CURRENT LITERATURE
Mosr writers on Wagner's operas treat them almost exclusively from the musical point of view, as Mr. Leroy points out. Hence there is still room for a book emphasizing
their importance as great dramatic creations, and this is the task the author has set himself here, maintaining that it is just because they are not fully recognized as such that we get, particularly in England, such a deplorable difference in quality between the musical side of the performances and the production. This is a notable point, and one that should be marked with interest by all those who have sat in the sole opera house of the largest city in the world in the course of the last two seasons and seen the curious sight of some of the best singers in Europe displaying their powers amidst scenery which would inspire disgust in any able producer of revue. In the introduction Mr. II. R. Harbor touches on a fundamental reason for this incongruity. In the past the opera house existed for the sake of Society alone, and even now in England is for many people nothing more than a rendezvous where a box for the season is a sine qua non whatever the entertainment offered. Naturally this state of affairs does not encourage the management to make efforts towards improvement, since the cheaper scats make little difference to the profits under the present system. A great part of the book consists of a detailed synopsis of the Ring, showing its structure and the dramatic raison d'itse of the motifs ; a short sketch of Wagner's life is given, pointing out his constant interest in the theatre ; there are also discussions of the mythological side of the story, with apt quotations from Wagner's Die Niebelungen. A tran- scription of the principal kit-motifs, and a list of gramophone records, make the book a completely satisfactory handbook for any student. The chapter on " Siegfried as Christ and Superman" is not convincing, being too short to work out the idea it contains, while Mr. Paul Nash in his designs for scenery descends to somewhat cheap effects, using sharp contrasts of black and white which must vanish when worLed out in colour with stage lighting. But these are slight blemishes only on a sound and original piece of work which should be in the hands of every Wagner lover and—yet more urgently, we hope—every Wagner producer.
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