Announcement

In Maiden, Mass., a green and white shingled bungalow, pleasantly near the well-kept greenery of Middlesex Fells, boasts a new tenant.

"Mrs. Whittern," the postman said, "Mrs. Roy Emerson Whittern."

The name meant little to the neighbors. It meant much to musicians. They knew that Mrs. Roy Emerson Whittern is also Ethel Leginska,* famed more for her disappearances than for her appearances. They were interested to hear that Leginska says she has definitely retired from the concert stage: "The public will soon forget me as a pianist and I shall be glad. No one knows how I have suffered for the past 17 years every time I have been obliged to face an audience. Concert playing may be spectacular, but the great art is in composing and conducting. I am never frightened when I conduct."

Donkey

Two native Atlantans made their debut last week with the Metropolitan Opera Company in the first performance there of Massenet's Don Quichotte, second offering in the annual week of opera. One was a proud, polite horse chosen to carry Feodor Chaliapin, chivalric Knight of the Rueful Countenance. One was a scrubby, taupe donkey chosen for Giuseppe de Luca, the faithful squire. Came the second act with the Don on the quest of his lady's necklace. Came the scene where he sees windmills through the mist, takes them for menacing giants, mounts Rosinante and charges. Rosinante played his part well. It was Dapple the Donkey's turn. With a very old and broken Don Quichotte on his back, led by the faithful Sancho, he started across the stage. Slowly and deliberately he moved until he reached the centre, aspiration of every debutant, haunt of prima donnas and tenors. It suited him, that particular spot. He stopped. Tenderly de Luca coaxed him. Bravely, as bravely as his padded fat form would let him, he pulled and coaxed and pulled, with no influence at all on the Dapple of the evening, who stood as fixed as a hydrant until the curtain was dropped.

The rest of Atlanta's week was taken from a representative repertoire of well-tried operas, with Marion Talley and Mary Lewis the only newcomers added to the list of well-tried singers. With the company this year went Otto H. Kahn, chairman of the board of directors and majority stockholder. (See BUSINESS.) Said he:

"Gatti-Casazza, the general manager, frequently protests against sending the entire company to Atlanta. From his standpoint, you can't blame him, for his job is to run the company, and if possible make financial ends meet. The Atlanta trip each year is a losing venture financially, and it is a huge undertaking, but I always tell him that as long as I live he'll have to include the Atlanta season in his plans. Why? Well, I fell in love with Atlanta twelve years ago, and it is a love to which I have been faithful. It is a good thing that sentiment influences us. . . ." Hurriedly speeding north from Atlanta, the Metropolitan Company opened in Cleveland playing La Cena delle Beffe and Pagliacci for its first performance and Boris Godunoff for its second.

American

"American music by American artists" was given last week in Manhattan, the first concert under the auspices of the American Academy of Arts and Letters "to aid in fuller recognition of distinguished American artists." The American artists were: Mme. Charles Cahier, contralto; Ruth Breton, violinist; Fred Patton, baritone; John Powell, composer-pianist. The American music was Powell's Variations and Fugue on a theme of F. C. Hahr, songs by Loeffler, Chadwick, Carpenter, Sidney Homer, Henry Hadley, E. S. Kelley, Walter Damrosch, Edward Harris, arrangements of Kentucky mountain songs by Howard A. Brockway, violin numbers by Brockway, Cecil Burleigh, Hadley, MacDowell and Sowerby.

Critics lauded the Society's purpose, commended the soloists, but regretted that the music did not reflect original, modern America.

In Washington

Eighty-one musicians chosen from the theatres and cinema houses of Washington took the stage of Poll's Theatre, Washington, last week. It was the first concert of the Washington Symphony Orchestra, under the leadership of Kurt J. Hetzel, promised since early last summer to the only city of its size and development not possessing a permanent, flourishing orchestra. Conductor Hetzel, tall, slender, dynamic, had had his men together for only five ensemble rehearsals. Nevertheless they played creditably, excellently, an exacting if not unhackneyed program, which included Liszt's "Les Preludes," Tschaikovsky's Fifth Symphony and the Tannhauser Overture.

Kurt Hetzel was formerly conductor of the Holttheater at Mannheim, of the Stadttheater of Strassburg. He was two years at the Royal Opera House at Munich, three years at the German Opera House at Czernowitz, Roumania. He has lived in Washington for less than a year.

* Leginska's real name before she married was Ethel Leggins.