THE AUGMENTED STATION ORCHESTRA, conducted by PERCY PITT CORNELIUS'S The Barber of Bagdad has never been an enormous success as an opera, but its Overture is popular as a concert piece. It has been before the public now for nearly seventy years, but there's life in it still.
Imagine what you like as you hear it: the adventures of the wonderfully accomplished Barber, with the sonorous appellation, Abu Hassan Ali Ebe Bekar, an artist with the razor and equally one with his tongue: the beautiful heroine, the daughter of the Cadi; the chest reputed to be full of rich treasure sent to this miracle of loveliness by her wealthy lover, but later reported to contain a corpse. Imagine what you like-so long as you imagine something romantic and something in the spirit of The Arabian Nights.