Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-09-22
INTERIOR OF THE PARIS GRAND OPERA
chanics are all civil service functionari es
whose numbers and salaries must be
sacredly maintained.
Cheaper to Paw Forfeit

chanics are all civil service functionaries,
whose numbers and salaries must be
sacredly maintained.
Cheaper to Pay Forfeit.
To meet these responsibilities the director
of the opera has $l6O,O00 a year cash sub
sidy from the French governmental addi-
ton to the takings of the box Office. Last
year these latter-less per cent royalty to
composers and librett:sts-amounted to
$6O0,414. And as the director. NJ Gaihard,
brought out only one new piece-the .'Ronde
der Saisons''-he evidently found ii to his
financial advantage to pay forfeit Oh the
other three!
1t is this policy of paying forfeit and
making easy money with old favorites-
against which the Kentucky bellies un-
knowingly protested, that Is giving oppor-
tunity to new pretendant. NJ. Andre Mes
sager. SO long connected with the Covent
Garden Opera House of London.
M. Gailhards term is to expire in Janu-
airy. NJ. Messenger. should he obtain the
contract, binds himself to put on new
pieces. to give all kinds Of novelties both
domestic and foreign, In a way Parisians
have not seen since the war. And NJ. Gall
hard now says-pushed by competition-that
If the grand opera public really wants It,
he is willing to do the same thng-only
better.
To prove his good faith already NJ. Gall
hard has bestirred himself to bring out in
the coming autumn season more and greater
two years past.
"Ariane." by Massanet. and words by
Catulle Mendes. is at present in rehearsal.
1t VIII be heard for the first time OH any
stage in the middle Of October.
After it will come the File de Ramses."
poem by Camille de Sainte- Croix and Henri
Vuagneux, music by Paul Vidal.
Story of "Thamara."
have mentioned the responsibility of the
director. once in every two years. to pro-
duce some new piece of a PriX de Rome
winner of the Conservative. NJ. GaiIhard Is
behind on these. There ore. to make a clean
sweep of the past four years. he has select
ed. first, La Foret," composed by prize
winner of the name of Felix Savard (words
by Laurent Tailhade) and, secondly he has
announced that he will put on 'Thamara
again.
You could find no better example of how
the system has been working in Paris since
the Franco-Prussian war than the case of
this "Thamara." which Parsians and the
world at large are to hear practically for
the first tima in November
In its way it is record-holder, for it was
originally produced and showed under in a
single cold night of December, 1891; and its
timely conjunction with the coming to Paris
of Lottie Collins song gave extra point tc
the chorus:
"Ha-ma-ra boum di-hor'
"Thamara' is the work of NJ. Bourgault-
Ducourdray, an inordinately scientific
French musical specialist whose only pre-
vious piece came out when he was lad of
eighteen. Before coming of age he won the
PriX de Rome with its attendant right to
the production of an opera And after
curious rowing life of thirty years as must
cal explorer in strange lands, he suddenly
came back to Paris and remembered it,
He sent in "Thamara," an opera made of
music that, to ordinary hearers, had neither
head nor tail. The then director of the
opera, NJ. Rift. had paid many forfeits
that he did not like to make default again
particularly as his term. like that of NJ