Music: Orchestra Into Opera

Germany sent two of its favored singers and Manhattan its ablest musical critics. Bouncing early from her White House bed. Mrs. Roosevelt put on a tricorne hat and tippet and also headed for Philadelphia. There the old Academy of Music was jam-packed to the doors. In the box beside Mrs. Roosevelt sat Curtis Bok, the Philadelphia Orchestra’s new fair-haired president. Behind them, with Curtis Bok’s mother, was Esther Everett Lape, Curtis Bok’s secretary.Conspicuously absent was fair-haired Leopold Stokowski.

The Philadelphia Orchestra was experimenting with opera. The players had relinquished the stage for a darkened pit. Instead of Conductor Stokowski and his slim silhouet, there was chunky Fritz Reiner whom the spotlights ignored.*

Great Richard Wagner dominated the Philadelphia scene last week with his Tristan mid Isolde. The Philadelphia Orchestrahad been daring indeed with its first operatic adventure. Not only is Tristan at best a terrible test, but for the first time in the U. S. Wagner’s great four-hour love opera was to be given uncut. The two German singers there solely for the occasion were Tenor Hans Grahl (Tristan) and Soprano Marga Dannenberg (Isolde). Tenor Grahl was tall, personable, restrained. Though his voice is not so rich as that of the Metropolitan’s Lauritz Melchior, he made a more credible hero of this Cornish knight.And though Isolde sometimes found Wagner’s music wearing, she, too, understood her role. Dannenberg was always gracefully heroic. Her voice had the quality of deeply felt speech.

The début of two capable Wagnerians would have been big news at the MetropolitanOpera House. But Philadelphia had much more to offer. According to announcements there was to be no expensive “star” system.

More attention would be paid to production, to having new vivid scenery, suitable costumes, modernized lighting. With Tristan Philadelphia was true to its word. Donald Oenslager’s sets horrified traditional Wagnerians. On the ship in the first act Isolde is separated from the sailors by a plain white drop which resembles a window shade bereft of its pullstring. But for laymen unaware of Wagner’s stage directions the last two acts have a strange beauty. There are no papier-mâché trees, no artificial flowers.

Instead there are wide steps and jagged walls against which Director Herbert Graf trained his actors to make sure, compelling pictures. The Orchestra’s performance made critics grope for words. Reiner’s command was complete. In no U. S. opera house has the music seemed so richly eloquent. All U. S. music may well be influenced by the outcome of Philadelphia’s experiment, after eleven operas are given and the finances reckoned. Necessity mothered Philadelphia’s move. The Orchestra concerts lately have nowhere near paid for themselves. The hard-pressed Metropolitan abandoned its visits last spring and left Philadelphia operaless.

Opera-orchestra combines might be feasible in many a U. S. city which cannot support separate organizations. The Cleveland Orchestra has given opera successfully. Well-founded is the rumor that next season the Metropolitan may merge with the New York Philharmonic-Symphony.

Though all eyes were on Philadelphia, Philadelphia’s chances for success were jeopardized by dissension and intrigue within its own Orchestra Association. Philadelphia’s musical genius is Leopold Stokowski, who has long publicized his desire to revolutionize opera. Stokowski would have done great things with this year’s performances. But the scheme was not his. It was Manager Arthur Judson’s and Stokowski refused to help.

A taxicab accident was his excuse for missing last week’s Tristan. But Philadelphians were no more concerned than when he decided to go hatless, scold subscribers, ride a hobby horse at rehearsals. Stokowski had ”taxi trouble” in 1927 after which he took a leave of absence. He was “hit” again in Manhattan in 1930 when his performances with the Philharmonic suffered in comparison with those of Arturo Toscanini. Stokowski’s position in Philadelphia was strengthened materially when his great admirer Curtis Bok lately became president of the Orchestra.*And it is an open secret that Manager Judson is through after this season whether his opera scheme works or not. Philadelphians suspect that smart Esther Everett Lape is being groomed for his job. They know she is no ordinary secretary. For eleven years she has been the brains of the Bok-endowed American Foundation, promoting Peace, the World Court and the recognition of Soviet Russia.

*When Stokowski turned operatic and conducted Alban Berg’s Wozzeck (TIME, March 30, 1931) a spotlight magnified the shadow of his hands on the theatre’s ceiling.*Curtis Bok is no “angel.” Hut during his lifetime his father, Edward Bok, gave $239,000 to the Orchestra’s Endowment Fund.