Again Strauss

It once made a burgher feel big to buy operas and plays and for a particular evening he commissioned one of each. The singers arrived, the actors arrived, but the burgher wanted his art short. Opera plus play would take too long so he ordered them run off together. On such a farcical notion did Moliere make his Bourgeois Gentilhomme. Hugo von Hofmannsthal used it for Ariadne auf Naxos for which Richard Strauss wrote the music. Last week the Strauss-von-Hofmannsthal opus, given first in Stuttgart in 1912 with Maria Jeritza, had its U. S. premiere--with the enterprising Philadelphia Civic Opera Company.

Ariadne, never among the most successful of Strauss operas, has had frequent amendments. In its present form there is a prologue and one act, which makes a play within the play. Ariadne, tragically abandoned by Theseus, must listen to the cajolery of Zerbinetta, the comedienne; listens to learn and herself turns finally to Bacchus. All this Strauss has set to droll, delightful music which demands more of his singers' virtuosity than of his own originality. Philadelphia singers lacked the necessary virtuosity last week but Alexander Smallens almost atoned with his 37-piece orchestra.