"Siegfried" was a good second. It had nine weeks" advantage of "Gotterdammerung" and was performed eleven times, with total receipts amounting to $37,124.50, or an average of $3,374.95. Pursued by its old fatality, "Fidelio" dropped to the foot of the list with four performances, which yielded only $8,997. The receipts for the season were $411,860.24, of which $190,087.24 came from the box office sales and subscriptions, $170,180 from the stockholders" a.s.sessment of $2,500 on each box, and $51,593 from rentals. This a.s.sessment was only $24,000 more than the cost of maintaining the opera-house, which was about $146,000. The staging of new operas cost $19,727.27, more than half of which was expended on Spontini"s "Ferdinand Cortez." The scenery for "Siegfried" had been purchased the year before and also the costumes for that drama and "Gotterdammerung." The princ.i.p.al members of the company were Lilli Lehmann, Marianne Brandt, Auguste Seidl-Krauss, Biro di Marion, Louise Meisslinger, Albert Niemann, Max Alvary, Emil Fischer, Adolf Robinson, Rudolph von Milde, Johannes Elmblad, Herr Ferenczy, and Herr Alexi.
The first American representation of Wagner"s "Siegfried" took place on November 9, 1887. Anton Seidl conducted and the parts were distributed as follows: Siegfried, Max Alvary; Mime, Herr Ferenczy; der Wanderer, Emil Fischer; Alberich, Rudolph von Milde; Fafner, Johannes Elmblad; Erda, Marianne Brandt; Brunnhilde, Lilli Lehmann; Stimme des Waldvogels, Auguste Seidl-Krauss. The production of this drama was an invitation to the people of New York to take the longest and most decisive step away from the ordinary conventions of the lyric theater that had yet been asked of them. At the time it seemed foolishly presumptive to attempt a prediction of what the response would be. A season before "Tristan und Isolde" had been received with great favor and under conditions which did not admit a question of the honesty and intelligence of the appreciation. This was encouraging to the lovers of Wagner"s dramas, but the difference between opera of the ordinary type and "Tristan und Isolde" is not so great as between "Tristan und Isolde"
and "Siegfried," notwithstanding that in the love tragedy Wagner took as uncompromising a stand as ever did a Greek poet, and hewed to the lines of his theoretical scheme with unswerving fidelity. In the subject-matter of the drama lies the distinction. Despite the absence of the ethical element which places "Tannhauser" immeasurably higher than "Tristan" as a dramatic poem, the latter drama contains an expression of the universal pa.s.sion which is so vehement, so truthful, and so sublime that it seems strange that anybody susceptible to music and gifted with emotions could ever have been deaf to its beauties or callous to its appeals. Besides this, the sympathies are stirred in behalf of the personages of the play who stand as representatives of human nature, and, though the co-operation of a chorus, which has always been considered an essential element of the lyric drama, is restricted to a single act, the dramatic necessity of the restriction is so obvious that an audience, once engrossed in the tragedy, must needs resent such a violation of propriety as the introduction of a chorus in any scene except that of the first act would be. In "Siegfried," however, the case is not so plain. Here there is not only no chorus, but scarcely more than five minutes during which even two solo voices are blended in a duet. Except Siegfried and Brunnhilde, the personages of the play have no claim upon human sympathy, and their actions can scarcely arouse a loftier feeling than curiosity. Through two acts and a portion of the third, save in a dozen measures or so, the music of woman"s voice and the charm of woman"s presence are absent from the stage, and, instead, we are asked to accept a bear, a dragon, and a bird, a sublimely solemn peripatetic G.o.d who asks riddles and laughs once, and two dwarfs, repulsive of mind and hideous of body.
These are the drawbacks concerning which there can be no controversy.
To them are to be added the difficulties which result from a desire to employ in a serious drama mechanical devices of a kind that custom a.s.sociates only with children"s pantomimes and idle spectacles. A bear is brought in to frighten a dwarf; a dragon sings, vomits forth steam from its cavernous jaws, fights and dies with a kindly and prophetic warning to its slayer; a bird becomes endowed with the gift of human speech through a miraculous process which takes place in one of the people of the play. Surely these are grounds on which "Siegfried" might be stoutly criticized from the conventional as well as a universal point of view; but I have not enumerated them for the purpose of disparaging Wagner"s drama, but rather to show the intellectual and esthetic att.i.tude of the patrons of the Metropolitan Opera House twenty years ago, who, through all these defects, saw in "Siegfried" a strangely beautiful and impressive creation, which, under trying circ.u.mstances, challenged their plaudits at the outset and soon won their enthusiastic admiration.
