Music: Sadko

A few years ago half the U. S. was humming a teasing melody called “The Song of India.” Many a wailing tenor and shrilling soprano delivered it in cinema-houses and on radio programs. Jazzmen syncopated it successfully. . . .

In the middle ages a proud port of trade was the free city of Novgorod, situated on Lake Ilmen in what is now Northern Russia, some 100 miles from Leningrad. Merchants there knew that they owed their prosperity to the singer Sadko, often told their children how he had made the River Volkhov to flow, thus opening their city to the sea. The legendary Sadko appealed to famed Russian Composer Nicolas Andreievich Rimsky-Korsakov, who wrote an opera about him in which is included “The Song of India.” In its proper setting, in the opera Sadko, it was heard for the first time in the U. S. last week at Manhattan’s Metropolitan Opera House.*

Story. Sadko, a singer who played on the gousla (ancient Russian handharp), was summoned to entertain banqueting merchants. Instead of praising them, his singing boasted of what he would do with their opportunities, so that they drove him into the streets. Thence he went to the shores of Lake Ilmen, sang sorrowfully until there appeared Volkhova, Princess of the Sea. Instantly she loved Sadko for his song, told him that if he cast his net into the waters he would draw forth three golden fishes which would spell wealth, happiness. Sadko rushed home, cast aside his doting wife, proceeded to the quay where he wagered the merchants his head against their wealth that he could catch the golden fish. When he succeeded, found himself with heaps of glittering bullion, he asked three strangers what lands to seek. A Varangian sang of his bleak country, a Hindu sang of India (here in the opera comes the long-suffering “Song”), but a Venetian tempted him most.

For twelve years Sadko sailed the seas, accumulating wealth, forgetting to pay tribute to the King of the Sea who had given him the magic fish. When he remembered, gold, silver and pearls were not enough and Sadko had to sacrifice himself. In the sea, the grisly King would have chastised him but Volkhova intervened. She and Sadko married, with undines, lobsters, jellyfish and whales for guests. During the dancing which followed, the old king worked himself into a frenzy, called down everlasting grief upon all ships and men. But St. Nicholas, a legendary hero, saved Novgorod and stripped the King of power. Volkhova was transformed into a shining river; Sadko returned home, a hero.

Performance. Obviously a vast sum was spent on the Metropolitan’s Sadko. The opera demands elaborate, fantastic pictures and, in most instances, Russian Designer Serge Sovdeikine realized them. Particularly striking was the banqueting scene where bearded, bright-coated merchants sat bibbing under a queerly-angled, vivid roof; the scene on the quay where gabbling townspeople watched the crack-brained Sadko fishing for his fortune; the bottom of the sea with its fish-folk orgy. Of the performers, Tenor Edward Johnson as Sadko sang sternly to the merchants, but beguilingly to the sea princess. Many in the audience reflected that he alone of all great male opera singers has the grace desirable for so fanciful a part. Others, however, wished that he could have achieved more of the heroic, legendary dimensions suggested by the role. Soprano Editha Fleischer sang sensuously. Conductor Tullio Serafin drew out of his orchestra all the scintillating tonality which the composer could have desired of the score.

Composer. The music of Rimsky-Korsakov is shining, ornamental stuff, richly Russian in its sheen. That it is smooth, well made, is a never-ending source of wonder to those acquainted with the facts of his career. For Nicolas Andreievich Rimsky-Korsakov did not begin life as a musician. He was sent to the Naval College at St. Petersburg as befitted the son of an aristocrat. For eleven years he served in the navy, on one cruise visited the U. S. But all that time his thoughts were on music—on the sort that a small Jewish band had played on his father’s estate when he was a child, on Russian folk themes which were forming the basis of the output of Balakvirev, Cui, Moussorgsky and Borodin, whose group he later joined. He even wrote music during his maritime period (he had always studied as much as his limited opportunities allowed) but it was uneven, unpolished. When he finally abandoned the navy, he studied unceasingly until he became an adept craftsman. It is related that he procured all kinds of instruments and blew into, plucked or bowed them, to see for himself what kind of noises they could be made to produce. He later rewrote all his early work which seemed to him important.

Sadko, produced last week 22 years after its composer’s death, is one of 13 Rimsky-Korsakov operas, besides which he wrote many orchestral works and songs. Chronologically it comes between the popular Snow Maiden and Coq d’Or (best-known excerpt: “The Hymn to the Sun”). For many, Rimsky reached in Sadko the height of his musical powers. He himself thought well of it, often pointed with pride to his original use of the bylina, a recitative style borrowed from Russian epics.

$5,000 Jolson

When famed singers like Feodor Chaliapin, Amelita Galli-Curci or Beniamino Giglo give concerts in Vienna they are usually paid $2,000 or $3,000 per appearance. When Al Jolson, mammy song singer, now vacationing in Europe, was asked last week by a Viennese manager to sing there, he replied that he would—for $5,000. Vienna refused the bargain.

Radiorgan

Bane of all radio listeners is the frequent squealing of vacuum tubes known as static. But static broadcast from Pittsburgh last week brought no complaints. It had been controlled by Inventor R. C. Hitchcock of Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Co. He had conceived the idea of a radio organ which would function with radio tubes instead of pipes (ether instead of air vibrations). Organist Charles Heinroth of the Carnegie Institute played the first concert, on a keyboard like that of a three-octave organ. When he touched the keys, the tubes (each tuned to a different pitch) set up electrico-magnetic impulses, in turn transmitted to a loudspeaker, which transformed them into sound. Far from flawless was the first demonstration of the Hitchcock device but practical minds saw in it potentialities: It is 1/100 the size of the conventional pipe organ; will cost less to manufacture. Because it is electrical, its tones can be broadcast directly as sound waves without the aid of microphones.

Solo ‘Cello

That the ‘cello played as a solo instrument is deadly dull is a contention widely held among musical folk and usually challenged only by the virtuosity of Spaniard Pablo Casals. But last week in Manhattan appeared a second potent champion of the solo ‘cello. He was Gregor Piatigorsky, 26-year-old Russian, called by his friends “Sergeant Grischa,”* petname for Gregor. He had won high acclaim earlier in the season in the Middle West, on the Pacific Coast, in Manhattan as soloist with the Philharmonic Orchestra. But last week’s test was greater. There were no sympathetic violins to bear him company, no fellow ‘cellos. With his instrument he sat alone, lean, hollow-cheeked, youthful. Eyes shut, he played with seeming ease a difficult program, made a great audience marvel at every phase of his musicianship.

* Sadko is the only première to be this given season by either the Metropolitan or the Chicago Opera.

*After the recently famed War novel by Arnold Zweig (TIME, Dec. 17, 1928).