"Cavalleria Rusticana" precipitated an amusing but extremely lively managerial battle when it reached New York. Those who watched the operatic doings of Europe were aware of the fact that the opera spread like wildfire from town to town immediately after its first success at Rome. Fast as it traveled, however, the intermezzo traveled faster.
Seidl had seized upon it in the summer of 1891, and made it a feature of his concerts at Brighton Beach. Then came simultaneous announcements of the production of the opera by Rudolph Aronson and Oscar Hammerstein in the fall. Mr. Aronson wanted to open the season at the Casino with it, and let it introduce a change in the character of the entertainments given at that playhouse. Mr. Hammerstein had also announced the work, but he had no theater at his ready disposal. He thought Aronson was poaching on his preserves, and there began a diverting struggle for priority of performance, from which n.o.body profited and the opera suffered. Amid threats of crimination Aronson precipitated what he called a dress rehearsal of the work at the Casino in the afternoon of October 1, 1891. Like the king in the parable, he sent out into the highways, and bade all he could find in to the feast. Especially did his servants labor on the Rialto, and the affair had all the appearance of a professional matinee. Nothing was quite in readiness, but Mr.
Hammerstein had announced his first performance for the evening of that day, and must be antic.i.p.ated at all hazards. Yet there were singers and scenes and musicians in the orchestra, and Mr. Gustav Kerker to steer the little operatic ship through the breakers. On the whole, the performance was fair. Laura Bellini was the Santuzza of the occasion, Grace Golden the Lola, Helen von Doenhoff the Lucia, Charles Ba.s.sett the Turiddu, and William Pruette the Alfio. Heinrich Conried staged the production. In the evening Oscar Hammerstein pitchforked the opera on to the stage of the Lenox Lyceum--an open concert room, and a poor one at that. There was a canvas proscenium, no scenery to speak of, costumes copied from no particular country and no particular period, and a general effect of improvisation. But the musical forces were superior to Mr. Aronson"s, and had there been a better theater the Casino performance would have been greatly surpa.s.sed. There was a really fine orchestra under the direction of Mr. Adolph Neuendorff, but it sat out on the floor of the hall, which reverberated like a drum. Mme.
Janouschoffsky, an exceedingly capable artist, was the Santuzza, Mrs.
Pemberton Hincks the Lola, Mrs. Jennie Bohner the Lucia, Payne Clarke the Turiddu, and Herman Gerold the Alfio. While all this pother was making, "Cavalleria Rusticana" was already three weeks old in Philadelphia, where Mr. Gustav Hinrichs had brought it forward with his American company at the Grand Opera House; Minnie Hauk, with a company of her own, had given it in Chicago the night before the New York struggle, and Emma Juch and her company were rushing forward the preparations for a production in Boston.
"Cavalleria Rusticana" came upon the world like the bursting of a bomb, and its effect was so startling that it bewildered and confounded the radical leaders of musical thought. There were few, indeed, who retained calmness of vision enough to perceive that it was less a change of manner than of subject-matter, which had whirled the world off its critical feet. Outside of Italy there was no means of seeing the work of preparation which had preceded it. The annual output of hundreds of operas made no impression beyond the Alpine barrier, and it was easy to believe that the entire product was formed after the old and humdrum manner. No sooner had "Cavalleria Rusticana" broken down the old confines, however, than it was discovered that a whole brood of young musicians had been brought up on the same blood-heating food, and a dozen composers were ready to use the same formulas. Most of them, indeed, got the virus from the same apothecary who uttered the mortal drug to Mascagni--that is to say, from Amilcare Ponchielli. Had we but listened twenty-five years ago to "La Gioconda" as we are able to listen to "Cavalleria Rusticana," and its swift and mult.i.tudinous offspring now, we might have recognized the beginnings of what has been termed "Mascagnitis," not in an essentially new manner of musical composition, but in the appeal to the primitive pa.s.sion for violence and blood which found expression in the operatic paraphrase of Victor Hugo"s story, and the invitation which that pa.s.sion extended to the modern musician suddenly emanc.i.p.ated from a lot of c.u.mbersome formularies, and endowed with a ma.s.s of new harmonic and instrumental pigments with which to produce the startling contrasts and swift contradictions for which the new field of subjects clamors.
Seventeen years ago "Cavalleria Rusticana" had no perspective. Now, though but a small portion of its progeny has been brought to our notice, we, nevertheless, look at it through a vista which looks like a valley of moral and physical death through which there flows a sluggish stream thick with filth, and red with blood. Strangely enough, in spite of the consequences which have followed it, the fierce little drama retains its old potency. It still speaks with a voice which sounds like the voice of truth. Its music still makes the nerves tingle, and carries our feelings unresistingly on its turbulent current. But the stage picture is less sanguinary than it looked in the beginning. It seems to have receded a millennium in time. It has the terrible fierceness of an Attic tragedy, but it also has the decorum which the Attic tragedy never violated. There is no slaughter in the presence of the audience, despite the humbleness of its personages. It does not keep us perpetually in sight of the shambles. It is, indeed, an exposition of chivalry, rustic, but chivalry, nevertheless. It was thus Clytemnestra slew her husband, and Orestes his mother. Note the contrast which the duel between Alfio and Turiddu presents with the double murder to the piquant accompaniment of comedy in "Pagliacci," the opera which followed so hard upon its heels. Since then piquancy has been the cry; the piquant contemplation of adultery, seduction, and murder amid the reek and stench of the Italian barnyard. Think of Cilea"s "Tilda," Giordano"s "Mala Vita,"
Spinelli"s "A Ba.s.so Porto," and Tasca"s "A Santa Lucia!"
