Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-12-16
PERSISTENT TAKERS
Spoiled the Lady's Evenings
at the Opera.
TYPES OF DIsTURBERs
GRoUCHY HUSBAND WHO DID
NOT CARE FOR WAGNER.
Woman Who Had to Explain the
Music, the Hum1ning Girl and the
Real Smart Musician.

Real Smart Musician
The cheerful-looking, ehatty little ma iron
up In one of the front corner seats of the
street car was telling her shopping compan-
Ion all about It.
Yes. I've been to hear four of the
operas, she said. Went the first four
nights-'The Falkyrie,' Aida Lohengrin'
and 'Rigoletto.' The operas were beautifully
given, and I'd have enjoyed them immense
ly. but
We'll. there sat directly behind me, on
The Valkyrie night, large, puffy man
with bristly, reddish mustache and a
hoarse. rumbling voice. who openly accused
his wife, throughout the evening. of having
brought him there on false pretenses.
Say, what kind Of gag is this you've
stacked me up againstT he asked her, in Il
profound peevish rumble. at least dozen
times during the progress of the first act.
and there didn't seem to be any way in the
world for her to square 1t with him. All
she could do was to put In an occasional
'sh-sh! and beg him plaintively to pull
lease stop talking or they'd be put out of
the theater, but the man with the bristly
red mustache and the grievance that, some
how or another. he'd been bunkoed by his
wife, wasn't to be put down easily. He
had sense of wrong, and he was going to
let 1t out OF his system or. know why. The
Valkyrte' wasn't anything like the kind of
q show his wife had led him to believe it
was going to be.
Why, blast 1t, that feller's just hollerin'
tra's ALL he'd growi during the recitative
passages, and, when the orchestra would
get together in resonant burst OF char
acteristto Wagner majesty music, he'd turn
to his wife, with an expression of acute in
jury on his face and say to her, Say, Y don't
call that music, do you? Sounds like Chi
nese zinc band t me-
1T was clear that he didn't take much
stock In medieval legend.
WY, them Dutch stiffs. he rumbled at
his wife, with the junk-tin clothes on--or
armori or whatever yeah it-wouldn't last
ten minutes, no, nor ten seconds, If they
was around nowadays. Some little sawed
off Teller 'ud take dollar n-a-haif bulldog
pop and make EN- look like tin spinach
strainers before they'd have a chance to
turn around.
Couldn't See It.
No, he couldn't see It, as he said, from
any point of view, and I leave you to
imagine how much he helped us to enjoy
the opera, for as 1 say, he was sitting
directly behind me, and he never stopped
growing over the way his wife had i'm
posed on him. as he said, from the begin
ming of the opera to the end of it. When,
dlleT Tie Httdl cur ldlu-IdlI, ic got up 10 20,
with deep and unspeakable disgust i'm
printed on his face, he turned to his wife
and said to her:
We'll. you got by with it onct. but never
again, and you hear me. / don't mind look
in at a dog fight that's got some action to
it, but when it comes to sitting still for
four hours and a half and listenin' to lot
of bug-house Dutch yawing an yamming
at each other-well, jest you bamboozle me
into such a game again. that's ALL
"On the next night-the Aida. night
thought sure at first, that was going to,
have a grand time for the two seats d.
rectfy behind us were vacant almost I'M
til the minute the curtain went up. / was
thanking heaven for the blessing, when just
as the overture was about over. the holders
of those two seat coupons arrived.
"One of them was a quite deaf old man
and the other was apparently his daughter.
She was spinstery-looking and Ratchet
faced. and she had a way of whispering
that cut like shoemakers knife. More
over, she just knew all about Aida and she
was going to tell all she knew or die in the
attempt.
"The quite deaf old man made a scoop
with his hand behind his ear while she pro-
ceeded-the curtain in the meantime having
gone up-to put him in possession of all the
facts.
was the opera Vairdi wrote to cemmemor-
ate the opening of the Suez canal
The whut? Whuts that? Whut's that
a-5ut a canal? the old man asked her,
trying to joke him in connecting an opera
with some kind of canal.
Explaining the Opera.
She told him about the opera and the
Suez canal again, In much louder whis-
per. and when she perceived that he had at
length grasped that. she went ahead:
".Eye-ada is said by the critics to show
the gradual influence OF Vogner over
Vairdi'
"vogner? Whut's that name? Who was
her the old man asked turning to her
again, somewhat testify.
said.
'yogwhut2' he inquired again.
why, Vogner-V- o-g-n-e-r,' she enlght-
ened him, spelling 1t.
. oh. Wagner, you mean" croaked the
old man, .raucously,. giving the 'Wag' the
SOS people kin understand your
It's gorgeous Oriental opera a good
deal like Goldmark's Queen of Sheba,' the
spinstery-looking woman with the quite deaf
old man went on; Filled with sensuous
Nile music. and all that
Contemptious bile music you say?' the
old man asked her, with his hand again
scooped behind his ear
'sensuous Nile music she repeated in
a Missy whisper that had almost enough
steam back Of 1t to blow the side combs
out of my head-and then I gave it up for
the evening.
w eia might nave given 1t up. The old
man didn't know any more what the opera
was about than If he'd been witnessing an
italian marionette tragedy, and the only
part of the orchestration that he could hear
was the occasional humping of the kettle
drums So it was up to the spinstery-look-
ing woman to let him know all about It as
the opera progressed.
What's he saying to that woman now?'
he would ask her, with his face twitching
and his hand behind his ear-as could see
when L lnVoiuntarily turned around to scowl
my very worst upon the pair-and then
she'd iutter the leaves of her libretto. and
after great difficulty find the argument.
whereupon she'd tell him all about 1t. and
thus on to the finish. Il you can picture
anything more narrowing, I'd like to know
what you have in mind.
She Was Real Hummer.
AS soon as got into my seat for the
'Lohengrin performance any wistful hopes
that I may have been cherishing as to hav-
ing one unmarried evening. anyhow, out of
the series, were Immediately dspelled. An |