THE PULPIT AND THE OPERA.

Evening Star, Issue 3102, 28 January 1873, Page 2

THE PULPIT AND THE OPERA.

It appears that some of the ministers of the gospel in the City have been denouncing the Opera from the pulpit. The Rev. Mr R' seby is said to have led th ‘ way ; and he is well answered bv the Dunedin correspondent of the Brace Herald, who remarks “Music is said to be a divine art; if it is so, where, or for what purpose is it to be Cultivated and exercised? We can’t have it in our churches; anything but the plainest, baldest, most common place music is tabooed there. An authem. a chant, a chorus, a solo, aided by instrumentation, in the House of God and in the performance of His worship, the very mention of the thing in any serious manner would send a thrill of pious horrror through the length and breadth or Presbyterian Otago. Many people seriously object to singing the oratorios in our concert rooms, because they, in many instances, the “Messiah” for example, take hold of many of the most sublime truths with which we are acquainted, and make these the medium of expres-ing the musical conception ; and the sinking of these, for the mere amusement of the concert room, is thought to be a trifling with things sacred, and a nuking light ot the most solemn verities. Glees and songs —very good things so far as they go—do not afford scope for the exercise of the highest gifts either for composer or performer. What then is to be done with the marvellous conception which is now embodied in , the opera or the oratorio ? or how are we to find means or occasion for the development and exercise of ; those extraordinary and God-conferred powers of musical expression and executi n now engaged in the performance of these compositions? and from which so many thousands derive, wkat is gen Tally acknowledged to be pure, elevating and refining enjoyment. Whatever be the opinion of ministers as to the morality or immorality of the opeia, their people seem to like them, and from the assembled hundreds , who, night after night, crowd the Queen’s Theatre may be found representatives from all the Churches in Dunedin. Episcopal, Presbyterian, Congregational, Methodist, Jews and Gentiles alike, enraptured and stirred to deep enthusiasm by the glorious music there performed. 1, ou Sabbath last, heard one of our ministers, I believe honestly, fervently and eloquently inveigh against the opera, but I doubt very much if he ever heard one. 1 believe he formed his idea of the influence of the opera from the description of the plots he had seen in the papers, or from his knowledge of the characters personified in them, and that he has never gone himself to hear or see the performance, or judge of its effect on those who witnessed it. The good man no doubt thought he was doing good ; at the very least he was delivering his own soul, leaving all those of his congregation who, after this, should place themselves within the contaminating influences of the opera, altogether without excuse, but 1 fear his effort was not productive of much practical result. Those who were impressed with what he said of the evil of the opera would not have gone at any rate, while those who have been there think they kuow more about the matter than he who has not, and they will go again. Indeed, I heard some of his people say this as they left the church.”