New-York tribune., 1919-08-24
By Grenville Vernon

The drum beaters for "opera for the
people" were out in force for last
weeks "A1da" at the Sheepshead Bay
racetrack At least $4,000 people sat
in the grandstand or on the track, while
on the stage the music of Verdi, world
famous singers, elephants, camels and
a live Egyptian princess united in one
grand and glorious synthesis. This au-
dience was perhaps the largest that
had ever attended an operatic repre-
sentation: it remained to the end, and
it applauded rapturously. M. Segurola,
who, being the artistic director, ought
to know, proclaimed it an epoch max
ing moment. Mr.. Eysottier, the master
Of publicity and advertising, was uni
versally congratulated on having caused
the aida" to be more talked about than
the approaching strike, and on the
genial faces on Fortune Gallo and An
tonic Ferrara lay the smiles of an
overflowing box office.
Jupiter Pluvius and Mr.. Connolly had
both been gracious. The skies were
clear and the strike was yet eight
hours off. What if the 400 soldiers
who were to have been the army of
Radsnes and the 800 Boy Scouts who
wer - have been ushers did not
show =, On the stage there was an
army, and good one, and an usher
less performance is peculiarly demo-
cratic one 1t enables those who buy
fifty cent seats to invade boxes worth
500 and to fill the aisles in the So
section Last week at Sheepshead Bay
the people went up to art.
Let US not. however, dare to whisper
that art also went down to the people,
that on the back of the elephants and
camels she descended from her pedestal.
Or if we do assert it, let us add that
she has no business being on ped
estal a pedestal being undemocratic
and out of date. Art must mingle,
shake hands, be a good mixer She
must no longer be a divine goddess;
she must be a good fellow. We're all
Wagner and Emma Goldman. So it
was that under the direction of Messrs
Seguroa, Eysottier, Gallo and Ferrara
art and the people embraced--as for
Verdi, that was another matter. He
was always a crusty old follow, who
lived largely in literature and didn't
like callers. Somehow, although the
bills read Aida" we didn't see him
Conductor Polacco told US that he was
in the orchestra, but if he was he kept
himself there. He apparently didn't
feel at home, either, among the camels
or out on the racetrack.
The truth of the matter is that the
Sheepshead Bay "ATda," while interest
ing as a social manifestation and
splendid example of the power of pub
licity, was negligible in any artistic
sense. 1t is odd that with the growth
Of the democratic ideal art has tended
more and more to intimacy, 10 exclu-
siveness. In the old aristocratic days
the theatre was larger, the efforts were
broader. The artist did not fear the
people. But to-day we have the growth
OF the little theatres, the insistence on
intimate detail, emotion expressed
Sptto voce, the theatre of lbsen and the
rest OF the moderns Politically demo-
Gratis, even extreme radicals, our artists
tear instinctively the increasing men
ace of the crowd. In painting, in
poetry, in drama we are becoming more
and more personal.
Such representations as last weeks
Aida are interesting as attempts to
oppose this tendency. The trouble is
that they are working through the