Thoughtfully considered, the libretto is not one of any poetical worth, but in its handling of the things which give pleasure to the superficial observer it is admirable. It presents a story which is fairly rational, which enlists the interest, if not the sympathy, of the observers, which is new as a spectacle, and which is full of pomp and circ.u.mstance.
Looked at from its ethical side and considered with reference to the sources of its poetical elements, it falls under condemnation. The t.i.tle of the opera would seem to indicate that the Bible story of the visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon had been drawn on for the plot. That is true. The Queen of Sheba comes to Jerusalem to see Solomon in his glory, and that is the end of the draft on the Biblical story; the rest is the modern poet"s invention. But that is the way of operas with Biblical subjects--a few names, an incident, and the rest of invention. In Gounod"s "Reine de Saba" the magnificently storied queen tries to elope with the architect of Solomon"s temple like any wilful millionaire"s daughter. Salome is a favorite subject just now that the danse du ventre is working its way into polite society, but save for the dance and the names of the tetrarch and his wife, the Bible contributes nothing to the Salome dramas and pantomimes. Sulamith, who figures like an abandoned Dido, in the opera of Mosenthal and Goldmark, owes her name, but not her nature or any of her experiences, to the pastoral play which Solomon is credited with having written. The Song of Songs contributes, also, a few lines of poetry to the book, and a ritualistic service celebrated in the Temple finds its prototype in some verses from Psalms lxvii and cxvii, but with this I have enumerated all that "Die Konigin von Saba" owes to the sacred Scriptures. Solomon"s magnificent reign and marvelous wisdom, which contribute factors to the production, belong to profane as well as to sacred history, and persons with deeply rooted prejudices touching the people of Biblical story will be happiest if they can think of some other than the Scriptural Solomon as the prototype of Mosenthal and Goldmark, for in truth they make of him a sorry sentimentalist at best. The local color of the old story has been borrowed from the old story; the dramatic motive comes plainly from "Tannhauser"; Sulamith is Elizabeth, the Queen Venus, a.s.sad Tannhauser, and Solomon Wolfram. Goldmark"s music is highly spiced. At times it rushes along like a lava stream, every measure throbbing with eager, excited, and exciting life. He revels in instrumental color; the language of his orchestra is as glowing as the poetry attributed to the veritable King whom the operatic story celebrates. Many composers before him made use of Oriental cadences and rhythms, but to none did they seem so like a native language. It has not been every Jew who could thus handle a Jewish subject. Compare Halevy, Meyerbeer, and Rubinstein with Goldmark.
The first performance of Wagner"s "Meistersinger" fell on the same night as the production for the first time in America of Goetz"s "Widerspanstigen Zahmung" in English by the National Opera Company.
We thus had in juxtaposition an admirable operatic adaptation of a Shakespearian comedy and a modern comedy, of which I thought at the time I could not speak in higher praise than to say that it was truly Shakespearian in its delineation of character. In my book, "Studies in the Wagnerian Drama," I have a.n.a.lyzed Wagner"s comedy from many points of view, and printed besides the results of investigations of the old Nuremberg mastersingers made on the spot. The significance of this record is that it tells of the introduction in America of a comedy which, though foreign in matter and manner to the thoughts, habits, and feelings of the American people, has, nevertheless, held a high place in their admiration. Later we shall see that this admiration was based on the sound understanding of the play which the original, performers inculcated. Let their names therefore be preserved. They were: Hans Sachs, Emil Fischer; Veit Pogner, Josef Staudigl; Kunz Vogelsang, Herr Dworsky; Konrad Nachtigal, Emil Sanger; Sixtus Beckmesser, Otto Kemlitz; Fritz Kothner, Herr Lehmler; Balthasar Zorn, Herr Hoppe; Ulrich Eisslinger, Herr Klaus; Augustin Moser, Herr Langer; Hermaun Ortel, Herr Doerfer; Hans Schwartz, Herr Eiserbeck; Hans Foltz, Herr Anlauf; Walther von Stolzing, Albert Stritt; David, Herr Kramer; Eva, Auguste Seidl-Krauss; Magdalena, Marianne Brandt; Nachtwachter, Carl Kaufmann.
Mr. Seidl conductor.
