Zoo Opera

Second only to Chicago's Ravinia Park season is the summer opera given in Cincinnati's Zoological Garden.* Each year a ten-week season is given there, eight of grand opera, two of light. A standard repertoire is presented, with Parsifal and Don Giovanni ambitiously included this year. Picked players from the Cincinnati Symphony perform under able Conductor Isaac Van Grove. The singing is by worthy if not world-famed artists. (New this year: Soprano Helen Freund, Tenors Edward Molitore, Joseph Wetzel, Giuseppe Reschiglian, Baritone Joseph Royer, one-time member of the company.)

Despite the excellence of the opening Samson et Dalila last week all was not well with Cincinnati's Zoo Opera. Contralto Marta Wittkowska expertly bewitched her Samson who was Tenor John Sample. He in turn tore down the pillars of the temple with all the fine frenzy of an injured beast. But uppermost in many a listener's mind stayed the thought that Cincinnati might not long have its summer Zoo performances. Manager Charles G. Miller sounded the warning before the season began. The Zoo is a private venture for which the late Mrs. Mary Emery and Mrs. Charles Phelps Taft once generously provided. Now there are no outstanding self-sacrificing patrons who can compare with Chicago's Insull or Ravinia's Eckstein. Last year there was a deficit of $27,000 which might have been avoided if seats had been filled at every performance. A group of businessmen salvaged the situation then but Manager Miller was unable to find 50 patrons who would organize to ensure the Zoo's future for five years. Unless the Cincinnati public shows a decided increase in interest Zoo opera is in peril of its life.

*Including Cincinnati and Chicago, only six U. S. cities have well-established opera with well-defined seasons. The other four: Manhattan, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Francisco. Of the itinerant troupes most important are the German Grand Opera Company, reorganized on a larger scale for next season, and the American Opera Company which last week announced that it would disband for a season, reorganize in the fall of 1931 if road conditions improve.

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