Experiments in opera

JOHN TASKER HOWARD

Some recent gay departures into operatic fields by the Messrs. John Erskine, George Antheil, Louis Gruenberg

The intrepid John Erskine, rescuer of Helen of Troy, Galahad, Adam and Eve, and with them the American novel, has now come forward as the saviour of long-suffering American opera. His companion in his first expedition is Louis Gruenberg, a Russianborn American-who composes music; and the two of them have set out to invoke the ageold tale of Jack and the Beanstalk as a vehicle for their reforms.

Mr. Erskine has definite ideas about operas, especially in regard to their texts. Casting aside completely the success (and to some admirers the beauty and greatness, of Tristan and Isolde, G otter dammerung, Pelleas and Melisande, he holds that a libretto should be entertaining—a comedy. Most operas, he says, survive in spite of the handicap of dull and gloomy stories. Then, too, a libretto should be based on a plot familiar to the audience. If you don't know the story before the curtain rises, remarks Mr. Erskine, "the singers are not likely to let you into the secret."

All of which is thoroughly consistent with the past record of this American apostle of sincerity, the college professor who first let his students in on the probable thoughts of historic and mythical characters, and then decided to give to the world his modern interpretations of the motives that caused the deplorable immorality of the ancients—all with such success that few of his fellow English professors have a good word to say about him. He has committed the unpardonable crime of being successful in lighter vein.

But, some may ask, why pick on opera? The answer involves another phase of the versatile ex-professor. He is a talented amateur musician himself, a pupil of Edward MacDowell, and an advocate of everyone's learning to make his own music for the fun of the thing. When he first became famous it was the fashion in New York to arrange concerts at which Erskine would appear as pianist. He was always obliging, and invariably lent an air of charming informality to the platform. Once his memory betrayed him when he was playing a Mozart concerto with an orchestra. He merely nodded to the conductor, eased the situation with a "Pardon me, my error," and went back to the beginning of the fumbled passage.

His interest in music led to his appointment as President of the Juilliard School of Music, and his consequent resignation as professor of English at Columbia (although he still holds the title). The Juilliard Foundation needed something of a prima donna at its head, and Erskine has answered the purpose very nicely. With an excellent opera school to play with, it was only natural that he should do some experimenting with his ideas on the musicdrama. Whether because of his position at the school, his fame, or merely the fact that the text is more important than the music, Jack and the Beanstalk is announced as an opera with libretto by John Erskine, and music by Louis Gruenberg. Shades of Verdi and Puccini, whose librettists are seldom mentioned, and generally forgotten!

The result of the Erskine-Gruenberg collaboration is a thoroughly charming evening, even if it is not as enchanting as it should have been. Satire and enchantment are not often found in each other's company. The work was performed late in the Fall by the students of the Juilliard School, in the handsome auditorium of the new building on Claremont Avenue, just off Riverside Drive. Nearly all of musical New York attended the four performances, and the merits of the work were widely discussed.

The libretto's the thing in this opera, and the principal merits of Gruenberg's score are that it points the text up considerably, and solves as successfully as possible some of the terrific problems which Erskine set for the composer. It is a profitable experiment, for it represents an attempt to depart from the grand manner in opera, to provide simple entertainment that shall be neither pompous nor unconsciously ridiculous—an art-form to laugh with rather than at. All of which is a worthy object-lesson for American composers.

In true Erskine manner, the author takes the old tale and interprets the characters in the sophisticated parlance and viewpoint of modern times—sincerity at all costs, regardless of whose ideals are shattered. The cow is a philosopher, who penetrates to the reasons for almost everything. The giant is a harmless bully, deflated when he crashes from the beanstalk. Jack is a simple lad who learns about courage and love from circumstances.

The plot follows the traditional outline of the story. Jack's father has been killed by the giant, who appropriated the family assets— the bag of gold, the hen that laid the golden eggs, and the singing harp. Jack regains the first two by stealth, but he gets the harp by meeting the giant face to face and outwitting him in conversation. The old hag who bought the cow at the fair proves to be the enchanted princess, and her wedding to Jack is accompanied by the cow's remarks on the futility and risks of marriage.

This is typical Erskiniana—making modern types from the familiar figures of legend. In the printed score it all reads well; every page yields its chuckles. How much of it gets over the footlights is another matter.

