Baltimore Evening Sun (6 June 1912): 6.

Advice to male school teachers who want to profit by the super-Mahon’s benign reorganization of the school system:

Join your ward clubs and shout hallelujah.

Advice to female teachers who yearn for promotion:

See that your brothers join.

Once more the Aborn Opera Company, at Ford’s, is offering an effective answer to those virtuosi of biliousness who maintain that Baltimore will not support good music. What better support could be demanded, or even imagined? Here, in the hot weather, with most persons tired of theatre-going and the summer parks offering seductive counter-attractions, the house is pretty well filled nine times a week, and for nine weeks on end. Altogether the Aborns are giving us 81 performances this year, and save in the case of “Martha” and “The Tales of Hoffman” they have found it entirely unnecessary to turn to so-called “popular” stuff. Their season’s repertoire, indeed, is fully as ambitious as that of nine-tenths of the opera houses of Europe, not only quantitatively but also qualitatively. And they are able to provide competent singers and reasonable stage embellishments at prices ranging from $1 down to 25 cents.

That the enterprise is paying is shown by the fact that the company is now making its third successive visit and that its season has been steadily extended year by year. But there is also the direct testimony of the managers, one of whom said yesterday:

We now regard Baltimore as our best city. This year we are giving opera in Brooklyn, Washington, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Boston and Providence, as well as here. In some of these cities we have been very successful, particularly in Brooklyn and Chicago. But our patronage in Baltimore is far more dependable. We can always look forward confidently, so long as the temperature remains bearable, to profitable business. Elsewhere things are more uncertain. Good business is followed by bad. What is more, the demand here is for the very best works in our reportoire—such things as “Lohengrin,” “Madame Butterfly” and “Tosca.” Putting population against population, Baltimore’s desire to hear such works is overwhelmingly greater than that of any other city we visit. How the notion could have got about that your people do not like good music I can’t understand. Certainly our box-office doesn’t show it.

And yet that notion has got about—and largely through the patriotic efforts of opera and concert boomers. Because Baltimoreans will not go to hear opera at prices running from $2 to $5 and refuse to pay $3 to hear an orchestra inferior to the Boston Symphony, they are denounced as barbarians. But if the charge to true, then the people of nine-tenths of Germany, France and Italy are equally guilty. How many Continental cities, setting aside the great resorts, where the dollar of the tourist looms large, would support $5 opera? Not many, you may be sure. The average cost of a seat, which is about $3.50 here when all the war paint is laid on, is not more than $1 there. The London Philharmonic, when it played here on April 12, asked $1.50 for the cheapest seat in the house. On May 20, having returned to London, it gave a gala centennial concert in the Queen’s Hall, playing Beethoven’s choral symphony and with Zimbalist as extra soloist—and offered plenty of tickets at one shilling (25 cents). No wonder Baltimoreans stayed away! A love of music by no means presupposes a desire to give away money.

Meanwhile, the Aborns plug along, extending their season and strengthening their repertoire. When they first came here they tempted theatregoers with very gay stuff, but since then they have found that device unnecessary. To fill the resultant gap between no music and serious music a comic opera company is announced. It will appear at the Academy of Music and will confine itself, I believe, to the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan, those imperishable masterpieces of light music. “The Mikado” was 27 years old on March 14, but it is still good for a profitable house in any city of America. “Pinafore,” which Is seven years older, remains just as popular, and last season a pretentious company played it throughout the country. “The Pirates of Penzance,” first presented in 1891, was revived in New York no longer ago than last Monday. Even “Patience,” with its purely topical story, is still heard with pleasure, and there is talk of reviving “Iolanthe,” “The Sorcerer,” “Ruddigore” and “The Gondoliers.”

In this connection it may be interesting to glance at the history of the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas in their native city of London. Here is a table showing when they were first performed and how many times they have been since:

First per- First run. Revivals Total Operetta. Formance. (Nights) (Nights) to date. The Sorcerer. Nov. 17, 1877 175 252 437 Pinafore May 25, 1878 700 355 1,055 The Pirates of Penzance April 3, 1880 633 ___ ___ Patience April 23, 1881 576 201 777 Iolanthe Nov. 25, 1882 398 81 479 Princess Ida Jan. 5, 1884 246 – 246 The Mikado Mar. 14, 1885 672 614 1,286 Ruddigore Jan. 23, 1887 288 – 288 The Yeoman of the Guard Oct. 3, 1888 423 305 728 The Gondo- liers Dec. 7, 1889 554 223 777

This table shows that “The Mikado” has been the most popular of the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas in London, with “Pinafore” second, “The Pirates of Penzance” third and “Patience” fourth. No doubt the returns from any other city would rank the pieces in the same order. Between October 10, 1881, and April 20, 1901, they and the others held the stage at the Savoy Theatre in London practically continuously–a period of 20 years. And on December 3, 1906, there began a series of revivals which kept up until March 27, 1909.

From “The Physiology of the Human Body and Hygiene,” by John Turner, Jr., M. D., chief medical officer of the old-fashioned administration:

Crowd poison is a fatty material which is exhaled, and which usually sticks to fancy trimmings, bric-a-brac, etc., in the room. It is more poisonous than CO2, and is correspondingly dangerous. In a room with ½% to 1% of CO2 people will not experience much inconvenience, but with less than that they become sick, due to the presence of the crowd poison. (Page 224.) By placing Mercury in a test tube the Blood Pressure will lift Hg up 6 in. in left ventricle, and 4 in. in right ventricle, and ¾ in. in auricles. (Page 70.) Vocal exercise is highly necessary in voice culture. (Page 289.) Vowels are compound musical tones, produced only in the larynx, said some vocal teacher. (Page 289.)

It will be worse when the weather grows really hot and the City Council windows are opened.

An anti-vivisectionist is one who gags at a guinea pig and swallows a baby. Old, true enough–but darn good.