The stories chosen for operatic treatment by the champions of verismo are all alike. It is their filth and blood which fructifies the music, which rasps the nerves even as the plays revolt the moral stomach. I repeat: looking back over the time during which this so-called veritism has held its orgy, "Cavalleria Rusticana" seems almost cla.s.sic. Its music is highly spiced and tastes "hot i" th" mouth," but its eloquence is, after all, in its eager, pulsating, pa.s.sionate melody--like the music which Verdi wrote more than half a century ago for the last act of "Il Trovatore." If neither Mascagni himself, nor his imitators, have succeeded in equaling it since, it is because they have thought too much of the external devices of abrupt and uncouth change of modes and tonalities, of exotic scales and garish orchestration, and too little of the fundamental element of melody, which once was the be-all and end-all of Italian music. Another fountain of gushing melody must be opened before "Cavalleria Rusticana" finds a successor in all things worthy of the succession. Ingenious artifice, reflection, and technical cleverness will not suffice even with the blood and mud of the Neapolitan slums as a fertilizer.
Messrs. Abbey and Grau had no rival opera organizations to contend with at any time after they opened their doors, so they created a bit of compet.i.tion themselves. In January they brought Mme. Patti and her operatic concert company into the house for a pair of concerts in which scenes from operas were sung in costume, the famous singer"s companions being Mlle. Fabbri, M. Guille (tenor), Signor Novara (ba.s.s), and Signor Del Puente. The occasion offered an opportunity to study the impulses which underlie popular patronage. The entertainments being concerts, not operas, the stockholders were not ent.i.tled to their boxes under the terms of their contract with Abbey & Grau, and were conspicuous by their absence. Nevertheless, at the second concert, which took place on an afternoon, I estimated the audience at four thousand--nine-tenths women.
Mme. Patti also appeared in performances of "Lucia di Lammermoor" and "Il Barbiere" in a supplementary season, one feature of which, on March 31, 1892, was the production of Wagner"s "Flying Dutchman" in Italian, with M. La.s.salle in the t.i.tular part, which he sang for the first time in his life. "A marvelous artist indeed is this Frenchman," was my comment in The Tribune, "and if he and the brothers de Reszke are in next year"s company, the lovers of the lyric drama as distinguished from the old sing-song opera will look into the future without trepidation."
Unhappily there was no "next year"s company."
In August, 1892, the Metropolitan Opera House had a visitation of fire, which brought operatic matters to a crisis, caused a postponement of the performance for a season, a reorganization of the corporation which owned the building, and a remodeling of the stage and portions of the interior of the theater. For a considerable s.p.a.ce before the building of the Metropolitan the public mind was greatly exercised over the awful loss of life at recent theater fires, especially the destruction of the Ringtheater in Vienna. When Mr. Cady planned the New York house, he set about making it as absolutely fireproof as such a structure can be.
It was to be non-combustible from the bottom up. There was not a stud part.i.tion in it. The floors were all of iron beams and brick arches, the masonry being exposed in the corridors, pa.s.sages and vestibules, but for comfort having a covering of wood in the audience room. The roof was of iron and masonry, the outer covering of slate being secured to masonry blocks. The iron roof beams of over one hundred feet span, were mounted on rollers to allow for contraction and expansion. The ceiling of the audience room was of iron. The ornamental work of the proscenium, the tier bal.u.s.trades, and the frames of the part.i.tions between the boxes were all of metal. The stage was supported by a complex iron system of about four thousand light pieces so adjusted as to be removable in sections when it was desired to open the stage floor. Theater fires almost invariably originate on the stage, and, as an additional safeguard, Mr. Cady contrived an apparatus for flooding the stage in the case of a threatened conflagration. A large skylight was weighted to fall open in case of fire, and a great water tank placed over the rigging loft and connected with a network of pipes with apertures stopped with extremely fusible solder, so that the heat of even a small fire would open the holes and release a drenching shower.
One after another these precautions were rendered inutile. The iron support of the stage troubled the stage mechanics, who wanted something that could be more easily handled, so wooden pieces were subst.i.tuted for the iron. The location of the tank was such that the water was in danger of freezing in winter, and steam pipes were arranged to keep the water warm. Mr. Abbey did not like the expense of warming the water, and therefore emptied the tank. There was a fireproof curtain, which was c.u.mbrous to handle, and Mr. Abbey"s men chained it up. The commodious stage made a superb paint shop in summer, and Mr. Abbey used it for painting scenery for his other theaters. It was being thus used on August 27, 1892, when a workman carelessly threw a lighted match among the "green" scenery. It caught fire, the stage was burned out, and the auditorium sadly disfigured. When, eventually, the building was repaired, the interior of the theater, all that had suffered harm, was thoroughly remodeled, the stockholders" boxes were reduced to a single row, the proscenium was given its present shape, the ap.r.o.n of the stage was removed, and the stage itself was made more practicable in many ways. This did not happen, however, until the question whether or not the opera house should be restored to its original uses had occupied the minds of the stockholders and public for nearly a year. In the middle of the season Messrs. Abbey and Grau, while protesting that they were satisfied with the financial outcome of their venture, announced that they did not intend to give opera the next year. They were shaken in this determination, if they ever seriously harbored it, by the success of "Faust" and one or two other operas, which enlisted what in the next season of opera came to be called the "ideal cast." But there was a division of opinion as to the proper course for the future among the stockholders, especially after Mr. Abbey, late in September, sent word from London that his firm would not undertake opera in the United States without a subvention from the Metropolitan Opera Company. Also that he had already canceled his contracts with singers for the American season of 1892-93. There was some vague talk before this on the part of Mr.
