Pars Sensation

Paris Sensation

Padmavati has been produced. Its production in Paris is the first attempt to revive a form that has been long abandoned--the opera-ballet. The opera-ballet is a work in which the dance is an integral part of the subject and not an outside element brought in as diversion.

Padmavati is the creation of Louis Laloy, known as musician and orientalist, and of Albert Roussel. The former is chiefly responsible for the poem, and the latter for the music.

The story: Alaoudin, Sultan of the Mogols, visits Ratan-Sen, the Rajah of Tchitor, to conclude an alliance. He is shown all the marvels of the palace. But the Sultan demands sight of the beautiful Padmavati, the spouse of Ratan-Sen. On a sign from her master she appears, raises her veil and passes. Alaoudin, dazzled by so much beauty, goes away without signing the peace. He leaves behind him his counsellor, a Brahmin who formerly was banished from Ratan-Sen's palace. The Brah- min makes known the conditions of peace asked by Alaoudin. War will cease on the day Padmavati is given to him as a pledge of amity. Ratan-Sen answers by calling his warriors to arms. The Brahmin curses the town with the malediction of Siva, god of destruction. He is lynched. This act of violence on the person of a Brahmin calls for vengeance. The mogols are victors. There is no hope if Padmavati does not give herself. She cannot accept the infamous bargain.

The opera-ballet flourished in the 17th and 18th centuries, in the age of Moliere, and Padmavati is quite in the tragical tradition of that period. M. Messager, in the Figaro, hails the new opera-ballet as "one of the most striking works of the contemporary French school."

Mile. Lapeyrette, as Padmavati, wore a startling scarlet costume. She posed well. The tenor-role of Ratan-Sen was sung by Franz.