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tHE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
I N his book, "The Theatre and Its People,"
Franklin Fyles gives us much interest-
ing information and commentary upon the
subject with which it is concerned. There
are 5,000 theatres in the United States, of
which 3,000 may properly lay claim to that
title of splendid recommendation, "legiti-
mate." Capitalists have ventured to invest
$100,000,000 in these 3,000 legitimate thea-
tres, and it is well known that some of them
have been fairly well rewarded. Inasmuch
as 1,500,000 persons sit in the legitimate
theatres every night when they are open,
having paid the admission price, and inas-
much as the sum of their annual deposits in
the box office is rather more than $70,000,-
000, it will readily be seen that the purvey-
ors of dramatic entertainment in America
are not necessarily destined to become pau-
pers.
|\J EXT year's season of opera at the Met-
ropolitan will begin during Christmas
week and continue until the first of April.
It will be preceded by a long tour to extend
as far as San Francisco, where a stop of two
weeks will be made. Many small towns not
hitherto visited by such a large organization
will have their first experience of grand op-
era, and will, it is hoped, show the proper
degree of interest to assure its support. The
Maurice Grau Opera Company, which has
a lease of the theatre for two years more, | \ ] OT long ago Emil Paur expressed the
belief that the next marked step in the
will in all probability, says the Sun, accept *•
evolution
of musical art would be made by
some of the various offers for its use. The
the
Russian
composers. Perhaps he believes
English opera enterprise last autumn was
in
a
geographical
progression of musical de-
created chiefly with this end in view, as any
velopment,
and
assumes
that Russia will be
occupancy of the theatre during the absence
the
first
to
depart
from
the German stand-
of the opera company is of course clear gain
ards,
just
as
Germany
broke
away from the
to the lessees. Mr. Grau gave utterance to
Italian
traditions.
At
any
rate,
his opinion
his feelings on the opera subject a few days
does
not
seem
to
be
shared
by
one of the
ago. "I wish," he said, "that the newspapers
foremost
of
Russian
critics,
M.
Ivanov,
who
would say that anybody who wants to man-
looks
for
nothing
particularly
new
in
musical
age the Metropolitan had better come for-
ward now. He will have an excellent oppor- art, but thinks, rather, that by a cyclical pro-
tunity, for I would gladly give place to him." cess there will be a return to the original
The premature announcement that a vaude- forms of simple melody.
ville performance will be given there during
/VA USICAL life in Berlin is of a thorough-
the absence of the opera company has re-
*
ly cosmopolitan character. This is in-
called an experiment of that kind made five
dicated
by the fact that during the month of
years ago. Orchestral concerts were given
January
no less than thirty foreign artists
in the auditorium for one week with vaude-i
|sang
or
played
before public audiences there.
ville in the club room upstairs. When the
There
were
five
from France, five from Bo-
venture came to an end after six nights,
hemia,
four
from
Italy, three from Holland,
more than $5,000 had been lost.
three from America, two from Russia, two
from Poland, two from Sweden and Nor-
\lICTOR HERBERT, the famous operat- way, one from Hungary, one from Roumania,
ic composer and director of the Pitts- one from Finland, and one from England.
burg Orchestra, sailed for England with the
Alice Neilsen Opera Company on March 21. 1\J OVELLO, EWER & CO. announce that
the American allotment of seats for
Although Victor Herbert is an Irishman,
born in Dublin and educated in Europe, yet the Bayreuth festival this summer has been
his compositions are not as well known entirely sold out, with hundreds of applica-
abroad as in America, and as they deserve tions left over and many still coming in.
to be. Herbert is sure to receive a hearty This does not look as though the Bayreuth
welcome from his countrymen, who have a festivals were losing in popular favor over
"soft spot" in their hearts for the grandson here. There is to be an elaborate production
of Lover, whose songs and writings are dear of the "Flying Dutchman," two repetitions
of the "Ring of the ISTibelung," and seven
to the Celt.
