And, of course, all I have said of theaters
applies with equal force to moving-picture shows.
Chapter 15. Opera and Musical Entertainments
Opera is a form of entertainment which, though very popular
in America and England, does not appeal to me. I know that those
who are fond of music love to attend it, and that the boxes in an opera house
are generally engaged by the fashionable set for the whole season beforehand.
I have seen members of the "four hundred" in their boxes
in a New York opera house; they have been distinguished
by their magnificent toilettes and brilliant jewelry; but I have been thinking
of the Chinese drama, which, like the old Greek play, is also based on music,
and Chinese music with its soft and plaintive airs is a very different thing
from the music of grand opera. Chinese music could not be represented
on Western instruments, the intervals between the notes being different.
Chinese singing is generally "recitative" accompanied by long notes, broken,
or sudden chords from the orchestra. It differs widely from Western music,
but its effects are wonderful. One of our writers has thus described
music he once heard: "Softly, as the murmur of whispered words;
now loud and soft together, like the patter of pearls and pearlets
dropping upon a marble dish. Or liquid, like the warbling of the mango-bird
in the bush; trickling like the streamlet on its downward course.
And then like the torrent, stilled by the grip of frost,
so for a moment was the music lulled, in a passion too deep for words.
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