DISCORD IN VIENNESE MUSICAL WORLD

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5292, 3 January 1947, Page 3

DISCORD IN VIENNESE MUSICAL WORLD

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN OPERA IS MADE POLITIOAL iLONUON Titters of laughter rippled round the Vienna State Opara House when Ada Sari, Polish Communist contralto, and a tommy-gun partisan during the war, shook a hefty fist at the Social Donioerat orchestra for deliberately playing a shade off tune during a performance of Verdi's "Rigoletto." •Red Army oflncers in the stalls loked round angrily. British n.c.o.'s in the pit thought it niight be part of the show and sat back to enjoy themselves. They were not disappointed. Ada sang on ami'd' orchestral discords, laughter, and wolf whistles from Austrians and GI's. Usually franticaUy precise in musical interpretations, the orchestra was registering an unmelodious protest against a performance sponsored by the Russian-inspired Austro-Polish Cultural Association. The Viennese, always opera conscious, maintain that Emniy Lusse, their own contralto, was excluded from the show for political reasons, so they interrupted Ada with applause in the wrong places, and chanted old Vi^ni^ese ballajcils niore witty than printable. British soldiers, accustomed to the robust humour of the .Lon'don music hall, joined in a tune similar to the old soldiers' favourite, "Bless 'em All," and poor Ada left the stage in tears as the orchestra niade a superb switch into Tschaikovsky's "1812" Overture. Three Russian officevs mounted the stage and declaimed against Austrian manners, being somewhat disconcerted when British and American solddiers, in spite of hushing whispers from their officers, applauded this new unrehearsed act. The situation was saved' by the appearance as 'Gilda of Emmy, the Viennese star. Next morning the Communist journals accused the orchestra of being Fascist reactionaries and niade vague threats about closing the Opera House. A Social Democrat dvamatic critic comniented tartly: "Ada is a better Communist than contralto." Another said: "As an artist Ada may excuse us, but as a Communist she will never forgi've such bourgeois decadence."