Word: musics
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...While there she took a holiday at Ischl where the Imperial family spent its summers. The Emperor Franz Josef liked the opera, liked especially Die Fledermaus of Johann Strauss. He went one night when Jeritza was Rosalinda, sat attentive in his box, tapped his foot to the music, clapped loudly when she sang the Czardas. Three times Jeritza curtsied deep and began again. . . . The performance went on. ... Right triumphed over wrong. . . . The old Emperor beckoned an attendant: "Why have they always old, fat singers at the Hofoper? . . ." Soon Jeritza went to the Imperial Opera...
There she became the Great Jeritza to a gay, music-loving Vienna. Her fame grew with her repertoire. A beautiful prima donna has always seemed a phenomenon. Here was one magnificently built, with sea-blue eyes and golden hair. The public raved. Composers made their music for her. She created Strauss' Ariadne, later the Empress in Die Frau ohne Schatten. She was his Salome, his Octavian (Der Rosenkavalier). He saw her in Max Reinhardt's revival of Offenbach's Belle Hélène and an idea was born. It simmered and swelled until last winter...
Conductor Leopold Anton Stanislaw Stokowski has a way of taking his Philadelphia audiences to account. Last week they annoyed him by coming late to a concert, clattering down the aisles, banging down seats. He stopped the music, wheeled on them: "Please, please don't make those noises. They are very distracting. We work hard all week to give you this music, but I cannot do my best without your aid. I'll give you my best or I won't give you anything. It is for you to choose...
...actors arrived, but the burgher wanted his art short. Opera plus play would take too long so he ordered them run off together. On such a farcical notion did Moliere make his Bourgeois Gentilhomme. Hugo von Hofmannsthal used it for Ariadne auf Naxos for which Richard Strauss wrote the music. Last week the Strauss-von-Hofmannsthal opus, given first in Stuttgart in 1912 with Maria Jeritza, had its U. S. première-with the enterprising Philadelphia Civic Opera Company...
...present form there is a prologue and one act, which makes a play within the play. Ariadne, tragically abandoned by Theseus, must listen to the cajolery of Zerbinetta, the comedienne; listens to learn and herself turns finally to Bacchus. All this Strauss has set to droll, delightful music which demands more of his singers' virtuosity than of his own originality. Philadelphia singers lacked the necessary virtuosity last week but Alexander Smallens almost atoned with his 37-piece orchestra...