Mozart Burlesqued

At Salzburg, birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, rock of classicism, the Leningrad Operatic Studio, last week, ironically burlesqued his Bastien et Bastienne. That pastoral operetta he wrote when he was 12 (he died in 1791, at 35). It has three characters--the shepherd sweethearts and a patriarch. The Russians last week added 13 more and played the piece with machinery of production grossly exposed.

Three prompters, prim and sarcastic, told the audience how ridiculous was the plot. Half a dozen ballet dancers sat in the audience and mocked. Directors, stage managers and scene shifters scuttled about the stage, instructing the singers in their parts. Bastienne was played as a brusque queen, Bastien a flopping weakling, the old man a dolt.

Tourists, scores of them from the U. S., applauded the Russian burlesque. But Max Reinhardt walked out.