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THE
"MY BEST GIRL" j>LEASES NEW YORK.
Wins Praise of Public and Press at First Per-
formance at the Park Theater Late Last
Week—A
Distinctly
American
Musical
Comedy of Real Worth.
'"My Best Girl," a clever musical comedy of dis-
tinctly American cast, with book and lyrics by
Channing Pollock and Rennold Wolf and music by
Clifton Crawford and Augustus Rarratt, made its
bow to the New York theatregoers at the Park
Theater on Thursday night of last week and re-
ceived a most cordial reception both from the pub-
lic and the press.
The piece, in which Clifton Crawford in the
stellar role won still further honors for himself
as a finished comedian, offered a number of pleas-
ant surprises. Its story was continuous enough to
hold it together, its dialogue was bright and at no
time suggestive or indelicate, it had seven or eight
songs that were capital and there was an atmos-
phere of daintiness about it that made it extremely
attractive. Not one in three musical comedies in
New York are worth showing, and this was one in
a dozen of the worthy ones.
Plot doesn't matter much in such pieces as this.
The embellishments are what count. There were
plenty of the latter in the way of songs, dances and
ensemble numbers, in which Mr. Crawford fully
asserted his right to be called a star. One "patter"
song he sung in the first act, entitled "If the Morn-
ing After Were the Night Before," is the best
lyric since George Ade wrote "The Cold Gray
Dawn." "1 Do Like Your Eyes," "Mr. Schnoodle,"
"Tactics," "The Regular Army Man," "Howdy Do"
—these are only a few of the songs which instantly
scored and were demanded over and over again.
The scenes were laid in an automobile sales-
MUSIC TRADE
room, beside old Castle William on Governor's
Island and at an inn. In the latter was introduced
a toboggan slide which proved a decided novelty.
M. Witnrark & Sons publish the music.
THE "PROTECTION" OF "PARSIFAL."
The Demand for a Special Law
Wagner Opera for Bayreuth
Much Opposition—Would Offer
portunity for Those Composers
Profit by Wagner's Originality.
51
REVIEW
Wagner no longer takes a hand in the arrange-
ments for these festivals. Siegfried Wagner alone
remains, and the time will come when he, too, will
no longer be active. When that time comes it is
quite likely that the Bayreuth performances will be
given purely on a speculative bas's. In the mean-
to Reserve
Meets With
Grand Op-
Who Would
Leoncavallo's Latest Work "Izangari" to Be
Produced in London, This Week.
Count Hulsen, manager of the Royal Opera in
Berlin, is not going to be bamboozled by the
cranks who want "Parsifal" reserved for Bayreuth
with the aid of a special law to be passed by the
Reichstag. He admits that Bayreuth offers spe-
cial advantages for the proper enjoyment of this
sublime masterwork, because those who go there
specially to hear it are in an expectant and recep-
tive mood, which helps to hypnotize them into a
condition in which everything seems good, and
critical considerations, which disturb one's enjoy-
ment elsewhere, are silenced.
Nevertheless, he continues—in a communication
on this subject to the Berlin Tageblatt—this fact
does not warrant the passing of a bill excepting
"Parsifal" from the law of copyright. Cosima
A dispatcli from London, dated September 12,
states that Leoncavallo, the composer, is here re-
hearsing the new opera "Jzangari" (The Gypsies),
which will t>e produced at the Hippodrome Sep-
tember 16. He describes it as a sister to "Pagli-
acci." Leoncavallo says he studied 500 composi-
tions of Roumanian gypsies before writing the new
opera, but did not use any of their airs. He only
embodied the airs and local peculiarities of the
gypsies' work, which include a special scale of their
own.
The opera will introduce a new instrument called
the contraviolin. Of this instrument Leoncavallo
says : "It is played by a 'cellist, and is an octave
under a violin. I had it made to give effect to the
peculiar tearing sound of Tzigane mivsic. The
effect of the instrument in harmonics is extraordi-
nary.
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