A WAGNERIAN OPERA.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 2635, 1 June 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)

A WAGNERIAN OPERA.

An American writer thus describes the production of Wagner's " Rheingeld". at the metropolitan Opera House, NewYol : —All musical New York has been on tiptoe for months in expectation of this wonderful production. Well, we have *eeu it, ami now, what ? Well if a man declares his honest conviction, what does he get ? Numb-skill, brute, savage, ignoramus, barbarian, sansculotte, and every other choice name in the vocabulary. The production of this piece has cost no end of trouble and money. It is a sort of mythological hodge-podge, made up of dwarfs, brownies, gnomes, mermaids, mermen, Rhein gods, and Rheiu devils, and all sorts <f impossible and improbable monstrosities. A more dissolute set of vagabonds than these Rhein gods it would be impossible to conceive and as a matter of public safety, the very best place to. keep such fellows would bo in the bottom of the Rhine, albeit these jolly gods were no great lovers of cold water. The goddesses are pretty enough but are not safe persons to let run loose around o'nights, and if they lived in New York instead of the

bottom of the Rhine, the chances are ten to one they won Id bo picked up by the police and sent to Blackwell's Island as disorderly persons, while the principal character would stand a good chance of going to a States Prison for bigamy. There is a dash of insanity about everything that Wagner ever wrote which gives evidence of a distempered brain. All of his operas were produced for the delectation of the mad King of Bavaria, who eventually went hunting mermaids at the bottom of the lake adjoining liis palace. It may be that Bishop Berkley was right, and that we are all as mad as March hares ; if we are not, it would not take many doses of Wagner to make us crazy as loons. |If you want to pronounce the name of the great enmpaser, like a tip-top sawyer call it Yogner, not Wagner.) In the production of the effects of the Rheingeld no attention appears to have been paid to the comfort of anyone except the composer himself and liis royal patron. To produce the elfect of swimming on the water, wonderful machines have been invented, fifteen and sixteen feet high ; these high rock and float and dive and sink in the most illusive manner on the waters of the Rhine. Mounted on top of these are the Rhine daughters, and the feeling that some of these sprites experience is very much like being tossed about in a cockle shell in a high sea. Now a German fairy is a different thing from an Euglish, an Irish or a French fairy. A very moderate German fairy weighs anywhere from two hundred to two hundred and fifty pound, solid beef, and a waist band of y(j inches is not uncommon. It took five men to move every fairy, so that the expenses of the opera were enormous; but New York footed the bill, the house was crowded every night. It it a success? I should say so. At ( :he opening of the Rhine scene, the house went wild, men pounded on the seats, women screamed, bo>s threw up their hats and girls danced Washington Connor waved liis handkerchief frantically, and another grave broker clapped his hands, a thing he seldom does, except whon he has caught the market short on Western Union or Missouri Pacific. I

came away feeling like Cleveland when he received the election news. The enthusiasm never touched me ; I know I looked like a Mugwump ; I felt guilty, but I can't help it. You may hang me, crucify me, if you please. But I can't

and don : t liko Wagner