I modulate to the Metropolitan season 1886-87 through the performances of the opposition, which began at the Academy of Music, but ended in the house which was now definitely acknowledged to be the home, and only home, of fashionable opera. Mme. Patti provided the last bit of evidence. In the two preceding seasons she had led Colonel Mapleson"s forces at the Academy; yet the public would have none of his opera. Now, after a year"s absence, she returned to America under the management of Mr. Abbey, who had opposed Nilsson to her when the rivalry of the houses began. She gave operatic concerts, one, two, three, and four, at the Academy of Music, with old favorites of the New York public--Scalchi, Novara, and a French tenor named Guille--in her company, besides Signor Arditi; and she gave fragments of opera ("Semiramide" and "Martha"), besides a miscellaneous concert. The experiences of Mme. Patti on her return to her old home in 1881 were measurably repeated. The great singer was admired, of course, and half an operatic loaf was accepted as better than no bread. This was in November, 1886, and in April, 1887, Mr. Abbey decided to offer the operatic loaf, such as it was, but to cut it, not at the house with which Patti"s name had been intimately a.s.sociated, but at the Metropolitan Opera House. He was conjuring with the legend (then new, but afterward worn threadbare), "Patti"s Farewell." I am writing in July, 1908, and have just been reading the same legend again in the London newspapers--twenty-one years after it served Mr. Abbey a turn. In April, then, Mr. Abbey came to the Metropolitan Opera House with Mme. Patti to give six "farewell"
operatic performances. The company consisted of Scalchi, Vicini, Gala.s.si, Valerga, Del Puente, Novara, Abramoff, Corsi, and Migliara, some of them recruited from an earlier company that had come and departed like a shadow in the fall season. Also Miss Gertrude Griswold, whom I mention because she was an American singer who had given promise of good things in Europe, and who helped Mme. Patti with the one and doubly singular performance of "Carmen," in which she was seen and (occasionally) heard in the United States. Mr. Abbey gave six performances, in all of which Mme. Patti appeared, the operas being "La Traviata," "Semiramide," "Faust," "Carmen," "Lucia," and "Marta."
The financial results were phenomenal. The public paid nearly $70,000 for the six operas! Had Colonel Mapleson been able to do fifty per cent.
of such business the Academy of Music might have been saved. But Mr.
Abbey, to use the slang of the stage, was playing Patti as a sensation.
Prices of admission were abnormal, and so was the audience. Fashion heard Patti at the Metropolitan, and so did suburban folk, who came to $10 opera in business coats, bonnets, and shawls. Such audiences were never seen in the theater before or since.
This was a little Italian opera season, but a successful one, and one housed at the Metropolitan. In the fall there had been another at the Academy of Music, which was not a success, and which ended in a quarrel between prima donna and manager that contributed a significant item to the popular knowledge of the status of Italian opera. On October 18th an Italian named Angelo began a season of Italian opera at the Academy. The name of the company was the Angelo Grand Italian Opera Company, and its manager"s experience had been made, as an underling of Mapleson in the luggage department. The season, as projected, was to last five weeks, and a virtue proclaimed in the list was to be a departure from the hurdy-gurdy list which had been doing service so long. There were smiles among the knowing that a trunk despatcher should appear as the successor of his former employer, and that employer so polished a man of the world as James H. Mapleson; but opera makes strange bedfellows, and there have been stranger things than this in its history. A Hebrew boy named Pohl was little more than a bootblack when he entered the service of Maurice Strakosch, but as Herr Pollini a couple of decades later he was a partner of that elegant gentleman and experienced impresario, and one of the operatic dictators of Germany. Eventually, in the case of the Angelo Grand Italian Opera Company, it turned out that the Deus ex machina was the prima donna, Giulia Valda (Miss Julia Wheelock), an American singer, who had chosen this means of getting a hearing in her native land. The list of operas sounded like an echo of half a century before. Five operas were given, and four of them were by Verdi: "Luisa Miller,"
"I Lombardi," "Un Ballo in Maschera," and "I due Foscari;" the remaining opera was Petrella"s "Ione." Here was an escape from the threadbare with a vengeance. It made the critics rub their eyes and wonder if Mme.
Valda had not been in the company of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus. Five weeks were projected, but trouble came at the end of a fortnight--that is to say, it came to public notice at the end of a fortnight; it began probably with the season. On November 3d the persons who came to hear a promised performance of "La Juive" found the doors of the Academy closed. A few spasmodic efforts to galvanize the corpse into the semblance of life were made, but in vain; the Angelo Grand Italian Opera Company was dead. Some of its members had been heard before in other organizations; some were heard later. They were Giulia Valda, Mlle.
