The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-11-16
From the New York Evening Post.

if XN NE thing Is certain" said a
 lOJ prominent concert manager
 the other day, "there are too
 many artists entirely too many in Amer
 lea this season. Somebody must suffer. When one looks at the list of pianists.
 vlolinists and singers who are to be heard
 here, one cannot help agreeing with this caterer. Formerly, when Paderewskf was
 in the field. most other pianists main talned a discreet silence: this year they all come rushing in together-Hofmann, De Pachmann, Bauer, Hamburg, Schell- ing. Buhlig and the women-Katherine Goodson, Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler, Au-
 gusta Cottlow, Olga Samaroff. The violin ists. headed by Kreisler and Kubelik, are with us too, and as for the singers, they make an astounding array of talent and expense To name only few: We small
 hear Mines. Abott Flames, Farrar, Frem- stad. Gadsxi, Morena Sembrich, Homer, Kirl<by-Ltlnn. Nordlca, Melba, Garden, Calve. Schumann- Heink; NM Caruso, Bonci Knote, Burrian. Dippel, Burgstal- Ter. Reiss, Goritz, Campanari, van hoos, Chaliapine Plancon, Dalmores, lena'eiio' sammarco. Renaud, Bispham. What Is there left for Europe?
 If was shown last year that New fofK
 can support two operas at top-hotch
 nrices. nay. there were evenings anu afternoons when the demand for tickets al hoth places exceeded the supply. A years rivalry has made ooth MT. eoni e'o
 and MT. Hammerstein alive 10 the heeeS- sity of doing their very best, ana tneie ean be little doubt that in the matter ol
 evca,Iance AS well as profusion, all rec
 ords will be broken this winter nolh bouses have bigger roster or artsls than they have had before, and some iii- +erest;ng novelties and reviyals are not
 o,iv nrouised. but in actual preparation.
 Of special interest is MT. Hammersteih attempt to acclimate the modern reper-
 torv of the Opera Comique of Paris Tn his Manhattan opera house. Charpen- tier,s "I "I,ouise." which the Parisians have
 applauded hundreds of times, Will be
 heard here for the first time. So VIII the
 "Pelleas ct Melisande" of Debussy, the
 French Richard Strauss; so will two or Massenets new operas, .Thais' and the .JonrIeur de Notre Dame.' also the new "Helene" of Saint-Saens, and much older novelty, the "Contes dHofmann, an opera in which Offenbach showed that
 he could rise far above his habitual bull foonery. For these operas MT. Ham, merstein has imported the Chicago prima donna, Miss Mary Garden, who has won much success in Paris and Brussels in French operas, new and old. But the Manhattan is to sail by no means always under the French flag; German opera, which was tabooed last year, is to take l a prominent place, by the side of French | and Italian works, with Mines. Nordica and schumann-H Heink and NJ. Dalmores In l the leading roles. It will be novel and l fascinating experience to hear the Wag- ner operas under the splendid acoustic | conditions of this theatre, and under the l direction of MT. Campanini, who declares | that he is "a great if not fanatical ad- mirer of Wagner"
 l At the Metropolitan opera house, also, l some stirring events are impending. The center of interest probably will be the | grand fight between Caruso and-not I Bonci or Knote, but Mahler-qustav I Mahler, for 10 years the chief conductor l and sole manager and tyrant of the lm- | perial opera in- Vienna, whom MT. Con- ried has, with infinite wisdom, engaged l as chief conductor and general superin- l tendent of the. Metropolitan. Caruso is the greatest of living Italian tenors, but unfortunately he is Italian only; he IS not like Jean de Reszke, versatile artist who is great also in French and German opera The result of the prevailing wor- ship of Caruso's wonderful voice has been l in the past two years to focus public in terest too much on voealism instead of on the operas themselves Now, Mahler Is a natural and violent antidote to this