AT THE OPERA.

Waikato Times, Volume 102, Issue 17131, 18 June 1927, Page 4

AT THE OPERA.

COVENT (HARDEN SEASON. BRILLIANT OPENING. The curtain went up last night at Covent Garden (says the London Daily Mail) on a wonder of wonders, a successful modern opera—Strauss’s “Rose Cavalier” (Der Rosenlcavalier). It was the first of an opera season —the London Opera Syndicate’s third —which (another wonder) already is practically assured of success. The old theatre once again provided a brave show’. Covent Garden may be old-fashioned and inconvenient. The meagreness of its accommodation in relation to its size may be the despair of opera managers. But what other theatre has a more noble, stately look? “The Rose Cavalier” was the great success of the Germans’’ first return to Covent Garden in 1924. Other operas of Strauss’s have been tried in the last few years without very great effect, but “The Rose Cavalier" has really won its way. It is a favourite, a regular charmer. The subject and the selling amuse us—the 18 th century Vienna, frivolous tnot to say lascivious), and sumptuously picturesque. The baroque decoration of the princess’s bedroom when the curtain goes up gives the tone of the whole. What does “baroque” stand for? Splendid material and skilfulness used for, trivial purposes. • ■ . A liking for baroque is nothing to be proud of. The success of “The Rose Cavalier” proves our period rather “bad.” A good, austere period would class this Strauss opera—which uses all the grand Wagnerian machinery and moreover a mere alcove intrigue> — with such monstrosities as the Pesaro tomb at Venice.

For the time being “The Rose Cavalier,” pouring out its luscious and heady music, is irresistible, given such a performance as we had last night. Mr Bruno Walter was again conducting a first-rate orchestra, and the whole was virtually a repetition of the 1924 revival, while perhaps still smoother and mellower.

There was the same admirable quartet of Viennese singers—Richard Mayer, whose Ochs is one of the richest pieces of characterisation on the modem opera stage; Delia Reinhardt, as successful as a girl can be imagined in the difficult business of first pretending to be a boy, then a boy in disguisc; Elizabeth Schumann, deliciously demure as the Sophie; and then the sweet and charming Lotte Lehmann, the princess.