performances of "Parsifal." Nearly all of
NE of the "weaknesses" of Robert the principal singers who will be heard in
Franz was that he did not care much these works have sung at the Metropolitan
for the composers who were his contempora- Opera House. Among them are M. Van
ries. He expressed his dislike of Wagner Dyck, Herr Kraus, who sang here some
and Liszt in particular—though he knew years ago, and Miss Sara Anderson, of New
they admired him immensely. One modern York, whose second season at Bayreuth this
composer, however, he liked. In 1886 he will be; Herr Van Rooy and Mr. Robert
wrote a letter to the Baroness von Pilsach, Blass. Herr Felix Mottl and Herr Sieg-
in which he stands up for the compositions fried Wagner will conduct.
of—D'Albert, the like of which, he declares,
all the composers of Berlin could not dupli- C NTERTAINING reminiscences contin-
ue to be printed about the late Sir Ar-
cate. Still, he adds, in substance, "if D'Al-
bert expects a future for his music, he must thur Sullivan. A letter to his friend Rev.
do what I have done—write in the strict Mr. Helmore, acknowledging the receipt of
Bach style with modern means of expres- a translation of Thomas a Kempis, contains
the following interesting passage: "It seems
sion."
to me, from the hasty glance I have been
able only to throw at the book, that the lines
require no music. The rhythm itself is mu-
sic, and of a most beautiful character. It
sounds paradoxical, but there are times to
me when the music would be more beautiful
and more complete without notes. I sup-
pose it is that the diatonic and chromatic
scales are so limited. How often have I
longed to be free of fixed intervals; more es-
pecially in the prologue to the 'Golden Leg-
end' I felt myself hampered by having to ex-
press all I wanted to say by voice and instru-
ments of limited means and definite, un-
changeable quality. After all, it is only hu-
man to be longing and striving for some-
thing more than we have got."
j»
""T HE methods adopted by French singing
1
masters have been amusingly bur-
lesqued by a French writer. Take M. Del-
sarte, for example, who lives on a sixth floor
at Montmartre.
When a young woman goes to this pro-
fessor something like the following scene
takes place:
"Have you courage?"
"Yes."
"I warn you my way is severe. But we
will try it. Run down my six flights of
stairs as quickly as possible and then run up
again, crying out 'Bonifaccio' in varying
tones. Do that for eight days, an hour and
a half each day. Then we shall see about
beginning lessons."
The famous M. Wartel is less severe,
though equally original. He asks a candi-
date to vocalize with closed mouth, and if a
protest be entered against the possibility of
such a thing exclaims: "So much the worse.
You must do it if I am to be your profes-
sor."
But a well-known tenor employs a stranger
method still. A young lady goes to him, for
example) and is met by an order to stretch
herself at full length upon a couch. She re-
monstrates, but finally obeys and then the
master piles upon her a heap of books, sur-
mounting the whole with a glass filled with
water.
"Now sing," he commands.
"Sing, sir?" exclaims the victim.
"Yes, my child; in singing you must re-
spire as little as possible. When you sing
thus, so as not to spill the water, I will un-
dertake your training—not before."
OR the impending opera season in Lon-
don the engagement of Signor Tama-
gno has now been settled. Mllc.Paquot will
be among the newcomers, and among the
artists are: Sopranos—Calve, Eames, Ter-
nina, Suzanne Adams, Breval, Gadski, Stra-
kosch, Sobrino, Bauermeiste'r; contraltos and
mezzos—Brema, Misses Olitzka, Delmar,
Aldridge, Maubourg; tenors—Tamagno,
Knole, Walther. There will be two new
singers, a young Italian named Anselmi, who
has had a good reputation in Naples, and a
French Canadian of the name of Mercier.
Other strangers to Covent Garden will be
Riesse, whose voice is said to be one of the
finest in Germany, and Forgeur, who comes
from Brussels. Others who will appear are
Vandyck, Saleza, Van Rooy, Plangon, Scotti,