Page:The Russian Review Volume 1.djvu/189

Rh after the fashion of similar benches used at the performance of an oratorio. The singers (principals and chorus together) clad in magenta gowns and caps, all precisely similar, sat on these seats during the performance and, after a few seconds, they became quite automatically a part of the decoration. The action took place in the centre of the stage and the dancers not only mimed their roles but also opened and closed their mouths as if they were singing. The effect was immensely diverting and more than one serious person was heard to declare that the future of opera had been solved, although Mme. Rimsky-Korsakov, as she had on a similar occasion when the Russian Ballet had produced Fokine's version of Scheherazade, protested.

Rimsky-Korsakov wrote his opera to be sung in the ordinary fashion, and, in so far as this matters, it was perhaps a desecration to perform it in any other manner. However, quite beyond the fact that very large audiences were hugely delighted with The Golden Cock in its new form, these performances served to fire Stravinsky with the inspiration for his new work. He has written The Village Weddings to be given precisely in this manner. It is an opera, the roles of which are to be sung by artists who sit still while the figures of the ballet will enact them. The words, I am told, are entirely derived from Russian folk stories and ballads, pieced together by the composer himself, and the action is to be like that of a marionette show in which the characters are worked by strings from above. It may also be stated on the same authority that the music, while embracing new tone colors and dramatic effects, is as tuneful as any yet set on paper by this extraordinary young man; the songs have a true folk flavor. The whole, it is probable, will make as enchanting a stage entertainment as any which this composer has yet contrived.