More direct and emphatic was the appreciation of "Gotterdammerung," the last of the season"s novelties, as "Siegfried" was the first. It was produced on January 25, 1888, only three weeks before the close of the season, yet it was given six times in the subscription performances and once outside the subscription, with the financial results already mentioned. The cast was as follows: Siegfried, Albert Niemann; Gunther, Adolf Robinson; Hagen, Emil Fischer; Alberich, Rudolph von Milde; Brunnhilde, Lilli Lehmann; Gutrune, Auguste Seidl-Krauss; Woglinde, Sophie Traubmann; Wellgunde, Marianne Brandt; Flosshilde, Louise Meisslinger. Mr. Seidl conducted. It was but natural that the concluding drama of the tetralogy should have excited warmer sympathy than its immediate predecessor. In it the human element becomes really active for the first time. This circ.u.mstance Mr. Seidl accentuated by two bold excisions. One of the things for which Wagner has been faulted is that in his treatment of the Siegfried legend he has sacrificed historical elements in order to bring it into closer relationship with Norse mythology; has, in fact, made the fate of the G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses of our ancestors the chief concern of the prologue and succeeding dramas.
Except for those who prefer to see only ethical symbols in the characters there is some force in the objection. Like Homer in his "Iliad," Wagner has a celestial as well as a terrestrial plot in his "Ring of the Nibelung," and the men and women, or semi-divine creatures, in it are but the unconscious agents of the good and evil powers typified in the G.o.ds and dwarfs.
The criticism, however, is weaker here than in Germany, where ten or a dozen dramas (chief of which is Geibel"s "Brunnhild"), as well as the medieval epics, have accustomed the people to think of their national hero with something like historical surroundings. In these writings the death of Siegfried is brought about by his alliance with the Burgundians, whose seat was at Worms; and the Gunther of the legend is easily identified with King Gundikar, who was overcome by Attila and died A.D. 450. Wagner"s original draft of "Gotterdammerung" (an independent drama which he called "Siegfried"s Death") followed the accepted lines, and it was not until the tetralogy was planned that the mythological elements from the Eddas were drawn into the scheme, the theater of the play changed, its time pushed back into a prehistoric age, and the death of the hero made to bring about the destruction of the old G.o.ds--the Ragnarok of the Icelandic tales. The connection between the death of Siegfried and the fate of the G.o.ds is set forth in the two scenes which were eliminated at this production of "Gotterdammerung." The first is the prologue in which the Nornir (the Fates of Northern mythology), while twisting the golden-stranded rope of the world"s destiny, tell of the signs which presage the Twilight of the G.o.ds. The second is the interview between Brunnhilde and Waltraute, one of the Valkyrior, who comes to urge her sister to avert the doom which threatens the G.o.ds by restoring the baneful ring to the Rhine daughters.
Both scenes are highly significant in the plan of the tragedy as a whole, but a public largely unfamiliar with German and unconcerned about Wagner"s philosophical purposes can much more easily spare than endure them. In later years they were restored at the Metropolitan performances, but I make no doubt that Mr. Seidl"s wise abbreviation had much to do with the unparalleled success of the drama in its first season. Persons familiar with the German tongue and the tetralogy, either from study of the book and music or from attendance on performances in Germany, were justified in being disappointed at the loss of two scenes highly important from a dramatic point of view and profoundly beautiful from a musical; but it was better to achieve success for the representations by adapting the drama to the capacity of the public than to sacrifice it bodily on the altar of integrity.
Nessler"s opera, "Der Trompeter von Sakkingen," which had for nearly five years fairly devastated the German opera houses, receiving more performances than any three operas in the current lists, won only a succes d"estime. It was performed for the first time on November 23d, dressed most sumptuously and effectively cast (Robinson as Werner, Elmblad as Conradin, Kemlitz as the Major-domo, Sanger as the Baron, Frau Seidl-Krauss as Marie, Von Milde as Graf von Wildenstein, and Meisslinger as Grafin), but it reached only seven performances, was fourth from the bottom in the list arranged according to popularity, and in the following year it was not included in the repertory. In 1889-90 it was revived and received four performances, but its rank was seventeenth in a list of nineteen. Weber"s "Euryanthe" fared but little better, though a work immeasurably greater. It, too, received four performances, and it was but one remove in advance of "Der Trompeter."
To all intents and purposes it was new to the American stage when it was produced on December 23, 1887, with Lehmann, Brandt, Alvary, Fischer, and Elmblad in the parts of Euryanthe, Eglantine, Adolar, Lysiart, and the King, respectively. Mr. Seidl conducted. Twenty-four years before there had been some representations of the opera under the direction of Carl Anschutz in Wallack"s Theater, at Broadway and Broome Street, but of this fact the patrons of the Metropolitan Opera House had no memory.
