In One Ear and Out the Other Is Fate of Opera Music in America, Weber Avers--Novelty the Cry of This Country

"In Europe people go to hear one and the same opera over and over again; here in America the weekly subscribers of the Chicago Opera, for instance, would raise a storm of protest if they were to see the same performance twice in two years."

Henry Weber, conductor of the Chicago Civic Opera Company, who incidentally, said that he was the only American-born conductor in the particular field of opera, paced up and down his room in the Ritz Carlton yesterday, as he pointed out the difference between audiences on the two continents.

"Americans treat the opera as if it were a movie; they have absolutely no understanding for the art. They 'feel' music in an original and somewhat sentimental way, but they don't bother to test what is beneath the surface--the music comes in at one ear and goes right out of the other."

Mr. Weber said, however, that Bostonians were somewhat of an exception to this rule, and that he felt them to be more intellectually inclined towards music than other Americans.

Relating several incidents of his career, Mr. Weber said that he had been taught to play the piano when he was six years old. Until his eleventh year this was "only a side issue in my life," he continued.

"I never really thought of following it up professionally then, but during the war when I was in Vienna, all dances and theatre performances were called off. The only thing that continued was the opera, and if we sought amusement that was where we had to go. I went every night, and that is when I developed the taste for my career. But it was not until I saw a performance of "Tristan and Isolde" that something absolutely changed in me and showed me my way in life. That was when 1 was 16. Since then I have folowed my present career systematically, studying in Vienna most of the time. Four years ago I joined the Chicago Opera Company, and I have been with them since then."