A really good libretto is often more of a burden than a help to the composer, and Mr. Erskine is correct, but a trifle inconsistent when he announces that an opera text should be the barest outline, never self-sufficient. His libretto for Jack and the Beanstalk is so much more important than the music that it is almost a handicap. At the premiere, the librettist was the hero of the evening, just as his name appeared first on the program.

Gruenberg, the composer, had made something of a name for himself before he was commissioned to write this opera by three unnamed friends of the Juilliard School. Several years ago his symphonic poem, Hill of Dreams, won the Flagler prize and a resultant performance by the Symphony Society of New York under Damrosch. In 1929 another symphonic poem, The Enchanted Isle, was selected by the Juilliard Foundation as its annual American work for publication. He won another prize in 1930: $5,000 for a symphonic work—from the RCA-Victor Company.

He is essentially a modernist, and has made some interesting experiments in jazz—such works as his Jazzettes, for violin and piano; Four Indiscretions, for string quartet; and The Creation, a Negro sermon for voice and eight solo instruments. Yet, while Gruenberg is considered a modernist, in many ways he is an incurable romanticist. He shows these traits in Jack and the Beanstalk, for there is nothing radical in the score, and the composer demonstrates that he is still on speaking terms with the simpler elements of harmony and counterpoint.

He shows a better sense of the theatre than Erskine, and it is no doubt his deft handling of several situations which saves the play, and keeps it from becoming little more than an interesting conversation between amusing people.

Nor is John Erskine willing to forget his first love, Helen, in his operatic ventures. He is putting her in a music-drama, too. Not in Troy, nor in Greece, but in Hades, where she goes to seek Achilles. Helen Retires is the title of this next opera, which is already written, even though there are no immediate plans for performance.

Another American composer has written the score for Helen, this one native-born—George Antheil, the young radical who has been an expatriate in Paris, and has now rejoined his countrymen in New York. Antheil was born in Trenton, just a little more than thirty years ago, and he proves that the Jersey capital can produce musicians as well as politicians and pottery.

A few years ago Antheil sent from Paris the score of his Ballet Mecanique, and most of the audience who heard the performance in New York thought he was trying to wreak vengeance on Trenton by making the sounds of smashing its pottery. Several player pianos and all sorts of mechanical contraptions joined forces in producing the rhythmic tumult. Antheil wrote the Ballet when he was twenty-two, and he thought for a while that he could never gain another performance of any of his works in America, for the Ballet frightened every American conductor so tremendously that it looked as though none of them would ever open his music again.

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Antheil is a modest, unassuming little fellow, whom one would never suspect of such deep-laid, revolutionary plots. He says he has reformed, anyway, and that while he still believes in modernism, he is not anxious to write music that will not be played.

His first opera, Transatlantic, was produced in 1930 at the State Opera in Frankfort, and news of the performance found its way into the home papers. The opera purported to be a picture of American life, a crosssection of big business, Prohibition, Salvation Army, murder, movies and megaphones.

It is interesting to speculate on what Erskine will accomplish in reforming the popular conception of opera, at least as far as Americans are concerned. He has been a professional debunker, and if he can debunk some of the traditions of opera, and put something equally effective in their place, he will make a worth-while contribution to our daily lives.

Of course, the grand manner is indigenous to the opera house; it is hard to imagine a successful work in a slighter texture. Yet it is altogether possible that Erskine is giving wise counsel to American musicians when he points the way to an Opera-Comique as a more natural type for them.

As yet there has been no American opera that can rank with the firstclass works of operatic literature. Hundreds have been written, and many of them produced, yet it is not an art form that Americans have succeeded in conquering. Taylor has shown a splendid sense of theatrical values, and has written beautiful music in The King's Henchman and Peter Ibbetson, but the music is too often not his own. Horatio Parker, Cadman, De Koven, Converse, and many others have failed to produce works which contain the subtle elements that make good opera.

Maybe Erskine is right, and possibly he can help to create a form in which Americans will be happier, a type of Opera-Comique in which composers and librettists will accomplish more by not trying to do too much. Jack and the Beanstalk has many limitations, but it is a worthy experiment. It has started many people thinking.