Prandi, Mme. Valerga, Mlle. Corre, Mathilde Ricci, Mme. Mestress, Mme. Bianchi-Montaldo, Signor Vicini, Lalloni, Bologna, Greco, Giannini, Pinto, Corsi, Migliara, and Conti. The conductors were Logheder and Bimboni, the latter of whom was discovered as a young conductor of surprising merit twenty years later by Boston.
One season of the American Opera Company sufficed to involve it in such financial difficulties that its managers deemed a reorganization necessary. It appeared, therefore, in the season of 1886-87 under the t.i.tle, National Opera Company. Mr. Theodore Thomas was still its musical director, and Mr. Gustav Hinrichs and Arthur Mees a.s.sistant conductors; Charles E. Locke was the business manager. The company spent the greater part of the season in other cities, but gave two series of representations in Brooklyn, at the Academy of Music, and one series at the Metropolitan Opera House. The first Brooklyn season was of one week, from December 27th to January 1st, when the German company was idle; the second embraced the Thursday evenings from February 28th to March 26th, during which period the company gave a regular series of representations in New York. Among the singers were Pauline L"Allemand, Emma Juch, Laura Moore, Mathilde Phillips (sister of Adelaide Phillips, one of the singers of first rank sent out into the world by America), Jessie Bartlett Davis, Mme. Bertha Pierson, William Candidus, Charles Ba.s.sett (The Signor Ba.s.setti of Colonel Mapleson"s company in the previous season), William Fessenden, William Ludwig, Myron W. Whitney, Alonzo E.
Stoddard, and William Hamilton. The notable feature of the repertory was the first production in America of Rubinstein"s opera "Nero," on March 14, 1887. The book had been translated for the production by Mr. John P. Jackson. Mr. Thomas conducted, and the cast was as follows: Nero Claudius, William Candidus; Julius Vindex, William Ludwig; Tigellinus, A. E. Stoddard; Balbillus, Myron W. Whitney; Saccus, William Fessenden; Sevirus and a Centurion, William Hamilton; Terpander, William H. Lee; Poppaea, Bertha Pierson; Epicharis, Cornelia van Santen; Chrysa, Emma Juch; Agrippina, Emily Sterling; Lupus, Pauline L"Allemand. So far as I can recall, "Nero" is the only opera of Rubinstein"s that has been given in the United States. Its performance by the National Opera Company did greater justice to its spectacular than its musical features, but in this there was not a large measure of artistic obliquity. The opera seems to have been constructed with the idea that mimic reproductions of scenes from Rome in its most extravagant, debauched, and luxuriant period would prove more fascinating to the public than an effort to present the moral and intellectual life of the same place and period through the medium of an eloquent, truthful, compact, well-built, and logically developed drama with its essentials further vitalized by music. From whatever side he is viewed, Nero is an excellent operatic character, and the wonder is that the opera of Barbier and Rubinstein did not have sixty instead of only six predecessors. Not only is it a simple matter to group around him historical pictures of unique interest, brilliancy, variety, and suggestiveness, but, as the historians present him to us, he is as made for the stage. His cruelty, profligacy, effeminacy, cowardice, and artistic vanity are traits which invite dramatic ill.u.s.tration, and for each one of them the pages of Suetonius afford incidents which accept a dramatic dress none the less willingly because they are facts of historical record. Besides all this, there is something like poetical justice in the conceit of making a stage character out of the emperor who hired himself to a theatrical manager for 1,000,000 sesterces (say $40,000--a pretty fair honorarium for the time, I should say), and who employed a claque of 5,000 young men. To throw a sequence of the characteristic incidents in the life of Nero into the form of a dramatic poem, logical in its development, and theatrically effective, ought not to be a difficult thing to do.
And yet, in the case of this opera, Barbier did not do it, and by a singularly persistent and consistent fatality Rubinstein apparently found every weak spot in the poet"s fabric, and loosened and tangled his threads right there. The operas and ballets performed by the National Opera Company in this season besides "Nero" were "The Flying Dutchman,"
"The Huguenots," "Faust," "Ada," "Lakme," "The Marriage of Jeannette,"
Ma.s.se"s "Galatea," "Martha," "Coppelia," and Rubinstein"s "Bal Costume,"
an adaptation.
