At intervals bits of gossip reached New York by cable, but none of them was of a comforting character. One week it was said to be the exorbitance of Mme. Nilsson"s demands which gave Mr. Gye pause, and the next the difficulty of finding a tenor worthy of succeeding Signor Campanini and capable of satisfying the captious, critical, and fastidious people of New York. There were suspicions, too, that some of the embarra.s.sments which confronted Mr. Gye and the Metropolitan directors were due to the machinations of that sly and persuasive old dog, Colonel Mapleson. Nilsson had but one rival, and she was Mme.
Patti. Her Colonel Mapleson had secured; not only her, but, report said, Scalchi, Tremelli, and Tamagno also. Mme. Scalchi had been a strong prop of the first Metropolitan season, and Tremelli and Tamagno, though they had not been heard in America, had names to conjure with. Tremelli never came, and it was not until 1890, when Mr. Abbey was again in the traces of an Italian opera manager, and was exploiting both Mme. Patti and Mme.
Albani, that Tamagno was heard in New York.
Failures of such magnitude as those of Mr. Gye in London, Colonel Mapleson at the Academy of Music, and Mr. Abbey at the Metropolitan Opera House, naturally set the beards of the wiseacres a-wagging.
Clearly the world of opera was out of joint and a prophet with a new evangel seemed to be needed to set it right. In New York the efforts had been made along old lines, but Mr. Gye had ventured on an experiment which suggested the polyglot scheme which became the fixed policy of the Metropolitan Opera House some ten years later. Along with the old Italian list Mr. Gye gave some of Wagner"s lyric dramas in German, and even ventured an English opera done into German--C. Villiers Stanford"s "Savonarola." Was Italian opera dead? So it almost seemed; but the incidents attending its demise were familiar to operatic history and as old as Italian opera in London and New York. When the art form was making its first struggles for habilitation in the British metropolis Addison thought the spectacle so amusing that he wrote an essay in which he pictured the amazement of the next generation on learning that in the days of its predecessors English men and women had sat out entire evenings listening to an entertainment in a foreign tongue. And he said in that essay many other excellent things, the truth and force of which are just as deserving of appreciation (and just as needful) now as they were in the time of the writer.
The consciousness of the absurdity of Italian opera transported in the "original package" (to speak commercially) to England and America seems to have been constant with the Anglo-Saxon peoples. Of this the legion of managerial wrecks which strew the operatic sh.o.r.es or float as derelicts bear witness. Bankers, manufacturers, and n.o.blemen have come to the rescue of ambitious managers, or become ambitious managers themselves, only to go down in the common disaster. Mr. Delafield wrote his name high among his fellows across the water by losing half a million of dollars in a single season--a feat which no man equaled till Mr. Abbey came. Taylor got himself into the King"s Bench Prison by his venturesomeness, and, once there, found consolation in a philosophy which taught him that of all places in the world the properest one for an opera manager was a prison. But I have mentioned this before.
Time was when the popular taste found complete satisfaction in the melodies of the Italian composers. Time was when the desire for novelty in the operatic field could be satisfied only by importations from Italy. Time was when Germans, Frenchmen, and Englishmen went to Italy to study operatic composition and wrote in the Italian manner to Italian texts. All this had changed at the period of which I am writing--Germans, Frenchmen, and Englishmen had operas in their own languages and schools of composition of their own. But still New York and London clung to Italian sweets.
And Italy had become sterile. Verdi seemed to have ceased writing. There were whisperings of an "Iago" written in collaboration with Boito, but it was awaiting ultimate criticism and final polish while the wonderful old master was engaged in revamping some of his early works. Boito was writing essays and librettos for others, with the unfinished "Nerone"
lying in his desk, where it is still hidden. Ponchielli had not succeeded in getting a hearing for anything since "La Gioconda."
Expectations had been raised touching an opera ent.i.tled "Dejanice," by Catalani, but I cannot recall that it ever crossed the Italian border.
The hot-blooded young veritists who were soon to flood Italy with their creations had not yet been heard of. The champions of a change from Italian to German ideals seemed to have the argument all in their favor.
The spectacle presented by the lyric stage in Germany and France seemed to show indubitably what course opera as an art form must needs take if it was to live. Gluck, Weber, and Wagner, all Germans, had pointed the way. In 1883 five new operas by English composers reached the dignity of performance, and it was significant that two of them--Mr. Mackenzie"s "Colomba" and Mr. Stanford"s "Savonarola"--were performed in German, the former in Hamburg, the latter in London. There were many lovers of opera in New York besides the musical reviewer for The Tribune who believed that if America was ever to have a musical art of its own the way could best be paved by supplanting Italian performances by German at the princ.i.p.al home of opera in the United States. We should, it is true, still have foreign artists singing foreign works in a foreign tongue, but the change in repertory would promote an appreciation and an understanding of truthful, dramatic expression in a form which claimed close relationship with the drama.
This was the state of affairs when, negotiations having failed with both Mr. Abbey and Mr. Gye, the summer days of 1884 being nearly gone and the prospect of a closed theater confronting the directors of the Metropolitan Opera House, Dr. Leopold Damrosch submitted to them a proposition to give opera in German under his management, but on their account. Either the forcefulness and plausibility of his arguments or the direfulness of their need led the directors to make the venture. Dr.
