The relaying of isolated acts from the operas now being
played, on tour, by the Co-vent Garden Opera Company, brings to the fore again the whole question of opera broad- casts. I admit there is a glamour about opera relays that is absent from studio performances. I admit also that, during an all-star season at Covent Garden, it is better to hear one act (merely for the sake of the singing) than to hear none at all. But with all due respect to the Covent Garden Opera Company, whom we are to hear again next week in one-act relays from The Bartered Bride and The Mastersingers, I can see little excuse for the inclusion in the programmes of these isolated and unsatisfactory extracts. There is certainly ground for the complaint common among listeners that they do not see why programmes-money should be used to finance public performances of opera and the present system of relaying snippets will not encourage them to change their minds. Personally, I think there is every- thing to be said in favour of studio performances, where the work can be adapted to the microphone and the plot (always notoriously difficult to follow by anyone unacquainted with the opera) can be told by a skilful narrator.
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