Notes

For the first time last week a U. S. opera was presented in a German theatre. The theatre was the Dresden Staatsoper where Fritz Busch is conductor; the opera: Snowbird by Composer Theodore Stearns.

In Philadelphia last week Conductor Leopold Anton Stanislaw Stokowski continued to discipline his audience (TIME, Nov. 12). At an afternoon concert he gave stragglers just one minute, 58 seconds to find their seats, then had the doors closed. Hereafter Philadelphia Orchestra concerts will begin promptly and nothing will interrupt.

In Paris the new Orchestre Symphonique gave Arthur Honegger's Rugby a successful premiere. In the U. S., Composer Honegger is famed for his Pacific 231 through which he sniffs and snorts to resemble a giant locomotive. His Rugby, long heralded, is a sound picture of a football match in which smart, broken rhythms tell the struggle of the players, the excitement of the crowd.

Washington last week took sentimental delight in a concert by the musical Homers. Mother-Contralto Louise Dilworth Beatty Homer and Daughter-Soprano Louise Homer Stires* were stars, made a homely picture standing together singing the songs of Father-Composer Sidney Homer to the filial accompaniments of Younger Daughter Katharine Homer.

In Chicago a pleasant Aida made her debut at Civic Opera, She was Soprano Hilda Burke, 24, of Baltimore, who had wanted to be a trained nurse but succumbed to parental objection, concentrated on singing as a substitute.

* Wife of Clergyman Ernest Van Rensselaer Stires and daughter-in-law of the Episcopal Bishop of Long Island.