Metropolitan Opera Archives

At a late hour last night several local radio enthusiasts were vastly puzzled by what they thought at first was a bad attack of static, but which later proved to be a message couched in a hitherto unknown code. It was finally deciphered by an amateur in Brooklyn who happened to be an accomplished spiritist as well. Decoded, it read: "Von Weber hearty congratulations upon your success stop Rossini joins me stop Giacomo Meyerbeer."

This outburst of felicitation doubtless has reference to the fact that Weber's "Die Freischütz" ran the gauntlet of the dreaded Monday night audience at the Metropolitan last night, and ran it, apparently, with unqualified success. The house was full, the hearers were attentive, and their applause was frequent and hearty.

But someone asks (we hope), does a Monday night audience differ from the others? It does. Monday night is a fashionable, a very fashionable, night and Monday night subscribers are very particular about the sort of opera they hear. The Monday nighters like "Thais" and "Anima Allegra" and "L'Africana," and they don't like Wagner or anybody like him, as a rule. There were Monday nighters, you will remember, who complained about "Die Meistersinger" because it was so heavy.

So when a Monday night audience listened with apparent pleasure to Mme. Rethberg and Queena Mario and Mr. Bohnen and Mr. Taucher and all the rest of the original cast, and became positively enthusiastic over the Wolf's Den scene (a little short of ghosts), why, naturally, there was great rejoicing. The Mount Olympus Musical and Pleasure Club promptly got up a testimonial dinner to Past President Weber, and on earth Giulio Gatti-Casazza was distinctly observed to smile twice. "De Freischütz" was a success.

Search by season: 1923-24

Search by title: Der Freischütz,

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