The San Francisco call., 1896-04-23

Main

residence at Frankfort, she has been professor
of piano at the Hoch Conservatory, though
she has often appeared in concert at London
and elsewhere She is now II years of age,
and her age added to the severity of the attack
give little hope of her recovery.
1t seems to be settled that Mapleson will be
heard from good deal in American operate
circles next season. He has made himself
very conspicuous lately in England in connec-
ton with his Imperial Opera Company, for
which he proposed to build an opera house on
the site of the Haymarket Theater. Mapleson
stated that large amount OF stock in his COM
pany had been sold, and that he was quite in
q position to establish q permanent London
headquarters for his company. The Hay
market scheme is now supposed to be dropped,
but Mapleson is engaging artists in Italy.
These singers it is understood are for season
of Italian opera which this veteran impre-
sario contemplates giving at the Academy OF
Music, New York, next season. The possibility
Of a tour to the Pacific Coast is also on the
tapis, for with Abbey and Grau and Walter
Damrosch's German opera season Mapleson
will find plenty OF competition in the New
York field.
Henri Murger's novel, LA Vie de Boheme,"
seems to have taken new and sudden lease of
life in opera and drama. No sooner has Puc-
Clul ''bOleme met WIN success tndu IeOu-
cavallo comes forward with an opera bearing
the same title and written round the same sub
ject. 1t is at the Lyric Theater in Milan that
the newest "Boheme'' will first see the light.
In an interview Leoncavallo states that the
action of his opera will be abs olu tely different
from that of Puccini's, and that the music will
also be OF an entirely diverse genre from that
of his confrere. Clyde Fitch's adaptation of
sLa Vie de Boneme," which is running in New
RI Il Qxa6 1hcto tiol fho
box-office in spite of the onslaughts made by
the critics when the drama was first produced.
very painful criminal trial is creating q
sensation in the musical world of Vienna.
The subject of it, whom the public prosecutor
accuses of perjury, is Carl Zeller, aulic coun-
sellor to the Minister of Public Instruction,
director of the public department of fine arts
and a composer of very popular music. His
two operas, "The Miner" and "The Bird Mer-
chant" have had almost as much success in
Vienna and Germany as the best works of
Johann Strauss or Won Suppe. The trouble is
over disputed inheritance, and people are at
a loss to understand how Zeller could have
compromised himself by committing perjury,
particularly as the amount in litigation is
comparatively trifing. The whole sum does
not exceed $4,000, and the bulk of the sue
cession was in any case assured to the COM
poser. 1t is hoped that Zeller, who has fallen
seriously i'll, may yet succeed in proving his
innocence.
Every day seems to add to the popularity OF
Carl Goldmark's new opera, "The Cricket on
the Hearth" The Royal Opera of Buda-Pesth
has already followed Viennas lead in produc-
ing the work, and number of other theaters
are preparing to do likewise. The composer of
"La Refine de Saba and ''Merlin" has given
proof of unexpected talent for grand opera in
hi rfolyo ttau uoo =, TIE
pie, almost popular, in regard to the melodies,
but the orchestration is spoken OF as being full
of splendor and refinement The prelude to
the third act seems to have proved as irresisti-
BILE as the now celebrated intermezzo in the
"Cavalleria Rusticana," for at every perform
ance it has to be repeated again and again.
The students of the University of Bologna
have just collaborated in q rather singular
way to produce an opera. One of them, Ales-
sandro Tirell wrote q libretto, entitled "Bom.
bacina's Marriage" I'll Matrimonio di Bonn
bacina), and the most promising young COM
posers among the students took different parts
of the work to set to music. Federico Buga-
nelli wrote the overture; the first act was the
joint production of G. Grazioli. A. Rub5i and
R. de Matthaeis, while Ugo Della Noce wrote
the second act The students produced their
operetta at the Corso Theater, and the musical
journals speak of it seriously as being quite
clever production.
The blind contralto, Slgnorina Belinfante,
who has met with so much artistic and social
success since her arrival here from the Orient,
is to be rendered a concert by prominent men,
bers of the Italian colony on Sunday week
She has many credentials from such people as
Sonzogno. and the peculiar pathos of her
story adds to the interest of her artistic powers
The German Club is also rendering benefit to
the young singer.
New operas continue to be the order of the
day in Germany we'll as in Italy. A work
founded on Shakespeare's comedy, "Much Ado
About Nothing" by A. NJ. Doppler, has just
met with success at the Municipal Theater,
Leipsic, and the posthumeus comic opera OF