Goossens-Bennett Opera

Last summer Judith, a one-act opera in English based on the apocryphal legend of Judith and Holofernes,* the music by Eugene Goossens, the text by Novelist Enoch Arnold Bennett, had its world premiere at London's Covent Garden (TIME, July 8). Last week Judith was given its first U. S. performance by the enterprising Philadelphia Grand Opera Company. Soprano Bianca Saroya was satisfactorily bloodthirsty as Judith. Russian Basso Ivan Steschenko sang sonorously as Holofernes but failed to make intelligible the pompous passages done by Novelist Bennett in the Biblical idiom. British Composer Goossens conducted his music which, if lacking in originality, at least proved him a skilled and energetic workman.

Coates Opera

Another one-act opera by another British conductor had its premiere last week in Munich. Samuel Pepys was its name, Albert Coates its composer. Librettists Richard Price and Lieut.-Col. W. P. Drury concocted a characteristic Pepys plot out of their imaginations, had the scampish Samuel entertain an actress, Mistress Knipp, with wines and spinet-playing; had Mistress Pepys return inopportunely but not until Mistress Knipp had time to disguise herself as the Merry Monarch Charles II honoring his Secretary of the Admiralty with a visit. Muencheners greatly liked this synthetic Pepys given them in the translation of Max Meyerfeld. They waxed enthusiastic over the simple, deftly turned music of Composer Coates, likened its gaiety, its crinkling charm to Mozart's.

*The Jewess Judith beguiles the general Holofernes, comes from King Nebuchadnezzar to capture the city of Bethulia. She chops off his head, exhibits it proudly to her people.

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