Opera On Tour

Nineteen cities besides Chicago will hear the Chicago Civic Opera Company this year.* That will mean 59 performances on a tour of 8,977 miles and, according to custom, last week Boston was first. Lohengrin was the opening opera there, with Marion Claire, 24-year-old Chicagoan, as the wispy Elsa who could not cure her curiosity, Rene Maison the Silver Knight and Maria Olszewska the black-hearted Ortrud. Other operas came from a standardized repertoire, all save Honegger's Judith which retells starkly in music and text the apochryphal legend of the Hebrew prophetess saving her people against the warring Assyrians. Mary Garden it was who prayed simply as Judith and then sought Holofernes alone in his tent, hacked off his head with a great sword, tucked it in a bag and carried it to her people. Baritone Cesare Formichi as Holofernes was the vocal and dramatic mainstay of the performance.

*Boston, Buffalo, Detroit, Columbus, Nashville, Birmingham, Jackson (Miss.), Dallas, San Antonio, El Paso, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Fresno (Calif.), Sacramento, Oakland, Amarillo, Tulsa, Lincoln (Neb.), Minneapolis.