Damrosch went to Germany toward the end of August; toward the end of September he was back in New York, ready to announce a season of opera in German, with a completely organized company and a promising list of operas. Few persons knew what was coming, and the information brought with it a shock of surprise. Dr. Damrosch had been a vigorous factor in the musical life of New York for twelve years, but he had never been identified with opera in the public mind, and, in fact, his practical familiarity with it was little. He had come to New York from Breslau, where he was conductor of the Orchesterverein (a symphonic organization) in 1871. He had had some practical experience with the theater at Weimar, where he played with the orchestra of the Court Theater under the direction of Liszt, had been musical director at the Munic.i.p.al Theater in Posen and Breslau, but for short periods only. He had not gone through the career of the typical German conductor for the reason that he was not a musician "vom Hause aus"--as the Germans express it.
He was a physician turned musician--a member of one of the scientific professions who had abandoned science for art.
Dr. Damrosch was a remarkable man. He was born in Posen, Prussia, on October 22, 1832. He studied music in the home circle, like the generality of German lads, but his parents had chosen the profession of medicine for him, and he had acquiesced in the choice, matriculating in the medical department of the University of Berlin after he had completed the usual gymnasial course of studies. He had not abandoned his love for music, though he so devoted himself to medicine that in due course he was graduated with honors and received his degree.
Incidentally, like Schumann at Heidelberg, he continued to study music, Hubert Ries being his teacher in violin playing, and the venerable Professor Dehn in counterpoint and composition. After graduation he returned to his native Posen to practise medicine, and remained there thus occupied till 1854.
In 1855 the physician"s earlier and stronger love for music achieved the mastery over his adopted profession, and he started out into the world as a concert violinist. He played at Magdeburg and at Berlin, where his talents were so much admired that on the recommendation of friends in the Prussian capital he went to Weimar, where he won the friendship of Liszt and joined the body of enthusiastic young musicians--Peter Cornelius and others--who had rallied around the great musician and were fighting the battles of the new German school. His musical creed was formed here, as he himself confessed in a series of articles written for the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik. His first official appointment was as director of the music at the Stadttheater in Posen, and in 1866 he was called to fill the same post at Breslau. After he had resigned this position he remained in Breslau as director of the Orchesterverein, which he called into existence until he accepted the call of the Mannergesangverein Arion in New York in 1871. Though Dr. Damrosch had achieved a European reputation before he came to New York, his best and most enduring work was accomplished here, where he organized the Oratorio Society, which has had a continuous existence since 1873, and the Symphony Society, which, amid many vicissitudes and with several reincarnations, has lived since 1877. The establishment of German opera, though it did not endure, was yet his crowning achievement, and at the culmination of the glory which it brought him he died. But of that presently and in its proper place.
The artistic basis of the scheme which Dr. Damrosch put into effect was essentially German. It dispensed with the star system (except so far as the engagement of Mme. Materna was a deference to it) and subst.i.tuted instead a good ensemble, unusual attention to the mounting of operas, and the bringing out of dramatic effects through other stage accessories. The change of base brought with it of necessity a change of repertory, and the Italian operas which had formed the staple of New York lists for years were put aside for the masterpieces of German and French composers. One or two efforts to include works of a lighter lyrical character sufficed to demonstrate the wisdom of a strict adherence to the list of tragic works of large dimensions and spectacular nature, and the sagacity of Dr. Damrosch was shown in nothing more clearly than in his choice of operas for representation.
There were few familiar names in the list of singers printed in the prospectus. The most familiar, and the greatest, was that which has already been announced as the one concession made to the star system--Mme. Amalia Materna. Twenty-five years ago the story of Bayreuth was a household word throughout the civilized world, and Mme. Materna had been a.s.sociated with the Wagner festivals since the first held, in 1876. In May, 1882, she was brought to New York by Theodore Thomas for the Music Festival, held in the Seventh Regiment Armory, and with her Bayreuth colleagues--Winkelmann, tenor, and Scaria, ba.s.s--she took part in concerts and festivals which Mr. Thomas gave in 1884 in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and Chicago. After returning to Europe after the American engagement of 1882, she had gone straight to Bayreuth, where she "created" the part of Kundry in the original production of "Parsifal," alternating afterward in the character with Fraulein Brandt, who was a.s.sociated with her in Dr. Damrosch"s Metropolitan company. When she came to the Metropolitan (she made her first appearance after the season was well under headway, in January, 1885) Mme. Materna was thirty-eight years old and her splendid powers were at their zenith. She had sung in public since her thirteenth year, at first in church, then in comic opera in Graz and Vienna. While singing at a small theater in the Austrian capital she became a member of the Court Opera, attracted wide attention by her dramatic abilities in the grand operas of its repertories, and at once leaped into fame by her impersonation of Brunnhilde at the first Bayreuth festival, in 1876.
