Music: New Operas

In Manhattan, two new operas in one performance were given at the Metropolitan Opera House, La Habanera, by Raoul Laparra, and / Compagnacci, by Primo Riccitelli. These represent an important part of Mr. Gatti’s novelties for the season.

La Habanera is one of those Spanish operas written by Frenchmen, of which Carmen is the grand type. It represents those characteristic Spanish dance rhythms accompanying a bitter tragedy.

Ramon loved the girl whom his brother Pedro had successfully wooed, and one day while the lilting strains of the Habanera sounded, Ramon stabbed Pedro. But Pedro before he died swore that he would come back to haunt his brother, would come back while the Habanera sounded. He did. The ghost, strumming a guitar, appeared to the murderer, while three blind musicians played the Habanera. And the wraith told Ramon that unless he confessed his crime, he, the spectre, would return and claim the living bride. Ramon could not bring himself to confess, and so while he and the young woman knelt over the grave of Pedro, she, not knowing of the crime, to pray for the dead man, and he, pretending to, unseen ghostly arms embraced her and drew her down and she died.

This gloomy tale is, of course, made for music, and the gay Habanera mingled fantastically with tones and orchestrations of sombre tragedy.

The tale which is embodied in I Compagnacci (“The Evil Companions”) is laid in Florence during the days of Savonarola and around the historical episode in which the reformer monk defied his enemies to trial by fire. He and a rival monk would walk through a blazing pyre, the one who emerged unscathed would be pronounced by Heaven to be right.

A zealot of the Savonarola party has affianced his daughter to a fellow puritan. She is loved by a young gallant of the worldly party. The wedding is about to take place. Outside, the trial by fire is about to begin. The young gallant enters by a chimney. There is a; disturbance. The gallant makes a bargain with the zealot father. If the trial by fire does not take place, he shall have the girl. The compact is no more than sealed when a deluge of rain outside extinguishes the flames in which the test was to be made, and the ordeal cannot be held.

The music by Riccitelli was capable and at times brilliant, but never deep or abiding.