Rose Cavalier

It is a perfumed story, fit for an opera. After a night of pleasure, the young Count Octavian and the Princess von Werdenberg were interrupted in the boudoir of the Princess by a visit from her loutish cousin, Ochs von Lerchenau. To avoid detection, the Count Octavian quickly put on the clothes of a maid servant and listened to the plans of the preposterous Ochs, who wished a cavalier to go for him to his supposed fiancee, Sophie von Faminal, and present her with a silver rose to indicate his matrimonial intentions. The embassy was entrusted to the Count Octavian.

As the Princess might have anticipated, Octavian found the young Sophie more alluring than herself, and immediately set about detaching Sophie's affection from the fat and lecherous Ochs. This was done in an instant, and it was next necessary for the count to employ strategies in order to prevent the degrading marriage which Ochs intended. There was room at the inn to which Ochs abducted the maid (Octavian), whom he had ogled in the boudoir of the Princess. Octavian played tricks on Ochs. The police, Sophie's father, the Princess arrived, but none of them stayed the course of young love, and presently Ochs took himself off and the Rose Cavalier, removing his disguise, kissed his bride.

The story by Hugo von Hofmannstahl fits cunningly the music of Richard Strauss. Der Rosenkavalier has become for many one of the world's great operas, performed too infrequently in the U. S. The role of the Princess contains a most sad and beautiful aria on growing old which Frieda Hempel, Rosa Raisa and Florence Easton have often sung to notable effect. The role of Octavian is to be played by a woman, since the lover masquerades as a woman through much of the action, and is only 17 years old at best.

Here, however, is perhaps one reason why performances of Rosenkavalier are rare in the U. S. It is hard to find among the eccentric ranks of the sopranos any who are capable of filling, but not bursting, the trousers of the count, of being funny and at the same time handsome. There is one such at the Metropolitan, Jeritza; but she, always uncomfortable in trousers, does not like the role. Who, then, last week, was to sing Rosenkavalier, already once postponed, when Soprano Greta Stueckgold, who had been selected for the part last week, fell sick?

Who but Jeritza, despite her distaste and although she had already been billed for the first Carmen of the season? While in a rehearsal of this celebrated opus she was informed of the indisposition of Soprano Stueckgold, and immediately asserted that if the Metropolitan found suitable costumes she would be Count Octavian. Manager Gatti Casazza rubbed his hands with happiness, Wardrobe Mistress Pangoni put pins in her mouth and took up shears, Jeritza stood impatiently, answering the questions of newsgatherers, while the pretty but uneasy clothes of the count grew up around her, like the scaffolding of a superlative statue. "I like to show Gatti I can work," said Jeritza.

Human interest stories of the diva's sacrifice appeared in all news-sheets, written with the most ghastly flaccidity. There was no flaccidity about Maria Jeritza. She sang Rosenkavalier one eve ning, prowling happily through Strauss' high notes and the tinted words of Hugo von Hofmannstahl. The next afternoon, she was Carmen, a lady for whom love wore different colors.