New-York tribune., 1919-01-22
Reprinted from yeste'dav's late editions
Opera
\ Marionettc Show With Music
at the Metropolitan
Opera House
By H. f. Krehbiel


intellect and composer of genius and
experience, wrote "Le Coo dor" he
thought he had created an opera. So
dld the Russian censor who, for polit-
the composers death. So did the
manager of the Private Theatre at
Moscow, who produced it in May, 1910.
50 did the composers widow, who pro-
tested, though in vain, as she did
against the choreographic perversion
of "Scheherazade" when the work was
presented as sort Of glorifed Punch
and Judy show in Paris and London in
1872. 1t was in this form that Mr..
Gatti brought it out at the Metropolj-
tan Opera House last March and again.
for the first time this season, last
night.
The excuse offered for the trans
mogritication of the work is that it's
action offers insuperable difficulties to
operate singers. There is nothing
novel in such a contention. 1t stands
as against every lyric drama that
is trife remote from the old-fash-
loned concert in costume. AS a rule
opera singers are not actors. They
wear costumes sometimes of historical
appositeness (not always in these days.
when prima -donna's caprice or
vanity Is paired with popular indiffer-
ence to the serious side of art), wave
their arms, attitudnize and make
more or less pleasing and ineligible
sounds with their voices. That is act
ing as they conceive it to be- Only
few OF the artistic folk at the Metro
polltan have any higher conception of
thelr mission. There was one cxccp-
ton IN evidence last night-Miss
Muzlo, in "Cavalleria Rusticana"-a
very notable exception indeed. But
the rule is as stated.
Il am not here TO act, but to sing"
SAID an indignant tuppcnny tenor to
y rIr. Barker years ago, when he was
preparing an operetta for performance
at the Casino.
God forbid that | should ever un-
dertakc to teach you to act" was the
fcrvent reply; 81 am only trying to
tell you how to get onto the stage,"
And then he confessed to him who is
now recording the incident that the
everlasting punishment which he ex-
pected after death for his sins on
earth was to have to train opera tenors
for new roles in hell 1t was a power
full plea in favor Of the doctrine of uni
vcrsa redemption
We cannot quite accept the ex
PLANTATION OF the transformation of "Lc
Coz dor" as authentic when we recall
the genesis Of the change 1t was
made III a period of the worlds history
very like that in which Dryden said
he lived:
"A very merry, dancing, drinking,
Laughing, quafiing and unthinking
time"
The world had been dance mad for
several years; it was in very truth
"dancing on volcano" The neurolo-
gists of the next generation will no
ject and associate the phenomenon with
the world war. We shouldn't wonder,
although, unlike the nervous disorder
which followed the plague in the four
teenth century, our mania preceded our
war. 1t was precursory instead of "A
sequential symptom.
Our fox-trotting and tangoing had lit
tie to do with the revival of .panto-
mimic dancing by Loie Fuller, Isadora
Duncan and the Russian Ballet, but a
good deal to do with the creation Of
that popular frame of mind which re-
fuses to demand seriousness in the
theatre and is content with a stimula-
ton OF the senses. But perhaps "'twere
to consider too curiously to consider
So"
We received defnitive instruction
touching the proper attitude to hold
when M. Fokine's version of Rimsky-
korsakoH's opera was first vouchsafed
to New Workers. All who saw and heard
the opera -pantomime" were classified
and summarily disposed Of Did you
wish that it had been like something
else? You were an "impossibilist." a
you wish that it might have been pre-
sented as the composer conceived and
created it? You were purist who
wanted to see Hamlet" without seen
cry and Ophelia acted by boy. You
preferred Jail to split infinitive, his
torical accuracy {where that element
enters into consideration we cannot
even guess) to vitality Gas if the two
were antitheticaD, the museum to the
theatre, death to life. If you didn't
like it simply because you didn't like
1T (quite d sufficient reason for wom-
an, we have always understood) you
we're mystery moro dangerous than
TINT and II menace to the artistic
morale of the world.
There you have it; and so there is
nothing more to be said until the work
shall have run its course and the public
have spoken its judgment, not on Rim
sky Korsakoi''s opera, but on Fokine's
fantoccini caperng to the composers
music. We shall take the liberty to
add, however, that as it is ale Coz
d'0r" suggests the coming of "movie'
operas, as it recalls the drama of the
Javar csc, the Chinese shadow plays
and the old English moralitics, in
which puppets played. There was mu-
sic III all these things. Said "The
Spectator" on March 1G, 1711, of Pow
ell, who exhibited under the little
piazza in Covent Garden, "Hs next
opera Of 'Susannah, or Innocence Be-
l. L