Schoeffel of a season of opera in Mexico City, and a longer season than usual in Chicago, the intimation plainly being that grand opera might be emanc.i.p.ated from dependence on the metropolis. One effect of this indecision was to bring forth a discussion of the feasibility of endowed opera in New York, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, and one or two other of the large cities of the country. Another was to call into new life an agitation in favor of the establishment of another German company. The first project died of inanition; the second developed in another year into an actuality, which created more stir than the close of the opera house had done. The Metropolitan Opera Company reached a decision some time in January, 1893. The directors had neglected to insure the building against fire, and provision had to be made for funds to rebuild, as well as to pay off existing liabilities. The opera lovers among the stockholders reorganized the company under the style of the Metropolitan Opera and Real Estate Company, and purchased the building under foreclosure proceeding for $1,425,000, then raised $1,000,000 by a bond issue, and the summer of 1893 was devoted to a restoration of the theater, an agreement having also been reached for a new lease to Mr.
Abbey and his a.s.sociates.
CHAPTER XVII
THE ADVENT OF MELBA AND CALVe
For the reasons set forth at the close of the last chapter there was no opera at the Metropolitan Opera House in the season of 1892-93, but the fall of the latter year witnessed the beginning of a new period, full of vicissitudes. With many brilliant artistic features, it was still experimental to a large extent on its artistic side, the chief results of its empiricism being the restoration of German opera in the repertory on an equal footing with Italian and French. It also brought the largest wave of prosperity to the house that it had experienced since its opening, yet ended in the shipwreck of the lessees, and disaster that was more than financial. The lessees were again Messrs. Abbey, Schoeffel and Grau, with whom the reorganized Metropolitan Opera and Real Estate Company (Limited) effected an agreement, the essential elements of which remained unchanged for fifteen years; that is, down to the close of the season of 1907-08. The term was five years. The lessees took the house for an annual rental of $52,000, and pledged themselves to give opera four times a week for thirteen weeks in the winter and spring. The lessors paid back to the lessees the $52,000 for their box privileges, and to insure representations which would be satisfactory to them, reserved the right to nominate six of the singers, two of whom were to take part in every performance in the subscription list.
The first season under the new lease was enormously successful, Abbey, Schoeffel, and Grau realizing about $150,000, including the visits to other cities, and a supplementary spring season of two weeks. They made great losses on their other enterprises, however, especially on Abbey"s Theater (now the Knickerbocker), and the American tours of Mounet-Sully and Mme. Rejane. Like results attended the seasons of 1894-95, and 1895-96, the drag in the latter instance being the Lillian Russell Opera Company, which, together with other ventures, brought the firm into such a financial slough that it made an a.s.signment for the benefit of its creditors, who were forced to take over its business to protect themselves. Chief of these was William Steinway, who had accommodated Abbey, Schoeffel and Grau with loans to the extent of $50,000. Under his guidance as chairman of the committee of reorganization, the stock company, Abbey, Schoeffel & Grau (Limited), was formed, he becoming president, and Henry E. Abbey, John B. Schoeffel, and Maurice Grau managing directors at a salary of $20,000 a year. Ernest Goerlitz, who had been in the employ of the firm for some time, was made secretary and treasurer. He remained in an executive capacity at the Metropolitan until the expiration of the consulship of Conried in 1908. Mr. Steinway got rid of the debts of the company (or, perhaps, it would be more correct to say, changed their character) by issuing certificates of stock and notes to the creditors. In this manner some of the princ.i.p.al artists of the company became financially interested in opera giving.
Before the reorganized company began the next series of performances Mr.
Abbey died, and the season was only a fortnight old when Mr. Steinway followed him into the grave. A very puissant personage in the managerial field was Mr. Abbey during a full quarter-century of theatrical life in America. He was a purely speculative manager, who never permitted his own likes or dislikes to influence him in his chosen vocation of purveying amus.e.m.e.nts, so-called, to the public, though his tastes led him generally into the higher regions, and there is little doubt that an inherent love for music for its own sake made him take to opera. As a young man in his native city of Akron, Ohio, where he was born in 1846, he played cornet in the town band. When he revoked his resolution never to embark in an operatic enterprise again after the disastrous season of 1883-84, I met him in Broadway, and asked him about the artists he intended to bring to the Metropolitan Opera House. He gave me the names of those whom he had in view, and I expressed my regret that one, whom I admired very greatly indeed, was missing. His reply was prompt: "There is no woman in the world I would rather engage, and no woman whose singing gives me greater pleasure; but she doesn"t draw. I never made any money with her." It was an illuminative observation. As a youth he was interested with his father in the jewelry business in Akron, and on the death of his father, in 1873, the business became his; but by that time he was already a theatrical manager, though on a small scale. In 1869 he had a.s.sumed charge of the Akron theater. In 1876 he a.s.sociated himself with John B. Schoeffel, and with him gradually acquired theatrical properties in several of the princ.i.p.al cities of the East, and entered upon enterprises of a character which were his undoing in the end. The Abbey, Schoeffel & Grau Company carried through the season of 1896-97 with a profit of about $30,000 in New York, despite the fact that the financial affairs of the country were in a bad way. A four weeks" season in Chicago, however, was ruinous, and Mr. Gran was compelled to fall back on some of the artists of the company and friends to enable him to bring the Chicago season to a close. Jean and edouard de Reszke and La.s.salle were among the subscribers to a guarantee fund of $30,000, which he needed to carry him through. All the guarantors were repaid in full, when, at the end of the season, the affairs of Abbey, Schoeffel & Grau (Limited) were wound up, and Mr. Schoeffel bought the princ.i.p.al a.s.set, the Tremont Theater, in Boston. Thereupon Mr. Grau and his a.s.sociates formed a new company, which gave opera under the conditions which seemed to have become traditional until the end of the season of 1902-3. Mr. Grau was compelled by ill health to withdraw from active duty before the end of the last season, and the story of his company"s doings falls naturally into another chapter of this history.