It was a beautiful act of devotion on the part of Herr Anschutz and his German singers to produce "Euryanthe" at that time, and, had it been possible to break down the barriers of fashion and reach the heart of the public, the history of the lyric theater in America during the quarter of a century which followed would, no doubt, read differently than it does. "Tannhauser" and "Lohengrin" were produced under similar circ.u.mstances, and even "Die Walkure"; but "Lohengrin" was popularized by the subsequent performances in Italian, and "Tannhauser" and "Die Walkure" had to wait for appreciation until fortuitous circ.u.mstances caused fashion, fame, and fortune to smile for a s.p.a.ce upon the German establishment at the Metropolitan. It may have been a benignant fate which preserved "Euryanthe" from representation in the interval. The work is one which it is impossible for a serious music lover to approach without affection, but appreciation of all its beauties is conditioned upon the acceptance of theories touching the purpose, construction, and representation of the lyric drama which did not obtain validity in America until the German artists at the Metropolitan had completed their missionary labors. Indeed, there are aspects of the case in which Weber"s opera, with all its affluence of melody and all its potency of romantic and chivalric expression, is yet further removed from popular appreciation than the dramas of Wagner. In these there is so much orchestral pomp, so much external splendor, so much scenic embellishment, so much that is attractive to both eye and ear, that delight in them may exist independently of a recognition of their deeper values. "Euryanthe" still comes before us with modest consciousness of grievous dramatic defects and pleading for consideration and pardon even while demanding with proper dignity recognition of the soundness and beauty of the principles that underlie its score and the marvelous tenderness, sincerity, and intensity of its expression of pa.s.sion.
When it was first brought forward in Vienna in October, 1823, Castelli observed that it was come fifty years before its time. He spoke with a voice of prophecy. It was not until the fifty years had expired that "Euryanthe" really came into its rights, and it was the light reflected upon it by the works of Weber"s great successor at Dresden that disclosed in what those rights consisted. After that the critical voices of the world agreed in p.r.o.nouncing "Euryanthe" to be the starting point of Wagner, and, as the latter"s works grew in appreciation, "Euryanthe"
shone with ever-growing refulgence. No opera was ever prepared at the Metropolitan with more patience, self-sacrifice, zeal, and affection than this, and the spontaneous, hearty, sincere approbation to which the audience gave expression must have been as sweet incense to Mr. Seidl and the forces that he directed. But "Euryanthe" is a twin sister in misfortune to "Fidelio"; the public will not take it to its heart. It disappeared from the Metropolitan list with the end of the season which witnessed its revival.
A dozen or more circ.u.mstances combined to give the first performance of Spontini"s "Ferdinand Cortez," which took place on January 6, 1888, a unique sort of interest. In one respect it was a good deal like trying to resuscitate a mummy, for whatever of interest historical criticism found in the opera, a simple hearing of the music was sufficient to convince the public that Spontini was the most antiquated composer that had been presented to their attention in several years. Compared with him Gluck and Mozart had real, dewy freshness, and Weber spoke in the language of to-day. Nevertheless, Spontini still stands as the representative of a principle, and if it had been possible for Mr.
Stanton to supplement "Ferdinand Cortez" with "Armida" or "Iphigenia in Aulis," the Metropolitan repertory would admirably have exemplified the development of the dramatic idea and its struggle with simple lyricism in opera composition. The public would have been asked to take the steps in the reverse order, it is true--Wagner, Weber, Spontini, Gluck--but this circ.u.mstance would only have added to the clearness of the historical exposition. The light which significant art works throw out falls brightest upon the creations which lie behind them in the pathway of progress. "Euryanthe" was understood through the mediation of "Tristan und Isolde." "Ferdinand Cortez" has an American subject; the conqueror of Mexico is the only naturalized American with whom we had an acquaintance till Pinkerton came on the stage in Puccini"s "Madama b.u.t.terfly," and Mr. Stanton surpa.s.sed all his previous efforts in the line of spectacle to celebrate the glories of this archaic American opera. The people employed in the representation rivaled in numbers those who const.i.tuted the veritable Cortez"s army, while the horses came within three of the number that the Spaniard took into Mexico. This was carrying realism pretty close to historical verity. A finer sense of dramatic propriety, however, was exhibited in the care with which the pictures and paraphernalia of the opera were prepared. The ancient architecture of Mexico, the sculptures, the symbols of various kinds carried in the processions, the banners of Montezuma and some of the costumes of his warriors were copied with painstaking fidelity from the remains of the civilization which existed in Mexico at the time of the conquest. The cast of the opera was this: Cortez, Niemann; Alvarez, Alvary; High Priest, Fischer; Telasko, Robinson; Montezuma, Elmblad; Morales, Von Milde; Amazily, Fraulein Meisslinger.
