Music: In Vienna

The newest thing at the Austrian State Opera House is a one act opera The Dwarf, by Zemlinsky. It is an adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s The Birthday of the Infanta, but in places it seems almost a transmogrification, for Wilde’s characters are children but these are adults, including the Dwarf who has never seen himself in a mirror. But with the music Zemlinsky is more successful, having produced a score that is described as “full of harmony and charming melody.”