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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
the modern school, and still find place for tantly priced stars, singing over and over a
WANTED: OPERA IN ENGLISH.
If I were given carte blanche to set in the pure lyric melody which touches the very limited repertory; at the other end of
operation some one device calculated to heart. Wagner, who certainly was not a the scale, the traveling so-called "light
promote American musical culture more critic biased in this direction, remarks that opera," like "El Capitan," "Half a King,"
rapidly than another, I should know exact- when he was conducting Italian opera, he etc., in which everything is made subser-
ly what to do. I would set in operation in noticed that some of the less celebrated vient to the capers of the comedian star.
at least twenty of the cities of the second works, along with much that was conven- Of course Messrs. Wilson and Hopper are
class (in magnitude,) such as Cleveland, tional and mediocre, often contained mo- very amusing; and they can afford to be,
Buffalo, Newark, Cincinnati, St. Louis, ments where the musical expression reached for they are well paid for it. All this
Chicago, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Kansas a fine point of pathos. At such moments
City, Omaha, and the like, English opera he found his heart quickened and his feel-
by stock companies. In a recent number ings stirred, whereas up to that moment he
Caeb, jEycbanae, IRentet), also
of Music, Mr. Karleton Hackett traced the had experienced little more agreeable than
Slfc on £a0£ payments
workings of endowed opera in the smaller contempt for music so shallow and futile.
Italian cities, and showed that by a com-
Opera is the great school of musical ex-
paratively small outlay on the part of pub- pression. Melody was first acquired from
lic-spirited citizens, enjoyable opera could the violin, and not originated by the voice;
be carried on in any of our cities upon a but once acquired, the voice has carried it
self-sustaining basis.
very far, and as between a violinist of
In order to do this, it is first necessary to common powers and a singer of ordinary
find a manager—a sensible business rran, talent, the singer will touch the heart more
who need not be especially gifted in music. easily and surely. The voice is an instru-
It is his business to canvass the field with ment not only more agreeable to the lis-
the musical director, in order to ascertain tener than any other instrument, and more
what the necessary expense of opera with expressive, but it is even capable of doing
such and such a stock company must be. many things which an instrument cannot.
N5:54EASri3 T - K
THREE O00RS
WESTOF BROADW
It must have two or three sopranos for first When the violin has done its best it still
J TMRFP
nnn»<3WFSToi
and second roles,—good American girls, lacks the word—the idea. This the voice
well-trained singers, able to deliver an Eng- always has.
Hazelton
^
lish text intelligibly,—and at least two
Opera is also a school of musical expres-
singers for each of the other registers of sion in the descriptive music. With the
Piano- Fortes
*•*
voice,—tenor, baritone, contralto, and bass. scene open before the listener, and the
FACTORY AND WAREROOMS
These would necessitate a salary list aggre- dramatic story emphasized by the action,
35" & 36 University PI.
gating from $1,200 to $1,500 a week. The the music can go farther and do unusual
NEW YORK
chorus would cost about $400; orchestra things for the sake of intensification, which
$400; director and chorus-master both $200. if done apart from the dramatic scene
House on shares, say twenty-five per cent, would seem merely extravagances. True,
of the gross receipts. Total for forty a program can be furnished the audience,
weeks, $88,000, or a total intake of $117,- as is now done in some descriptive music
000 for about two hundred and eighty per- of the symphonic-poem class; but this is a
formances, an average of about $420 for mere clumsy makeshift. The listener, even
each performance. Any theatre-manager by aid of the libretto, is often at sea as to
will at once see that this expectation could the meaning or intention of the passage
easily be met. It will be objected that immediately "before him. Take, for in-
this estimate makes no allowance for dress- stance, the most remarkable example of
ing, stage settings, etc. True, and we this kind which the art has yet produced,
will have to enlarge our ideas by whatever Richard Strauss's symphonic poem of
sums are necessary to do this part of the "Thus Spake Zarusthra," and it is impos-
work in a proper manner.
sible for any listener, however careful he
The advantages of domestic opera" in may be, to follow the changes, and to say
English are many. First of all, its place with any certainty what particular moment
in musical cultivation. Opeia, particu- the music has reached.
larly English opera and Italian, illustrates
Meanwhile, the music itself is full of ex-
singable melody in a peculiarly fascinating travagant combinations, some of them
way. * In spite of all that is now being absurd and cacophonic—every tone of the
done in the so-called higher departments scale going at the same time, and most of
MONARCH CYCLE MRi CO. CHICAGO
of music to get along without lyric melody, them with chromatic trills involving the
NEW-YORK «=.«•» «.«.«»-. L O N D O N
the Anglo-Saxon heredity has a bent for entire chromatic scale sounding practically
cantabile melody whii-h will certainly en- at once. From such mixtures nothing
dure a generation yet, if indeed it is ever musical is to be learned, unless it may be
60 YEARS*
overcome. Even such an opera as Balfe's the instructive fact that the human ear can
EXPERIENCE.
"Bohemian Girl," a work which is utterly absorb and correlate only a certain number
inane upon the dramatic side, is one of the of musical impressions at once; and that
best-drawing operas in the repertory. It when a great number of contradictory im-
receives all sorts of shabby treatment, be- pressions assault it at once, it attends to
ing put on for Saturday nights, and with those only which seem to belong together,
TRADE MARKS,
DESICNS,
the poorest singers; nevertheless, it draws ignoring the others. In this way only can
COPYRICHTS Ac.
Anyone sending a sketch and description may
remarkably.
such aggregations of dissonance become
quietly ascertain, free, whether an invention is
probably patentable. Communications Btrictly
confidential. Oldest agency for securing patents
But it is not necessary that an opera tolerable.
in America. We have a Washington office.
Patents taken through lluua & Co. receive
There is something pathetic in the man-
should be so utterly wanting as this upon
special notice in the
the dramatic side in order to attract by rea- ner in which American appetite for opera
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN,
beautifully illustrated, largest circulation of
son of its melody. Some day a new com- is being abused, says W. S. B. Mathews,
any scientific journal, weekly, terms$3.0(1 a ye v j
S1.50 six months. Specimen copies and iLLxiO
poser will find a way of writing the dra- in the Musical Record. At the top, the
BOOK ON I'ATEXTS seut free. Addresa
MUNN & CO.,
matic parts of his work dramatically, after Metropolitan Opera, made up of exorbi-
361 Broadway t New York*