Show Three Works by byj j Spain Composer i Heard in Paris ParisI I tYe De Falla Productions ReI Re- Re I veal Musical and Dramatic Talent PARIS Among the new productions at the Opera in Paris tills season vero three works by de FaUll the Spanish com coin el they rhey comprised La Vita Breva The Short Life LICe a lyric drama EL EI de Maese PeI Pe- Pe dro Master pedros pedro's Side Show a I sketch and mor L Druja BruJa Love the Sorcerer a pantomime pantomime pan pan- ballet The three works heard together reveal De Falla as a composer of Ie Impressive talents His mastery of the orchestra Is complete Jle Je has a aIno Ino sense of form his harmonic scheme is colorful and piquant without being eccentric and he can of genuine power and eloquence On the other hand they are to one hearer at least fairly conclusive evidence that Do De Falla most lost of whose works have been written ritten for the st stage ge Is taUy a symphonic composer who would be far more impressive on concert platform than in the theatre and whose operatic sue sue- cf ies arc the sheer triumph of his I music over o the handicap of a someWhat someWhat some some- What fumbling dramatic talent I DRAMATIC CONTENTS I Let us consider as briefly as pos sible aible the dramatic contents or of his I trilogy El do de Maese Pedro is based up upon n an incident In r Cervantes Cervantes' Don Quixote A crowd I I of spectators Don Quixote among them are gathered in an inn yard I to watch a marionette show The I h w begins the II daughter of Charlemagne has been captured by the Moors and is resi res- res i c cued ed by by her husband The Moors i set out in hot pursuit and are In insight Ii sight ight of the fleeing couple when Don in whose poor mad brain the drama is wholly real II springs up attacks and demolishes t tl e cardboard Saracens and turns upon the astonished onlookers to sing a triumphant ode to the glory of knight errantry lii In La Vita yita Breva a gypsy girlIs girl pirl Is 13 madly in love with a young youn ads ads- who swears eternal fidelity I Vand through h the streets strEet of cf Granada she suddenly comes upon a courtyard in which relatives and II friends of her lover loyer are celebrating bis engagement to another girl Overcome by grief she rushes to 1101 upbraids him for his faithless faithless- ness and dro s dead at his feet GYPSY GIRL HEROINE 4 A gypsy gyp girl is against the herome hero hero- me irie- of LAmor LAmol Brujo Her former former for for- mer lover nOw dead still haunts ber and his menacing presence keeps her from the youth with whom she is now in love The living livin liv- liv in ing suitor appeals to another gypsy girl for help She spec spec- tex keeping his attention distracted long enough for tOr the ers o to Jeal their troth in a kiss that exorcises I forever El El is really not a stage action at all It is a chronicle told antI song The Opera production with heavy c Te settings elaborate and fantastic costumes some of kf them by nail and careful I rather swamped the charm ot of De Dc Fallas Falla's miniature The New Kew NewYork York production done on a concert stage with Ith a minimum ot of apparatus was a thousand times more From the September Issue of McCalls McCall's Magazine |