The New York herald., 1922-12-03

man, III Wnlcn tDere are Two Snll
done on the Metropolitan Opera Hou
Of the vessels OF Vanderdecken and
rests with Wagner. Ie was no seal
oceanic music of the first order.
In "The Flying Dutchman" the
ture. All the trumpets and trombone
to the sea when once its canvas
orchestra stalls and upon its paint
idle efforts to seem credible. Years
the impresar.o Of the German regim
had big sloop for his vessel. She
the Banks fishermen call a Jumbo jib
She used to sail on Ito accompan
from a right upper entrance, come
board side against the land In the m
quite still and apparently had comp
OF course 1t is not impossible to run
alongside of rocky wall that way.
but 1t is not done in good marine So
ciety. Seamen customarily take in
the lib when rounding to, not after
ward. The writer of these lines said
to Mr. Stanton:
IOu dTS Il luoAlOCl VI SAC ANV"
York Yacht Club and several of your
directors are. Isn't there seaman
ship enough among you to get that
sloop alongside in shipshape man
ner?'
WELL" said Mr.. Stanton, "the Fly
ing Dutchman is permitted to land
only once every seven years and he
forgets how"
Wagner was to blame in the be-
ginning. He wishes us to under
stand that Daland's ship has been
driven by the storm into the bay and
has anchored close to the shore. But
he makes Daland go ashore and back
without the use OF a small boat. The
Dutchman's ship comes scudding into
the same bay and anchors on the op-
posite side of It. and her skipper gets
ashore without boat too. OF course
it all had to be so arranged. An
opera house stage is large, but 1t is
hardly as large as Gravesend Bay.
There is no ship in "Tannh@user."
and painful memories forbid long con-
sideration of the Monsalvat ferry,
which has been known to drop Lohen-
erin into the river The swan will not
always wait for him to step gracefully
20 the shore. No, despite the descent
of the Rhine by Siegfried there are
40 more nautical troubles In the Wag-
s,erian drama till Tristan und Isolde"
"a reached, and then we are almost
overwhelmed by them.
No stage manager, no scenic artist,
70 technical director has ever been
able to overcome the obstacles created
nv a composer who demanded the con-
etruction of a medieval ship with
tent on the deck high enough to give
dignity to tragic scene and at the
rame time required us to believe that
Tristan. standing on the poop deck
rr the helm, could see over that tent
50 as to know whittier he was steering
The Ship of wagner's Mind.
The ship which Wagner had in mind
could not be put on the stage. The
various attempts at a makeshift have
been unsatisfactory. An investigation
OF chronology does not help us. When
did the legendary Tristan have his
tabled existence? The savants do not
know They can tell us that the
legends of the Arthurian cycle. to
which that of Tristan became added,
were of Kettle origin, and that the old
tales of Beroul and Thomas of Brit
tany, from which Gottfried Won Strass-
burg made his epic, date from the
twelfth century. SO, at any rate, II
was before 1900 that Tristan broke
JforoId's head.
This brings the nautical observer 10
something like good holding ground,
for he knows that when Left, the eos
.. Erie sailed out into the unknown
Atlantic-in the year 1000 TO find that
Western land Of which Bjarni Herjulf-
son had boasted. he commanded a ship
much the same as those that carried
the Phpnicians to Spain. and but little
inferior to the Santa Maria OF Colum-
bus, built almost 500 years later.
In an article on 1.-THE Evolution Of
Che Sailing Ship" printed in Munsey's
N few years ago. this writer laid some
stress on the introduction Of the truss
in ship building. The Egyptians. he
HVteu eItlIlOyeu II W bitNFhN tHtii
long slender vessels from 'hogging.'
A vessel .s said TO hog when her bow
and stern droop, causing her to be-
come humpbackedN Shallow hulled
vessels are particularly liable to this
defect. and it is prevented in Ameri-
can steamboats, by the use of the hog
frame. Now the hog frame dates at
least from 1850 p. c., when the Egyp-
tians made IL by erecting two forked
poles, one near the bow and the other
ncer the stern, and stretching a taut
cable from stem TO stern over them.
This same device had its convenience
as we'll as it's usefulness. for the cable
acted as convenient ridge rope for
on awning
And there you see the origin of the
sent in which Isolde RACES and vainly
tries TO poison herself and Tristan
THE ebsuvdity OF making il twenty feet