Life — February 1, 1917 — page 8: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "Martha: Grand Opera in Anguish" This is a satirical opera parody by Friedfish von Flotow, presented at the Five and Ten Century Theatre. The piece mocks high operatic conventions through absurdist humor—featuring characters like "Lady Haricot" (a massacring Italian soprano), "Nancy" (a German contralto), and various performers speaking in exaggerated pseudo-foreign gibberish mixed with English. The satire targets pretentious opera culture: overwrought emotion, incomprehensible foreign languages, and elaborate staging. References to characters suffering from "nostalgia" and "pneumonia" mock operatic melodrama. The nonsensical dialogue and stage directions ("Kosher motzas jakey einstein") suggest that much operatic performance is meaningless spectacle designed to confound rather than move audiences.