Opera in Italy

Many of Composer Pietro Mascagni's loud and pessimistic utterings seem prompted by a great personal grievance based on the failure of all his operas since Cavalleria in Rusticana. But his grounds for grumbling last week were broad, not personal. He had been commissioned to investigate the condition of opera in Italy on behalf of the Royal Academy at Rome. He had found: that of 100 opera houses only 15 are financially able to present a creditable winter season; that the reason is "the fictitious and arbitrary valuation'' of singers' services. To directors of the Academy he reported that only a drastic cut in salaries could save opera in Italy. He recommended a system whereby, to compensate, artists would be given longer seasons and the chance to rotate from one opera house to another.

The grave condition of opera in Italy was the reason given recently by Composer Mascagni for endorsing sound films. He even suggested that his own next opera would be composed expressly for the cinema. Said he: "Composers must adapt themselves to the new conditions, as the talkies can be made a medium for educating the masses musically."

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