"Galatea" had its first New York performance at the Academy of Music in Brooklyn, on December 30, 1886, under the direction of Arthur Mees; Delibes"s ballet "Coppelia" at the Metropolitan on March 11, 1887, under the direction of Gustav Hinrichs. It is likely that both works were previously given by the National Opera Company on tour.
The fourth regular subscription season of opera at the Metropolitan Opera House (third season of opera in German) began on November 8, 1886, under the management of the board of directors, the direction of Edmund C. Stanton, with Anton Seidl and Walter Damrosch, conductors. It extended over fifteen weeks, the closing date being February 26, 1887, and comprised forty-five subscription nights, and fifteen matinees, no opera having been given from December 5th to January 3d. In the prospectus the directors had promised to produce fourteen operas, and the promise was kept as to number, though two operas, "Tristan und Isolde" and "Fidelio," were subst.i.tuted for "Siegfried" (which had been completely staged) and "Les Huguenots." The operas thus subst.i.tuted were the most successful of the list, "Fidelio" being received with so much favor on the two occasions for which it had been announced that an extra performance had to be given to satisfy the popular demand. Of this incident more presently. This extra performance raised the number of representations to sixty-one, which were distributed through the list of operas as follows:
Opera First performance Times given
"Die Konigin von Saba" ........... November 8 ....... 4 "Die Walkure" .................... November 10 ...... 3 "Ada" ........................... November 12 ...... 4 "Der Prophet" .................... November 17 ...... 5 "Das Goldene Kreutz" and ballet .. November 19 ...... 4 "Tannhauser" ..................... November 28 ...... 6 "Tristan und Isolde" ............. December 1 ....... 8 "Faust" .......................... December 8 ....... 3 "Lohengrin" ...................... December 15 ...... 4 "Merlin" ......................... January 3 ........ 5 "Fidelio" ........................ January 14 ....... 3 "Die Meistersinger" .............. January 21 ....... 5 "Rienzi" ......................... January 31 ....... 5 "La Muette de Portici" ........... February 16 ...... 2 -- Total performances ................................ 61
The cost of representation was $288,400, and of maintaining the opera house about $154,000; in this total of about $442,000 was included the cost of the scenery, wardrobe, and properties. The company"s receipts comprised $202,751 from subscriptions and box office sales, about $33,000 from rentals, and about $175,000 from an a.s.sessment of $2,500 from each of the stockholders; in all about $410,751 I am able to be thus explicit about the financial affairs of the German regime because of courtesies received at the time from Mr. Stanton, with the sanction of the stockholders, who were inclined then to look upon their undertaking as one of public, not merely of private, concern. The figures will enable the student of this history to view intelligently some of the happenings at a later period, when the giving of opera became a business speculation pure and simple. In attendance, the measure of public patronage was represented by 137,399. The prices of admission ranged from fifty cents to four dollars, and the average receipts were $1.47 1/2 per individual.
The incidents of a particularly interesting character in the season were the first American performances of "Tristan und Isolde," and Goldmark"s opera "Merlin," and the coming and going of Albert Niemann; secondary in importance were the production of Wagner"s "Rienzi," with which was connected the return of Anton Schott to the ranks of the company, the surprising triumph of "Fidelio," and the production of Brull"s opera, "Das goldene Kreutz," and the ballet, "Vienna Waltzes." "Tristan und Isolde" was brought forward on December 1, 1886, under the direction of Anton Seidl. The distribution of characters was as follows: Tristan, Albert Niemann; Isolde, Lilli Lehmann; Konig Marke, Emil Fischer; Kurwenal, Adolf Robinson; Melot, Rudolph von Milde; Brangane, Marianne Brandt; Ein Hirt, Otto Kemlitz; Steuermann, Emil Sanger; Seemann, Max Alvary. The interesting character of the occurrence was fully appreciated by the public, and the drama was seen and heard by a remarkable a.s.sembly. The last seat had been sold four days before, and the vast audience room was crowded in every portion. The tenseness of the attention was almost painful, and the effect of Herr Niemann"s acting in the climax of the third act was so vivid that an experienced actress who sat in a baignoir at my elbow grew faint and almost swooned.
At the request of Mr. Stanton, or Mr. Seidl, he never ventured again to expose the wound in his breast, though the act is justified, if not demanded, by the text. The enthusiasm after the first act was tremendous. The performers came forward three times after the fall of the curtain, and then Mr. Seidl, who had won the greenest laurels that had yet crowned him, was called upon to join them, and twice more the curtain rose to enable the performers to receive the popular tribute.