Next in significance in the first Metropolitan German Company was Marianne Brandt, whose influence in creating new ideals and developing new tastes among the opera-goers of New York was even greater than that of Mme. Materna, because her powers were no less and her labors of longer duration. She came here after having won praise from the critics of London, where she had sung at the first performance in England of "Tristan und Isolde" at Drury Lane in 1882. That was ten years after she had effected her London debut. The princ.i.p.al Coloratursangerin of the company was Frau Marie Schroeder-Hanfstangl, then a member of the Frankfort Opera, who was a native of Breslau and a friend of the Damrosch family while they were there. As Mlle. Schroeder she had already established a reputation at that time in Paris, where she had sung at the Theatre Lyrique through the mediation of her teacher, Mme. Viardot-Garcia. The jugendlich Dramatische was Frau Auguste Seidl-Krauss, who was announced throughout the season by her maiden name, but had been married for about a year to Anton Seidl, then conductor at the Stadttheater in Bremen, who was soon to become a most puissant factor in the sum of New York"s musical activities. The princ.i.p.al tenor was Anton Schott, who had made a considerable reputation as a Wagnerian singer in the opera houses of Munich, Berlin, Schwerin, Hanover, and London, and had made the Italian tour with Angelo Neumann"s Wagner company which Seidl conducted in 1882. Earlier in life he had been an artillery officer in the German army, which fact coupled with his explosive manner of singing prompted one of Dr. von Bulow"s witticisms. The doctor had been conductor of the opera in Hanover when Schott was there and had conceived a violent dislike for him. Some years after the latter"s New York season, conversing socially with von Bulow, I chanced to mention Schott"s name.
"Ah! do you know Schott?" asked the irascible little doctor; "ein eigenthumlicher Sanger, nicht war? Eigentlich ist er ein Militartenor--ein Artillerist. Sie wissen er singt manchmal zu hoch--da distonirt er; gewohnlich singt er zu tief--da destonirt er; und wenn er gelegentlich rein singt--da detonirt er!" The ingenious play on words is quite untranslatable, but my readers who understand German but are unfamiliar with musical terms will be helped to an appreciation of the fun by being told that "dis," "des," and "de" are the German names applied respectively to D sharp, D flat, and D natural. No doubt Dr.
von Bulow had perpetrated his little joke before he shot it off for my benefit. It was a habit of his to have such brilliant impromptus ready and ingeniously to invite an occasion for their introduction. But they always had the effect of brilliant spontaneity. It was on another occasion, when he was praising the performance of another German tenor, and I had interposed the suggestion that to me he seemed to lack virility, that he burst out with:
"But, my dear fellow, a tenor isn"t a man; it"s a disease!"
I supplied the quotation marks in my mind, for though the remark was his, it had served him on at least one other occasion, as I chanced to know.
Other members of the company were Anna Slach, Anna Stern, Hermine Bely, Adolf Robinson, barytone (another of Dr. Damrosch"s professional friends from Breslau); Josef Staudigl (ba.s.s, son of the great Staudigl); Josef Koegel, ba.s.s; Emil Tiffero, Herr Udvardi, Otto Kemlitz, Ludwig Wolf, Josef Miller, and Herr Schneller. John Lund, who came from Kroll"s, in Berlin, and Walter Damrosch, were chorus masters and a.s.sistant conductors. The first season began on November 17, 1884, with a performance of "Tannhauser."
CHAPTER XI
GERMAN OPERA AT THE METROPOLITAN
After German opera began at the Metropolitan Opera House it endured seven years. It was only at the outset that it had the opposition of what had been the established regime of Italian opera at the Academy of Music, but it was pursued throughout its career by desultory enterprises and hampered greatly by the fact that the stockholders were never unitedly and enthusiastically in favor of it or the principles of art which it represented. Throughout the period there was a hankering for the fleshpots of Egypt in the region of the Metropolitan boxes. It seems desirable, therefore, that, though it is my purpose more specifically in the next few chapters to tell the story of the seven years of German opera, I should turn the light occasionally on the doings at rival inst.i.tutions. The first of the seven years at the Metropolitan Opera House was the seventh year of Colonel Mapleson"s tenancy of the Academy of Music. He opened his season on November 10, 1884, but before then James Barton Key and Horace McVicker experimented with Italian opera for three weeks at the Star Theater. The organization was composed of operatic flotsam and jetsam, such as is always to be found plentifully in New York after operatic storms in South America or Mexico, and was neither better nor worse than scores of other companies heard here before and since. Like most of these, too, it had a mouth-filling name--the Milan Grand Opera Company--but, like few of them, it had a capital tenor, Signor Giannini, who at a somewhat later period we shall find in Colonel Mapleson"s forces. Other members of the company whose names are worthy of preservation were Maria Peri (soprano leggiero), Signora Damerini (dramatic soprano), Signora Mestress (contralto), and Signor Serbolini (ba.s.s). The experiment resulted in financial failure, but it introduced to New York the South American opera, "Il Guarany,"
by Senor Gomez. In Colonel Mapleson"s company were Mme. Patti, Signora Ricetti, Mme. Emma Nevada, Signor Nicolini, Signor Vicini, and Signor Cardinali (tenors), Mme. Scalchi, Mme. Fursch-Madi, Signori de Pasqualis, Cherubini, Caracciolo (ba.s.sos), Signor de Anna (barytone), and Signor Ba.s.setti (tenor), otherwise Mr. Charles Ba.s.sett, like Mme.
