NEW YORK'S MUSIC.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 13, 16 January 1926, Page 17

NEW YORK'S MUSIC.

SCHOOL FOR OPERA SINGERS. Al I OPEN-AIR AMPITHEATRE. JAZZ ORCHESTRAS. XEW YORK, November 16. The Metropolitan Opera House has opened, and New York's winter season Las besun in real earnest. Celebrities of all kinds are here—Chaliapin and Dal Monte both arrived on the Majestic the other day, and Jeritza has also returned from Vienna, to star at the Metropolitan. She is their prima donna, but did not appear as the premiere, '■la Giaconda." owing to '-differences" with Gigli. the leading tenor, who scored a great success. Publicity of this kind, and the fact that opera is largely a social function, explains the success of the Metropolitan here. Although the prices are higher than ever ( e ven standing room costs two and a-half dollars), there have been'record attendances. Novelties for this season (which lasts six months I include Spontini's ''La Vestale" and Wolf-Ferrari's "Jewels of the Madonna"; also the fact that there are as many as 38 Americans in the very cosmopolitan company. American Opera. At present there is a strong movement in favour of "American" opera performed by Americans. I was taken, the other day, to an interesting ceremony at Stony Point, a rustic and historic spot some" 30 miles from New York. Here a new American "colony" for the training of opera singers in "idear.' surroundings was duly founded, to the strains of "The Star Spangled Banner," and' the clinking of foundation stones in honour of Nordica, Bispham, MacDowell, and Victor Herbert. There will be a huge open-air amphitheatre on the style of the Hollywood Bowl, and the movement has Otto'Kahn, of the Metropolitan, and a strong syndicate behind it.

There are very few American composers of opera; one of them is Charles Wakefield Cadman. the celebrated composer of the "Land of the Sky Blue. Water.*' He told mc that it was one of his ambitions to put American opera on a permanent footing. He showed mc the first proof of his new opera, "The Witcli of Salem," which is to be produced in Chicago. Cadman has in mind a tour of Australia with the Indian girl who sings the American-Indian songs lrom which he has won his reputation.

Galli-Curci and McCormack have both met with enormous success at recent concerts, while Mischa Elman, at his reappearance after a long period, received a wonderful ovation. Other violinists always to the fore here are Toscha Seidel and Jascha Heifetz. The latter left recently for another world tour, which will include Australia.

Percy Grainger is also looking forward to visiting his native land again. He has a distinct following here, both as composer and pianist. I see that Daisy Kennedy, who is appearng shortly, bills herself as "the Australian violinist" as well as "Mrs. John Drinkwatcr," so Australia is well in evidence.

■ Ralph Errole is doing well at the Metropolitan, and Strella Wilson, his wife, will be appearing in Australia next year with the Gilbert and Sullivan Company. Althouse and Middlcton are giving concerts in California, on their way to Xew York, and Maier and l*attison are repeating their Australian successes in concerts for two pianos. On With the Charleston. When one finds the New York and Boston Symphony orchestras, under euek men as Damrosch and Mengelberg, playing compositions by contemporary composers, containing a large element of "jazz,"' one realises the hold this form of music has taken on New York. Reisenf'ld, at the Rialto picture theatre, as well as Whiteman, Vincent Lopez and other dance conductors, have magnificent orchestras, which do the most astonishing things rhythmically and harmonically, and raise jazz to its highest level.

The "Charleston" remains the latest dance craze here, and it has been adopted at last by the Dancing Teachers' Convention at the Waldorf-Astoria. Against it was quoted the accusation that its stamping rhythm had caused the disastrous collapse of the Pickwick Club in Boston, whereby 44 people were killed. But nevertheless, this "dance which demolished a building," with its curious rhythm, has captured America.

However, helped by the vogue for - romantic operettas, the Blow waltz is also very popular, so Irving Berlin and other waltz writers need not vet sing, "What'll I do?"