Music in Germany

England today gets about as much good music as a besieged isle can expect: daily concerts in the basement of London's National Gallery; sporadic performances by the leading British symphonies; no opera. Occupied France still has the Paris Opera--with German troupes reported playing there. In Italy, there has been much the same opera as ever. Germany, although many of her greatest musicians left her after Hitler came into power, nevertheless provides more music now than any other nation in Europe. Its musical state last week:

> Most-talked-of conductor in Berlin was dark, handsome, poised, 30-year-old Herbert von Karajan. He waves the baton at the State Opera, is rated only a notch below deaconlike Conductor Wilhelm Furtwaengler of the Berlin Philharmonic.

> Richard Strauss, another sail-trimmer, is active at 76. Although he lives near Munich, he lately visited Berlin, conducted performances of his operas Ariadne and Arabella. Last spring he wrote a festival piece for Axis-partner Japan--an apotheosis of the 2,600th anniversary of the founding of the Japanese Empire.

> Popular singers in Berlin include several who have sung in the U. S.: Soprano Frida Leider, a success at the Chicago and Metropolitan operas, now devoting herself to Lieder as well as opera; Contralto Sigrid Onegin, whose voice is no longer at its peak. Oddly, a British singer, Marjorie Booth, gets much applause at the State Opera. So, at the Charlottenburg Opera, does an American, tall, blonde, 25-year-old Polyna Stoska.

> There has been much musical exchange within the Axis. Titian-dyed, corseted Italian Coloratura Soprano Toti dal Monte (a onetime success in the U. S.) sang to great applause in Berlin. The Cologne Opera is touring The Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Italy; the Frankfurt am Main Opera the Balkans. The Berlin State Opera will visit Milan and Rome this spring; the Rome Opera will visit Germany.

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