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In Chicago. A part of opera's elaborate tradition is for the first-night piece to be familiar, preferably short, something which will not demand such concentration that the audience cannot look around at itself and make merry between curtains, Chicago's first night had a satisfactory brilliance this week. The acoustics were somewhat improved, and Samuel Insulls new rose & gold auditorium was a sumptuous background for Swifts, McCormicks, Ryersons, Fields, Drakes, Dicks and their neighbors. But the fantastic steel curtain (medley of trumpeters, poultry and a naked girl) went up on an opera never before heard in the U. S.: Ernest Moret's Lorenzaccio, based on the play of Alfred de Musset, with Baritone Vanni-Marcoux in the title role created by him ten years ago in Paris.
Lorenzaccio's Libretto proved to have greater distinction than its music. The central character is a henchman in the court of the Medici. He procures young girls for his cousin the duke, performs so many shameless services that he becomes corrupt himself, forgets his vow to free Florence from its tyrant. His mother finally stirs him with a story of having seen the ghost of his innocent youth. The tempo increases. Lorenzaccio's young aunt is sacrificed to the duke's lust. An old friend is victimized. But the greatest damage has been done to Lorenzaccio's own soul. To revenge himself, he finally kills his cousin—a scene made memorable last week by the superb, cumulative performance of Vanni-Marcoux.
Chicago will hear another premiere this season: Camille by Hamilton Forrest, onetime office boy in Samuel Insull's light, power and traction establishment. Camille was scheduled for performance last year, postponed because of insufficient time for rehearsals. Mary Garden will sing the title role. Other operas new to the repertoire and illustrative of Chicago's increased interest in German music will be Wagner's Die Meistersinger and Smetana's Bartered Bride. New sopranos are Lotte Lehmann, famed in Vienna; Emma Redell, a native of Baltimore trained in Europe; Maria Rajdl of Dresden. New Contraltos: Sonia Sharnova, a Chicagoan trained abroad; Jenny Tourel of Montreal. New tenors: Belgian Octave Dua already known in Chicago; Oscar Colcaire, naive of Lexington, Ky., onetime first violinist in the Cincinnati symphony; Paul Althouse, of Reading, Pa., for ten years with the Metropolitan; Frenchman Mario Laurence. New baritones: Jean Vieuille from the Paris Opera Comique, Rudolph Bockelmann from Hamburg, Hans Hermann Nissen from Munich, Eduard Habich from Berlin, Salvatore Baccaloni from Milan, John Charles Thomas. A new stage director, Dr. Otto Erhardt, has come from the Dresden State opera. Soprano Edith Mason, divorced wife of musical Director Giorgio Polacco, will not return.
In Manhattan. The Metropolitan's opening had little to distinguish it from many which have gone before. The opera was Aïda, most serviceable of first-night choices. The cast was headed by Soprano Maria Miiller who was pretty, capable, unexciting; Tenor Giovanni Martinelli who sang loudly. The best performance was by Conductor Tullio Serafin who treated the great tunes tenderly, kept the whole moving at a swift and theatric pace.