Valedictory

At Stekene, Belgium, Conductor Van Hove de Saint-Pol put his orchestra through the paces of a brisk number, brought it to an abrupt end and ordered a funeral march. Whispering complaints, his players fumbled for their scores. But Saint-Pol hissed them quiet, tapped for attention, led the march through and dropped dead.

Chicago Heroine

Brave indeed was Mary Garden last week as Fiora in the Chicago Civic Opera's L'Amore del Tre Re. Basso Virgilio Lazzari as the blind Archibaldo had strangled her, thrown her body easily* over his shoulder, started for the wings. But, once deposited there, she fainted. Her back had been badly sprained. Yet rather than disappoint friends she went to a tea given in her honor, chatted and smiled for two hours before she went home for doctor's treatment.

Jonny

Like a Broadway musical show, the scenes were swift and elaborate. The first was an Alpine rock that looked on a glinting glacier. The second was a prima donna's apartment in a modern Swiss hotel. Then came a corridor of a Parisian hotel, intermission, the Swiss hotel again, the glacier, the balcony of still another hotel set for dining and dancing to a radio's loudspeaker, a street in the middle of the town, a railroad terminal with real trains, the terminal exit with a real automobile, the terminal's tracks again--and then the station's great clock swelling into a revolving globe with the Woolworth building and the Statue of Liberty for successive back drops, gay streamers, U. S. flags, the people all dancing madly and from the top of the world, fiddling them on, Jonny.

Jonny was the hero, a blackface, jazz-band comedian. He wanted the violin which belonged to Danielle, a famed virtuoso, wanted it more than any of the women who wanted him, and he stole it. Anita, meanwhile, a fattish prima donna, went from Max, the queasy composer who took his inspiration glacier-gazing, to Daniello, back to Max again. She it was, unwittingly, who escaped with the stolen violin concealed in her banjo case. But Jonny followed her to Switzerland for it, jumped in her window one morning, recovered it and had it for his jazz until Daniello recognized its tone over the radio and set the police on him. Desperately then Jonny tried for escape. He bought a ticket for Amsterdam. He would go back home and "never leave the dear White Way again." But the police were too quick for him and he had to drop the violin--on the luggage of Max, who consequently was arrested for the theft. But Jonny was invincible. He blackjacked policemen, sent Max for the train that would start him with Anita for the U. S. where a big contract awaited. Jonny had what he wanted--the precious violin.

Like a Broadway musical show, jazz rhythms set listeners' feet a-tapping. But appearances to the contrary, Jonny Spielt Auf* is no ordinary musical show, no Ziegfeld nor Dillingham production. Rather it is the notorious jazz opera of Ernst Krenek, 28-year-old Austrian, and it was presented last week by the august Metropolitan Opera Company with such important singers as Basso Michael Bohnen for Jonny, Tenor Walter Kirchoff for Max, Baritone Friedrich Schorr for Daniello, Sopranos Florence Easton for Anita, Editha Fleischer for Yvonne her maid, and Artur Bodanzky conducting.

Vast publicity had preceded it. No opera since Salome had raised such controversy. Paris had scorned it, Munich had hurled vile-smelling bombs. In all some 65 cities have heard it in two years and, while some have pompously condemned it for exalting jazz at the expense of "serious" music, others have wondered, laughed and enjoyed it as good entertainment.

The Manhattan audience found it fairly good entertainment last week. The jazz seemed inferior to home-made Kern or Gershwin. The gentler music was dull. But trains, telephones, saxophones and vaccuum-cleaners were novelties on the Metropolitan stage. Editha Fleischer was impertinent as the maid; Florence Easton looked funny carrying a banjo; and Michael Bohnen, the Metropolitan's strong man, jumped on to a piano, out of a window, strutted and tootled a tin saxophone and spoke occasional lines in his elementary English. All this seemed to amuse the self-conscious ones who had paid well to attend an important premiere. Some snickered outright. Some pretended to be shocked at a composer who would so stoop to get in step with the crowd.

Bayreuthliche Wagner

"Bringing Bayreuth to America!" Thus for weeks did Manager George Blumental advertise the coming of the German Grand Opera Company (TIME, Jan. 21). In Manhattan it would first appear and present, according to the traditions of Bayreuth* the Ring Cycle uncut and a special performance of Tristan und Isolde with Johanna Gadski, Pomeranian soprano famed in the '90s. Washington was next in its itinerary, then Baltimore, Philadelphia, Wilmington, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Chicago, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, so on for twelve weeks.

Last week the Manhattan engagement ended without in any way having threatened the Metropolitan Opera's prestige. Sole reminder of the reverently planned performances at Bayreuth was the length of Rheingold, Walkuere, Siegfried, Goetterdaemmerung. But regardless of promise there were occasional cuts. Of the Tristan, even kind Critic Lawrence Gilman of the Herald Tribune wrote:

"Let it suffice to hazard the guess that this was probably the most shocking presentation of a musical masterwork that has been given in New York by an assumedly professional company within the memory of the present generation. And this is the enterprise whose promoters had the effrontery to commend it to us by trading upon the proud name and the great traditions of Richard Wagner's Bayreuth!"

A few days later Critic Gilman printed a letter from Winifred Wagner, wife of Siegfried, son of Richard. In part she said:

"We know that this so-called German Grand Opera Company is again an enterprise of Mr. Blumental's. As soon as we heard about our name 'Bayreuth' being brought into connection with this, we wrote to Mr. Blumental strickly forbidding him to call his company anything like Bayreuth! He sent us a very old dirty looking visiting card with his name and the words 'German Opera Company' to reassure us that he was not misusing the word Bayreuth. This Prospectus again shows us that this Grand German Opera Company is working with our name. How can they do so thinking of the facts, that they have not our orchestra, not our chorus, none of our conductors, none of our decorations and none of our technical men? They may perhaps have one or the other of our soloists--but that is not Bayreuth, is it? Could we ask you to give notice to the American Press that this whole enterprise has nothing on earth to do with Bayreuth."

Adverse criticism, financial difficulties beset the German Grand Opera Company after its first performance. After one week it was necessary to dethrone Manager Blumental, place the company under the care of Concert Manager Sol Hurok, who said in part:

"The company never pretended to copy the Bayreuth performances. It is merely concerned in giving the operas of Richard Wagner to the best of its ability. . . ."

*Weight this season: 120 Ibs.

* Translated literally as Jonny Strikes Up, by the Metropolitan as Jonny Strikes Up the Band. Already, however, Manhattan knows it in briefest form as Jonny.

*Town in Bavaria where was built and dedicated a theatre for Richard Wagner's operas. Tourists today gather from all over Europe for the summer festival at which performances of famed excellence are given.