New Opera Company

For best artistic results it often seems unfortunate that the Metropolitan Opera Company has no competition. Not since Oscar Hammerstein presented French opera at his own Manhattan Opera House has the Broadway company been forced into jacking its standards. Then, in 1910. the Metropolitan directors purchased peace. Hammerstein received approximately a million dollars and in return he promised to present no opera in Manhattan for ten years. The nucleus of his troupe went to Chicago, developed into the Chicago Civic Opera of today, an organization devoted to Italian and French opera. The Metropolitan, unmolested, has stayed Italian and German. The paths of the two never cross. No new group has risen to threaten them. Wagner, thus, in the U. S. has stayed the prerogative of the Metropolitan. It has been given as the management believes the public wants it--cut and trimmed to make a comfortable afternoon or evening. But many an operagoer has been dissatisfied with the cuts and the production in general. Hence with enthusiasm last week they hailed the coming of the German Grand Opera Company* which promised two complete cycles of the Nibelungen Ring, uncut, and a Tristan with Johanna Gadski. Manager George Blumenthal has brought singers from Germany, also a German chef who prepares German food for intermissions.

Epiglottis Remembered

Fritz Reiner is the able conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony. His wife, Berta Gardini-Gerster Reiner, is a vocal teacher, sometimes of Cincinnati, this season of Manhattan. And she is always the daughter of Etelka Gerster, famed Hungarian soprano. Last week in Manhattan, in memory of her mother who died in 1920, Madame Reiner gave a reception, presented her pupils in a special program.

For famed guests, Walter Damrosch. who 50 years ago played accompaniments for Madame Gerster, told anecdotes to recall her invincible personality. Once in St. Louis she announced herself too ill to sing but a certificate was necessary to convince the audience. The physician pronounced just a slight inflammation of the epiglottis and, angry, Madame Gerster sang. His bill of $60 she refused to pay and two years later when she returned to St. Louis the doctor brought suit. But Gerster refused to go to court, said she was too ill. Obligingly then the good-natured judge moved court to her hotel where she sang "The Last Rose of Summer" so charmingly that he dismissed the case.

Turn About

One of Serge Koussevitzky's most debatable novelties in his early days with the Boston Symphony was Pacific 231, by Arthur Honegger, a young French Swiss. When Composer Honegger made his U. S. debut, last week, as conductor of his own works, his orchestra was Mr. Koussevitzky's. Turn about, one sage remarked in the lobby of the Cambridge Theatre, was fair play indeed in this case. Honegger won fame in the U. S. by the snorts and puffs of his giant locomotive. Fair enough, then, that Boston should see him first, hear his Rugby (TIME, Nov. 19) before he took it on an extended tour.*

Pacific 231 won Honegger fame from Boston to California. It stimulates the vogue for putting all manner of mechanical sounds into music. Alone, and on first hearing, however, it failed to inspire any widespread confidence. People were becoming increasingly wary of modern composers. Repeated hearings of the Pacific were necessary to convince that it was more than freakish stuff. But for five years now it has endured, and since, substantiating it as ringing, vital music, there have been King David, Antigone, Judith, now Rugby.

"A rather short and stocky gentleman, emerging in evening clothes from the ante room . . . looked neither to right nor left, took two at a time the steps leading to the stage . . . Arthur Honegger, arisen, significant, acknowledged figure of the new generation." So. last week, did H. T. Parker of the Boston Transcript appraise Boston's guest conductor. Thus are adjectives made to grow, for five years ago Honegger had been just a precocious fellow who at seven had composed two operas in the treble clef, as he knew no other, at eleven some 30 sonatas, in his twenties one of the Group of Six in Paris, blustering fellows, so many thought, organized to acquaint the public with their music. Now Honegger remains supreme of the Six. His wife. Pianist Andree Vaurabourg-Honegger, plays his compositions, last week played with him his delectable Concertino. Pacific 231 he now calls Boom! Boom! Rugby, a sound picture of a football match, teems with driving conflict. It takes twelve minutes to play, and, strangely enough, uses no percussion.

*TIME will review the performances of the German Grand Opera Company in the next issue. *;Composer-Conductor Honegger's tour takes him to Cambridge, Mass., Boston, Manhattan, Chicago, St. Paul, Kansas City, Detroit, Denver, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Buffalo.