Nevada, an American singer. The subscription ended on December 27th, and in the following week he gave four extra performances, at two of which he reduced the prices, though they were of a higher artistic order than the others. The relations between Mapleson and the stockholders of the Academy were becoming strained, and in a speech which he made at his annual benefit he remarked upon their absence sarcastically. It was plain that their patience had given out and that they were weary of extending to him the financial support which had helped him through the season. In my review of the season I find this remark, which is indicative of their indifference to the fate of their lessee: "The condition of the house gives evidence of an unwillingness to sink money in an unlucrative enterprise. It is somewhat discouraging to the patrons of the house to sit in ramshackle chairs which threaten to deposit them incontinently on the floor at any moment, and the collapse of a stall has frequently accentuated a musical or dramatic climax in the season just ended."
The season ended with many promises unfulfilled, for which the impresario placed the blame upon the directors, who, he said, had not given him sufficient use of the Academy stage. His explanations were not always wholly ingenuous, however. Thus he had announced that "Lakme"
would be given, with the composer, M. Delibes, in the conductor"s chair. Now, in the season before, Mme. Gerster had been so desirous to create the part of the heroine in America (it being one which afforded fine scope for her lovely powers, and which she had studied with the composer) that she had bought the performing rights. But nothing came of her ambition, and it was an open secret that Heugel, the publisher, had quarreled with Mapleson because of unwarranted practices with his scores in London. In the midst of his troubles Colonel Mapleson announced that he had engaged Mme. Nilsson for the season of 1885-86. There was as little foundation for this announcement as for the promise of "Lakme."
With ruin staring him in the face, Mapleson concluded the season. He bettered his fortunes a trifle in Boston and Philadelphia, but failed again in New Orleans and St. Louis. Then he went to San Francisco, where the fact that Mme. Nevada was a native of the Pacific Slope was a helpful factor. After the close of the season at the Metropolitan Opera House he gave a "spring season" of six performances in one week, beginning on April 20th. He repeated the performance in Boston and then sailed for Europe, stopping in New York only long enough to inst.i.tute two suits at law--one against Signor Nicolini to recover $10,000 for failing to sing, and one against Mme. Nevada for $3,000, alleged to have been overpaid her. The suits, in all likelihood, were merely moves in the managerial game which he was playing in London and New York. In the seventh of these "Chapters of Opera" I described as the crowning achievement of Colonel Mapleson in the season full of noteworthy incidents the circ.u.mstance that he had succeeded in owing Mme. Patti some $5,000 or $6,000. Nicolini was Patti"s husband.
More than ever it looked in the spring of 1885 as if Italian opera had received its quietus. The demoralization of the Academy of Music was complete. In London there prevailed a state of affairs so anomalous and startling that the newspaper critics were cudgeling their brains in a vain effort to find an explanation. For the first time in one hundred and fifty-eight years the British metropolis was without opera; for the first time in thirty-nine years (except in 1856, when fire made it impossible) the Royal Italian Opera at Covent Garden had failed to open its doors on Easter Tuesday. Mr. Gye and his backers refused to venture their fortunes again, and the lease of Her Majesty"s was also going begging. In New York Colonel Mapleson had held one good card which he did not seem to know how to play: the season compa.s.sed the twenty-fifth anniversary of the operatic debut of Mme. Patti. There ought, for excellent and obvious reasons, to have been a fitting celebration of the event; but there was not. On November 26th, two days after the date, Colonel Mapleson gave a performance of "Martha," with Mmes. Patti and Scalchi in the princ.i.p.al women"s parts. After the opera a rout of supernumeraries, choristers, and other boys and men engaged for the purpose, carrying torches, followed the diva"s carriage to the Windsor Hotel, where she was serenaded. That was all. It was so undignified and inadequate that it provoked some of Mme. Patti"s friends to arrange the banquet in her honor which I have described in Chapter VI. Had Signor Brignoli, who was the Edgardo to Adelina Patti"s Lucia at the Academy on November 24, 1859, been spared in life and health a few weeks longer (Signor Brignoli died in October, 1884), his friends would probably have urged an a.s.sociation of the two artists in a gala performance of Donizetti"s opera. This would have provided an appropriate and delightful celebration, and it would not have been difficult to marshal a number of interesting relics of the period which saw the operatic advent of Mme. Patti, though all of them would have appeared much worse for the wear of a quarter-century than she. Of the valiant champions who were leading the contending operatic armies of the time, Arditi, Maretzek, and Strakosch were still with us. The first was filling, as of yore, the leader"s chair at the Academy and doing yeoman"s service in the un.o.btrusive and modest manner which always characterized him; the second, withdrawn from all connection with operatic management, was watching the boiling and bubbling of the caldron with amused interest and spicing his comments with capitally told reminiscences of opera a generation before; the third was still chasing the fickle G.o.ddess with fugitive essays as impresario. There were even remains of the critics of those days still active in the world of letters--Richard Grant White, for instance, and George William Curtis, one of my predecessors on The Tribune--and they would undoubtedly have grown young again and been warmed into enthusiastic utterance by eager memories of the dainty debutante and the singers who had preceded her--Grisi, Bosio, Piccolomini, and the rest.