The prospectus for the season of 1888-89 announced sixteen weeks of opera between November 28th and March 16th, the subscription to be for forty-seven nights and sixteen matinees. The last two weeks were set apart for two consecutive representations of the dramas const.i.tuting "The Ring of the Nibelung." The difficulties involved in an effort to compa.s.s the tetralogy in a week combined with other circ.u.mstances to compel an extension of the season for a week, much to the advantage of the enterprise. The final record showed that fifty evening and eighteen afternoon performances had taken place between the opening night and March 23, 1889. Sixteen works were performed, the relative popularity of which is indicated in the following list: "Gotterdammerung,"
"Tannhauser," "Das Rheingold," "La Juive," "Il Trovatore," "Lohengrin,"
"Ada," "Siegfried," "L"Africaine," "Die Meistersinger," "Les Huguenots," "Die Walkure," "Faust," "Le Prophete," "Fidelio," and "William Tell." The most significant new production--indeed the only significant one--was "Das Rheingold," which completed the acquaintance of the New York public with the current works of Wagner, "Parsifal"
being still under the Bayreuth embargo, although it had several times been given in concert form. The total cost of the representations, not including scenery, costumes, properties, and music, was $333,731.31, or an average of $4,907.78 a representation. The total receipts from the opera were $213,630.99, divided as follows: Box office sales, $149,973.50; subscriptions, $59,607.50; privileges, $4,049.99. The average receipts a representation were $3,141.63. The loss to the stockholders on the operatic account was $1,766.15 a representation, which was covered by the receipt of $201,180.00 from the stockholders for the maintenance of the establishment, the fixed charges on the building, and the cost of scenery, music, etc., amounting to $144,455.81.
"Das Rheingold" was produced for the first time on January 4, 1889, under the direction of Mr. Seidl, and was performed nine times in the ten weeks of the season which remained. The artists concerned in the production were Emil Fischer as Wotan, Max Alvary as Loge, Alois Grienauer as Donner, Albert Mittelhauser as Froh, Joseph Beck as Alberich, Wilhelm Sedlmayer as Mime, Eugen Weiss as Fafner, Ludwig Modlinger as Fasolt, f.a.n.n.y Moran-Olden as Fricka, Katti Bettaque as Freia, Sophie Traubmann as Woglinde, Felice Kaschowska as Wellgunde, Hedwig Reil as Flosshilde, and again, Hedwig Reil as Erda.
The sixth season of opera in German began on November 27, 1889, and ended on March 22, 1890. Within this period fifty evening and seventeen afternoon subscription performances were given and there was an extra performance on February 27th for the benefit of Lilli Lehmann, who had stipulated for it in her contract in lieu of an increase in her honorarium, demanded and refused. The sixty-seven subscription performances were devoted to nineteen operas and dramas which are here named in the order of popularity as indicated by attendance and receipts: "Siegfried," "Don Giovanni," "Die Meistersinger," "Tristan und Isolde," "Lohengrin," "Das Rheingold," "Der Barbier von Bagdad,"
"Tannhauser," "Der Fliegende Hollander," "Gotterdammerung," "Die Konigin von Saba," "William Tell," "Ada," "Die Walkure," "Rienzi,"
"Il Trovatore," "Der Trompeter von Sakkingen," "Un Ballo in Maschera,"
and "La Juive." The ballet "Die Puppenfee" was performed in connection with the opera "Der Barbier von Bagdad." The last three weeks of the season were devoted to representations in chronological order (barring an exchange between "Tristan" and "Meistersinger") of all the operas and lyric dramas of Wagner from "Rienzi" to "Gotterdammerung,"
inclusive. The total receipts from subscriptions, box office sales, and privileges were $209,866.35; average, $3,132.34. The total cost of producing the operas (not including scenery, costumes, properties, and music) was $352,990.32, or an average of $5,268.52 per representation.
On this showing the loss to the stockholders on operatic account was $2,136.18 a representation, which was met by an a.s.sessment of $3,000 a box; of this sum $1,200 went to the fixed charges on the opera house.
The one novelty of the season was Peter Cornelius"s "Barbier von Bagdad," which had its first performance on January 4, 1890. The production was embarra.s.sed by mishaps and misfortunes. It had been announced for December 25th, but Mr. Paul Kalisch, the tenor, fell ill with the prevailing epidemic and a postponement became necessary. It was set down for January 4th, but when that day came Mr. Seidl was ill. He had prepared the opera with great care and loving devotion, but at the eleventh hour had to hand his baton to his youthful a.s.sistant, Walter Damrosch. The beautiful work had only four representations. The original cast was as follows: Caliph, Josef Beck; Mustapha, Wilhelm Sedlmayer; Margiana, Sophie Traubmann; Bostana, Charlotte Huhn; the Barber, Emil Fischer. "Die Puppenfee," ballet by J. Ha.s.sreiter and F. Gaul, music by Joseph Bayer, followed the opera and was conducted by Frank Damrosch.
The most important addition to the forces in this season was Theodor Reichmann, who effected his entrance on the American stage on the first evening in Wagner"s "Flying Dutchman." Herr Reichmann was known to American pilgrims to the Wagnerian Mecca as the admired representative of Amfortas in "Parsifal," but his impersonation of the Dutchman was equally famous in Vienna and the German capitals. On this occasion Mr.
Seidl restored the architect"s original design with reference to the band. Mr. Cady"s device had never had a fair trial. Signor Vianesi condemned it in the first season. When Dr. Damrosch took the helm he tried it, but abandoned it and resorted to the compromise suggested by Vianesi, which raised the musicians nearly to the level of the first row of stalls in the audience room. The growth of the band sent the drummers outside the railing, but no one was brave enough to restore the original arrangement till the opening of the sixth German season.
