Cleveland Opera

The stage is an African jungle. Spears flash through the murk, an elephant trumpets. Tom-tom-tom goes the tom-tom. The Voodoo Man warns his people, "All the gods are angry, all the clouds hang low." There must be human sacrifice. The Girl is chosen. As she walks into the stream to drown, the Boy creeps to the bank, plays on his flute. The Voodoo Man has him dragged away. A sacrificial procession. Tom-tom-tom. The Boy struggles in his bonds, the Voodoo Man leaps at him knife in hand. Comes a slave caravan, the Boy & Girl are chained together, carried away. The Voodoo Man runs through the clearing. Slavers club him down, but his tom-tom has sent its warning to distant drums. . . .

Thus in Cleveland last week began the first performance of Tom-Tom, a Negro folk opera by Shirley Graham, graduate of Howard University, postgraduate student at Oberlin. Composer Graham, 25, daughter of a Negro missionary, had keyed her music to the primitive chants, the spirituals and the modern jazz rhythms of her race. Tom-Tom's costumes, shields and tattoo marks had been designed by 19 Cleveland Negro artists. From London had come deep-voiced Jules Bledsoe, original "Ol' Man River" singer in Show Boat, to sing the part of the Voodoo Man. On a windy, cloudy night last week, second night in Cleveland's open air opera season, nearly 15.000 persons were present, the 25-c- and 50-c- seats well filled with Cleveland Negroes lustily applauding. They watched the Girl prepare for sacrifice in a real 30-ft. waterfall provided by the Cleveland Fire Department. A murky grey light failed to clarify the opening scenes, but through it gleamed brown, almost nude warriors, splashed with orange paint, in white head and tail pieces. Small children capered about.

Tom-Tom pursued a lengthy, sometimes tedious course, took its Boy, Girl and Voodoo Man into a plantation scene, where a treadmill and enormous water wheel figured in the setting; then into Harlem for a lively cabaret scene. From the jungle opening, where only percussion instruments accompanied the unisonal chants, to the end, where spirituals and jazz were mingled, the tom-tom beat its insistent note. Spirited and rhythmic was the performance of the 500 Negro choristers and Negro moppets. High spots: the end of the plantation scene, with massed slaves singing the chant of their new freedom while a band plays "John Brown's Body"; the short, jazzy cabaret scene; the death of the Voodoo Man, with Baritone Bledsoe groaning "Now, forever my tom-tom will be silent," and the Boy (Tenor Luther King) responding "No! No! Black Man! The tom-tom shall be heard."

Tom-Tom was not all that attracted Clevelanders to their big, year-old Municipal Stadium ("Tin Horseshoe"--prices $3 top). It was an opera week for Cleveland, built up by the same two who, under Impresario Guy Golterman, directed Cleveland's first outdoor opera (for charity) last summer (TIME, Aug. 10): 26-year-old Laurence A. Higgins, and Dr. Ernst Lert, onetime Metropolitan Opera stage director (whose sister-in-law Vicki Baum was in Cleveland last week). This year they have organized a group called Laurence Productions Inc. "to present grand opera as they see it" in many cities. In Cleveland they rebuilt last year's stage, moved it closer to the grandstands. Still the largest outdoor stage ever built (50,000 sq. ft.), it is now the first unit opera stage, has the largest portable outdoor stage lighting equipment ever assembled. They built ten great ramps tilted toward the audience, broke these up into myriad levels. There is a revolving unit 30 ft. high, which last week furnished a mountain pass in Carmen, a monster throne and then a tomb in AH da, the waterfall in Tom-Tom. For the mountain in last week's Die Walkuere, nothing less than a real one would do, so Laurence Productions built one.

For their choruses, second-string sing ers and orchestra players, Laurence Productions drew largely upon Cleveland tal ent. They assembled 500 performers for Carmen, plus donkeys and mules. To last year's spectacular Aida, they added 100 new spear-carriers. The small, patient, well-scrubbed elephant of Aida was present once more, figured also in Tom-Tom. In Die Walkure there were not the usual nine but 17 Valkyries galloping over the mountain. Bruennehilde's eight new sisters were given made-up. Wagnerian-sounding names like "Ritthelle." "Kampfsiege," "Trautschilde." There were real gas flames, 10 to 40 ft. high, for the Magic Fire scene. In Die Walkuere sang Soprano Elsa Alsen, Basso Fred Patton. Tenor Georg Fassnacht Jr. from the Freiburg Passion Play. In Aida were Tenor Paul Althouse, Soprano Gina Pinnera.

But Carmen had the best headlinemaker. Mary Garden, returning from retirement in Corsica, pranced and wiggled gaily, took her bows with seasoned enthusiasm. Though the amplifiers helped the small Garden voice, critics found her inclined to "yodel." Said she afterwards: "You know that role is a little low for me, but always they have had me as Carmen. Always they have pressed it upon me. I don't know why, but they did."

Carmen was the best show in Cleveland's opera week. Newton Diehl Baker was lustily applauded when he entered. (Later an alert observer saw him pay for some punch with an old-fashioned big $1 bill.) Carmen, unlike murky Tom-Tom, was spirited, colorful; its settings a sunburned tan for daytime, a vivid purplish grey by night. There were many ballets; some starkly modern, some in hippy rumba style, one a whirlwind affair with the performers, in long green robes, mounted on horseback. Only unreal touch: the undersized, obviously stuffed bull dragged in at the last. The audience was bothered the first night by "Canadian soldiers" (Ephemeridae, big-winged lake flies, called "Yankee soldiers" in Canada), but well pleased were they, especially with Mary Garden; Garden escaping the guards at the end of the first act. dashing through the Spanish village with the whole company at her heels; Garden clicking her fan; Garden driving in with Toreador Escamillo (Baritone Mostyn Thomas) in an open barouche with a spanking pair of white horses; Garden being brayed at by a restless little donkey.

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