Music: Claudel Opera

Boos and hisses followed a performance at the Berlin Staatsoper one night last week. They were several times drowned out by bursts of applause, but by and large the boos had it at the premiere of an opera called Christopher Columbus.

Even if it had been the effort of unknowns, Christopher Columbus would still have provoked a lively reaction. It employed a medium new to opera: the moving picture. Columbus lived his outward life upon the stageā€”a tragic life lacking ultimate reward because the land he discovered was...

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