Opera Comique

Last week, in Manhattan, the Little Opera of America, Inc., presented an Opera Comique, Mandragola. Those who attended were familiar with the Little Opera's contention that the U. S. public will pay to see productions which have the music of grand opera without the latter's grandeur, the charm of musical comedy without its undue levity.

The Story, based on a comedy by Niccolo Machiavelli, translated into English by Alfred Kreymborg, concerns an old Italian merchant who believes that he is capable of becoming a father but has evidence that his young and beautiful wife, Beatrice, cannot become a mother without miraculous ministration, therapeutic aid or both. Now Beatrice is loved by an amorous nobleman, also young, who disguises himself as a doctor and comes, at her husband's request, to treat her with Mandragola, a root whose properties, the noble leech insists, will permit the aged merchant to realize his ambition, at least to all appearances. Thus the old man soon rejoices in the promise of an heir, and the young couple is also very well content.

The Music, written by Conductor Ignatz Waghalter, smacks more of Puccini than of Sullivan, Offenbach or Johann Strauss. A sudden transition or two, a waltz emerging from a cantilena, a trio for three men in the first act, a machine-made quartet in the second-these were enlivening.