Music: Zoo Opera

Gradually, in the U. S., outdoor music has come to have its proper share of attention, from philanthropists, from able musicians, from audiences. For example: In Manhattan, there are two important outdoor organizations. One is the Goldman Band which plays songs and marches, operatic arias and favorite symphonies in Central Park, or on the campus of New York University. These concerts cost nothing to hear. Sponsored by the Guggenheims (Mr. & Mrs. Daniel and Mr. & Mrs. Murray), they are conducted by Edwin Franko Goldman, who, ever since the concerts began eleven years ago, has never missed a performance. For denizens of Manhattan who prefer cigaret smoking to gum-chewing, Willem van Hoogstraten to Franko Goldman, and paying 25¢ to $1 for a seat to listening for nothing, there are the Philharmonic concerts at the Lewisohn Stadium. These are sponsored by Mrs. Charles S. Guggenheimer.

In Chicago, sponsored by Louis Eckstein, there are the Ravinia Park concerts. When she arrived in Chicago, last week, after traveling 4,000 miles to sing in the premiere, Mme. Rethberg suffered an unpredictable failure of voice. Since there was no understudy for her role in Verdi’s Masked Ball, it was necessary to revise the entire program for the first night. Queena Mario and Giovanni Martinelli sang the leads in Pagliacci which was followed by Cavalleria Rusticana.

Louis Eckstein is one of those extraordinary men who are able to associate themselves simultaneously and successfully with totally dissimilar enterprises. He publishes the Red Book; its staff regards him solely as an expert upon what the public likes to read. The men who help him with the Ravinia Park scheme never for a moment doubt that this is his principal interest in the world. Ever since 1913, when he started the concerts by engaging the Chicago Symphony for a summer, he has kept the programs of the Ravinia music. Now, when asked about the history of his Ravinia Park concerts, Louis Eckstein points to these musical menus bound in 15 thick volumes. “There is my history,” he remarks.

St. Louis, like Chicago, has made opera its harmonic pasturage. The municipal company, less brilliant than Chicago’s, including no Rethbergs or Martinellis, has a pleasant scheme of giving away many seats and selling many others, thus satisfying all comers. In nine years it has accumulated a surplus of some $40,000.

In Cincinnati functions the well-named and famous Zoo Opera, numbering among its baritones Robert Ringling, nephew of the Circus poo-bah (TIME, Nov. 28). More ambitious than most, the Cincinnati vocalists intend this year to specialize in Wagner, for he is an idol with local auditors. Later, for the last three weeks of their season, they will concentrate on light opera, especially the works of Gilbert and Sullivan, a source of fatigue to the listening monkeys.

The term “Zoo Opera” implies no disrespect to the appearance or sounds presented by its principals. Nor does it hint at a description of Charles Phelps Taft, 84, President of the Cincinnati Zoological Park Association, elder half-brother of William Howard Taft, 70, though it does begin to describe the vast range of his philanthropic interests. Like Louis Eckstein, Charles Phelps Taft is a publisher—fabulously wealthy, he spends money on libraries, museums, schools, paintings, music, zoos. Mrs. Charles Phelps Taft and the late Mrs. Mary Emery have been the guarantors of the Zoo. The Zoo Opera Company performs in a charming auditorium facing the third largest collection of wild beasts in the world. It is to these that the company owes its name.

In Southern California, in the soft and sacred climate beyond the Rocky Mountains, the setting is ideal for outdoor music. The Philharmonic Society of San Mateo County performs on Sunday afternoons in the Woodland Theatre, in Hillsborough. This year Albert Coates, newly arrived from Moscow, Bernardino Molinari and Ossip Gabrilowitsch will act as guest conductors with 85 members of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. The board of directors includes many Californian bigwigs, among them famed Banker Amadeo Peter Giannini, Mr. Charles R. Blyth, Mrs. William H. Crocker. Farther South, the Hollywood Bowl concerts attract huge numbers of hearers. Molinari and Coates—as well as four others—will conduct here also. Among singers who will appear is old Ernestine Schumann-Heink, in her “positive farewell to the Pacific Coast.”