The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-05-05
Chatter of the South's Season
 of Grand Opera Just Ended
Matters of Social News-Prospecve Eventssurage Tea Dance Be An Event of the Evening Party for Charity-Other Topics Movements of Well Known
 People-The Coming of the Chautauqua
By MYRTLE MILES

Birmingham again went to Atlanta this year for the grand season, which foi-
 lows the lighter moments of musical en-
 joyment in the Georgia city. Birming-
 ham was there in the persons of num- Der of representatives of its musical life and social life but not in such large num- bers as formerly. The major portion of the representation went over late in the week, and at the production of "The Masked Ball." which many thought the most enjoyable of all the series, and the four later ones. Madame Butterfly" ''Lohengrin," T Paglacci' and "Caval- leria Rusticana," there were so many familiar faces to be seen in the vast throng crowding the auditorium that we all had that exceedingly pleasurable sen sation which may be called "at-home- ness"
 The opera and its incidental pleasures change but little from year to year in the main characteristics. The average audience was larger this season than on my last visit two years ago. More chairs have been added In the auditorium, so that the business of entering after ones
 
 cult. almost tortuous task The seats, never especially comfortable, are not i'm proved through this muYtiplication of the houses capacity, and it has the tendency to arouse in the heart of a Birmingham booster" whether feminine or mascu- line, the desire to return home at once and insist upon the erection of huge auditorium-one that shall exceed the capacity of Atlanta's by several thou sand, that shall have comfortable seats and a floor that does not threaten in spots ocave in, and that shall boast an organ as lovely as the one that Is At lantas. A visit to Atlanta in opera time certainly brings these patriotic impulses. when one sees the multiplicity of good hotels over there and remembers the strides our city has taken in the past year or so and it's plans for even better future accommodations for its guests, 1t does not seem a far cry to opera of our own. perhaps for week in the fall when the Chicago or the Boston opera com pany could be induced to visit our DOT ton of the sunny south for week.
 Not that Atlanta leaves anything un- done in its courtesies to opera stars or guests; certainly no big city could throw more warmth into it's welcome of strangers within it's gates. Society puts on 1lS Bdld dTeSS, opens US HofleS anu it's fashionable clubs to fhe visitors play ing it's part en masse, as might be ex- pected of one perfect host Hotel pro- prietors and their employees and people in the humber walks of life add each their bit of gratuitous service when they may because it is Atlanta's way to pop ularize herself.
 Impressions
 She audience Monday evening. when there were few Birmingham people pres ent, was said to be the largest except Friday evening and Saturday evening, when the aisles were crowded. Miss Geraldine Farrar sang that evening and made delightful Cio-Cio-San, though not as pretty as she might have been had her costume been more becoming. The beau- tiful singer is frail and i'll this spring. and as her little body clad in it's green kimono, dropped over the child as she sang to it with expiste motrehrliness there were not few who noted the pit fable slenderness of her shoulders and the fragile outline of her cheeks. As she resp0ndeded to encore earlier in the week she was supported on either side, being too weak after her singing to stand alone. Miss Farrar is extravagantly ad- mired In Atlanta. and there is a general hope that she will recover her strength this summer. Riccardo Martin sang the role of Pinkerton, circumstance that did not create an especially vivid impress sion, the general consensus of opinion be- Ing that he did not utilize in this role even the rather inconspicuous opportunity which was his. The criticism, offered re- gently by "Mephisto'' in Musical America of Miss Farrar interpretation of Cio-Cio- San (which myself do not share), that Farrar is Farrar. the gay, joyous rather young American rather than the meek shrinking Japanese white slave of Puccini's creation-such crit- cism was given Martins work in But