The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1895-01-12
Gathered in The
World Of Melody
Interesting Notes Concerning Musi-
clans at Home and Abroad.
AN AMERICAN COMIC OPERA
Damrosch's Lyric Dramatization of iIaw.
thOrne's Scarlet Lctter"-Coming Pre-.
sentation of the Holy City-SchemcS
of Interest to Our Local Artists.

An American comic opera, truly
comic and really American, that was
brought out in Boston last week is re-
ported to be causing a great amount
of discussion in theatrical and literary
circles. 1t is called Westward Ho."
The music is said to be the charm
ing part Of it. There are admittedly
faults of inexperience in the book, but
only the highest praise is given to the
score. The composer is Benjamin T..
Woolf, a man of much experience and
musical critic-it is a trihe upsetting to
notice-for the Boston Herald! The
lihrettist is Darwin f. Ware, young
lawyer, recently graduated from Har-
ward, where the Hasty Pudding club Is
credited with having turned his
thoughts to the lyric stage. The plot
of the opera, as summarized by the
Rochester Post-EXpress, turns upon
woman suffrage in Wyoming. The
Scene is in q town where the women
are in power politically. They enforce
the total-abstinence liquor law, and
have abolished all the pistols but one,
which, thought never loaded, Is carried
by a bloodthirsty desperado, who goes
through the motion of killing a man
severa! times day. In reality he Is
an English earl in disguise, a widower
whose daughter is the sheriff of the
town. She is candidate for re-elec-
tion, hut the men are tired of petticoat
government, and the woman them
selves are divided over the question
whether pink or blue shall be the color
of their wedding dresses. The women.
however, finally carry the election; and
the next excitement Is the arrival of
a proiessed English earl, whom the
desperate discovers to be his younger
brother. The younger brother also dis
covers the identity of the desperado.
There are, various complications and
a; last q plan to fleece the pretended
carl at poker--a plan with which the
pretty sheriff interferes. Finally all
she principal male characters pair off
with the various lady-oflicers of the
city and the opera thus ends happily.
Walter Damrosch's lyric dramatiza-
tion Of Nathaniel Hawthornes famous
New England romance, "The Scarlet
Letter." which is to be presented by
the American Grand Opera company
with Melba In the role of Hester
Prynne, has been set to a three-act
]ibretto from the pen of George Par
sons Lathrop, Hawthornes son-in-law,
who has written rhymed paraphrase
of the dramatic episodes of the great
Americans classic and departed from
dramatic fidelity only in the climax,
where he makes Hester Prynne take
poison and die beside Arthur Dimmes-
dale. the young clergyman, upon the
pillory. Composer Damrosch's music
Is essentially modern, and written on
the lines laid down by Richard Wag.
ner-that Is, a continuous dramatic
recltative to which, however, the young
composer has sought to impart also n
melodious Significance To the orches-
ira falls an important share in the de-
velopment of the dramatic and psyche
logical motives of the story.
Verdi denies having left $2000,0O0 for
the erection of an immense asylum for
AGED musicians. In d letter to the Caf-
faro he says: "Even my testament!