Witch

Most of the best music has been composed in Europe. But the greatest virtuosos, composers, conductors, turn toward the U.S. for a living. They come, Italians, Germans, Frenchmen, Poles, with their Italian, German, French, Polish art. It has always been welcome. Yet to many Americans, a native pride has long cried out for musical interpretation of America by Americans. Last week, at the Chicago Auditorium, these people rejoiced. They heard a native two-act opera, sung in English, composed by an American, Charles Wakefield Cadman, written by an American, Nelle Richmond Eberhardt, conducted by an American, Henry G. Weber, staged by an American, Charles Moor, sung, in the tenor role, by an American, Charles Hackett.

The Witch Of Salem tells of those fearsome days in stern Massachusetts Colony in the year 1692, when religious fervor sometimes mounted to fanaticism, goaded honest people to the ugly business of hanging human beings suspected of witchcraft. (This was more really indigenous to American ancestry than plots about Indians or Creoles.)* Sheila Meloy (Irene Pavloska) to win the indifferent heart of Arnold Talbot (Charles Hackett), accuses the young man's Puritan sweetheart, Claris Willoughby (Eide Norena) of being possessed. Her evidence: a peculiar birthmark. At the very last minute, the little Irish girl repents, averts a cruel execution.

Critics were unanimous in their praise of score and singers. Though the music insists upon an old Puritan hymn, it has no particular American characteristics, being essentially just melodious, good, pleasant music. The love duet of the first act is probably the best example of its kind in American Opera. Sung in English, the words were intelligibly projected by the singers; Charles Hackett, particularly, excelled in clarity of diction.

Composer Charles Wakefield Cadman is famed for his Indian Lyrics. "At Dawning" (popularized by John McCormack and the Victor Co.), "From The Land Of The Sky Blue Waters" (introduced to concertgoers by Mme. Nordica) are best known. With Nelle Richmond Eberhardt, his collaborator ever since he entered seriously upon a musical career, he wrote an Indian opera Shanewis, the only native creation to see two seasons at the Metropolitan (1918, 1919). The Witch of Salem marks an interesting variation in subject matter. It will probably rank as his greatest work to date. He is 45.

Though born to a family of musical traditions (his great grandfather made the first pipe-organ west of the Alleghenies) and intent upon studying to qualify as organist of the Pittsburgh Presbyterian Church, Mr. Cadman, as a lad, entered the employ of the Carnegie Steel Co., worked as messenger boy under Charles M. Schwab. Into the office he dragged couplings, hung them on a frame, created a metallophone after a fashion. Thus equipped, he be guiled the tedious hours of clerks and bookkeepers with lilting, popular tunes. During these "office days," the melodies kept rippling through his head, took embryonic form. People marvel sometimes that his well-known song, "At Dawning," which alone paid for his beautiful summer home, was put down on black and white in less than 15 minutes.

Basso

Thirty-eight citizens of Nashville, Tenn., sat in the Metropolitan Opera House last week and heard a performance of Al far below that of the numberless performances of this opera that have been given at the Metropolitan, but the 38 citizens had come to hear basso Joseph T. MacPherson sing the part of the King, and Joseph T. MacPherson was absent. Four years ago Basso MacPherson sang in a home talent benefit show to buy bats and balls for a sandlot ball-team on which he played. Singing teachers heard him, advised him to cultivate his voice. He gave a concert in Atlanta. Otto Kahn, visiting there, heard him, gave him a year's contract with the Metropolitan. The King in A