We must now survey the artistic incidents of the period between the reconstruction of the opera house and the beginning of the new regime.
This will be the business of this and the following chapter.
Simply for the sake of convenience in the record, I shall devote the chief statistical attention in the remaining chapters of this history to the subscription seasons, and discuss the supplementary spring seasons only as they offer features of special interest. The seasons, generally a fortnight long, and given after the return of the singers from visits to Boston and Chicago, are distinguished from the subscription seasons very much as the fall seasons in London are from the summer seasons, though there is not the sharp line of demarcation so far as fashion goes, which the adjournment of Parliament makes on the other side of the Atlantic.
The tenth regular season of opera then began at the Metropolitan Opera House on November 27, 1893, and ended on February 24, 1894. Officially the languages of the performances were Italian and French, but the operas given were, for the greater part, French and German, and the representations were dual in language in all cases, except the Italian works. I mention this fact, not because of its singularity, for it is a familiar phenomenon all over the operatic world, except perhaps Italy, but in order to point out hereafter a betterment, which came in with a more serious artistic striving later. The chorus always sang in the "soft b.a.s.t.a.r.d Latin," whether the princ.i.p.als sang in Italian or French; and the occasions were not a few when two languages were sung also by the princ.i.p.als--when lovers wooed in French, and received their replies in Italian, thus recalling things over which Addison made merry generations ago. The season was planned to embrace thirty-nine subscription nights and thirteen matinees. To these were added two matinees and sixteen evening representations, two of the latter being for the benefit of popular charities. In all, New York had sixty performances of opera within the period covered by the regular subscription, which was a smaller number than had been shown by any season since that of 1886-87. Eighteen operas were brought forward in full (that is to say, without more than the conventional cuts), and parts of three others. Thus of "La Traviata," though I have included it in the list to be presented soon, only the first and fourth acts were performed. There was not a single opera in the repertory which had not been heard in New York before, though several were new to the house.
The nearest approach to a novelty was Mascagni"s "L"Amico Fritz," which disappeared from the list after two representations, and had been heard at an improvised performance, which scarcely deserves to be considered in a record of this character. In the supplemental season, however, a novelty of real pith and moment was brought forward in the shape of Ma.s.senet"s "Werther," which had been promised to the regular subscribers, and which, while it made no profound impression, was accepted as an earnest of the excellent and honorable intentions of the managers, and a proof of the difficulties which hampered them at times.
The princ.i.p.al members of the company were Mesdames Melba, Calve, Eames, Nordica, Arnoldson, Scalchi, and Mantelli, and Messrs. Jean and edouard de Reszke, de Lucia, Vignas, Ancona, Plancon, Castelmary, and Martapoura. The subscription for the season amounted to $82,000, which was $10,000 more than the largest subscription in the German period. A great ado was made over this fact by the managers and their friends. Not unnaturally the lovers of German opera took up the cudgels against the Italianissimi, and pointed out the indubitable fact that owing to the difference in prices of admission and seats the subscription, instead of showing a large advance in popular interest, indicated a falling off to the extent of an attendance of six thousand in the season. Not money, but attendance, they argued, was the real standard of popularity. The managers also very unwisely, as it proved (since two years later they found themselves obliged to include German performances in their scheme), put forward a public boast that the receipts for the last month of the opera "nearly equaled the average gross receipts for the entire term of any German opera ever given in New York." Of course, the reference went only to the German seasons at the Metropolitan Opera House, for there was no record that could be consulted touching the many sporadic German enterprises of the earlier periods at the Academy of Music and other theaters. It was not at all unkind, but simply in the interest of historical verity that in The Tribune I called attention to the fact that it was scarcely ingenuous in Abbey, Schoeffel & Grau to choose the last month in the season for the comparison, for in that month there were twenty-two representations, including two for popular charities (at one of which, managed by the opera house directors, the public contributed $22,000), and six representations of "Carmen," which, with Mme. Calve in the princ.i.p.al character, was enjoying the most sensational triumph ever achieved by any opera or singer. Moreover, most of "these performances were outside the subscription, and the prices, as I have repeatedly said, were nearly double those which prevailed during the German regime. Besides, it was an easy task to prove from the figures which I had printed from year to year in my "Review of the New York Musical Season," that, in order to surpa.s.s the German record with their last month, Abbey, Schoeffel & Grau would have had to show average nightly receipts of over $9,000, whereas only once had they, in a spirit of boastfulness, claimed that as much as $11,000 had been taken at a single performance, and that at a phenomenal "Carmen" matinee. Without Calve and "Carmen" the bankruptcy which came two years later might have been precipitated in this season. Thanks to Bizet"s opera, and its heroine, and the popularity of Mme. Eames and the brothers de Reszke in "Faust," the season was prodigiously successful, the receipts from all sources (including the Sunday night concerts and opera in Philadelphia and Brooklyn) being in the neighborhood of $550,000, and the profits, as I have already said, $150,000. The twelve performances of "Carmen,"
I make no doubt, brought at least $100,000 into the exchequer of the managers in the subscription season, and in the supplemental post-Lenten season of a fortnight there were three performances more. The success of the opera remained without a parallel in the history of opera in New York till the coming of Wagner"s "Parsifal."
