The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-03-01
A PHASE OF
 SUNDAY MUSIC

A view of Sunday music was presented in recent letter from New York, which tells of visit to the Metropolitan Opera House on Sunday night to hear Wolf Ferrari's new cantata Vita NuoVa" Sunday concerts are, of course, always in vogue in the metropolis. The letter states:
 We went quietly and unostentatiously; for to go to the Metropolitan on Sum day is to commit terrible social sole eism. One might almost as well be caught living in New York in summer or enjoying Newport i'. January. It was, however, quite a pleasaht experience. The house wore a strangely unfamiliar as pect No one was in evening dress, and there was not vestige of tiara in sight. Although we arrived early, the boxes were full to overfowing, and the sexes were curiously mixed Instead of the regular arrangement of two ladies in front and four men behind Cor vacan- cies where men ought to be- some boxes were entirely filled by ladies and others were occupied by men only. The beha- vior of the audience was as unexpected as it's appearance. Every eye was turned to the stage (though there was nothing to see there except the Metropolitan chorus in plain clothes. which is not q particularly picturesque sight and not a whisper was heard in the auditorium during the performance. At the close of each number the applause was truly terrific for the house was packed to the roof. and the standing room was stretched to the legal limit. This was no polite batting together of white gloved hands such as greets the drop of the curtain on real opera nights. but genuine roar of enthusiasm as loud as any you may hear in an Italian opera house when a popular tenor sings high c. We did not hot tol, anttf1 found in New York to greet the first performance of more or less sacred cantata by little known composer. It was altogether a novel sensation.
 Needless to say the fashionable box holders and subscribers who enable the Metropolitan Opera company to exist, were conspicuous by their absence. They may come on Monday night to hear Wolf -Ferrari's ''Le Dome CuriQse" and express admiration for his work; but you could hardly ask them to be seen In the opera house on Sunday night just l for the sake of listening to the same
 composers Vita Nuova.'' That would
 l be to fly in the face of social tradition. So MT Wolf-Ferrari had 10 content him. | self With ar enthusiastic but unfash- | ionable audience. The incident would
 hardly be worth mentioning if it did not suggest possibilities in the shape of pop
 ular opera. Vita Nuoya' is not the kind | of work which gets ready response
 l It is very difficult, like most of Ferrari s
 music. and there. is no concession made
 l to the untrained ear. It is beautiful in l a poignant, exalted fashion: 1t possesses | in fact the same sort of ethereal qual-
 | ity that Dante put into the text of the
 1 "Vita Nuova." But the melodies are not
 l fluent. and the purple has been squeezed
 out of the orchestral accompaniment. Yet
 that immense audience seemed to devour
 ] the music and ask for more. If good opera could be supplied at the same prices
 as prevail on Sunday night at the Metro
 | politan; what field there would be for | it in America.