New-York tribune., 1920-01-31

q a
concert Of the Banks Glee Club in 1881
and right wellmade music of the old
operatic kind II was.
The opera had had stage representa-
tion a. Niblo's Garden, but that was
oei ore we were recording musical do
ings in New York, about the time. we
fancy, when other men who also we
knew were making operas out o.
american tales-Ardite out of Cooper's
Spy and Maritzik out Of Irving's
Sleepy Hollow" But we must nut q
stop to this memorial Numbering or
we shall never come to Hecuba
of one thing we feel certain-no
hbrettlst before Mr. Nsckaye treated
the subject as ne has done His folk
opera Is unique in many respects. but
so singular in nothing else as in the
manner IN which ne dissipates the folk
or human element. tfter it has
served TO introduce a few personages
bearing familiar names, and some
others who are the children of his
fancy, the folk give way 10 ghosts and
ialrles and katydIds. whlppoorwills and
ooholinks
The good old Schiedam schnapps with
which the old Rip Van Wlnkle used to
warm the cookies of his heart {and
ours. too) is replaced by magic
clock twenty wears for Rip. so that he
may marry the tomboy whose sister
ne eglected to marry in the first act,
Keeps the hoyden at a marriageable age
IN the interim, but in most unac~
countabIe manner etiaces all the real
people Of the story except Rip and his
new BRIDE and repeop es the stage with
the supernatural folk who had occu-
pied II at the beginning
his is the consequence Of Mr
Nackaye's effort to remould the old
legend for poetical and operatic pur~
poses. 1t is d remouldlng with a ven
geance, and We do not like it. We do
not approve Of a Dutch ghost who sings
chanty with the refrain of "Blov the
Man Down"
Operate Choctaw
Remembering the effect which used
to be made by the scene between Rim
and Hendrick Hudson's men in the
mountain, when the latter left ali
speech to Rip, to whose questions they
replied only with mods and gestures.
and rehectlng how admirably that scene
might nave been clothed with music
which would have heightened it's solem-
nity and supernaturalism, we cannot
approve Of ghosts which are not
Margaret argues in "Ruddigore," they
sing choruses in public and try to be
Nilbertlan by periodical calculations
like So most decidedly sol" "Un-
doubleday moi" Enthusiastically sol"
and so on. And we cannot like Dutch
man of the seventeenth century who
says to one Of his sailormen, "Dirck,
you're rattled"; or an eighteenth cen
tu!y Dutch American who says, "Here's
how, captain and so long to ye," III
proposing health, and who speaks of d
TIT of intoxication as a jag
1t must not be supposed that we
heard these things last night. We read
them in the book of the opera and
hopefully trust that they were sung.
ON that point we can say nothing, for
not two dozen words were intelligible
to us. though we had had the help Of
a reading of the libretto and listened
attentively and wlstfully.
1t was all operate Choctaw, that of
Eve yn Herbert. who was the heroine
of the opera and the evening, and Of
Edna Darch, who was the shrew who
would not wait for Rip to come back
with the mgic flask but incontinently
got married and gave birth to d round
dozen Of children before Rip woke out
of ms drunken sleep no less than
that of Georges Baklanoff, who was an
unfamiliar Rip Van Winkle, or Hector
Dufranne or Edouard Cotreuil or Gus
tave Huberdeau, who were equally un-
familiar figures as Hendrick Hudson,
Dirck puytenduyvil and Nicho olas Vcd
der. As for Edmond Warner, he was
a stuttercr, Mr. Mackaye evidently
thinking that the misfortune of a phys
ical impeachment Of speech was comic
material. 1t did not make the char
acter OF Jan Van BuMmel funny: II
only introduced some cack!ing' music
in the orchestral score
Though the opera was in many things
a appointment to us. we fancy that
it might have been made still can be.
for that mattter) an agreeable enter
tainment by Il simple process Of editing.
1t needs only to be made an honest
operetta by eliminating all of the mu-
SIC, except the set songs, solo and
ensemble. This would not remove the
blight OF Mr. Mackaye's disregard of
the human clement but it would let
the best features OF Mr. De koven's
music stand out in proper relief. and
would make tho nIot as we'll as the
dialogue intellislbc-
Lacks Pretty Music
The lure which the lbrcttist held
out III the SuI rNatural scenes was ONs
that the composer had not the ability
to follow. Had there been a Humper-
dinck to write the music for the scene
in the woods and mountains. with the
voices Of birds and insects ard shortly
e ,oes OF human voices, mingled in
nature symphony. much Of Mr.. Mac
hayes adventure into fairland would
have found beautiful justification.
But there was none Of the pretty
music which the poetica device in
vitod, and the composer had not at his
command one harmony TO suggest the
upcrnaturalsm which nj ght have been
made to fill the second act.
The kAtydids, whippoorwills and
echoes were all grosslv materializod.
and the crew OF the Half Moon were
not ghosts. but come opera choristers.
Much more might have been made on;
of the scene in the Catskils by max
ing It much less and filing the smaller
measure with music OF the kind called
for uncanny, haunted and haunting,
ghostiy.
There are good pictures in the opera
and there was some good singing by
the foreign gentlemen. Miss Herbert
lived n the oxygen-laden atmosphere
of the musical comedy stage, and was
so incessantly occupied with her arms
and legs that she did not SIG as well
as She probably can or as she would
have sung had she been more heodful