UNDIPLOMATIC LOHENGRIN

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 99, 24 October 1938, Page 10

UNDIPLOMATIC LOHENGRIN

Herr Hitler's choice of "Lohengrin" as the opera with which the Hungarian Regent and Madame Horthy "■ were entertained in the Berlin State Opera House was perhaps a little unfortunate, says the "Daily Telegraph: and Morning Post." ■"• Although it is -' one of the Fuhrer's favourite operas, "Lohengrin's" text.is in places far from complimentary to the Hungarians. In the very first scene, .for: instance, Admiral Horthy should have heard King Henry the Fowler address the delegation of Brabant noblemen in the following terms: ' ' ' !

Shall I first tell you of, the miseries Which so often overwhelmed the land

of Germany from the East? , Howi in the Mark, women and,children

prayed, ' ; "Lord God, deliver us from the fury of the Hungarians!"?

The "Mark," of course, is equivalent to the modern Austria. One can oniy hope that the usual inaudibility of operatic texts, or drastic cutting, saved the situation.

with the help of a second tiny model, how the ship would-take, the water. To the spectators at the end of the jetty alongside the 80-yard-wide fit-ting-out basin the warning that the ship was on the move came as a couple of shot-like reports and a roaring undertone of noise. The noise increased, and people heard the shrill hiss of the great drag chains screaming down with the ship to the river. Amid all this were cheers and screams of sirens.

The ship moved faster, and the waters creamed and boiled at the impact of the huge stern. Then she became fully water-borne, in a curdled sea of foam and debris, leaving behind her clouds of russetbrown, dust and smoke, and a monstrous, incredible void.

Tugs curtsied fussily about her as she rode the tide. An old engineer whispered: "She took it beautiful —she took it beautiful."

Within 45 minutes the tugs had manoeuvred her to the berth in the fitting-out basin which she will occupy until she is ready for sea. PRESENTATION TO T&E QUEEN. After the speeches there was a pause in the proceedings. The interval was occupied by the presentation to the Queen of an album containing 100 photographs of the ship in various stages of construction. The album was enclosed in a casket of silver inlaid with mother o' pearl and standing on four crystal feet. The casket was made at Torgau, in Saxony, about A.D. 1570, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and is from the Grunes Gewolbe Collection in Dresden.