The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1906-12-03
MELBAAT THE HEAD.
She VIII Be Prina Donna at Hammer
STEMS New Opera House.

New York, Dec. IA second great
temple of music dedicated exclusively
to grand opera in this city will be
opened tcnight when the curtain rises
on the first performance IN Oscar Ham
merstein's new Manhattan opera house.
The question whether or not New York
viii support simultaneously two grand
opera houses and two highly paid COM
panies of singers will then be put to
test.
Believing that there is room in New
York for two such enterprises Mr..
Hammerstein has erected q beautiful
opera house in West Thirty-fourth
street. and will begin a season Of six
weeks of grand opera in French and
Italian, with a company of singers OF
international reputation, and chorus
Of 100 voices. recruited both in Italy
and in this city.
The cost of the venture when the
season is inaugurated, it is said, will
have been in the neighborhood OF
$2,00O,0OO.
The opera for the opening. night will
be Bellinrs Il Puritani," and later on
in the week Don Giovanni" and
Faust will be heard. During the
season, operas by Auber, Donlsettl,
Flotow, Verdi. Leoncavallo. Mascagni,
Meyerbeer, Puccini and Thomas, and
Wagner's ''Lohengrin" in French will
be sung.
the list of sopranos of the company.
Nine Regina Arta, also a soprano, is
native of Pittsburg. Nine. Breslar-
Gianoli and Nine. Eleanore De Cis-
neros, the two chief mezzo sopranos,
have been heard here before.
Alessandro Bonci, a Neapolitan.
whose voice is reputed to be beautifuI
in quality, is the principal tenor and
after him are Dalmores, a robusto
singer, and Alfscheffski. Both are
Frenchmen, Maurice Reynaud, anoth-
er Frenchman, and San Marco, an
Italian. baritones, both come to TINS
country with great regulations CHI
bert, who has been heard here, and
Galetto-Gianeli, from the Teatro Riv-
yoli are to sing the buffo- basso
parts. Vittorio Aramondi. the leading
basso has sung in the United states
before.
A special feature of the season will
be the ballet The orchestra will
comprise seventy-five musicians under
the direction of Cleofante Campinini
and Leandro Campanari-
The interior plans of the new opera
house have been worked out along
the lines of modern and French arehi-
lecture. The main auditorium rises
from it's structural base through
perfstvie containing forty prOscen1um
boxes.s supported by columns of heroic
size, which also act as the supporting
base for a seni-circle OF loges and the
two balconies above.
The proseenium boxes are crowned
at either side of the stage with an or
namental superstructure rising eighty
feet above the orchestra floor, and de-
signed to form a background for two
sculptured figure groups. representing
'sGenius'' thanked by the arts. Paint
ing and Sculpture" The entire
scheme reaches fitting climax in the
beautiful main ceiling, 100 feet high
with an enormous shallow dome The
proportions of the stage are 80 by
IT'S feet.
with the opening OF my new
house" said Mr.. Hammerstein in an
interview, tiny life's ambition shall
have been realized. have built nine
theaters in this city, but it has always
been r9ycde sire to erect a house to be
devoted exclusively to grand opera"