AT THE PEN’S POINT

Southland Times, Issue 20526, 30 June 1928, Page 13 (Supplement)

AT THE PEN’S POINT

EEFLECTING ON OPEBA

(By

The Wasp.

Richard Wagner said it years ago and acted on the commitments of his attack on the opera of his day, and to-day it is necessary to remember how opera has been, and is being, ruined by the false gods of music. People talking at large will be positive of the greatness of the opera form because it combines with music the art of the written word of acting, of the dance, of representation in colour, and then they will elevate opera as the federation of all ths arts, and in this they will be saying something that is near the truth; but if we come to a serious examination of opera in being do we find anything to justify these assertions? Do we not find that practically the whole weight of interest is thrown into the music and that musicians, dominating the opera, so unbalance it that it is crippled ? [ Music which goes beyond the inanimate in--1 struments and uses the human voice can !be considered pure only if the singer is ' hidden from your sight, so that the audience is blind to everything save the influence of the melody issuing from the human mouth. Admit the audience’s right to see the performer and pure music has ceased to be. With undiluted music the musicians are concerned, and we can leave them to the pleasure of dissecting its innards, but the opera widens the field and makes music one of a company. To call opera music to the exclusion of all other things is to wholly misunderstand the status and aim of the form, to assist in perpetuating the evils which are holding opera back.

First it is a fair question to ask why most opera singers are sucl| bad actors. The Italians are the greatest offenders in this respect, but they are not alone and the recent deplorable displays of histrionism must not be taken as faults confined to cheap touring companies. In the greatest opera I houses in the world acting very little better will be seen among the general run of the (Stars. Recently the dashing Mr. Pope told us that no actor could sing and act simultaneously, but then he knows very little about it and Chaliapin is enough to put him out of court. However, he was nearer the truth than he thought, because undoubtedly the majority of the opera stars are poor actors. Why should this be? These people regard themselves as the noblest .of the theatre’s inhabitants, the senior priesthood of Art’s shrine, and yet for, the most part they neglect to round out their powers, preferring to carry on as musical boxes rather than undertake the labour of becoming real interpreters of opera. ! Amongst the worst offenders are the Italians. I have admired the singers from Mussolini’s footstool who can produce wondrous tone in generous quantities, but one can see after a course of opera that a great deal of the Italian method Is based on the science of making a noise to the neglect of the art of interpreting the tones. There is plenty of fire, of dash, oceans of confidence and ear filling roars, but let the hearer close his eyes and see if he can detect any intelligence in the row. He will find nothing. Let him listen in this way to some aria with which he is familiar, and he will discover that the noise is an empty sound. Take Scamuzzi’s version of “The Toreador’s Song” in “Carmen” last week. It caught The popular fancy and won an enthusiastic recall for the singer, but as a feat of delination it was merely absurd. Scamuzzi with a few stereotyped actions (and he had more ease than any save Margherita Flor) to help him over difficult points, bellowed his way to victory, but no one knew what Escamillo was trying to say. That was typical of the singing throughout the week, and it is typical of much of the Italian opera singing of this period. Music, (or shall we call it noise?) is enthroned and

sense is left outside. Let us get it down fairly: opera is not music alone. Anyone who says it is nothing more than music, who will permit a beautiful tone to excuse a lot of ridiculous weaknesses, has no idea of the significance of opera. And yet in that misconception lies the whole trouble with the Italians of today. They do not act. Watch their eyes and you will see they are expessionless, save i for anxiety for the conductor’s wave of I entry, and the satisfaction when applause I follows a top note; but what man or woman is there who having eyes, can expect to be convincing if the eyes remain divorced from

speech? These people are the noisy sep ulchres of Art.

This is in keeping with the shocking neglect of rudimentary stage.requirements and the flagrant breaches of stage decorm for which the men are at times noisily and disgustingly responsible. Choruses without rehearsals, and given no indication of entries and exits, of groupings, curtains which rise too soon and too late leaving the stage frozen with absurdity, doorways unmasked so that the whole scene becomes ridiculous! What are these but the product of a complete misconception of the meaning of opera. These things can be remedied without expense, their existence is the product of carelessness or ignorance. During the recent season Margharita Flor made a storm because she had to carry a battered notebook as a hymnal in “Faust” and she was right, but why didn’t Poletti, who had smeared her hands with discs of blood in the Mad Scene of “Lucia” and carried a blood-stained dagger, remember,as she cast the gory impliment from her that a chip of wood will not sound like steel. Ah, says the lover of music, you are a carping creature, you should overlook these details. It is because I love music that I want to see it decently served, that I protest against these intrusions of the ridiculous into the realms of the sublime. There are germs of this in the Italian mind, too. I have seen “Rigoletto” half a dozen times but never with a satisfactory Duke. On each occasion, however, the Duke has been the handsomest tenor of the company, which shows that in this part the Italians recognize the futility of trying to palm off as a conqueror of beauty an awkward corpulence allied to a voice. Can anyone justify in opera the existence of a male chorus, which declining make-up, looks like a band of burglars. Can anyone say that the "Soldiers’ Chorus” in “Faust” was helped by the straggling of the soldiers and the magnificence of their wooden swords? Can anyone say that Poletti’s strained gesture, her bent body and outstretched hand, that Izal’s obtrusive thumb were of any assistance to them? They are offences for which any English singer would be deservedly condemned and in the house of opera they should have no part. Opera cannot live by music alone and the sooner that is realized the sooner will it be revitalized for the English peoples and for the Continent as well. The revolt of Wagner carried him a long way from the Italians and founded a new school; but the Germans have not escaped the evil consequences of the false doctrine that music alone counts in opera. The stoutest hope of the opera is the healthy skepticism. and the cheeky recognition of the ridiculous even wffen it appears in sacred garb, which are the characteristics of this age. They will drive onera people to the proper appreciation of their responsibilities, or laugh them into retirement.