The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-04-22

husband, turning at length from the
maidens to his wife on seeing that the
young fellows are getting at her, is
teasingly repulsed.
Don't forget that you are only my
brother-in-law," she says; land so you
haven't a brothers right to kiss me.
nor should you kiss your brothers
widow when the law forbids you to
marry her. So go away, hubby-go
away"
All the same, he will go to her room
after the guests have gone to bed for
the night. Before that time, she
changes quarters with an ugly old
maid, and lets him open the wrong
door with a skeleton key. Then comes
"a scream and a scandalizing arousal of
the whole hotel.
What are the words that are sung on
the stage to a Sousa march? You will
never find out by going TO 1.-THE Free
Lance" which contains one of those
swinging, martial airs that make John
Philip SOUsa a popular composer. The
first New York audience, it's women
glittering and gliStening in a display
of jewels and gorgeous gowns, was
there to hear a new Sousa march, and
wanted it right away. A peculiarly
pretentiouS and very formal opening
chorus which a Stageful of fantasia
cally dressed folk assured us that they
were artists of the kingdom of Brag-
gadocia, and repeated it so many times
that we began to believe them.
Then Nella Bergen ran in handsome
ly and enjoyed the applause that greet
ed her. De Wolf Hopper's wife had
kept off the fat whic hused to burden
her, and her always beautiful voice,
alohtugh attended to by a physician
throughout the evening, had a chance
to be heard at the outset in a right
good song about a maiden who under
took to learn what love is. She asked
a nun, and the good wOman's answer
gave Sousa and Miss Bergen an Oppor-
tunity for music of religious dignity
that was beautiful. The gay coquette's
response was hardly so pretty, and not
nearly so worthy. Next the maid ques-
toned a soldier. and it was then that
the people shook their spangIes to sit
up straight and hear " hat SouSa had
done in his own particular field. /
knOw-to answer my opening question
that the chorus was meant to voice a
soldiers understen ding of love, not be-
cause / could distinguish the words
above the din and uproar Of the music,
but through noting and remembering
the music cue" that prefaced the
march. 1t was splendidly spirited and
rOke forth with such terrific force
that twas hard to guess how it could
be maintained.
IF they start the act like that" said
one man, what will they have left to
finish with ''
with a brass band added" and that
was the right answer.
Henry B. Smith has written the
words of more comic operas than any
other American, but if his librettO for
1.-The Free Lance had been his first,
he would not now be rich enough to
buy valuable antique art and rare
books, which is a hobby that his sue
cess permits. The audience scented
staIeness when Nella Bergen explained
that she was a princess betrother to a
Prince whom she lad never seen, be-
cause her father. Emperor of Bragga-
dOcia, was in debt to the princes dad,
Duke of Graftiana. And when she
changed her clothes with a shepherd
eSs, and fell in love with the tenor
prince, dho had assumed a shepherds
disguise for the similar purpose of es-
Gaping marriage, the audience made no
sign of protest against the inevitable
two comic mOnarchs and their two as
sistingly comic ministers.
Need describe those foulr comicaI
cusSes? You already know them we'll
But Joseph CawthoTne, the chief come
Dian of the play. should have a blue
ribbon of critical mention pinned on
him. He was a brigand who had lost
his hair, and with it his bravery, so
that he was reduced to tending sheep.
He had the rollicink Jeanette LOWerie
for a companion in tomfoolery, his
German dialect stood by him, and he
came to final victory when, with his
hair and consequently his courage re-
stored by a witch, he marched against
the armies of both potentates TO SOusa
music-giving them and the audience a
Sousa martial knockout.
Sousa the Great gazed on the tri-
umph of his music from the enthrOne-
ment of a box until TeS:' the end Of the
first act, then he arO>e. withdrew anu
rSappeared in a side aisle. to which all
eyes at once turned from the stage
show. Applause attended his progress
all the way up that aisle and down the
center one, drowning the voices on the
stage. and .outbursting tremendously he
had bowed from the conductors plat
form. Then a brass band came out
and the new Sousa march nearly blew
the roof off the theatre. SOusa made
speech that wasn't StingY with words
He told how long he had been away
and how he felt on returning; he ex-
planned the various mental phenomena
of his gratitude; he called for Mr.
Smith, who didn't respond; and he told
Of friends at three of his clubs remark
ing that. while his marches were sure
things of course, what about the other
music, the librettO aTd-the legs of
girls? He gave an anecdote about stage
legs, and promised a display of them in
the next act.
However, THE Free Lance" cOntin-
Ued to the end without slumDing rom
comic opera into musical fare. and
there was no indecorous exposure of
chorus girls. They had been engaged
for nothing lower down than their
voices, which were excellent: and the
composers promise of legs was kert
solely by two women who put Oh eN-
hibition little more than Legitimate ac-
tresses do when they pay Rosa.ind CT
Viola
The showing of girls IN the other
new beauty play, 1.-The Social WbjrI."