A Good Ho-Yo-To-Ho

With Kirsten Flagstad, Helen Traubel and Lauritz Melchior departed from the Met, Wagnerian opera has gone into one of its periodic U.S. declines. From eight productions (including the four-evening Ring cycle) in 1940-41, the Met's offerings of Wagner now run to only about three productions a season. Meanwhile, Wagner fans keep their ears peeled for heroic-voiced artists to build up the schedule again.

Latest hopeful is Philadelphia-born Margaret Harshaw, 41, who is gradually shouldering a greater load of heavy Wagnerian leads. Big (5 ft. 8 in.) and strong enough to brandish a spear handily and with enough stamina to last out a four-hour opera, Soprano Harshaw seems a natural Wagnerian. She arrived at the Met in 1942 as a contralto, gradually developed her high notes until she became a full-fledged soprano. A fortnight ago, she began belting out impressive "ho-yo-to-hos" in one of Wagner's grandest roles --the helmeted goddess Briinnhilde in Die Walkure--with such success that some critics were comparing her with Flagstad herself.

"What was wonderful," said Olin Downes of the New York Times, "was the tenderness, the depth and subtlety of her scene with Wotan and the sweeping drama of the ensuing passage with Siegmund." Wrote the World-Telegram & Sun's Robert Bagar: "The lady did herself--as well as Wagner--proud . . . [And] she sprang about with something approaching the graceful."

But mid-season 1954 shows few signs of a real Wagner boom, either in the U.S. or abroad. The favorite operas, Lohengrin, Tannhduser and Tristan are lucky to get three or four performances a month at La Scala, Paris and London. The 13-hour Ring cycle (Rheingold, Walkure, Siegfried, Gotterdammerung) is all but impossible to mount in small theaters, gets its chief performances nowadays at the Wagner shrine in Bayreuth. Like many German opera houses, the Vienna Staatsoper was bombed out, will not attempt the Ring cycle until rebuilding is completed in 1956. Covent Garden's policy: no Ring until another Flagstad turns up.

The Metropolitan, with its huge (3,617) seating capacity and broad stage, is a natural spot for the Ring. Today, says General Manager Rudolf Bing, it would cost as much in time and money to prepare it as five ordinary Verdi or Puccini operas, but would draw crowds for only about ten performances as compared with 30-odd for the Italian favorites. This year the Met is enjoying full houses (at about $19,000 a night) for its Rigoletto and La Boheme, while, even with Soprano Harshaw, performances of Tann-haeuser and Walkure find about 10% of the seats empty.

This does not stop the eagerness of the Wagner enthusiasts for more productions. "I am likely to get 100 or more earnest letters a year demanding more," says Bing. "But this doesn't seem to be Wagner's era at the box office."

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