Five recalls after an act would have meant either nothing or a failure in an Italian theater; it was of vast meaning here. The reception accorded Wagner"s love drama was not such an one as comes from an audience easily pleased or attracted by curiosity alone. It told of keen and lofty enjoyment and undisguised confession of the power of the drama. The applause came after the last note of the orchestral postludes. The drama was performed eight times in seven weeks, and took its place as the most popular work in the repertory, though in average attendance it fell a trifle short of the three representations of "Fidelio," which also served to signalize the season.
I shall have something to say presently about Herr Niemann, and a criticism of his interpretation of the character of the hero of the tragedy can be spared. From a histrionic point of view it has been equaled only by his performances of Siegmund and Tannhauser; nothing else has shown such stature that has been witnessed on the operatic stage of New York. Nor has his declamation of the text been equaled, though the compelling charm of Wagner"s melody was potently presented years later by Jean de Reszke. Herr Niemann was long past the prime of life when he came to New York, and when he went back to Berlin after his last visit there was very little left of his public career; but the youngest artist in the company might have envied him the whole-souled enthusiasm with which he set about his tasks. How completely he dedicated himself to the artistic duty was ill.u.s.trated when, in the season of 1887-88, he realized what had been the ambition of years, and gave a first performance of Siegfried in "Gotterdammerung." He had studied the part a dozen years before in the hope of appearing in it at the first Bayreuth festival; but Wagner did not want the illusion spoiled by presenting the actor of Siegmund on one evening as the actor of Siegfried on another, and Niemann"s Siegmund was a masterpiece that must not be despoiled. In New York, on Niemann"s second visit, he asked for the privilege of enacting the Volsung"s part in the last division of the tetralogy, and studied the part ab initio with Seidl. I chanced one evening to be a witness of his study hour--the strangest one I ever saw.
It was at the conductor"s lodgings in the opera house. There was a pianoforte in the room, but it was closed. The two men sat at a table with the open score before them. Seidl beat time to the inaudible orchestral music, and Niemann sang sans support of any kind. Then would come discussion of readings, markings of cues, etc., all with indescribable gravity, while Frau Seidl-Krauss, a charming ingenue budding into a tragedienne, sat sewing in a corner. After the performance of the drama, I sat again with Niemann and Seidl over cigars and beer. I thanked Niemann for having discarded a universal trick in the scene of Siegfried"s murder, and for carrying out Wagner"s stage directions to the letter in raising his shield and advancing a step to crush Hagen, and then falling exhausted upon it.
"I am glad you noted that," said Niemann in his broad Berlinese. "Years ago I was angered by the device which all Siegfrieds follow of lifting the shield high and throwing it behind themselves before they fall.
Das hat doch gar kein Sinn. There"s no sense in that; if he has strength enough to throw the shield over his head, he certainly has strength enough to hurl it at the man he wants to kill. He lifts the heavy shield for that purpose, but his strength gives way suddenly, and he falls upon it with a crash. It"s dangerous, of course. A fellow might easily break a finger or a rib. But if you do a thing, do it right. I have waited more than ten years to sing Siegfried, and now I"ve done it; but, youngster (to Seidl), if we meet again years from now, and I"ve fifty marks in my pocket, I"ll get an orchestra, and you will conduct just enough to let me sing "Ach! dieses Auge, ewig nun offen," and then I"ll die in peace! That"s the climax of Siegfried"s part, and it must sound red, blood red--Siegfried is red; so is Tristan. Vogl sings Tristan well, but he"s all yellow--not red, as he ought to be."
I recall another bit of Niemann"s characteristic criticism: Adolf Robinson, the barytone of the first few German seasons, was an excellent singer and also actor; but he belonged to the old operatic school, and was p.r.o.ne to extravagant action and exaggerated pathos. He was, moreover, fond of the footlights. At one of the last rehearsals for "Tristan und Isolde," Robinson, the Kurwenal of the occasion, was perpetually running from the dying hero"s couch to the front of the stage to sing his pathetic phrases with tremendous feeling into the faces of the audience. Niemann, reclining on the couch, immovable as a rec.u.mbent statue, as was his wont, without a gesture, all evidence of the seething impatience which is consuming him mirrored in the expression of his face, and particularly his eyes, watched the conventional stage antics of his colleague till he could endure them no longer. He gave a sign to Seidl, who stopped the orchestra to hear the dying knight addressing his squire in winged, but un-Wagnerian, words to this effect:
"My dear Robinson, this scene is not all yours--Tristan has also something to say here; but how am I to make my share of the dramatic effect if you are always going to run down to the audience and sing at it? After a while there will be nothing left for me to do but to get up and hurl my boots into the audience room. And I"m a very sick man.