A vast amount of reminiscences would have been justified by such a celebration, for it would have thrown a bright sidelight on the marvelous career of Mme. Patti, a career without parallel in the history of the last half-century. Within three years after she made her first essay "our little Patti," as she was then fondly spoken of, had achieved the queenship of the lyric stage; and, now, twenty-two years later, her t.i.tle had not suffered the slightest impairment. Within the time singers who had won the world"s admiration had been born, educated, and lifted to the niches prepared for them by popular appreciation, but all far below the place where Patti sat enthroned. Stars of great brilliancy had flashed across the firmament and gone out in darkness, but the refulgence of Patti"s art remained undimmed, having only grown mellower and deeper and richer with time. Truth is, Mme. Patti was then, and is still, twenty-five years later, a musical miracle; and the fact that she was in New York to sing in the very spot in which she began her career twenty-five years before should have been celebrated as one of the proudest incidents in the city"s musical annals. For the generation of opera-goers who grew up in the period which ought to be referred to for all time in the annals of music as The Reign of Patti, she set a standard by which all aspirants for public favor were judged except those whose activities were in a widely divergent field. Not only did she show them what the old art of singing was, but she demonstrated the possibility of its revival. And she did this while admiring enthusiastically the best results of the dramatic spirit which pervades musical composition to-day. Her talent was so many-sided and so astonishing, no matter from which side it was viewed, that rhapsody seems to be the only language left one who attempts a.n.a.lysis or description of it. Her voice, of unequaled beauty, was no more a gift of nature than the ability to a.s.similate without effort the things which cost ordinary mortals years of labor and vexation of soul. It was perpetually amazing how her singing made the best efforts of the best of her contemporaries pale, especially those who depended on vocal agility for their triumphs. Each performance of hers made it plainer than it had been before that her genius penetrated the mere outward glitter of the music and looked upon the ornament as so much means to the attainment of an end; that end, a beautiful interpretation of the composer"s thought.
No artist of her time was so perfect an exponent as she of the quality of repose. So far as appearances went it was as easy for her to burden the air with trills and roulades as it was to talk. She sang as the lark sings; the outpouring of an ecstasy of tones of almost infinite number and beauty seemed in her to be a natural means of expression.
Her ideas of art were the highest, and it was a singular testimony of her earnestness that, while educated in the old Italian school of vocalization and holding her most exalted supremacy as a singer of Rossini"s music, her warmest love, by her own confession, was given, not to its glittering confections, but to the serious efforts of the most dramatic writers. This must be remembered in the list of her astonishing merits now when her voice can no longer call up more than "the tender grace of a day that is dead"; mine was the proud privilege and great happiness of having heard her often in her prime. But I must get down to the real business of this chapter.
The first German performance at the Metropolitan took place on November 17, 1884. The opera was "Tannhauser" and the distribution of parts as follows: Elizabeth, Mme. Krauss; Venus, Fraulein Slach; a Young Shepherd, Fraulein Stern; the Landgrave, Josef Koegel; Tannhauser, Anton Schott; Wolfram, Adolf Robinson; Walther von der Vogelweide, Emil Tiffero; Biterolf, Josef Miller; Heinrich der Schreiber, Otto Kemlitz; Reinmar, Ludwig Wolf. The performance made no claim upon special a.n.a.lysis or description. Its highest significance consisted in the publication which it made with reference to the new ideals in operatic representation which came in with the new movement. No doubt to a large portion of the audience, still judging by the old standards, much of it must have been inexplicable, much of it (especially the singing of Herr Schott) little short of monstrous. To a smaller portion, familiar with the opera, the language of its book and the spirit of the play, as well as the music, it came as a vivid realization of the purposes of the poet-composer. To all but the German element in the audience the opera itself was practically a novelty. "Tannhauser" had not been incorporated in the Italian repertory as "Lohengrin" had, and only those knew it who had attended the sporadic German performances of earlier decades conducted by such men as Bergmann, Anschutz, and Neuendorff. The first New York performance took place on August 27, 1859, at which the Mannergesangverein Arion supplied the choruses.
Wagner once described his Tannhauser as "a German from head to foot,"
and it was doubtless because Dr. Damrosch saw in it a representative quality that he chose it for his opening. There was patriotism as well as lovely artistic devotion, too, in the choice of "Fidelio" for the second performance, on November 19th. Beethoven"s opera had almost as little a.s.sociation with Italian opera as "Tannhauser," and it was noteworthy that the only portion of the audience room which was not filled was that occupied by the stockholders" boxes. It was an English company that, in September, 1839, had introduced "Fidelio" to New York, and with it made such successful compet.i.tion with the Italian company of the day that it was performed fourteen times in succession. Mr. Mapleson made a pitiful essay with it in March, 1882, at the Academy, but to recall as vivid and vital a performance as that under discussion one had to go back to the days of Mme. Johannsen and her a.s.sociates, who gave German opera in 1856. In Dr. Damrosch"s performance Marianne Brandt effected her entrance on the American stage, and the memory of her impersonation of the heroine is still one of the liveliest and most fragrant memories of those memorable days. The dramatic framework of "Fidelio" is weak, its construction faulty. Only one ethical idea is presented in it with real vividness, but it is an idea which is peculiarly dear to the German heart--the saving power of woman"s love.