Mme. Melba effected her entrance on the operatic stage in America on December 4, 1893, in Donizetti"s "Lucia." Five years before she had made her London debut in the same opera, and between that time and her coming to New York she had won fragrant laurels in Paris in company with the brothers de Reszke and M. La.s.salle in "Romeo et Juliette" and "Faust,"
both of which operas she had prepared with the composer. Her repertory was small when she came, but in it she was unique, both for the quality of her voice and the quality of her art. She did not make all of her operas effective in her first season, partly because a large portion of the public had been weaned away from the purely lyric style of composition and song, in which she excelled, partly because the dramatic methods and fascinating personality of Mme. Calve had created a fad which soon grew to proportions that scouted at reason; partly because Miss (not Mme.) Eames had become a great popular favorite, and the people of society, who doted on her, on Jean de Reszke, his brother edouard, and on La.s.salle, found all the artistic bliss of which they were capable in listening to their combined voices in "Faust." So popular had Gounod"s opera become at this time with the patrons of the Metropolitan Opera House, that my witty colleague, Mr. W. J. Henderson, sarcastically dubbed it "das Faustspielhaus," in parody of the popular t.i.tle of the theater on the hill in the Wagnerian Mecca.
When Mme. Melba came she was the finest exemplar of finished vocalization that had been heard at the opera house since its opening, with the single exception of Mme. Sembrich. Though she had been singing in opera only five years, she had reached the zenith of her powers.
Her voice was charmingly fresh, and exquisitely beautiful. Her tone-production was more natural, and quite as apparently spontaneous, as that of the wonderful woman who so long upheld the standard of bel canto throughout the world. In the case of Mme. Patti, art had already begun to be largely artifice, a circ.u.mstance that needed to cause no wonder inasmuch as her career on the operatic Stage already compa.s.sed a full generation; but Mme. Melba neither needed to seek for means nor guard against possible mishap. All that she needed--more than that: all that she wanted to humor her amiable disposition to be prodigal in utterance--lay in her voice ready at hand. Its range was commensurate with all that could be asked of it, and she moved with greatest ease in the regions which most of her rivals carefully avoided. To throw out those scintillant bubbles of sound which used to be looked upon as the highest achievement in singing seemed to be an entirely natural mode of expression with her. With the reasonableness of such a mode of expression I am not concerned now; it is enough that Mme. Melba came nearer to providing it with justification than any one of her contemporaries of that day, except Mme. Sembrich, or any of her contemporaries of to-day. Added to these gifts and graces, she disclosed most admirable musical instincts, a quality which the people had been taught to admire more than ever while they were learning how to give reverence due to the dramatic elements in the modern lyric drama.
I have already intimated that Mme. Melba"s operas found little favor with the public compared with "Carmen" and "Faust," and, perhaps, there was in this more than a mere indication of the educational influence left by the German period. I should have no hesitation whatever in saying so had not the "Carmen" craze reached proportions which precluded the thought that artistic predilections or convictions had anything to do with it. So much of a mere fad did Mme. Calve in "Carmen" become that the public remained all but insensible to the merits of her immeasurably finer impersonation of Santuzza in "Cavalleria Rusticana." It was in Mascagni"s opera that she effected her debut on November 29, 1893, in company with Senor Vignas, a Spanish tenor, squat and ungraceful of figure, homely of features, restricted in intelligence, and strident of voice. New York knew very little of Mme. Calve when she came, though she had already been twice as long on the stage as Mme. Melba, and even after her first appearance Mr. Abbey met my congratulations on her achievement with a dubious shake of the head, and the remark that, while he hoped my predictions touching her popularity would be fulfilled, he placed a much lower estimation on her powers than I. Not he, but Mr. Grau, was responsible for her engagement, and his hopes were all centered on Mme. Melba. Like most of our singers at the time, Calve came to New York by way of London. The role of Santuzza, which she had created in Paris in January, 1892, and in London in the following May, had been hailed with gladness in both cities, but her Carmen was as inadequately appreciated in Paris as it was overestimated in New York and London, especially in later years, when the capriciousness which led her originally to break away from some of the traditions of the role created by Galli-Marie. and thus cost her the understanding of the Parisians, had become a fixed habit, which she pursued regardless of decent moderation, sound principles, and good taste.
The Parisians attested their artistic Bourbonism not only in declining to recognize the excellence of the good features of Calve"s Carmen, but, also, in failing to appreciate her touchingly beautiful Ophelia, to the great grief of Ambroise Thomas, who went to Italy to see her in the part, and believed that had she but been given the proper support in Paris "Hamlet" would have ranked with "Faust" in popularity. Of course, this was a fond composer"s too good opinion of his opera, but the trait of the Paris public which is unwilling to find merit in any change from a performance which first won their admiration has frequently stood in the way of first-cla.s.s talent. To ill.u.s.trate this I can relate an anecdote which was repeated to me at an artistic dinner table in the French capital in 1886. It is not for me to vouch for the truth of the story, but give it as it was told to me in explanation of some amused comments which I had made on the stiff conventionality of a performance of "L"Africaine" which I had witnessed at the Grand Opera. Faure, the original of Ambroise Thomas"s Hamlet, had been succeeded in the role by La.s.salle, whose fine art in newer works had met with full recognition from press and public. To La.s.salle"s great surprise, his Hamlet, a remarkably fine performance within the limit set by the pitiable operatic travesty of Shakespeare"s play, was received coldly, and there was wide comment on the circ.u.mstance that he had ignored traditions of performance, especially in the scene between the Prince and his mother.
In considerable distress he went to Faure, who had set the fashion:
"What pose, gesture, effect of yours is it that I have failed to copy?"
he asked of his confrere.