I come to the operatic activities of the period beyond the walls of the Metropolitan. They scarcely amounted to opposition at any time, though at the end of the third year there came a brief season of Italian opera in the home of the German inst.i.tution which whetted the appet.i.tes of the boxholders and, no doubt, had much to do with the revolution which took place two years later. In 1887, beginning on October 17th and ending in December, there was a series of performances at the Thalia Theater which served again to indicate that German opera had a following among the people who could not afford to patronize the aristocratic establishment.
This season was arranged to exploit Heinrich Botel, a coachman-tenor of the Wachtel stripe, who came from the Stadttheater, in Hamburg. The prima donna was Frau Herbert-Forster, the wife of Victor Herbert, who had been a member of the Metropolitan company while her husband, afterward the most successful of writers for the American operetta stage, sat in Mr. Seidl"s orchestra. The operas given were "Trovatore,"
"Martha," "The Postilion of Lonjumeau," Flotow"s "Stradella," "La Dame Blanche," and "Les Huguenots." At other theaters, too, there were performances of operas and operettas by the Boston Ideal Opera Company and other troupes, but with them these annals have no concern. The National Opera Company, stripped of the prestige with which it had started out, abandoned by Mr. Thomas and reorganized on a co-operative basis, made its last struggle for existence at the Academy of Music between April 2 and April 6, 1888. The decay of the inst.i.tution seemed to fill it with the enterprise and energy of despair. It produced (but in anything but a commendable fashion) English versions of Goldmark"s "Queen of Sheba," Rubinstein"s "Nero," "Tannhauser" (first performance of the opera in English in New York on April 4th), and "Lohengrin." In the company, besides some of the singers who had belonged to it in the previous two years, were Eloi Sylva, Bertha Pierson, Amanda Fabbris, Charles Ba.s.sett, and Barton McGuckin, the last a tenor who had made a notable career in Great Britain with Mr. Carl Rosa"s companies.
This season also saw the introduction of Verdi"s "Otello" by a company especially organized for the purpose by Italo Campanini, who, his singing days being practically over, turned impresario. He had been in Milan when Verdi"s opera was produced, on February 5, 1887, and made haste to procure the American rights of performance. It was a laudable ambition, but the enterprise was overwhelmed with disaster. Campanini brought from Italy a tenor named Marconi for the t.i.tular role; his sister-in-law, Eva Tetrazzini, to sing the part of Desdemona, and his brother, Cleofonte (who was maestro di cembalo at the Metropolitan Opera House during its first season), as conductor. With these he a.s.sociated Signora Scalchi and Signor Gala.s.si (Emilia and Iago). The first performance took place on April 16, 1888, in the Academy of Music, and four representations were given on the established opera nights and Sat.u.r.day afternoons. The public"s att.i.tude was apathetic. The tenor did not please, the fashionable season was over, the music was not of the kind that had been expected from Verdi, and the prices of admission were too high for a popular audience. Signor Campanini essayed a second week and now threw his own popularity into the scale. Signor Marconi was dismissed and returned at once to Europe, never to be heard again in New York; Campanini, who had been the most popular tenor with New Yorkers since the palmy days of Brignoli, took his part; the prices of admission were reduced. All to no avail; ruin had overtaken the manager, and the eighth performance was the last. It was truly pitiable. Signor Campanini deserved better for his bold embarkation in a n.o.ble enterprise; but reasons for the failure were easily found. It was unwise to give opera on an ambitious scale after the amus.e.m.e.nt season had worn itself out; it was nothing less than foolish to do so with an ill-equipped company, in a house that had lost its fashionable prestige and at prices so large that a fatal blunder had to be confessed by their reduction at the end of a week. Two seasons later, the opera was announced by the Metropolitan director, Mr. Stanton, but was not given, for reasons already mentioned. How it entered the fashionable home of opera we shall see presently.
After the lapse of twenty years it is still impossible to say that "Otello" has really been habilitated in New York. Its fate has not been quite so pitiful as that of "Falstaff," because it has been more frequently performed, and performed, moreover, in better style; but it has not won the popular heart. It is admired by the knowing, but not loved by the ma.s.ses, as the earlier operas, especially "Ada," is loved.
