New-York tribune., 1922-02-15

food. drink and raiment for her. He
/ saves the third lemon Til he reaches
the castle OF the king his father. There
he first provides sumptuously for the
bride that il TO be, and then cuts the
fruit. The third damscl, lovelier than
either OF her predecessors. remains, of
course, and royal wedding follows.
The Characteristics Of MIR. Prokoiicff's s
Music
We have no time to inquire into the
literary feiblos or maNneri sms which
GozIi sought to castiGate in his satire,
Whatever they were they are unneces-
sarily retained by Mr.. Proko ofictf III his
motley crew of tragedians. comedians.
lyricists. blockheads who are all sym
boiical OF something Of course that
provide a meaningless prologue to the
farcical play and incumoe it as spec
tators from prosc.nium boxes to the
end. They. with tho invcrtebratc music
to which the people cf the play chat
ter and glbber oun s..r,eS. make the
first hour Of the opera deadly dull
With the entrance Of the episode OF
the opening OF the oranges Mr..
Trokofeffs music becomes dccora-
tive and shows influences whose
emanation is from StraNinsilv's
"Petrouchka" and Rimsky- -korsakofr's s
Cog DOR though it never attains the
mclodic conference Of a single page Of
those works. 1t is full Of grotesoue
rather than fantastic sounds and rests
upon an exaggerated use of the char
aotsiist stcaily Russian device of rciter-
ated fundamental figures which rumble
along by the hour without relief from
single plastically interesting mclodic
phrase except that which forms the
basis OF weirdly hsrmonized march
which is heard at intervals and put
TO varied uses
1t is this curse Of monotony and the
mass OF matter extraneou , the story
and unessential because its reason for
existence disappeared with the things
IN dramatic literature which we think
must prevent 1t from obtaining even
temporary foothold here or elsewhere.
In Itself the music must be counted Il
clog upon the caricatured fairy tale
even by ta",e willing and even eager
70 accept s{ly music OF the kind which
Ny. ProA>fleF has conceived. CON
trived, concocted, made. or. ii YOU will.
composed. 1t is a bit singular that sew
eral Italian composers have gone to
their national literature of something
more than a century ago, though none
of them has thought Of giving it Rus
sian dress. Gozzi's "Turandot." Of
which Schiller thought so we'll that he
turned it into German play for which
Weber wrote an overture lutillzlng
genuine Chinese tune fer its subject,
mas been turned into an opera by Mr..
busoni. Some of it's music was pro-
duced in New York by the late M.
Mailer, and made an agreeable impress
sion, If our memory serves US rightly.
The scenery painted by Mr.. Anis-
field, with great skill and a riotous cX-
penditurc Of imagination. and the
capital acting Of half d dozen of the
artists IN the company, chiefly Mir.
Mojica, Edouard Cotreuil, William
Beck, Octave Qua, Hector Dufranne
and Nina koshe,2. provided all that
was really interesting in the perform
ance and won several curtain calls
for the singers. Mr. Coini, the stage
manager and Mr.. ProkofieN, who dis
OF composer and conductor. For the
sake of the record the cas-, Of char
acte1s is appended
The King Of Clubs. King Of ar mag
The Pvince. his son ........... Jose Mojics
Tho princess ciariee niece q M ne NinE
l.eardrs, Prime Minister William Bee
IronHsliino -............-.. .Oet"T" Iua
rns Magician rchcio ,1ec,er lrs'1 pn%rann
+ alta Morsana, witch h..... Nina Noshet1
The DcvN Farfarelio .........Ja alnes Wolf
Smerrldinc .............. Jeanne Schneider
The Master OF cercmonies
Nine,ta. i.5n.,ta Nlcolctta (Prince-scs)
Jeanne pusseau. Frances PapeNte, nhl-
line Faico
The Herald ...................Je jerome lhi