Now, there"s a good fellow, come over here to the couch; stay by me and nurse me, and you"ll see there"s something in my part, too."
Niemann"s first American appearance was on November 10th in "Die Walkure." From the criticism of his performance, which I wrote for The Tribune on that occasion, I reprint the following extract as the best summing up which I am able to make of the great dramatic singer"s art:
The creation of a Wagnerian musical drama created also the need of Wagnerian singers. Those who go to see and hear Herr Niemann must go to see and hear him as the representative of the character that he enacts.
It is only thus that they can do justice to themselves, to him, and to the art-work in which he appears. A drama can only be vitalized through representation, and the first claim to admiration which Herr Niemann puts forth is based on the intensely vivid and harmonious picture of the Volsung which he brings on the stage. There is scarcely one of the theatrical conventions which the public have been accustomed to accept that he employs. He takes possession of the stage like an elemental force. Wagner"s dramas have excited the fancy of painters more than any dramatic works of the century, because Wagner was in a lofty sense a scenic artist. Niemann"s genius, for less it can scarcely be called, utilizes this picturesque element to the full. His att.i.tudes and gestures all seem parts of Wagner"s creation. They are not only instinct with life, but instinct with the sublimated life of the hero of the drama. When he staggers into Hunding"s hut and falls upon the bearskin beside the hearth a thrill pa.s.ses through the observer. Part of his story is already told, and it is repeated with electrifying eloquence in the few words that he utters when his limbs refuse their office. The voice is as weary as the exhausted body. In the picturesque side of his impersonation he is aided by the physical gifts with which nature has generously endowed him. The figure is colossal; the head, like "the front of Jove himself"; the eyes large and full of luminous light, that seems to dart through the tangled and matted hair that conceals the greater portion of his face. The fate for which he has been marked out has set its seal in the heroic melancholy which is never absent even in his finest frenzies, but in the glare of those eyes there is something that speaks unfalteringly of the G.o.dlike element within him. This element a.s.serts itself with magnificent force in the scene where Siegmund draws the sword from its gigantic sheath, and again when he calmly listens to the proclamation of his coming death, and declines the services of the messenger of Wotan who is sent to conduct him to Walhalla.
There are aspects in which, even from a literary point of view, Wagner"s "Ring of the Nibelung" seems to be the most Teutonic of the several German versions of the old legend which is its basis. It is a primitive Teutonism, however, without historical alloy; such a Teutonism as we can construct by letting the imagination work back from the most forceful qualities of the historical German to those which representatives of the same race may have had in a prehistoric age. The period of Wagner"s tetralogy, it must be remembered, is purely mythical. The ruggedness of the type which we obtain by such a process is the strong characteristic of Herr Niemann"s treatment of Wagner"s musical and literary text. It is, like the drama itself, an exposition of the German esthetic ideal: strength before beauty. It puts truthful declamation before beautiful tone production in his singing and lifts dramatic color above what is generally considered essential musical color. That from this a new beauty results all those can testify who hear Herr Niemann sing the love song in the first act of "Die Walkure," which had previously in America been presented only as a lyrical effusion and given with more or less sweetness and sentimentality. Herr Niemann was the first representative of the character who made this pa.s.sage an eager, vital, and personal expression of a mood so ecstatic that it resorts to symbolism, as if there was no other language for it. The charm with which he invests the poetry of this song (for this is poetry) can only be appreciated by one who is on intimate terms with the German language, but the dramatic effect attained by his use of tone color and his marvelous distinctness of enunciation all can feel.
The defects in Herr Niemann"s singing, the result of the long and hard wear to which his voice has been subjected in a career of thirty-five years" duration, are so obvious that I need not discuss them. To do so would be as idle as to attempt to deny their presence. He must be heard as a singing actor, as a dramatic interpreter, not as a mere singer.
Niemann said farewell to the New York public at a notable performance of "Tristan und Isolde," the last of the season, on February 7, 1887.