The reason? I am still inclined to look for it where I thought I found it a score of years ago. At that time it seemed to me that the public, if it concerned itself with the matter at all (which I doubt), was at a loss for a point of view from which to consider it. Was it an Italian opera? Certainly not, if that type was represented by any of the works of Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, or of Verdi himself when he was the popular idol. Was it a French opera? A German opera? A lyric drama in the Wagnerian manner? To the connoisseur, if not to the idle prattler about music, each of these designations suggests a distinct idea--a form, a style, a manner. Which of them might with most propriety be applied to this work? The circ.u.mstance that the book was in the Italian language had little to do with the question, no matter how loudly an excitable individual (as on this occasion) might shout "Viva l"Italiano!" to testify his admiration for Verdi"s music. "The style--it is the man." "Otello" was composed and first brought forward under anomalous conditions, and though it first saw the stage lamps at Milan, its style is not distinctively Italian. Neither is it distinctively French or German. It is of its own kind, Verdian; characteristic of the composer of "Rigoletto," "Trovatore," and "Traviata" in its essence, though widely different from them in expression. The composer himself indicated that he desired it to be looked upon as outside of the old operatic conventions. According to its t.i.tle page it is "Dramma lirico in quattro Atti." "Ada" was still an "Opera in quattro Atti." The distinction was not undesigned. There are many other indications that he desired his work to be looked upon as something as far from old-fashioned opera as were Wagner"s later dramas; that he aimed in the first instance at a presentation of its dramatic contents, and considered the music as a means, and not entirely as an end. In this he followed a Wagnerian precept. His score is filled with instrumental interludes designed to accompany actions or to depict emotions. He leaves no question in our minds on this point, but as fully as Wagner in his "Lohengrin" period he indicates the bodily movements that are to go hand in hand with the music. In the picture of a storm which opens the opera the manipulator of the artificial lightning is not left to his discretion as to the proper moment for discharging his brutum fulmen; in the love duet, at the close of the first act, the appearance of the moon and stars is sought to be intensified by descriptive effects in the music; and when, in the last scene, Otello kisses the sleeping Desdemona, and the one typical phrase of the opera (drawn from the love scene) is repeated, the composer indicates on what beat of each measure he wants each kiss to fall. These are only a few instances of Verdi"s appreciation of the necessity of suiting the action to the music, the music to the action; and they sink into insignificance when compared with his treatment of the murder in the last act. Then Otello"s entrance and actions up to the waking of Desdemona are accompanied by a solo on double ba.s.ses, interrupted at intervals by energetic pa.s.sages from the other strings. It is not difficult to recall other melodramas written since "Fidelio" in which similar dramatic effects are sought, but the audacity of Verdi"s procedure is unexampled in Italian opera. I make no doubt that had this scene been written twenty years earlier it would have been received by his countrymen with hisses and catcalls. Yet we were told that at the opera"s first performance in Milan the audience redemanded it uproariously and the Italian critics could not sufficiently express their admiration for it. The fact is that "Otello" disclosed an honest, consistent, and in many respects successful effort to realize the higher purposes which we a.s.sociate in the conception of a lyric drama as distinguished from the opera. With this conception nationalism had nothing to do; Verdi"s superb artistic nature, everything.
In the season of 1888-89 there was but a single performance of Italian opera in New York, a circ.u.mstance singular enough to deserve special mention. On April 24th Signor Campanini appeared with Clementine De Vere in "Lucia di Lammermoor," the performance being for the once-popular favorite"s benefit. Memories of a period in which Italian singers were tremendously active were called up in the minds of opera-goers of the older generation by an entertainment given in the Metropolitan Opera House on February 12th, in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of Max Maretzek"s entrance in the American field as a conductor of operas. The affair was generously patronized and partic.i.p.ated in on its professional side by Theodore Thomas, Anton Seidl, Frank van der Stucken, Adolf Neuendorff, and Walter Damrosch as conductors; Mme. Fursch-Madi, Miss Emily Winant, Miss Maud Powell, Rafael Joseffy, Max Alvary, Signor Del Puente, Julius Perotti, Wilhelm Sedlmayer, and Mrs. Herbert-Foerster.
Scenes from "Siegfried," "Il Trovatore," and "Carmen" were performed.
There were some performances of operas in English in the early part of the next season (1889-90) by the Emma Juch English Opera Company (Nessler"s "Trumpeter of Sakkingen" being brought forward as a novelty), at the Harlem Opera House, owned and managed by Oscar Hammerstein. This house also, for a week after the close of the regular season at the Metropolitan, was the scene of an unsuccessful effort to prolong the German performances, or rather to provide German opera at popular prices to the residents of Harlem. The company, headed by Miss Lehmann and conducted by Walter Damrosch, was made up of singers from the Metropolitan company. The operas given were "Norma," "Les Huguenots,"
and "Il Trovatore."
The Italian company which took possession of the Metropolitan Opera House immediately on its vacation by the German singers was under the management of Henry E. Abbey and Maurice Grau. During the fall and winter months it had been giving representations in some of the larger cities of the United States and Mexico City. Arditi and Sapio were the conductors, and most of the singers were familiar to the public--Patti, Albani, Nordica, Fabbri, Ravelli, Vicini, Perugini, Del Puente, Castelmary, Novara, Migliara; newcomers were Hortense Synnerberg, mezzo-soprano; Signora Pettigiani, soprano leggiero; Zardo, barytone, and Francesco Tamagno, tenor. The presence of this singer in the troupe served to indicate that its purpose, outside the exploitation of Madame Patti, was the production of Verdi"s "Otello," with which the season was opened on March 24th, Madame Albani being the Desdemona. Tamagno had created the t.i.tle role in Milan two years before.