And Faure explained:
At the first performance when he reached the scene in question, he had found his throat suddenly clogged. Only by an act neither pleasant to observe nor polite to describe, could he remove the obstruction, and at a supreme moment he had improvised a movement which carried his face out of sight of the audience, so that he might free his throat unnoticed.
Knowing nothing of the cause, the public applauded the effect, and the singular nuance became a part of the "business" of the piece.
When Mme. Calve flashed upon New York in "Cavalleria Rusticana,"
her impersonation startled me into the declaration that no finer lyrico-dramatic performance had been witnessed in America within a generation. Unhesitatingly I placed it by the side of Materna"s Brunnhilde, Brandt"s Fides, Niemann"s Tristan and Siegmund, and Fischer"s Hans Sachs, without, of course, presuming to compare the relative value of the dramatists" conceits. Even now I cannot recall anything finer in the region of combined action and song. She held her listeners so completely captive and swayed them so powerfully that she compelled even the foolishly and affectedly frantic claquers, who had seats near the stage, to hold their peace. They could only make their boisterous clamor in response to the old-fashioned appeal made by a high tone screeched by the stridulous tenor. There was as little conventionality in her singing as in her acting, though she had not yet adopted that indifference to rhythm which has marked her singing in more recent years. She saturated the music with emotion. Much of it she seemed to sing to herself, declaiming it like dramatic speech whose emotional contents had been raised to a higher power by the melody. In moments of extreme excitement one scarcely realized that she was singing at all. Carried along by the torrent of her feelings, her listeners accepted her song as the only proper and efficient expression for her emotional state. The two expressions, song and action, were one; they were mutually complemental. It was not nature subordinated to art, but art vitalized by nature. It is not possible for me to compare her Carmen with Galli-Marie"s, which stood in the way of her appreciation in the part in Paris. I have heard that that was so frank in one of its expressions that it invited the interference of the Prefect of the Seine. To me, at least, in Mme. Calve"s impersonation, it seemed that I was enjoying my first revelation of some of the elements of the character of the gypsy as it had existed in the imagination of Prosper Merimee when he wrote his novel. To me she presented a woman thoroughly wanton and diabolically equipped with the wicked witcheries which explained, if they did not palliate, the conduct of Don Jose. Here we had a woman without conscience, but also without the capacity for even a wicked affection; a woman who might have been the thief whom the novelist describes, who surely carried a dagger in her corsage, and who in some respects left absolutely nothing to the imagination, to which even a drama like "Carmen" makes appeal. She came upon the stage as Merimee"s heroine stepped into his pages: "poising herself on her hips, like a filly from the Cordovan stud," and with a fine simulation of unconsciousness, she seemed every moment about to break into one of those dances which the satirist castigated in the days of the Roman Empire:
Nec de Gadibus improbis puellae Vibrabunt sine fine prurientes Lascivos docili tremore lumbos.
Alas! Mme. Calve"s admiration for herself was stronger than her devotion to an artistic ideal, and it was not long before her Carmen became completely merged in her own capricious personality.
Ma.s.senet"s "Werther" (performed in Chicago, March 29) had its first New York performance at the Metropolitan, April 19, 1894, with Mme. Eames, Sigrid Arnoldson, Jean de Reszke, M. Martapoura, and Signor Carbone.
Signor Mancinelli conducted. The opera had one performance, and was repeated once in the season of 1896-97. Then it disappeared from the repertory of the Metropolitan, and has since then not been thought of, apparently, although strenuous efforts have been made ever and anon to give interest to the French list. I record the fact as one to be deplored. "Werther" is a beautiful opera; as instinct with throbbing life in every one of its scenes as the more widely admired "Manon" is in its best scene. It has its weak spots as have all of Ma.s.senet"s operas, despite his mastery of technique, but its music will always appeal to refined artistic sensibilities for its lyric charm, its delicate workmanship, its splendid dramatic climax in the duo between Werther and Charlotte, beginning: "Ah! pourvu que de voie ces yeux toujours ouverts," and its fine scoring. It smacks more of the atmosphere of the Parisian salon than of the sweet breezes with which Goethe filled the story, but no Frenchman has yet been able to talk aught but polite French in music for the stage, Berlioz excepted, and the music of "Werther" is of finer texture than that of most of the operas produced by Ma.s.senet since.
The season of 1894-95, consisting again of thirteen weeks, began on November 19th, and closed on February 16th. It was marked by a number of incidents, some of which made a permanent impression on the policy of the Metropolitan Opera House. Chief of these was a remarkable eruption of sentiment in favor of German opera--so vigorous an eruption, indeed, that it led to the incorporation of German performances in the Metropolitan repertory ever after, though the change involved a much greater augmentation of the forces of the establishment than the consorting of French with Italian had involved. To this I shall give the attention which it deserves presently. Other features were the introduction of Sat.u.r.day night performances of opera at reduced prices (a feature which became permanent), the appearance of several new singers, and the production of two novelties, one of them Verdi"s "Falstaff," of first-cla.s.s importance.
In their prospectus the managers promised a reformation of the chorus, and announced the re-engagement of "nearly all the great favorites of last year." The improvement of the chorus was not particularly noticeable except in appearance; a number of young and comely American women were enlisted, but their best service was to stand in front of the old stagers who knew the operas, and could sing but who seemed to have come down through the ages from the early days of the old Academy. The phrase "nearly all" was an ominous one, for it betokened the absence from the company of Mme. Calve. The newcomers were Lucille Hill, Sybil Sanderson, Zelie de Lussan, Mira h.e.l.ler, and Libia Drog, sopranos; G.