I doubt if the history of opera in New York discloses anything like a parallel to the occasion. Out of doors the night was distressingly dismal. A cold rain fell intermittently; the streets were deep with slush, and the soft ice made walking on the pavements uncomfortable, and even dangerous. But these things were not permitted to interfere with the determination of the lovers of the German lyric drama to bear testimony to their admiration for the artist who had done so much for their pleasure. The house was crowded in every part. Every seat had been sold days before. Many of the tickets had been bought by speculators, who, in spite of the untoward weather, reaped a rich harvest. During the day the prices obtained varied from ten dollars to fifteen dollars for the orchestra stalls (regular price, four dollars), and at night seats in the topmost gallery fetched as much as three dollars, which was six times the regular tariff. There were delegations in the audience from Boston, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati. The enthusiasm after each act was of the kind that recalled familiar stories of popular outbursts in impressionable Italy. Herr Niemann husbanded his vocal resources in the first act, but after that both he and Fraulein Lehmann threw themselves into the work with utter abandon, such abandon, indeed, as made some of the prima donna"s friends tremble for her voice. After two recalls had followed the second fall of the curtain a third round was swelled by a fanfare from the orchestra. To acknowledge this round Herr Niemann came forward alone, and was greeted with cheers, while a laurel wreath, bearing on one of its ribbons the significant line from "Tannhauser,"
"O, kehr zuruck, du kuhner Sanger," was handed up to him. The third act wrought the enthusiasm to a climax. After the curtain had been raised over and over again, Herr Niemann came forward and said, in German: "I regret exceedingly that I am not able to tell you in your own language how sincerely I appreciate your kindness toward me. I thank you heartily, and would like to say "Auf wiedersehn."" His place for the rest of the season was filled by Herr Anton Schott.
I have referred to the "Fidelio" incident of the season, which may now be told, since Herr Niemann also figured in it. To Beethoven "Fidelio"
was a child of sorrow; that fact is known to every student of musical history. On its first production it failed dismally. With his heart strings torn, the composer yielded to the arguments and prayers of his friends and revised the opera. In the new form it was revived, and made a better impression; but now Beethoven quarreled with his manager, and withdrew his opera from the Vienna theater. He offered it in Berlin, and it was rejected. For seven years it slept. Then it was taken in hand again by the composer, and adapted to a revised text. Some of the music elided at the first revision was restored. By this time four overtures had been written for it. Again it was brought forward; and this time the Viennese awoke to an appreciation of its splendor. Since 1814 its name has been almost the ineffable word for the serious musician. But sorrow and disaster have followed upon innumerable efforts to habilitate it in the opera houses of the world. We have seen that Dr. Damrosch made haste to produce it at the Metropolitan Opera House, but the financial results were so direful that two years later it was only upon the urgent entreaty of a few friends who stood close to him that Mr. Stanton consented to include it in the repertory for 1886-87.
"But," said the director to his pet.i.tioners, "if I give it once I must give it twice, for I have two Leonores in my company, and there must be no quarrel."
So he gave the opera on Friday, January 14th, with Fraulein Brandt as the heroine, and on Wednesday, January 19th, with Fraulein Lehmann--Niemann being the Florestan on both occasions. The enthusiasm was boundless, though the silly laugh of a woman in one of the boxes at the first performance so disconcerted Fraulein Brandt at the beginning of the duet in the dungeon scene that she broke down in tears, and Mr.
Seidl had to stop the orchestra till she could sufficiently recover her composure to begin over again. Now, the popular interest was so great that Mr. Stanton gave an extra performance, with Fraulein Lehmann, and when the record of the season was made up, lo! Beethoven"s opera led all the rest in average receipts and attendance. In Berlin, Dr. Ehrlich preached a sermon to the people of Germany with the incident as a text.
As a novelty "Tristan und Isolde" had been preceded on November 19th by Brull"s pretty little opera, "Das goldene Kreutz," and the ballet, "Vienna Waltzes." It was succeeded on January 3d by Goldmark"s "Merlin,"
conducted by Walter Damrosch, with the parts distributed as follows: Artus, Robinson; Modrid, Kemlitz; Gawein, Heinrich; Lancelot, Basch; Merlin, Alvary; Viviane, Lehmann; Bedwyr, Von Milde; Glendower, Sieglitz; Morgana, Brandt; Damon, Fischer. Much interest centered in the opera because of its newness (it had received its first production in Vienna less than two months before), and the great success achieved by its predecessor, "The Queen of Sheba;" but it failed of popular approval, eight operas preceding it in popularity, as evidenced by the attendance, and but one of them--"Tristan"--a novelty.