The subscription was for sixteen evenings and four matinees, which were to be encompa.s.sed in a period of four weeks; but the illness of Madame Patti compelled a postponement of one of the performances until the fifth week after the opening, and then to the twenty subscription representations was added, a twenty-first as a "farewell" to Madame Patti. The operas in which this artist appeared were "La Sonnambula,"
"Semiramide," "Lakme," "Martha," "Lucia di Lammermoor," "Romeo et Juliette," "Il Barbiere," "Linda di Chamouni," and "La Traviata." The other operas were "Otello," "Il Trovatore," "Tell," "Ada," "Faust,"
"L"Africaine," "Rigoletto," and "Les Huguenots."
There was no novelty in the list, unless the fact that "Lakme" was transformed into a novelty by the Italian version; it had been heard before in English, and the performance was so desperately slipshod, notwithstanding that Mme. Patti impersonated the heroine, that it awakened only pity for Delibes"s work. It would be extremely interesting and doubtless instructive also were I able to give such a detailed financial statement of the outcome of this season as Mr. Stanton"s courtesy enabled me at the time to give of the German seasons. But here I am thrown on conjecture. On the evenings and afternoons when Patti sang the audiences unquestionably represented vast receipts to the management. An estimate made at the time from a study of the character and size of the audiences placed the receipts in round numbers at $100,000. It was significant as bearing on the artistic problem suggested by the succession of German and Italian opera--a problem that was destined to become of paramount interest soon--that on scarcely a single Patti performance were all the orchestra stalls sold, and that there were always unsold boxes in the tier not occupied by the stockholders. The bulk of the money came from the occupants of the balconies and gallery. The musical and fashionable elements in the city"s population had comparatively small representation. The audiences, in fact, were largely composed of curiosity seekers, impelled by the desire to be able in the future to say that they, too, had heard the greatest songstress of the last generation of the nineteenth century.
The "Patti"s Farewell" trick was still effective; a few years later it was found that it would work no longer, and the great singer disappeared in a black cloud of failure, followed by the grief of all who had been her admirers.
CHAPTER XV
END OF THE GERMAN PERIOD
The season of 1890-91 was full of incidents, some exciting, some amusing, but they were all dwarfed by the announcement which came in the middle of January that the directors of the Metropolitan Opera House had concluded a contract of lease with Henry E. Abbey (or Abbey and Grau) under which opera was to be given in the next season in Italian and French. The alleged reason was that Mr. Abbey was willing to a.s.sume all risk of failure for the same subvention which the stockholders as individuals were paying themselves in their capacity as entrepreneurs; the real reason was that the stockholders, or a majority of them, were weary of German opera, and especially of the dramas of Wagner. This reason spoke out of the action which had been taken looking to the eighth season of opera (seventh in German) before an agreement had been reached with Mr. Abbey. Wagner had supplied the financial backbone to all the seasons since German opera had been introduced, as will appear presently; but the directors were unwilling to admit that fact until, as a result of their change of policy, disaster stared them in the face.
Then they made haste to reverse their action as far as possible and did other works of repentance which enabled them to save a modic.u.m of prestige and some money; but the hands of the clock had been set back, and the goal of a national opera, toward which the German movement was leading, was forgotten. It has never been seen since.
When Mr. Stanton went to Germany in the spring of 1890 to engage singers and select a repertory he carried with him a definite policy, formulated by the directors, which was the fruit of a sentimental pa.s.sion for the amiable Italian muse and a spirit of thrift. Italian opera under their own management seeming still impracticable because of its expensiveness, the directors conceived what they thought would prove to be a happy compromise; they would continue to give German opera, but would make a radical change in the character of the repertory. Wagner was to be shelved as to all but his earlier operas, such as "Tannhauser" and "Lohengrin," and the season enriched with new works by Italian and French composers. With this purpose in view, Mr. Stanton completed his arrangements, and the season of 1890-91 was opened on November 26th in a manner that looked like a bold and successful stroke in favor of the new policy. "Asrael," an opera by an Italian composer, which had stirred up some favorable comment in Germany and Italy, was given with a great deal of sumptuousness in stage attire and with a company which critics and amateurs agreed in recognizing as, on the whole, stronger than any of recent years. Mme. Lehmann-Kalisch was not at its head, it is true, but instead there was a singer of excellent ability and considerable personal and artistic charm in the person of Antonia Mielke. Emil Fischer was retained, and also Theodor Reichmann and some of the lesser members of the old company, and to them were added Heinrich Gudehus, Jennie Broch (soprano leggiero), Marie Ritter-Goetze (mezzo-soprano), Andreas Dippel, Marie Jahn (soprano), and others. Mme. Minnie Hauk joined the forces later in the season.
