New-York tribune., 1920-04-03
'Parsifal' Is
Heard Here
A Fifth Time
Presentation ON Good FRIDAY
Is in Line With the Gus
tom That Has Prevailed
for Last Fourteen Years
Miss Easton Well Received
She Wins Success in the Por-
trayal of Kundry for the
First Time in This Citv
By H. f. Krehbiel

"Parslfal" received its fifth repre-
sentation for this season at the Met
fopolitan Opera House Yesterday after
,loon. Three of the representa- lions have
oeel' ~ me regular subscription and this
custom which has prevailed for fourteen
years of reserving it for HOLIDAYS Evcr
since the season Of 1903-'O4 it has been
specihcally Good Friday Offering. for
Whlch IT'S third act, which plays on a
1000 rlday and has much to say about
1he day of mourning, makes it pecu-
Iarly appropriate.
Yesterdays audience, which crowded
me house, seemed indisposed to ac
cept Mr. Gattis suggestion that the
YORK be looked upon as opera merely.
apparently 1T viewed it as solemn, if
not a religious, function. This was in
ulcated by an incident for which our
memory can find no parallel in this
city: after the first act not a sinele
listener attempted to applaud. fx-
prcsslons Of approval have always been
stopped heretofore cas- was the hand
ciapplng of few persons yesterday at
the end of the drama) by Kisses: but
When the curtain was closed on the
mrs. act on this occasion not a sound
was made to dispel the dccp Impression
made by the solemn ceremonial which
mao just been witnessed. The circum-
sIance was an index to .-e character Of
the audience. Whether or not the
tact that the vcrnacuar was used mad
anything to do with the case cannot
be said. At any rate the incident was
noteworthy
Miss Easton Scores
Noteworthy, too, was change in
the cast. For the first time i'm this
city the character of Kundry was i'm
personated by, Miss Florence Easton,
which fact makes pertinent the obser
walton that in review of the rcnre
sentatlon there must be a reversal Of
the opinion often expressed heretofore.
that the dction Of artists to whom the
veinacuar is foreign tongue is, as a
rule, better than that of singers to
whom it is native. The most intelli-
gible singers yesterday were Miss
Easton. an English woman, and Messrs.
Harold and Whitehill, two Americans.
he work of the gentlemen was not up
to the standard set by them at the
earlier approximations. The reasons
were not obvious, nor were the inhu-
cnces which wrought much untuneful-
ness in the choruscs of the first act.
1t would be pitiful if it were true that
pcrfunctoriness, the artistic vice which
mars so many of the Metropolitan rep
resentations, had already seized upon
the English "Parsifal."
Portrays Character SplendidIy
There is no lyric drama which so
quickly and emphatically resents care
iessness, Indifference or Incidence
as Wagncrs religious play. Without
wishing to indulge in the cant affected
by Wagner's idolaters, it may be said
that if justice is to be done to the work
there must be new conservation of
their powers on the part of everybody
concerned, from the conductor down tJ
the last scene shifter, at every repre-
sentation.
Miss Easton's performance disclosed
a beautiful and profoundly poetical
conception of the strange creature
which Wagner compounded out of two