• - THE GOLDEN AGE DY OPERA - By 'Hermann
Klein * _
Mr. Klein became a 'music critic in -1874, and at one time he was contributing simultaneopsly to five different publications, feeling it his " duty to write about everybody and everything musical." It would seem that so far as first-hand knowledge is concerned he is the- ideal man to-write a book of reminiscence and 'historical' criticism about the heyday of opera in this eduntrY ; the more so whenv we know that he was closely associated with Atigustus'Hairis as unofficial adviser. But to say the least, his book, The Golden Age of Opera (Routledge, 10s. 6d.), is disappointing; indeed, it is difficult to understand how anyone who has heard all the great singers and con- ductors catalogued therein—catalogued is the only word— can have so little of interest to say about them. Not only are the purely musical aspects of that epoch most super- ficially treated, but the personalities of the singers—with many of whom Mr. Klein was on friendly terms—never come alive. The few lines, for instance, about Brother Edward " de Reszke as Mephistopheles, in Mr. Shaw's Music in London, tell us more about the man and his art than Mr. Klein, for all his intimacy with him, seems ever to -have known. And it is the same with all the singers : his book tells us no more about them than we could learn from intelligent perusal of the H.M.V. celebrity catalogue. It is all very tantalizing.
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