New-York tribune., 1921-12-04
By H. E. Krehbiel

assaehow we are not reconciled to
A. selection Of Bruges as the theatcr
I gerngold's opera, which is thus far
she only novelty in the repertory Of tho
| ustxopolitan Opera House. We do not
| tnow why it should be called the Dead
e;ty. There may be some analysis or
Inscription in Rodenbach's novel or
n]ay which justifies the title, but there
/, none in the opera. Paul might have
Ais chambers as a memorial to his
dssd wife as we'll in Paris or Vienna.
which we believe are set down as the
tuical centers of European gayety.
without injury to the psychological
study which underlies "Die Tote Stadt."
Il fact, in view OF the music, which is
relied on to relieve the gloom of all
of the opera which is pertinent to the
plot, Vienna would have offered q
likelier scene for it than the mos.
melancholy and lifeless SPOT in Bel
rum or France; for the composers at
tempts st gayety are all suggestive Of
viennese merriment. 1t is a pity that
the attempts are so scant of breath,
80 sicklied DER with the pale cast of
thought--of laborious anxiety to avoid
the obviously natural and desirable.
Like Strauss in his "Rosenkavalier"
Though not so often) Korngold drops
into waltz rhythm, but NO sooner do
We surrender ourselves to the ingrati-
sting lit than the composers drop it
d a thing too vulgar to be admitted in
to thh operate society of to-day. Too
vulga.? 0 ye Strausses! There was
not one of you that did not ooze more
melody, show more naive inventiveness
in your waltzes than your latter-day
uamesake in all his symphonic poems
or your youthful townsman in his
opera. Compare any ten minutes of
"Die Fledermaus" with all the hours
OF "Rosenkavalier" or "Salome" or
"Elektra" or "Die Tote Stadt." Why do
the waters of the beautiful Blue Dan
ube flow SO sluggishly and turbidly
past Vienna since the death of Johann
Strauss, the younger, and why have we
had no serious opera worthy of the
name from the Imperial City for more
than a generation? Was not Gold
marks Queen of Sheba" the last of
her acceptable gifts?
The City of Bruges
And It's Memorials
We do not know why we set out to
defend Bruges against Rodenbach and
the transmogrifers of his book and
play. Probably only because of an in
grained habit of analysis, a desire to
know the wherefore Of authors pur-
poses. We have no right to hold a
brief for Bruges. We have never even
visited the place, to roam the street
and study it's memorials of medieval
art-its sculptures, paintings, meta
efhgies and specimens Of Gothic archi-
lecture. Only for few minutes die
we once look from a little distance
upon the famous belfry in the market
place, where Longfellow saw incidents
of it's historic past with the eyes OF his
imagination, but, as good luck would
have it, in those few minutes we heard
the "heart of iron beating in Its an
cient tower" and listened to
"The melancholy chimes,
With their strange, unearthly changes,
Like the psalms from some old cloister
when
The nuns sang in the choir,
And the great bell tolled among them
like the
Chanting of friar.''
But, somehow, our heart went out to
the old town and we do not like to
think Of 1t as dead. If the bells did
not chime in the old Flemish city young
Korngold would have been deprived of
the one bit of local color with which he
enriched his score. He did not strive
for verify, but without his bells his
music might have been taken from No
mans or Anyman's Land and diluted
with the rolled beer of Austria and the
spiced wine of Puccini's Italy.
The commercial glory of Bruges is
gone and its bankers no longer regu-
late the rate Of exchange in Europe;
but inGastry still thrives and its
monuments of medieval art, and Long
fellow has shown us how its traditions
may stir the fancy and emotions of
men and women not fettered by the
materialistic tendencies of to-day. Any
city Of Europe not ceaselessly disturbed
by the hurry and clash and clangor of
steel and iron manufacture might have
been as aptly chosen as the place in
Which carousing gang of comedians
mimicked the ballet from Meyerbeer's
Robert le Diable"-as aptly and also
Is ineptly. As ineptly, we say, because
the minds of artist-folk ought to have
oeen exercised by very different
thoughts, by memories of more beauti-
iul and moving traditions, by visions of
baldwin, who married the daughter of
Alfred the Great; Of the Duke of Bur-
eundy and the Knights of the Golden
Fleece, Of proud Maximilian and gentle
Mary
and her lighted bridal chamber, where
a duke slept with the queen,
Ann the armed guard around them, and
Tue sword unsheaved between"
We wonder, by the way, how many
'pesagoers have thought Of the ancient
custom of prnxvyco rr;cra raforrnd m