"Fidelio" is a tale of wifely devotion, and Beethoven bent all his energies to a glorification of his heroine"s love and fidelity. To represent the character faithfully has been the highest ambition of German singers for a century. In that time not many more than a dozen have achieved high distinction in it; and Marianne Brandt is among the number. On its musical side her performance was thrillingly effective, but on its histrionic it rose to grandeur. Every word of her few speeches, every note of her songs, every look of her eyes and expression of her face was an exposition of that world of tenderness which filled the heart of Leonore. Nine-tenths of the action which falls to the part of Leonore is by-play, and by-play of the kind which is made particularly difficult by the time consumed by the music, which is not wisely adjusted with reference to the promotion of the action. Yet all these waits while Leonore is in view were filled by Fraulein Brandt with little actions which tended to develop the character so sadly left in the background by the playwright, but so lovingly treated by the composer. It was down to its smallest detail a picture of a woman impelled by one idea, in which her whole soul had been resolved, and which had grown out of a lofty conception of love and duty. There was nothing of the petty theatrical in Fraulein Brandt, and it was only an evidence of the sincerity of her devotion to the art work which made her bend over and stroke the wrist which she had freed from manacles while the powerful personages of the play were bowing before her as a pattern of conjugal love and the mimic populace were shouting their jubilations over salvation accomplished.
At the third representation, on November 21st, Meyerbeer"s "Huguenots"
was brought forward to introduce Mme. Schroeder-Hanfstangl; and at the fourth tribute to the characteristic German spirit was paid by the production of Weber"s "Der Freischutz." From the day of its birth this has been the opera in which the romantic spirit of the German race has found its most vivid reflection. The sombre lights and mysterious murmurings of the German forests pervade it; the spectres of that paganism from which the st.u.r.dy Northerners could be weaned only by compromise and artifice flit through it. The Wild Huntsman overshadows it and, though he says not a word, he powerfully a.s.serts his claim upon the trembling admiration of those who keep open hearts for some of his old companions of pre-Christian days--especially for the burly fellow who under a new name is welcomed joyfully every Christmastide. In another sense, too, "Der Freischutz" is a national opera; the spirit of its music is drawn from the art-form which the people created. Instead of resting on the highly artificial product of the Italian renaissance, it rests upon popular song--folk-song, the song of the folk. Its melodies echo the cadences of the Volkslieder in which the German heart voices its dearest loves. Instead of shining with the light of the Florentine courts it glows with the rays of the setting sun filtered through the foliage of the Black Forest. Yet "Der Freischutz" failed on this its revival--failed so dismally that Dr. Damrosch did not venture upon a single repet.i.tion. The lesson which it taught had already been suggested by "Fidelio," but now it was made plain and Dr. Damrosch paid heed to it at once. The dimensions of the Metropolitan Opera House forbade the intimacy which operas founded on the German Singspiel demand for appreciation, and spoken dialogue, especially in a foreign tongue, was painfully destructive of artistic illusion. The operas which followed were more to the purpose: "William Tell," on November 28th, with Robinson as the hero, Schroeder-Hanfstangl as Mathilde, Slach as Gemmy, Staudigl as Gessler, Koegel as Walter, Udvardi as Arnold, and Brandt exemplifying a new spirit in opera by her a.s.sumption of the unimportant part of Tell"s wife; "Lohengrin," on December 3d, with Krauss, Brandt, Schott, and Staudigl in the princ.i.p.al parts; "Don Giovanni," on December 10th, with Schroeder-Hanfstangl as Donna Anna, Hermine Bely as Zerlina, Brandt as Elvira, Robinson as the Don, Koegel as the Commander, and Udvardi as Ottavio; "Le Prophete," on December 17th, with Brandt as Fides (one of her greatest roles), Schroeder-Hanfstangl as Bertha, and Schott as John of Leyden; "La Muette de Portici" (otherwise "Masaniello") on December 29th, with Schott as the hero and Isolina Torri as Fenella. There was an interruption of this spectacular list on January 2, 1885, when "Rigoletto" was given to gratify the ambition of Herr Robinson to be seen and heard as the Jester, and of Mme. Schroeder-Hanfstangl to sing the music of Gilda. In this opera Fraulein Brandt played the part of Maddelena and interpolated a Spanish song sung in German. Then, on January 5th, came Mme. Materna"s first operatic appearance in America, in a repet.i.tion of "Tannhauser."
Before continuing the record a few notes on some of these operas and their performance may not be amiss. There was little that was noteworthy about the representation of "Don Giovanni" except Dr. Damrosch"s effort to do justice to the famous finale, the full effectiveness of which failed nevertheless because of the arrangement of the stage, which was that of the preceding season. "Les Huguenots" was a distinct disappointment. "La Muette de Portici," which was as good as new to the majority of the audience, acquired historical interest from close a.s.sociation with "William Tell." It was something of an anomaly that, though Rossini"s opera had made its appearance during the many years of Italian domination whenever a tenor came who could be counted on to make a sensation with his high notes in the familiar trio of men, Auber"s opera, its inspiration as a type, had had so few representations that it had pa.s.sed out of memory except for its overture. But the history of "La Muette" is full of anomalies. Its story is Neapolitan and there is Neapolitan color in its music; but it is nothing if not French. It inspired Rossini to write "William Tell" and Meyerbeer to write "Les Huguenots" for the French stage, and is the masterpiece of its author; but Auber is the only Frenchman among the great composers for the Academie in the first half of the nineteenth century. Wagner defended it against the taste of the Parisians, who preferred Rossini and Donizetti, and was snubbed for his pains by the editor of the Gazette Musicale, who was an officer of the French government. Von Weber condemned as coa.r.s.e the instrumentation which Wagner praised for its fire and truthfulness. Its heroine is dumb; yet to her is a.s.signed the loveliest music in the score.
