together with the chorus, was arranged in uniforms on two tiers of benches placed on either side of the stage, leaving the centre of the stage free for the ballet to enact the play. Consequently, after a first gasp of amazement, the spectators soon accepted the singers as part of the decoration and followed with glee the history of the silly King Dodon and the amazingly naughty and mysterious Queen of Shemakahn. The fantastries of the book lend themselves well to this manner of treatment and the result was a success which surpassed all expectations, a success which was repeated later in New York.
These three operas, indeed, Boris Godunoff, Oberon, and The Golden Cockerel, are assuredly the most delightful works in the current (1918–19) repertory of the Metropolitan Opera House. I should be the last to point the moral herein indicated. There may, indeed, be some operas which do not need rewriting. The fact remains that the creative power and a sense of the theatre do not always go together. As Sir
the English version of The Barber of Seville, in which the part of Almaviva was enacted by a light comedian, whilst an additional character, one Fiorello, sang Rossini's music of the part." One might go still further back: in Orazio Vecchi's Amfiparnasso, an attempt to convert the Commedia dell'Arte into lyric drama, produced at Modena in 1594, the music was sung by five singers behind the scenes while the action and speech of the actors on the stage was synchronized with the music.
