New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1913-12-10
A Vapid and Salacious
Comedy Given with
Great EarneStneSS.
FROM NECROPHILISM
TO LUBRICITY
The Policy of Such a Produc.
ton at the Opera
Questioned.

same way, but between which and the
subject which is TO occupy us in this
-eyiew there is a kinship through single
instrumental number. the meaning OF
which no programme annotator has dared
more than TO hint at. II is the music
which accompanies the episode. politely
.erIned Il love scene" which occurs at
he climax Of the earlier opera. but is sup
,osed to take place before the opening OF
hc curtain in the later. Perhaps we may
'ecur 10 them again--if we have the
,ouraec.
These were The operas Of Richard
Strauss which no manager deemed il
necessary or advisable TO produce in New
York. Now came "Salome." Popular
neurasthenia was growing. Oscar Wilde
thought France might accept glorifica-
ton OF metropolitan and wrote his de-
.cctable book in French. France would
have none Of it, but when it was done
into German, and Richard Strauss ac-
ccntuated its sexual perversity by his
hysterical music. 10, Berlin accepted il
With avidity. The theatres Of the
Prussian capital were keeping pace with
the pathological spirit Of the day. and
ahead Of those Of Paris. where it had long
peen the habit 10 think moral obliquity
made its residence. IL Berlin. then why
no: New York? So thought Mir. Conried
saturated with German theatricalism. and
seeing no likely difference i'm the appeal
Of a "Pnrsifal." which he had success
fully produced. and "Salome" he pre-
pared TO put the works of Wagner and
Strauss on the same footing at the
Metropolitan Opera House. An influence
which has not yet been clearly defined,
but which did not spring from the director
OF the opera. nor the gent men who
were his financial hackers. silenced the
maunderings Of the lust-crazed Herod
and paralyzed the contortions Of the las
civious dancer TO whom he was willing
20 give one-half mis- kingdom.
Now Mr.. HammeTstein came to continue
the artistic education which the owners cf
the Metropolitan opera House had so
strangely and Unaccountably checked
Salome' lived out her mad life in a short
limo. dying. not by the command Of
Herod but crushed under the shield Of
popular opinion. The operation. though
effective. was not as swift as it might
have been had operate conditions been
different than they are in New York, and
before IL was accomplished a newer phase
Of Strauss pathological art had offered
itself as a nervous cXcitatiOn. II was
'Elelltra." and under the guise OF an an
cient religious ideal awful but pathetic,
the people were asked to find artistic dc
light I'm the contemplation OF womans
maniacsl thirst for a mothers blood. IT
is not necessary 10 recall the history OF
the opera at the Manhattan Opera House
TO show that the artistic sanity OF New
York was proof against the new poison.
Hugo vor Hoffmansthal had aided
Strauss in this brew and collaborated with
MIN in the next. which it was hoped. prob
ably because OF the difference in its con-
cocton and ingredients would make his
rein even more taut than it had ever been
on theatrical managers and their public
From the Greek classics he turned to the
comedy Of the Beaumarchais period Put
ting their heads together, the two wrote
Der Rosenkavalier" IL was perhaps
shrewd on their part that they avoided
eli allusion 20 the opera bufd OF the
period and called their work a comedy
for music" II enabled them, in the
presence OF the ignorant 10 assume
d virtue which they did not possess; but
Il is questionable if that circumstance
will help them any. 1t is only the curious
little nowadays who takes the trouble 10
look At the definition. or epithet, on
title page II Is the work which puts the
hallmark on itself: not the whim Of the
composer. 1t would have been wise. very
wise indeed. had Hofmannsthal avoided
everything which might call up com
parisOn between himself and Beaumar-
chais II was simply fatal 10 Strauss
that he tried 10 avoid all comparison De-
tween his treatment OF an eighteenth
century comedy and Mozart's. One OF his
devices was 10 make use Of the system
Of musical symbols which are irrevocably
associated with Wagners method of com
position. Mozart knew nothing OF this
system. but he had better ono In bis
Be2umarclaisian comedy, which Der
RoscnkayalieT" recalls; IL was that of
thema,ic expression for each new turn I'm
the dramatic situation-a system which is
carried out 80 brilliantly in lie NoZze di
Figaro" that there is nothing, even N
Die Mestersnger." which can hold a
candle to il. Another was TO build up
The vocal part Of his comedy on orches-
ral waltzes. Evidently II was his notion
that at the time of Maria Theresa On
whose carly reign the opera is supposed
10 take place. the Niennese world was
given over 10 the dance. IT was so gwen
ever a generation later, so completely
indeed, that at the meetings III inc
itdotto for which Mozart, Haydn, Gyro-
setz. Beethoven and others wrote muse.
RETIRING rooms had 10 be provided FOR
Possible accidents as was one of those de-
sIiscd by Pcpys as occurring at court
osll In his time; but to put scarcely any
'hng but waltz tunes under the dialogue
" Der Rosenkavalicr' Is an anachroli-
ISM which is Just as disturbing TO TIE
Iudicious as the fact that Herr Strauss,
though he starts MS half dozen or more
F" waltzes most insnuatingly, never lets
hem run the natural course which Ian
her and the Viennesc Strauss who sug-
sested their tunes would have made them
"o Always the path which sets out so
Wettily becomes a byway beset with dis
'ohant thorns and thistlcs and clogsed
With rocks
MI OF this is by way of saying that
Der Rosenkavslier' has reached New
FORK after having endured fNNo wears