Life, 1887-01-20 · page 12 of 16
Life — January 20, 1887 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "The Grumbler in the Lobby" This page satirizes attitudes toward opera and high culture. The main piece presents a conversation between theater-goers debating opera's merit. "Fitz-Jones" complains he couldn't understand the performance—whether sung in English, Italian, or "Choctaw"—because the singer's vocal gymnastics obscured meaning. His friend counters that Italian opera's beauty lies partly in *not* understanding the words, allowing imagination to fill gaps rather than confronting absurd plots (like a bass announcing "supper is ready"). The satire targets both opera snobs who valorize foreign-language performances and the genre's inherent pretension: grand opera's nonsensical plots are only tolerable when language barriers prevent full comprehension. The smaller cartoons mock related vanities: a dandy dropping flowers at a tragedy (disrupting the performance), and observations about physical proportions (small-headed dandies carrying large canes; women wearing enormous bonnets).
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE GRU™!3LER IN THE LOBBY. “cc MERICAN OPERA, indeed,” grumbled Fitz-Jones, as he struggled into his fur-lined coat, “I didn’t understand a word of it! When a singer is tumbling summersaults up and down the chromatic scale, it doesn’t make any difference to me whether the words are English, Italian or Choctaw, when it comes to a question of finding out what it’s all about. Give me Italian Opera. It sounds prettier, and the printed argument gives a fellow some idea of the general drift of affairs.” “Oh, my dear boy, you should buy a ‘book,’ you know,” replied his friend De | Smythe, punching his crush hat out into its normal shape. ‘Then you could re- | alize what a consummate idiot the tenor | was making of himself.” “Fellows, the whole thing lies in a nutshell, just as any other chestnut does,” added the critic. “In the light of reason Grand Opera is arrant nonsense. When it is sung in English, that fact is relentlessly fired home to the philosophic | consciousness. When it is sung in Ital- ian, the eye and ear are pleased, and to | the imagination is left the task of invent- A Dupr, at a Tragedy Play, ing some pleasing explanation, as in every Tried to hand from his box a bouquet, higher form of art. When the basso, But he fell o’er the side aided and abetted by one hundred and Down a big Ophicleide, seventy-five high-priced musicians, tells And gave the whole business away. you in his deepest chest tones that sup- per is ready, or that some other every- day occurrence has taken place, your imagination takes a back seat and your common sense kicks you over the traces. Hine ille lachrime. A. P. Smith. TOOK THE BULL BY THE HORNS. AWYER: Have you made your will? CLIENT: Yes, I had Mr. Quill draw it yesterday. LAWYER: Are you sure it’s tight enough to stand a contest ? CLIENT: Oh, yes; but to obviate that, I left all my property to you. SCRAPS. ENERAL MILES is said to be the handsomest officer RECENT sage observation, that the smaller the dude’s inthe U.S. Army. It doesn’t require much change head the larger his cane, may be applied with equal | in the old proverb to say that Miles lends enchantment to force to the bonnets of the ladies. the view. comicbooks.com