Metropolitan Opera Archives

Deems Taylor's love song of Halloween, "The King's Henchman," might be said to have been revived in the Metropolitan yesterday afternoon, so long did Mr. Gatti-Casazza wait before bringing Mr. Taylor and Miss Millay to the attention of his subscribers. Having listened astutely to the somewhat ambiguous orchestration of the second act, we came to the conclusion that Mr. Serafin was able to find sermons in stones and good in everything, for the full beauty of the score, often obscured by perfunctory conducting, was revealed.

Mr. Johnson as Aethelwold, the perfidious Earl, has always seemed to find his operatic niche in the role suiting admirably the individual qualities of his voice and acting. Mr. Tibbett and Miss Easton bore their respective vocal burdens competently. The English of a few foreigners in the cast was accented rather pointedly at times. The list included Everett Marshall as a miller and Messrs. Gustafson, Meader, D'Angelo and Bloch and Mmes. Alcock, Wakefield, Ryan and Flexer.

During the intermission we entrapped Mr. Taylor in the smoke clouds of the coffee room. "And how" we asked "about your new opera?" Mr. Taylor shrugged, "You may say," said he haughtily, waving away a dowager, "I'm working on it." "And what is it about?" we persisted. "About one hour and fifty minutes," drawled Mr. Taylor, "Gimme a cigarette."

Search by season: 1928-29

Search by title: The King's Henchman,

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