Music: Chicago Notes

Alfredo Catalani’s Loreley was revived last week by the Civic Opera.

Critics, praising the production, gave special mention to Soprano Claudia Muzio.

Rimsky-Korsakov’s Snow-Maiden, given in English, was not wholly successful. Critics blamed a faulty translation.

Back from Europe came Mary Garden. For ship’s reporters in Manhattan she described her own costume: “A blood-red dress with ruffles, and don’t forget the ruffles—a hat to match, the usual sable coat and approximately seven bracelets.” She turned the talk to Lindbergh:

“You must know I admired him when I would sing for him ‘The Star-Spangled Banner.’ Ye gods, ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ of all songs! Well, of course, I didn’t know the words. I asked Bill Tilden to give me the words to the song and he went as far as ‘Oh, say, can you see?’ Then he ‘ta-da-daed’ the rest. What a scholar he is! Finally I had to have the words looked up in a library.”

During a performance of Otello, President Insull of the Chicago Civic Opera was accosted by one Charles W. King, a wild-eyed fellow who shook his fist and babbled threats “for the way he’d treated Lorna Doone Jackson.”*Courteously President Insull listened, took Mr. King’s arm, walked with him down the foyer to the manager’s office, apparently to give him better chance to air his grievances. There he turned him over to detectives, who ordered him to a psychopathic hospital where doctors found him insane.

*Mezzo-soprano of the Chicago Company.