Teutonic Katisha

The soprano roles in Gilbert & Sullivan operettas are most effective when sung by small, arch, comely ladies. The contralto roles demand singers made up to look stout and ugly. Katisha in The Mikado, in particular, should be "a most unattractive old thing, tra la, with a caricature of a face." For this role last week the brothers Lee & Jake Shubert signed up oldtime Contralto Ernestine Schumann-Heink, 70. With a company of seasoned Savoyards, the Shuberts' Mikado opens Oct. 16 in Wilmington, Del., will play in Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and other Eastern cities.

Bagging Schumann-Heink was a new move in a small, unobtrusive Gilbert & Sullivan war which has been flourishing for more than a month. Milton Aborn's Civic Light Opera Company played to full houses all summer in Manhattan (TIME, May 18), then went on the road, leaving in its place a troupe which has been doing-- fairly well with The Merry Widow and The Chocolate Soldier (TIME, Sept. 21). Aborn's Mikado opened in Boston last month beginning a four-week repertory engagement at the Colonial Theatre. It was booked by the Erlangers. Xo warm friends of the Erlangers are the Shuberts. They formed a rival company, called it "The Bostonians" after the famed troupe which flourished 25 years ago, opened a week earlier with The Mikado in Boston's Lyric Theatre. They threatened to head off the Aborn troupe wherever it should go. But after two weeks the Shubert Mikado, lacking patronage, ceased and desisted. The Shuberts had planned other Gilbert & Sullivan works but their troupe, now fortified with a Teutonic Katisha, will now stick to The Mikado.

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