Frederick A. Stock specially brought from Chicago to conduct Wagnerian excerpts and Frank V. Van der Stucken to interpret Beethoven's pieties; with Marie Sundelius, Richard Crooks, Marion Telva, Florence Austral, Nevada Van der Verr, Horace Stevens, Ben Davies and many another on hand to vocalize; even with music critics from leading other-city newspapers to listen, applaud and report-- Cincinnati last week held its 27th May Music Festival.

Resides Beethoven and Wagner, there was Bach--sacred solos and secular cantatas alike, including the drollery of "Aeolus Appeased" which, after writing it to entertain an honored old professor, Bach changed but slightly to celebrate a Polish king. Cincinnati also heard for the first time "La Primavera" of Ottorino Respighi, dulcet lyric on the text: "God is a Child, for His countenance is frank and truthful like that of a man filled with love."

*Other London companies which perform opera undistinguished by the vague adjective "grand," or by the fuss and bustle of a "season's opening," are the British National Opera Company, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company (solely Gilbert & Sullivan operas), the Royal Carlo Rosa Opera Company (all-English cast), the Royal Victoria Hall Company ("Old Vic").