"Lohengrin" better than "Tannhauser" gave the public an opportunity to study the change in matter and spirit which had been introduced into local opera by the coming of the Germans to the Metropolitan.
Mme. Materna"s first appearance on January 5th was followed by a second on January 7th as Valentine in "Les Huguenots," and a third on January 16th in Halevy"s "La Juive." By this time Dr. Damrosch was ready with the first of the large Wagnerian productions which were a part of the dream which it was fated should be realized, not by him, but by his successor, whose name was thereby made ill.u.s.trious in the operatic annals of New York. On January 30th "Die Walkure" was performed, with the following cast: Brunnhilde, Amalia Materna; Fricka, Marianne Brandt; Sieglinde, Auguste Krauss; Siegmund, Anton Schott; Wotan, Josef Staudigl; Hunding, Josef Koegel; Gerhilde, Marianne Brandt; Ortlinde, Fraulein Stern; Waltraute, Fraulein Gutjar; Schwertleite, Fraulein Morse; Helmwige, Frau Robinson; Siegrune, Fraulein Slach; Grimgerde, Frau Kemlitz; Rossweise, Fraulein Brandl.
"Die Walkure" had been presented before in New York at a so-called Wagner festival at the Academy of Music on April 2, 1877, under the direction of Adolf Neuendorff; but the memories of that production were painful when they were not amusing, and, though much of the music of the Nibelung trilogy had been heard in the concert room, this was practically the first opportunity the people of New York had to learn from personal experience what it was that Wagner meant by a union of arts in the lyric drama. Dr. Damrosch had made an earnest effort to meet the standard set by the Bayreuth festivals. The original scenery and costumes were faithfully copied, except that for the sake of increased picturesqueness Herr Hock, the stage manager, had draperies replace the door in Hunding"s hut, which, shaking loose from their fastenings, fell just before Siegmund began his love song, and disclosed an expanse of moonlit background. In the third act, too, there was a greater variety of colors in the costumes of the Valkyrior. Fraulein Brandt again disclosed her artistic devotion by enacting the part of Fricka and also leading the chorus of Valkyrior; but Mme. Materna was the inspiration of the performance. It was a surprise to those who had already learned to admire her to see how in the character of Brunnhilde she towered above herself in other roles. Both of the strong sides of the character had perfect exemplification in her singing and acting--the wild, impetuous, exultant freedom of voice which proclaimed the Valkyria"s joy in living and doing until the catastrophe was reached, and the deep, unselfish, tender nature disclosed in her sympathy with the ill-starred lovers and her immeasurable love for Wotan. Her complete absorption in the part fitted her out with a new gamut of expression. "If anything can establish a sympathy between us and the mythological creatures of Wagner"s dramas," I wrote at the time, "that thing is the acting and singing of Materna." The drama made a tremendous impression, and in the three weeks which remained of the season (including some supplementary performances) "Die Walkure" had seven representations.
The remaining incidents of the season may now be hurried over to make room for a record of the catastrophe which marked its close. By the middle of January it was reported that the receipts were double those of the corresponding period in the previous year, notwithstanding that the price of admission had been reduced nearly one-half. By this time, too, the board of directors had decided to continue the policy adopted at the suggestion of Dr. Damrosch and engage him as director for the next year.
This decision had not been reached, however, without consideration of other projects. Charles Mapleson, a son of the director of the Academy of Music, and doubtless only his go-between, submitted a proposition for the directorship, and so did Adolf Neuendorff, a man of indefatigable energy and enterprise, who had given New York its first hearing of "Lohengrin" at the Stadt Theater, in the Bowery, in April, 1871. In January there was also a strike of the chorus, which was quickly settled, and all but the ringleaders in the disturbance taken back into favor on signing an apology.
Rejoicings over the success of the enterprise gave way to general grief and consternation with the unexpected death of Dr. Damrosch on February 15th. On Tuesday, February 10th, he contracted a cold from having thrown himself upon a bed in a cold room for a nap before dinner on returning from a rehearsal at the opera house. He had neglected to open the furnace register or cover himself, and he awoke thoroughly chilled.
After dinner he went to a rehearsal of the Oratorio Society, which was preparing Verdi"s Manzoni Requiem for performance the following week.
