UPROAR IN OPERA

Waipa Post, Volume 48, Issue 3483, 23 June 1934, Page 2

UPROAR IN OPERA

EXTRAORDINARY SCENES. Extraordinary scenes were Avitnessed at the Royal Opera House in Rome on March 24, on the presen- • tation for the first time in Italy of Malipiero's opera, "The Fable of the •Changeling," written on the libretto •of Pirandello. ~" Occasional shouts of protest and derision which punctuated the first 1 act grew into a flow of yells, catcalls, and whistles from the third act onward. More and more ef the audience joined in the tumult against the play, the plot and the music as the evening proceeded. During every interval fierce arguments could be heard and seen in every corner of the theatre and corridors. The singers went bravely through their parts, even when their voices were drowned in burlesque singing by the audience. The minority of the audience who were favourable to the piece were completely overwhelmed by the hostile majority. Neither Malipiero nor Pirandello .1 came before the curtain, Pirandello -watched the fiasco from a box, and on the conclusion of the performance ■ hurriedly left the theatre without saying a word to anyone. This is tie second time in Rome that a new work by Piracdello has been hissed oft the stage.

The plot of the opera showfi ' "mother love" symbolised in a complicated and incoherent story developed in inchoate language. The whole thing is in the style of Joyce's "Ulysses." The music sent out rasping blares as if in response to the ' strident character of the dialogue. "The Fable of the Changeling" in really part of Pirandello's great modern mythical drama "The Mountain Giants." In view of all the circumstances says the correspondent of the Morning Post; it was quite impossible even to attempt to gauge the merits or otherwise of this Pirandellian myth presented as an opera.