CHAPTER XIV
WAGNERIAN HIGH TIDE
In this chapter I purpose to tell the story of a period of three years, from 1887 to 1890, and in order to cover the ground I shall leave out what appertains to the repet.i.tion of works incorporated in the repertory of the Metropolitan Opera House during the preceding three seasons.
The period was an eventful one and marked the high-water of achievement and also of popularity of the German regime, but also the beginning of the dissatisfaction of the boxholders, which resulted two years later in a return to the Italian form. It witnessed the introduction of the "Ring of the Nibelung" in its integrity and ill.u.s.trated in a surprising manner the superior attractiveness of Wagner"s dramas to the rest of the operatic list. Outside of the Nibelung dramas it brought two absolute novelties to the knowledge of the public and revived several old operas of large historical and artistic significance, which had either never been heard at all in New York, or heard so long ago that all memory of them had faded from the public mind. It saw the light of compet.i.tion flicker out completely at the Academy of Music, and after a year of darkness it beheld the dawn of Italian rivalry in what had become the home of German art.
Twenty operas were brought forward in the first three years of the German regime. They were "Tannhauser," "Fidelio," "Les Huguenots,"
"Der Freischutz," "William Tell," "Lohengrin," "Don Giovanni," "The Prophet," "Masaniello," "Rigoletto," "La Juive," "Die Walkure,"
"Carmen," "The Queen of Sheba," "Die Meistersinger," "Rienzi," "Ada,"
"Das Goldene Kreutz," "Tristan und Isolde," and "Merlin." (In this list I have set down the t.i.tles in the language in which they live in the popular mouth in order to avoid what might seem like an affectation were I to use the German form always in the story simply because the Italian and French works were sung in German.) Additions to the list in the season of 1887-88 were "Siegfried," "Der Trompeter von Sakkingen,"
"Euryanthe," "Ferdinand Cortez," and "Gotterdammerung"; in the season of 1888-89, "L"Africaine," "Das Rheingold," and "Il Trovatore"; in 1889-90, "Der Fliegende Hollander," "Un Ballo in Maschera," "Norma," and "Der Barbier von Bagdad."
The record of the last two years indicated a falling off in energy, but though it caused disaffection at the time, it seems notable enough compared with the activities of the establishment twenty years later under much more favorable circ.u.mstances. For the last of the three seasons under discussion seven additions to what was called by courtesy the established list had been promised; but counting in "Norma," (a special performance for the benefit of Lilli Lehmann) and "The Flying Dutchman," which had been promised only by implication in the plan of a serial representation of Wagner"s works, only four additions were made. Two causes operated toward the disappointing outcome. One was an epidemic of influenza which prevailed during the greater part of the winter and caused much embarra.s.sment to the singers; the other was the inefficiency of the chorus--a defect which has not yet been remedied, but was greater in the season 1907-08 than a decade earlier. "Otello"
was in readiness so far as the princ.i.p.als were concerned, but the chorus consumed so much time restudying old works that it had to be abandoned; also Lalo"s "Le Roy d"Ys." Though the stockholders were giving opera themselves for themselves, they took no steps toward making it a permanent inst.i.tution. Their decision to give German opera was made from year to year, and the end of every season brought with it practically a complete disruption of the company. There had to be a reorganization each fall. The directors were unwilling to give their own manager the degree of permanence which they bestowed without hesitation upon a lessee, and the policy of the house was thus kept continually in controversy. The fact is that the activities of the Germans were not to the taste of the stockholders, who were getting serious art where they were looking for fashionable diversion. This became painfully obvious when the conduct of the occupants of the boxes scandalized the inst.i.tution to such a degree that the directors were compelled to administer a public rebuke to themselves and their a.s.sociates, and a stigma was placed upon the inst.i.tution from which it has suffered, very unjustly, ever since. But a discussion of these incidents can be more intelligently and profitably introduced later in this narrative.
The fourth German season began on November 2, 1887, and ended on February 18, 1888, and consisted of forty-seven subscription nights, sixteen subscription matinees, and one extra matinee. In all fourteen operas were produced. The two Wagnerian novelties, "Gotterdammerung"
and "Siegfried," were the most popular features of the season, the former being given seven times, though it was the last of the season"s productions. It brought into the treasury a total of $30,324, or an average of $4,332, and was heard by audiences averaging 2,871.