Judith in London

Rochester, N. Y., where he teaches opera in the Eastman School of Music; Hollywood, in whose famed Bowl he is to conduct concerts and "concertized opera" this summer; and England, where he is a member of the Royal College of Musicians, all sat up last week to take notice of Composer Eugene Goossens' new opera, Judith. England sat up the most sharply because the premiere was at Covent Garden and because it was the first all-British opera in a long time. Novelist Enoch Arnold Bennett wrote the libretto and beamed from a box, while Composer Goossens bowed from the stage, during the ovation. The cast, furthermore, was all-British except for the title part, sung and danced by Gota Ljungberg, able Scandinavienne.

Eugene Goossens' parents were Flemish, but he was born in Liverpool 36 years ago and schooled there. The violin is his favorite instrument. His taste inclines to creative modernism. Librettist Bennett, sticking close to his Bible, furnished the composer with a wieldy vehicle stressing only the orthodox characters--Judith, enchantress of besieged Bethulia; Holofernes, the lusty besieger, whom she beguiles and then beheads; Haggith, Judith's maid, who smuggles the bloody head into the town; Achior, lieutenant of Holofernes who is bound to a stake, and released by Judith, for his disinclination to storm Bethulia; Bagoas, the chief eunuch, who is captivated by Judith's beauty but fears her designs. The Goossens music for these parts is oriental, sultry, sufficiently comprehensive to win staid London's loud applause. The last new Judith, by Composer Arthur Honegger, created, with its experimental dissonances, a minor critical furore at its Chicago premiere (TIME, Feb. 7, 1927).*

Notes

Hempel on Talkies. Frieda Hempel (onetime Mrs. William B. Kahn), on the verge of signing a talking picture contract, wrote an article on this "inventive and progressive age" for the New York World. Excerpts: "I am entirely fearless in viewing the future of opera and the concert in the era of sound motion pictures. . . . Wonderful as motion pictures with sound really are ... we must not forget that they can only imitate a human being and not recreate one. . . . However, the radio, the phonograph and the talking picture are almost uncanny in their reproductions. ... I believe [sound pictures] will raise the standard of both. The concert and the opera have always attracted the more discriminating part of the entertainment seeking public and such people will probably become even more discriminating."

Chautauqua. Last week Chautauqua Institute opened its 56th annual session on the shores of Chautauqua Lake, N. Y. Some 300 varied programs will be crowded into an eight-week season, including 41 symphony concerts, eight popular operas in English. Conductor: Albert Frederic Stoessel of Manhattan's Oratorio Society.

On Mills Campus. The Stradivarius Quartet, successor to the Flonzaleys (TIME, March 11), has begun a series of 28 concerts on the campus of Mills College (Oakland, Calif.), are also teaching at the Mills College Summer School of Music.

Schipa's Show. In Rome last week opened a musical comedy called Principessa Liana, with a love plot about a princess and a troubadour. The author-composer: Tenor Tito Schipa of the Chicago Opera Company. Success: immediate.

Bostonians Abroad. From Boston came news that, during May and June 1930. on official invitation, Conductor Serge Koussevitzky and his Boston Symphony Orchestra will tour Great Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Holland. Czechoslovakia, Austria and Switzerland.

Ponselle Company. From Old Orchard, Me., takeoff place for trans-Atlantic flights, came report of an All-Star Grand Opera to be organized by Carmela Ponselle, onetime Metropolitan contralto, sister of Soprano Rosa Ponselle. Miss Ponselle announced an opening at Manhattan's Metropolitan in the fall; a tour of the East, South, Midwest.

*Other Judith operas: Gotze (1887); Aerov (1862); George Whitfield Chadwick (1900); Max Ettinger (1922); von Reznicek (1923).