The Metropolitan Begins

Not on Fifth Avenue, not on Park, nor on Otto H. Kahn's 57th St. site, but on Broadway in the shabby brick building that has housed it these 44 years, the Metropolitan Opera Company began last week a new season. The scene was familiar: the line from the box office curling halfway round the block; taxis snarling at one another, limousines haughtily shouldering their way through; crowded lobbies and scalpers asking $50 apiece for seats from last-minute bidders; Thomas J. Bull, silk-hatted, correct, taking tickets at the door he has tended for 37 years; General Manager Giulio Gatti-Casazza, hands in his pockets, stealing in among the standees to take the temperature at trie beginning of his 20th season.*

Turandot was the opera. The expensive Maria Jeritza starred as the long-nailed Princess lusting for blood. Beautiful, cold as a northern light, she drew suitors from near & far, asked them her three deadly riddles, smacked her lips when they failed and ordered their execution. Came the Unknown Prince (Tenor Giacomo Lauri-Volpi) who, prompted by love, guessed loudly & right, won her iciest fury in return. The duel went on: Let her discover his identity before daybreak if she would be released from the contract of her own making: Ruthlessly, murderously, she probed her investigation, but midnight and the warm beauty of the Palace Garden took the Unknown One's part, won her, led her to trumpet his name as Love to all Peking.

Critics praised the players, commended Mr. Gatti, for his first-night choice, reiterated old opinions that the opera itself is of mediocre muscial worth, dazzlingly theatrical,

The New House, Two years ago, Chairman Otto Kahn of the Opera Board, bought a plot on 57th Street, paid, it is said, $3,000,000 for it offered it to the Metropolitan for just what he paid. Last spring the site was seemingly approved: Architects Benjamin Wistar Morris and Joseph Urban were appointed. The New house was promised for the season 1928-29. But the recent publication of Architect Urban's ideas by Editor Deems Taylor of Musical America brought the announcement that no site had been decided on, no plans approved. A committee of five trustees--R. Fulton Cutting, John Pierpont Morgan, Cornelius N. Bliss Jr., Robert S. Brewster and De Lancey Kountze--was chosen to investigate other possible locations. Fifth Avenue was suggested, also Park, Bryant Park in back of the Library and Central Park South. But the associations governing these sites are opposed. A new opera house, it seems, is undesirable where it might endanger traffic congestion, establish a precedent for building theatres in nontheatrical districts, keep business houses open at night. The Committee awaits Mr. Morgan's return from Europe. Whether or not the new house will be ready next year is now a matter of conjecture. Whether or not the Company can retain the support of Mr. Kahn in spite of continuous opposition from some of its directors is just as problematical.

Found

Feeling already a desire to create things deeper than the merry fribbles of comic opera, Sir Arthur Sullivan in 1877, the year before che production of Pinafore, wrote The Lost Chord. A sentimental legend for this sentimental song said that that the first manuscript lay buried in the grave of a beautiful lady to whom he had given it. Last week Dame Clare Butt, famed British contralto, disproved the legend by producing the original manuscript which has long been in her possession.

The manuscript read:

Seated one day at the organ,

I was weary and ill at ease;

And my fingers wander'd idly

Over the noisy keys;

I know not what I was playing,

Or what I was dreaming then,

But I struck one chord of music,

Like the sound of a great Amen,

Like the sound of a great Amen.

It flooded the crimson twilight,

Like the close of an Angel's Psalm,

And it lay on my fever'd spirit,

With a touch of infinite calm,

It quieted pain and sorrow,

Like love overcoming strife,

It seem'd the harmonious echo

From our discordant life,

It linked all perplexed meanings

Into one perfect peace,

And trembled away into silence,

As if it were loth to cease;

I have sought but I seek it vainly,

That one lost chord divine,

Which came from the soul of the Organ,

And enter'd into mine,

It may be that Death's bright Angel

Will speak in that chord again;

It may be that only in Heav'n

I shall hear that great Amen,

I shall hear that great Amen,

New Salle Pleyel

Pleyel is a big name in Paris. Ignaz Joseph Pleyel, like Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg, was founder of a piano business. Sons have kept it preeminent, made Pleyel et Cie, like Steinway & Sons, mean much to music. Last week a new Salle Pleyel* was christened. Igor Stavinsky and Maurice Ravel performed the rites with the orchestra of the Paris Conservatoire. Some 3,000 Parisians were there --M. et Mme. Poincare, Mme. Debussy, Elsie de Wolfe, Ganna Walska--found the appointments pleasing, the acoustics unsurpassed.

Beethoven Association

Big names are on the membership list of the Beethoven Association. Famed musicians give their services under its most honorable auspices "to advance the cause of Music." Last week in Manhattan the Hart House Quartet of Toronto, Pianist Carl Friedberg and Soprano Dusolina Giannini gave the first program of the ninth season. Critics sighed at the passing of an uneventful evening, chided the audience for letting a lofty purpose gild feeble performances.

Mistake

Last week Manhattan operagoers had occasion to recall a performance of The Daughter of the Regiment, given at the Metropolitan Opera House during the War. Then Soprano Frieda-Hempel, swayed by her role, had taken a fold of the French flag, lifted it to her lips, kissed it so they thought. In Berlin, last week hisses spoiled the applause for Madame Hempel because, according to one Karl Kiesel who led the Junkers' jeering, she had "rendered homage to the French flag on a New York stage, at a time when her countrymen* were standing night after night in the trenches between the North Sea and Switzerland." Madame Hempel, fixed ever so prettily/- for her first Berlin concert since the War, laughed at such "gossip."

*A record for impresarios. Their careers are usually short. They fail physically or financially. They offend artistically. Mr. Gatti, successful, keeps sole command. His singers mind him. He assumes the heaviest responsibilities, pretends not to feel them.

*The old Salle Pleyel made history. Chopin's Paris debut was there.

*Madame Hempel was born in Leipzig in 1885.

/-Proud of her wardrobe, last year she invited Manhattan pressmen to inspect it.