New-York tribune., 1918-01-20

to como with them and pick flowers,
see the pretty fishes skimming through
the waters, chase the butterflies, play
at games, etc, all Of which would be
better business than floating around
the throne" as they do, while the
grown-up ballet women walk about the
stage and swing property" garlands.
If they are of marriagcabc age why
are they not so presented? Why should
we be denied a sight of Elizabeth
Easton and Hermann Whitehill until
their twin children (they are obviously
of the same age) are six or seven years
old? Why not wedding and hiari-
GUS ballet at once if changes were to
be made?
We overlooked that till now because
of our too great wonderment at the
scene of Elizabeth's almsgiving, sud-
den death and apotheosis in grove Of
California redwood trees which ends
this strange, cventful history. 1t is a
wonderful grove, with trees Of gigantic
girth reaching up to the stage flies
without a branch. The ground is level
as a ballroom floor and as free of un-
derbrush as the most sterile spot in the
Desert of Sahara. There is a big
! bowlder in the background (stage
righD which might be presumed to be
Flizabeths shelter after her cruel ex-
pulsion from the Wartburg; but after
while we learn that it is the lurking
place of a celestial arch which grows
up like a mushroom and carries Eliza
beth and four of her poor dependents
with her. We have seen her die, but not
them, and why they are translated with
her a la Marguerite in "Faust" we do
not know The lbretto does not help
US. In it Elizabeth dies quite natural
death in hut, after giving her last
drop Of wine and her last crust of
bread to the poor who come to her for
| aims. But to present such scene
would not satisfy an Urban or Ordyn-
ski. So the whole company is trans
ported to California (we think, never
having seen trees like Mr.. Urban's in
the Thuringian Forest), where, under
the redwoods (Which the chorus apos-
trophies as "a roof Of want") (Hut-
tenddch) she pours wine lavishly out
of one of the big silver ewers, probably
borrowed from the Temple of the Grail,
dies out of hand and goes to Heaven
in the manner indicated.
But we have been forgetful again.
There is a small tree of different
species growing quite conspicuously,
because lonesomely, under the big trees.
And when the scene gets light enough,
after the most singular Milky Way ever
seen has changed into a cloud the
bluest sky that ever was has paled in
the sunrise, and the twinklingest stars
that ever twinkled have palod their
too etfectual fires, the tree is seen to
be cruciform and to shine, like tho
earlier cross, by its own light. Eliza
beth says her prayers kneeling before
it, remembering her native land like
dutiful Hungarian. and then there
comes tiny snowstorm of rose leaves
or confctti--we do not know which.
Re3lism-or What:
Nor do we care very much. What we
should like to know is why all this lu-
dicrous stuff has been injected into a
work which, if it had to be, might have
been turned into drama with two or
three fairly effective scenes by much
simpler means. What was the notion
which prompted scene painter, stage
manager and conductor so to maltreat
the oratorio? A desire for realism?
Scarcely, though when opera producers
get to work on realistic lines they have
been known to do things quite as un-
utrerably absurd We recall a too
wonderful scene when "Guilaume Tell"
was put on the stage long ago. The
story plays in one of the lovelest spots
IN Switzerland, as every traveller knows.
Lake Lucerne is gem Of the lovaliness
which God dropped among the lower
Alps. On its shores, opposite Tells
Chapel, supposed to mark the spot where
he sent his arrow into the tyrant's heart.
nestles the bit Of greensward which ia
the Gruti where the patriots entered
into their patriotic compact. 1t would
have delighted thousand spectators to
have seen a recognizable reproduction
Of bit of the Vierwaldstattersee's
shores, especially the Grutli. What did
the scene painter and stage manager
do! In defiance of God and nature thew
Quilt cave in tho Alps and had the
gathering of the clans there. Thew made