Russitano and Francesco Tamagno, tenors, and Victor Maurel, who had been a popular favorite twenty years before at the Academy of Music. Luigi Mancinelli and E. Bevignani were the conductors, and Mr. Seidl was engaged to give eclat to the Sunday evening concerts. Mme. Melba"s chief financial value to the management in the preceding season had been found to lie in these concerts, which this year were begun earlier than usual, and made a part of Melba"s concert tour. The first opera was "Romeo et Juliette," with the cast beloved of society, and on the second night the introduction of the newcomers began. But woefully. The opera was "William Tell," and Signorina Drog sang the part of the heroine in place of Miss Hill, indisposed. Mathilde (or Matilda--the opera was sung in Italian), does not appear in the opera until the second act, and then she has the most familiar air in the opera to sing--"Selva opaca," an air which then belonged to the concert-room repertory of most florid sopranos. When Signorina Drog came upon the stage, it is safe to say that no one regretted her subst.i.tution for the English singer except herself. She was an exceedingly handsome person, who moved about with attractive freedom and grace, and disclosed a voice of good quality, especially in the upper register. She began her aria most tastefully, but scarcely had she begun when her memory played her false. For a few dreadful seconds she tried to pick up the thread of the melody but in vain. Then came the inevitable breakdown. She quit trying, and appealed pitifully to Signor Mancinelli for help. He seemed to have lost his head as completely as the lady had her memory. So had the prompter, who pulled his noddle into his sh.e.l.l like a snail and remained as mute.
Signor Tamagno entered in character, and indulged in dumbshow to a few detached phrases from the orchestra. Then the awfulness of the situation overwhelmed him, and he fairly ran off the stage, leaving Matilda alone.
That lady made a final appeal to the conductor, switched her dress nervously with her riding whip, went to the wings, got a gla.s.s of water, and then disappeared. The audience, which had good-humoredly applauded till now, began to laugh, and the demoralization was complete. It would have been a relief had the curtain fallen, but as this did not happen Signor Tamagno, Signor Ancona, and edouard de Reszke came upon the stage and began the famous trio, in which Signor Tamagno sang with tremendous intensity and power. It was a remarkable performance of a sensational piece, and had it not been preceded by so frightful a catastrophe, and interrupted by Tamagno himself to bow his acknowledgments, pick up a bunch of violets thrown from a box, and repeat his first melody, its effect would have been dramatically electrifying. There was a long wait after the act to enable Signor Mancinelli to arrange the necessary cuts, and after the stage manager had made an apology on behalf of Signorina Drog, and explained that she had been seized with vertigo, but would finish the opera in an abbreviated form, the representation was resumed.
It is due to the lady to add that she had never before attempted to sing the part, and that on the third evening she materially redeemed herself in "Ada." Miss de Lussan, a native of New York, who had begun her operatic career a few years before in the Boston Ideal Opera Company, and had won a commendable degree of favor at Covent Garden as Carmen, had been engaged in the hope of continuing the prosperous career of Bizet"s opera, but the hope proved abortive. It was the singer, not the song, which had bewitched the people of New York--Calve, not Bizet.
"Carmen" was excellently given, the charm of Melba"s voice being called on for the music of Micaela"s part; but the sensation had departed, and was waiting to be revived with the return of Calve in the succeeding season.
The first novelty in this season was "Elaine," an opera in four acts, words by Paul Ferrier, music by Herman Bemberg, brought forward on December 17, 1894. "Elaine" was produced because Mme. Melba and the brothers de Reszke wanted to appear in it out of friendship for the composer, who had dedicated the score to them, and come to New York to witness the production, as he had gone to London when it was given in Covent Garden. In America Bemberg was a small celebrity of the salon and concert room. His parents were citizens of the Argentine Republic, but he was born in Paris, in 1861. His father being a man of wealth, he had ample opportunity to cultivate his talents, and his first teachers in composition were Bizet and Henri Marechal. Later he continued his studies at the Conservatoire, under Dubois and Ma.s.senet. In 1885 he carried off the Rossini prize, and in 1889 brought out a one-act opera at the Opera Comique, "Le Baiser de Suzon," for which Pierre Barbier wrote the words. "Elaine" had its first performance at Convent Garden in July, 1892, with Mme. Melba, Jean and edouard de Reszke, and M. Plancon in the cast. It was then withdrawn for revision, and restored to the stage the next year. If there is anything creditable in such a thing it may be said, to Mr. Bemberg"s credit, that, so far as I know, he was the first musician who wrote music for Oscar Wilde"s "Salome." The public, especially the people of the boxes, lent a gracious ear to the new opera, partly, no doubt, because of its subject, but more largely because of Mme. Melba, Mme. Mantelli, the brothers de Reszke, Plancon, and M. Castelmary, who were concerned in its production. All of Mr.
