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Nov. 21. THE bigness of Shanghai is so often advertised nowadays, that there is certainly no harm, it may even do good, in noting the oc casions which prove its littleness. Of these the failure of the Russian Opera Company to get the sup port it certainly deserved is an elo quent example. Shanghai prides itself on being a musical town and with as good a foundation, we be lieve, proportionately to its size, as other towns, Birmingham and Manchester for example, which make a similar boast. Yet the hard fact is that after the first three or four nights the Russian Opera Company never sang to a crowded house and generally sang to row upon row of empty seats. And no one, we think, would at tempt to dispute that, individual ly and collectively, they were of an excellence that no company we have seen in Shanghai has yet attained. The solo work of even the lesser stars of the company, not to mention the principals, was magnificent. The chorus was a delight. The orchestra, in spite of having to be cut down to fit the small accommodation of local theatres, was above the average of Western travelling opera com panies and was kept by skilful conducting in excellent touch with the stage work. Even the diff culty and disheartenment of sing ing to an empty house seemed hardly to affect the general merit of the work. Yet the season was a failure, and it is not surprising to learn that when M. Strok brings out his Italian Opera Com pany next May he means to leave out Shanghai. Now it may frankly be con fessed that, even for the most en thusiastic musicians, opera im poses a considerable strain. Take ‘ Meistersinger’’ for example, which for delightfulness of story and richness of melody has rarely been equalled and never surpassed -even with such a work as this, four hours of the attention it ex acts are tiring. And Wagner, be #t added, overcomes the inherent weakness of all opera, that music impedes the action of the play in stead of helping it, with a success which few others have attained, so that his appeal is the more easily grasped. But the real reason why the Russian Opera Company had such poor success is simply that there are not enough people in Shanghai to keep them going through all the long visit that they paid us. Shanghai’s population, according to the last census, which included Germans, comprises about 5,000 male and female foreign adults in the Inter national Settlement, excluding Japanese. It is probable that no more than one-third of this num ber could afford to pay the price of admission, except for one or two performances during one month. This brings the number of possible playgoers down to about 1,400, to the greater pro portion of whom grand opera makes no appeal, nor can it be ex pected to. Of these, again, there must be many who find it impos sible to retire at midnight or 1 a.m. and feel no effect of such late hours the following day. Added to all this, Shanghai has now a very scattered population, most of whom live two or three miles from the theatre and have to add the cost of a motor-car to the cost of admission. A short season of operahere would, we think, undoubtedly prove a suc cess—say a fortnight—but Shang hai has not yet reached such den sity of foreign population that it can make a protracted season pro fitable. It is not only to grand opera, which, after all, is a specialized form of entertainment appealing in nearly all countries only to a minority, that these considera tions apply. Theatrical perform ances of all kinds are bound to suf fer in Shanghai, when they aim principally at foreign support, if there are too many of them. Since September 1 either the Lyceum or the Olympic has been occupied by a travelling company practica l ly without intermission. First came the Frawleys who stayed tall October 13 and were succeeded, with almost no break if we re ember rightly, by the opera, which in turn is succeeded by Vanity Fair—all, be it observed, excellent companies, all above the average of anything that former ly came this way. Then there have been concerts, the A.D.C., and always there are the ‘‘movies’’ at three or four different houses, and steadily undermining the sup port given to orthodox drama. Compared with only a decade ago when a week or a fortnight’s visit from the Bandmann musical comedy and perhaps three or four A.D.C. productions were all that the Lyceum saw, it will be ad mitted that great as the growth of Shanghai may have been, the growth of its theatrical attrac tions has been out of all propor tion. Meanwhile the large num ber of private amusements, din ners, dances and so forth, further helps to prevent people from going to the theatre, the expense of which, if too frequently patt ronized, soon mounts up. These facts might be borne in mind by impressaries and theatrical man agers who do not make as much money out of Shanghai as they hoped. They certainly have had no cause, this season at least, to blame themselves for an inferior production. But equally they ought not to blame Shanghai, whose “capacity for innocent en joyment’’ is after all as limited by the size of its population as that of other places.
Newspaper Details
North China Herald
Shanghai, Shanghai, CN
Sat, Nov 22, 1919
Page 5
Full Page
Clipped by
Sheila M.
USA 27 Apr 2026
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