Before the conclusion of the rehearsal he was so ill that he was forced to hurry home in a carriage. The next morning it was found that pneumonia had set in, complicated by pleurisy, and a consultation of physicians was held. Only one of the subscription performances at the Metropolitan Opera House remained to be given, but there were still before the director in the way of operatic work five supplementary performances and seasons at Boston, Chicago, and Cincinnati. This naturally caused the sick man a great deal of concern. He deferred to the wishes of his physicians and sent his son Walter, in whose talent and skill he felt great confidence and pride, to conduct the remaining subscription performance in the evening, hoping in the meantime to secure such good care as to enable him to be in his chair on Thursday evening when "Die Walkure" was to be repeated. In this hope, too, he was disappointed and had to send his son a second time to conduct a performance of the drama which had put the capstone to the astonishingly successful season which his zeal, learning, skill, enterprise, and perseverance had brought about. As on the previous day he went through the score with his son and called his attention to some of the details of the responsible and difficult task before him. The young man"s knowledge of the score and apt.i.tude in grasping the suggestions made to him comforted and quieted the father, and the representations at the opera house went off in a manner which caused complimentary comments on Thursday evening and Sat.u.r.day afternoon. On Sunday, February 15th, at 3 o"clock A.M., a change in the sick man"s condition set in, and the physicians, realizing that the case was hopeless, so informed the family early in the day. Dr. Damrosch was not disturbed by the prospect of death. He retained consciousness until one o"clock in the afternoon, and within an hour before that time called Walter to his bedside and asked that an opera score be brought that he might give a few more suggestions for the concluding representations in New York. He was a.s.sured that all would go well. His last thoughts and words were with his family and work. In disjointed phrases he repeatedly asked that nothing be permitted to suffer because of his sickness; that the preparations for the operas and concerts of the societies of which he was conductor should go on. With his mind thus occupied he sank into unconsciousness and died at a quarter after two o"clock in the afternoon of Sunday, February 15, 1885. His funeral took place at the opera house on February 18th, amidst impressive ceremonies, addresses being made by the Rev. Horatio Potter (a.s.sistant Bishop of New York), the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, and Professor Felix Adler. The remaining performances of the supplementary season were conducted by Mr. Lund, after which the company went on tour, Mr. Lund and Walter Damrosch sharing the work of conducting. The season had begun on November 17th, one week after Colonel Mapleson opened his seventh season at the Academy of Music. It lasted until February 21st, but the last subscription performance was that on the evening of the day after Dr. Damrosch had fallen ill. The subscription was for thirty-eight nights and twelve Sat.u.r.day matinees.
There was no Christmas interregnum. The list of operas produced, the date of first representation, and the number of times each opera was given can be read in the following table:
Opera First performance Times given
"Tannhauser" .............. November 17 ........... 9 "Fidelio" ................. November 19 ........... 3 "Les Huguenots" ........... November 21 ........... 5 "Der Freischutz" .......... November 24 ........... 1 "William Tell" ............ November 28 ........... 3 "Lohengrin" ............... December 3 ............ 9 "Don Giovanni" ............ December 10 ........... 2 "Le Prophete" ............. December 17 ........... 9 "La Muette de Portici" .... December 29 ........... 3 "Rigoletto" ............... January 2 ............. 1 "La Juive" ................ January 16 ............ 5 "Die Walkure" ............. January 30 ............ 7 -- Total number of representations ................. 57
Twelve out of twenty-two works promised in the prospectus were given, the unperformed operas being "Rienzi," "Der Fliegende Hollander,"
"Le Nozze di Figaro," "Die Zauberflote," "Il Barbiere di Siviglia,"
Gounod"s "Faust," "Die l.u.s.tigen Weiber von Windsor," "La Dame Blanche,"
"Hans Heiling," and Kreutzer"s "Nachtlager von Granada." The failure to produce all the operas promised was largely due to the teachings of the first month of the season. In the list were a number of peculiarly German works, in which the musical numbers alternated with spoken dialogue. The experience made with "Fidelio" and "Der Freischutz" showed that works of this character were unedifying to the persons of native birth in the audience, and this was one reason why it was decided to omit several of them. Another reason was that it was found that the large dimensions of the opera house detracted from even good performances of light works; and still another was that the style of the singers was adapted to vigorous and declamatory music, rather than to that which depends for effect upon purity and beauty of voice and excellence of vocalization. A comparison of the last performances with those which were given when the company was continually engaged in studying new works suggests another reason: "Der Freischutz" was poorly performed; the first representations of "William Tell" and "Les Huguenots" threatened the loss of all the prestige won by the performances of "Tannhauser"; and "Fidelio" and "Don Giovanni" called for a vigorous exercise of good nature. Whatever disappointment came, therefore, from the failure to produce such interesting works as "Hans Heiling," one of the finest products, if not the finest, of the epigonoi of Weber, and "Die l.u.s.tigen Weiber von Windsor," unquestionably the best Shakespearian opera extant (Verdi"s "Otello" and "Falstaff" excepted), was compensated for by the excellence which marked the performances of "Tannhauser," "Lohengrin," "Le Prophete," and "Die Walkure." The production of this great work was a fitting end to Dr. Damrosch"s artistic career. It marked the beginning of a new era in New York"s operatic affairs, and led to the execution in the years which followed of his large plan to produce the entire Nibelung tragedy, "Tristan und Isolde" and "Die Meistersinger"--a plan carried out by his successor.
For "Tannhauser," "Fidelio," "William Tell," "La Muette de Portici," "La Juive," and "Die Walkure" new stage decorations had to be provided, and this was done on a scale of great liberality, in comparison with what New York had been accustomed to. The largest expenditure on a single representation was $4,000, and the average cost was $3,400. These sums were much smaller than those expended in the previous season on the hurdy-gurdy Italian list, and the stage pictures were all much finer.