Bemberg"s music that had previously been heard in New York was of the lyrical order, and it seemed but natural that he was less successful in the developing of a dramatic situation than in hymning the emotions of one when he found it at hand. A ballad in the first act ("L"amour est pur comme la fiamme"), the scene at the close ("L"air est leger"), a prayer in the third act ("Dieu de pitie"), and the duets which followed them are all cases in point. They mark the high tide of M. Bemberg"s graceful melodic fancy, and exemplify his good taste and genuineness of feeling. It is not great music, but it is sincere to the extent of its depth. For the note of chivalry which ought to sound all through an Arthurian opera M. Bemberg has chosen no less a model than "Lohengrin"; but his trumpets are feebler echoes of the original voice than his harmonies on several occasions, as, for instance, the entrance of Lancelot into the castle of Astolat. In general his instrumentation is discreet and effective. He has followed his French teachers in the treatment of the dialogue, which aims to be intensified speech. He has also trodden, though at a distance, in the footsteps of Bizet and Ma.s.senet in the device of using typical phrases; but so timidly has this been done that it is doubtful if it was discovered by the audience. The resources of the opera house in reproducing the scenes of chivalric life were commensurate with the music of the opera in its attempt to bring its spirit to the mind through the ear. It is more exciting to read of a tournament in Malory than to see a mimic one on the stage. It is true that there were men on horses who rode together three times, that a spear was broken, and that they afterward fought on foot; but they struck their spears together as if they had been singlesticks, instead of receiving each his opponent"s weapon on his shield, and when the spear broke it was not all "toshivered." Then, when they had drawn their swords, they did not "lash together like wild boars, thrusting and foining and giving either other many sad strokes, so that it was marvel to see how they might endure," as the gentle Sir Thomas would doubtless have had them do. Still, the opera was enjoyed and applauded, as it deserved to be for the good things that were in it, and the Lily Maid had more lilies and roses and holly showered about her than she could easily pick up and carry away.
Miss Sybil Sanderson, who had gone to Paris from the Pacific Slope some years before, and had achieved considerable of a vogue, particularly in Ma.s.senet"s operas, made her American debut on January 16, 1895, in Ma.s.senet"s "Manon," in which M. Jean de Reszke sang the part of the Chevalier des Grieux for the first time. The opera had been heard at the Academy of Music, in Italian, nine years before, and this was its first performance in the original French, a language which the fair debutante used with admirable distinctness and charmingly modulated cadences, a fact which contributed much to the pretty triumph which she celebrated after the first act. She did not maintain herself on the plane reached in this act. The second had scarcely begun before it became noticeable that she was wanting in pa.s.sionate expression as well as in voice, and that her histrionic limitations went hand in hand with her vocal.
But she was a radiant vision, and had she been able to bring out the ingratiating character of the music she might have held the sympathies of the audience, obviously predisposed in her favor, in the degree contemplated by the composer. This quality of graciousness is the most notable element in Ma.s.senet"s music. As much as anything can do so it achieves pardon for the book, which is far less amiable than that of "Traviata," which deals with the same unlovely theme. Another quasi novelty was Saint-Saens"s "Samson et Dalila," which had one performance--and one only--on February 8th to afford Mme. Mantelli an opportunity to exhibit her musical powers, and Signor Tamagno his physical. The music was familiar from performances of the work as an oratorio; as an opera it came as near to making a fiasco as a work containing so much good and sound music could.
The most interesting event in the whole administration of Mr. Abbey and his a.s.sociates happened on February 4th, when Verdi"s "Falstaff" was presented. Signor Mancinelli conducted, and the cast was as follows:
Mistress Ford ...................... Mme. Emma Eames Anne ............................... Mlle. de Lussan Mistress Page ...................... Mlle. Jane de Vigne Dame Quickly ....................... Mme. Scalchi Fenton ............................. Sig. Russitano Ford ............................... Sig. Campanari Pistol ............................. Sig. Nicolini Dr. Caius .......................... Sig. Vanni Bardolph ........................... Sig. Rinaldini Sir John Falstaff .................. M. Victor Maurel (His original creation.)
To construct operas out of Shakespeare"s plays has been an ambition of composers for nearly two centuries. Verdi himself yielded to the temptation when he wrote "Macbeth" forty years ago. Probably no one recognized more clearly than he did when he wrote "Falstaff" how the whole system of lyrico-dramatic composition should undergo a transformation before anything like justice could be done to the myriad-minded poet"s creations. Who would listen now to Rossini"s "Otello"? Yet, in its day, it was immensely popular. A careless day it was--the day of pretty singing, and little else; the day when there was so little concern for the dramatic element in opera that the grewsome denouement of Rossini"s opera is said once to have caused a listener to cry out in astonishment: "Great G.o.d! the tenor is murdering the soprano!" Then it might have been possible for a composer, provided he were a Mozart, to find a musical investment for a Shakespearian comedy, but a.s.suredly not for a tragedy. No literary masterpiece was safe from the vandalism of opera writers at that time, however, and Shakespeare simply shared the fate of Goethe and their great fellows. With the dawn of the new era there came greater possibilities, and now it may be said we have a few Shakespearian operas that will endure for several decades at least: let us say Nicolai"s "Merry Wives of Windsor," Gounod"s "Romeo and Juliet," Verdi"s "Oth.e.l.lo" and "Falstaff." Ambroise Thomas"s "Hamlet" and Saint-Saens"s "Henry VIII" seem already to have outlived their brief day, at least in all countries save France, where the personal equation in favor of a native composer seems strong enough to keep second-cla.s.s composers afloat while it permits genius to perish. As for Goetz"s "Taming of the Shrew," it was too much like good Rhine wine, and too little like champagne to pa.s.s as a comic opera. When Verdi"s last opera appeared the only Falstaff who had vitality was the fat knight of Nicolai"s work. Yet he had had many predecessors. Balfe composed a "Falstaff" for the King"s Theater in London, which was sung with the capacious-voiced Lablache in the t.i.tular part, and Grisi, Persiani, and Ivanoff in the cast. That was in 1838. Forty years earlier Salieri had composed an Italian "Falstaff" for Vienna. In 1856 Adolphe Adam produced a French "Falstaff" in Paris, and the antics of the greasy knight amused the Parisians eighty-six years earlier in Papavoine"s "Le Vieux Coquet." Nicolai"s predecessors in Germany were Peter Ritter, 1794, and Dittersdorf, 1796.