The Neihart herald. [volume] (Neihart, Mont.) 1890-1901, 1899-10-21
1T rs WICKED PLAY.
MESSALINE is SENSATION OF
LONDON.
VIII Hardly BE Acceptable to American
PS.rons of the Theater-Bad in Plot
and Sail to Be vulgar-Is All Right
Artisticslly.
CLondon letter.

Just after the dress rehearsal OF
Messaline, Isidore de Lara, the COM
poser, asked me if | thought the opera
would go in the United States, and |
asked him what made him think that it
might not. He said, oh, perhaps, the
plot would be considered too-er-too
high-colored. All / could say was that
after our acceptance of Olga Neither
sole's Carmen. of Tristan and Isolde,
and of the Old Testament, 1t did not
seem to me that we had one right, log
ically, to object to anything. But that,
Of course, we were nothing if not Hog
ical, especially as regards religious lit
erature, drama and the opera. De
Lara's question, and his underlying
reason for asking it. is a good index
to the sort of opera that Messaline is
both as to plot and presentation, both
as to story and the musical interpreted
ton of that story. The libietto is one
which calls for the literary equivalent
of the soft pedal. If you are reading 1t
you will do we'll to put cotton in your
ears; if it is being read to you you
will find it advisable to hold your nose,
n either shut yolr eyes or TAKE off
your glasses. Mental near-sightedness
becomes a distinct advantage, and a
deafness of the intelligence an unmit-
igated blessing when one has to en-
counter such a story as Armand Syl-
vester and Eugene Morand have chosen
to set forth in words, and De Lara has
elected to c~opiously illustrate in
nnrcio Gonroa Mnnra tho nnuo1ict onA
critic, wrote a sentence once about
d~'Annunzio, which, at the time l read
1t, sounded rather meaningless. He
said: The habitual color of dan
nunzio's mind is a delicate mauve. 1t
has all the iridescent glories of a
ruined sunset" Paraphrasing Mr..
Moore, l may say that the habitual
color of Messaline is a hot purple, and
that it emits the phosphorescent glories
Of a decadent inventiveness. The only
way to get through the opera without
b~lushing until you are sunburned and
freckled is to take the score and attend
strictly to the music, and even that is
not an entire relief, for, as l said, De
L4ara's music exactly illustrates the
libretto. And you cannot help getting
a notion of immortality from his use OF
the chromatic scale, and of licentious-
ness in the chord of the diminished
seventh.
l know quite we'll that what l have
just written will amount, as far as
some people are concerned, to a very
good advertisement of the new opera,
There are some birds and animals who
have an Unborn taste for whatever is
specially and unmlstakably decayed
and the worse it is the better they like
it. That sort of taste will, I think
find ample qualification in Messaline
and l can say that l truly believe thai
the kind of people who possess that
sort of taste will not, of course, be
made any the worse for seeing ever
such an opera as Messaline.
So much for the work from the out
of-date standpoint of the decencies
From the purely-no, l should say the
merely-artistic standpoint, the worl
is somewhat beautiful and entirely re
markable. l do not know of any othel
opera that Is so complete and success
full a character study as is this one
both from a dramatic n a ~psycholog
ical point of view. Thanks to De Lars
and the librettists, Messaline is no
merely a musical opus with an alleged
plot attached, but not Joined to it; /
is a consistent dramatic conception
carried out with an amount of care ant
elaboration which results in an i'm
preston of reality equally convincing
brilliant and detestable. Thanks t.
Heglon, who created the title role, AM
to Renaud and Alvarez, who inter
preted the two male parts, the tire
main characters are not merely tire
modern singers in antique costumes
who sometimes sing and sometimes &C
but who never do both at the same mo
ment. They are three people of tn
MMA