But the most striking cases of rewriting at present on view at the Metropolitan Opera House are Boris Godunoff, Oberon, and Le Coq d'Or.[1]
Besides writing fifteen operas of his own, Rimsky-Korsakoff orchestrated The Stone Guest, left unfinished by the death of Dargomijski, and with the assistance of Glazunoff he completed Prince Igor. Another friend of Rimsky-
- ↑ Anything into which the human element enters is naturally uncertain. Conductors not only rewrite and cut operas before they perform them; they actually rewrite them during performance. For the past twenty-five years it has been the custom of Tom Bull at the Metropolitan Opera House to hold a stop-watch on every act. He has a complete and valuable record of the exact time it has taken each conductor to get through with an act on each separate occasion. Even the same conductor with the same opera with the same cuts varies somewhat on different evenings. The first night Mr. Polacco conducted Boris Godunoff he finished the first act three minutes later than Mr. Toscanini. There is also a record in Mr. Bull's book of a performance of Samson et Dalila in Philadelphia which was over twenty-five minutes earlier than those conducted in New York by Mr. Monteux. No extra cuts had been made; it was simply a matter of speedier conducting, and, of course, of shorter intermissions.
In this connection it is interesting to recall that George Henschel once wrote to ask Brahms if the metronome marks at the head of the several movements of the Requiem should be strictly adhered to. "Well—just as with all other music," answered Brahms. "I think here as well as with other music the metronome is of no value. As far at least as my experience goes, everybody has, sooner or later, withdrawn his metronome marks. Those which can be found in my works—-
