Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
Rusticana," with Mme. Sembrich, and in
either "I Pagliacci" or "La Fille du Regi-
ment. "
*
T H E most remarkable cast presented
* during the entire season will sing
Mozart's "II Flauto Magico." Nine prima
donnas will draw the public with a potency
that Mozart's work would never possess if
it were sung in the fashion common abroad.
It was given nearly forty times last sum-
mer by an opera company that contained
T H E advance guard of . Grau's opera not one singer of eminence, but the audi-
* forces have been arriving in the city ences were satisfied with the work and did
this week, commanding the usual notices not demand that all its interpreters should
from our enterprising newspaper men. be stars. Mme. Sembrich, who is consid-
According to present arrangements they ered the greatest Mozart singer of her
will make an artistic raid on several of the time, will be the "Queen of the Night,"
smaller cities, giving single performances, Mme. Eames should be a beautiful sight as
and gradually recruiting itself by later ac- "Tamina," and Zelie de Lussan ought to
cessions until it reaches Chicago, and then be well suited to the role of "Papagena."
after a brief season there conies to New
York in its full strength.
New Haven is to have the first per-
formance on Monday, Oct. 9—Calve in
•'Faust." Springfield will be the second
halt in the tour, and there on Tuesday,
Oct. 10, Sembrich, whose success at the
Worcester Festival last week was most
emphatic, will sing in "The Barber of
Seville."
As a prelude to this campaign a concert
will be given at the Metropolitan Opera-
House to-morrow night. The singers will
be Suzanne Adams, Andreas Dippel and
Giuseppe Campanari, and Emil Paur will
conduct the orchestra. Mme. Nevada will
be heard first on Nov. 12 in another series
of concerts which begin on that night at
the Metropolitan.
* *
home concerts: Mmes. Sembrich, Terni-
na, Miss Aus der Ohe, Mme. Bloomfield-
Zeisler, Miss Heyman, Miss Leonora
Jackson, Miss Ruegger, Messrs. Paderew-
ski, Dohnanyi, Petschnikoff, Hambourg,
Kneisel, Schroeder, Loeffler and Adamow-
ski. This announcement contains the first
authoritative statement that the already
famous young pianist, Dohnanyi, is com-
ng to this country.
P M M A CALVE posed for the statue
*—' which is to ornament her tomb, just
before she sailed for this country. She
went up to Paris from Cabrieres dressed
herself as Ophelia, and assumed the atti-
tude in which she wants to be perpetiiated.
Maurice Grau is to make once more the in-
teresting experiment that has so far met
with little success. Mile. Calve's great
talents are appreciated by the critics in
every role; but for the public there are
but two operas in which she is interesting.
These are, of course, " Carmen " and
"Faust." The list of works in which she
has been heard is rather long for the
Metropolitan, but scarcely one of them has
ever reached more than two or three repre-
sentations. Beginning with "L'Amico Fritz"
the list includes "Hamlet," "Les Pecheurs
de Perles," "La Navarraise" and "Mefisto-
fele" among others. But the piiblic re-
mained away until Mile. Calve appeared as
the heroine of the Bizet or the Gounod
opera, in which her drawing powers were
always great. This year Mr. Grau is to
see what can be done with Massenet's
"Herodiade," which has never been sung
in this city, and is indeed heard rarely any-
where. Cherubino and Juliette will not be
sufficient to alternate with the roles in
which Mile. Calve is popular, and so "He-
rodiade" has been selected because that
opera provides also a good role for M.
Saleza. Mme. Mantelli and MM. Plancon
and Scotti are to be in the cast. Mile.
Calve will, of course, sing in "Cavalleria
will not give the performances all their
quality. In "II Flauto Magico," for in-
stance, MM. Saleza, Edouard de Reszke
and Pini-Corsi will appear.
*
M A R K HAMBOURG'S first recital at
* * * Knabe Hall will occur about Nov.
11, a few days after his appearance with
the Boston Symphony Orchestra which is
set for Nov. 8.
*
A CRITICISM which may be quoted as
**• throwing a new light upon certain
forms of music appeared recently in the
Sydney "Bulletin." It was written, no
doubt, by an Australian of the impression-
ist school, and is almost equal to some of
the work of his confreres in this country:
"Curly-headed Louis Hattenbach, the 'cel-
list, appeared at the Brahms concert. An
evening of Brahms music might be expect-
ed to be headachy; for Brahms is, above
all others, an intellectual musician. In
Brahms's concerted music the instruments
seem to be constantly arguing with each
other, as in Beethoven. The argument
starts in the allegro movement; heads are
broken and the combatants jump on each
other in the allegretto; and in the final
movement they trudge off to the hospital,
arguing all the way."
•
T H E London Daily News remarks that
* "the fact that the leading British
opera composers — Sullivan, Mackenzie,
McCunn, Stanford, and the rest—are ig-
nored at Covent Garden is probably not
the fault of the management; for the last
word in such matters is mainly with the
leading vocalists, who, as a rule, do not
speak English." That is the trouble in
America, too, wherefore the outlook for
our opera-composers (if we have any) is
not bright. There are plenty of first-class
prima-donnas who could sing an opera in
English, but tenors and basses are scarce.
EMMA NEVADA.
The remaining six prima donnas are Mmes.
Schumann-Heink, Ternina and Mantelli,
who will sing the three ladies, while the
three genii will be Mmes. Adams, Olitzka
and Broadfoot. The season offers the
promise of some interesting revivals.
Nikolai's "The Merry Wives of Windsor,"
which has not been given here in years,
could be presented with a splendid cast.
Mme. Sembrich and Schumann-Heink
have frequently sung in the opera together
abroad; Theodore Bertram is a famous
"Falstaff" in his own country and Fritz
Fredricks, the famous "Beckmesser" of
Bayreuth, has made some of his greatest
successes in Nikolai's work. The dialogue
is the only drawback to the performance of
the opera. In the Italian versions of the
work recitative is used, and in case the
opera is sung, will certainly be used.
Mme. Eames, who has completed her
study of "Aida, ' may be heard in that
opera during the year. There is every
promise of a brilliant season whether all
plans for a new performance are carried
out or not. "Lucrezia Borgia" is even dis-
cussed as a Saturday night possibility, with
Mmes. Schumann-Heink and Ternina in the
principal roles. In spite of Jean de Resz-
ke's possible absence, the women alone
' ' A S for those who admire or profess ad-
/"\ miration for the 'Master Lunatic of
Music,' it is a significant fact, says the
expert, that, 'whereas, there is a brigade
of musicians, all lunatics, detained in Ger-
man mad-houses, every last man of them,
when questioned on that point, professed
himself a loyal adherent and admirer of
Wagner.'"—Conservative Review.
Are philosophers and critics to be in-
cluded? If so, this "expert" overlooks the
case of Nietzsche. He is in a madhouse
and he hates Wagner.
*
T H E R E are five thousand theatres in the
1
United States if we count all kinds,
writes Franklin Fyles, in the first of a
series of articles on "The Theatre and Its
People," in the October "Ladies Home
Journal." More than two thousand are
fairly classable as legitimate, and over
one thousand more are devoted to vaude-
ville. The two thousand others taper off
in various ways. To estimate the capital
invested in all this theatrical property
is difficult. But about $100,000,000 is in-
vested in the three thousand first-class
legitimate theatres which will be consider-
ed in this article. That is an average of
$33,333 each, which is low enough, some
costing as much as $500,000 each. It is