NOTES ON RUTLAND BOUGHTON'S THE IMMORTAL HOUR. By A. J.
Sheldon. (Cornish Bros. is. net.) Mr. Boughton was certainly perverse in calling his essen- tially lyrical opera a "music-drama." It has none of the complexity of Wagner and hardly needed the detailed analysis provided by Mr. Sheldon. However, the audiences that still flock to the Regent Theatre will be wise to read Mr. Sheldon's synopsis, for the crabbed and cryptic paragraph on the theatre programme obscures rather than explains the plot. The Immortal Hour has been subjected to much con- flicting criticism, but it Is a work of refreshing beauty and it has won a deserved success. This is something unusual for a modern British opera, and it is not vain to suggest that
Mr. Boughton has set the ball rolling in our operatic history much as Glinka did in the history of Russian opera. He has created a public for British opera. May he have successors
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