"Asrael" was in every respect a surprise--as strange to the audience as if it had been composed for the occasion. The name of the composer, Alberto Franchetti, had never appeared in any local list save once, in April, 1887, when a symphony in E minor, bearing it, had been performed at a concert of the Philharmonic Society under the direction of Theodore Thomas. The Tribune newspaper contributed all that the public learned about him then and since. This was to the effect that he was a young Italian (or, rather, Italianized Hebrew), a member of one of the branches of the Rothschilds, who had studied in Munich and lived much of his time in Dresden, where Kapellmeister Schuch sometimes gave him opportunities to hear his orchestral music. Also that he was very wealthy, having a purse as large as his artistic ambition, and was not disinclined, when a work of his composition was accepted for performance, to care for its sumptuous production by paying for the stage decorations out of his own pocket. He resembled Meyerbeer in being a Jew, and also in that it was possible for his mother to say of him: "My son is a musical composer, but not of necessity." The book of the opera proved to be a most bewildering conglomeration of scenes and personages from familiar operas, and though the pictures were magnificent and much of the music was pleasing, "Asrael" had only five performances, and when the record of the season was made up it was found to stand thirteenth in a list of seventeen operas.
At the bottom of this list stood the two other novelties of the season, and if the public were bewildered by "Asrael" they were thrown into consternation by "Der Vasall von Szigeth," and into contemptuous merriment by "Diana von Solange." Both of these operas were sung in German, of course, but "Der Vasall," not only had an Italian (Anton Smareglia) for its composer, like "Asrael," but had originally been composed in Italian and borne an Italian name--"Il Va.s.sallo di Szigeth."
Here plainly was a concession to the Italian predilections of the stockholders. But the composer of "Der Vasall," or "Il Va.s.sallo"--as you like it--was a Dalmatian, like Von Suppe, the operetta composer. His native tongue was Italian, but the influence of Austrian domination and Austrian art had deeply affected his nationalism, and enabled him to infuse an Hungarian subject (the story of "Der Vasall" was Hungarian) with Hungarian musical color. It therefore chanced that in this instance, when the stockholders seemed to have bargained for Italian sweets, they got a strong dose of Magyar paprika. As for the libretto, it offered such a sup of horrors as had never been seen on an operatic stage before, and has never been seen since. "Der Vasall von Szigeth,"
which was brought forward on December 12th, had four performances in the season and took in $7,805.50, which was probably not much more than the cost of staging the opera.
The amused gossip touching the potency of new influences which had begun with "Asrael" was given fresh fuel by the production of "Diana von Solange." Why an opera which had lain "so lange" (to make an obvious German pun) in the limbo of forgotten things, which, indeed, had never enjoyed a popularity of any kind, though it was thirty or forty years old, should have been resurrected for production in New York was a question well calculated to irritate curiosity and provoke many an ill-natured sally of wit. "Diana von Solange" was the work of Ernest II, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. The family to which the duke belonged had long dallied with music; that the public knew. His ducal highness"s brother, the British Prince Consort, affected the art in his time, and left evidences of good, sound taste in the story of English music, and it was known that the Duke of Edinburgh (son of the Prince Consort and Queen Victoria) was an amateur fiddler, quite capable of leading the band at a London smoking concert. A complacent German lexicographer had even admitted Ernest II into the fellowship of Beethoven, but that fact was not widely known, and after "Diana von Solange" had been produced the most cogent argument in explanation of its production among the theatrical wits was based on familiar German stories of the lavishness of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in the distribution of orders, especially among musicians. No anecdote was more popular for the rest of the season in the corridors than that which told of how a concert party driving away from the ducal palace discovered that the chamberlain had handed over one more decoration than the artists who had entertained the duke. "Never mind," quoth the chamberlain; "give it to the coachman!"
The production of an opera composed by the duke without the obbligato distribution of orders was inconceivable, even in democratic America, but the tongues of waggish gossips wagged so furiously that it was said only the stage manager was willing to accept his bauble. Brahms"s bon mot touching the danger of criticizing the music of royalty, "because no one could tell who composed it," not being current at the time, the music of "Diana von Solange" was mercilessly faulted, as was also the libretto. It was certainly right royal poetry set to right royal music--an infusion of immature Verdi and Meyerbeer plentifully watered.
Archaic research discovered that the opera had been written some thirty-five years before, and that the composer, possessing, quite naturally, some influence with the management of the ducal theaters at Coburg and Gotha, had succeeded in having it performed in those cities in December, 1858, and May, 1859, and that Dresden had also honored it with a performance in January, 1859. Why New York blew the dust of generations off its score was never learned by the inquisitive newspaper scribes.
The story of the opera concerned itself with the succession to the throne of Portugal on the death of Enrique, with whom the old Burgundian line became extinct in 1580. A wicked man plotted to give the crown to Philip II of Spain (who really got it), and employed a Provencal adventuress to help keep it from the nephew of the dying king. But the adventuress, who lent her name to the opera, lost heart in the enterprise because she fell in love with the nephew and was stabbed to death for her pains. The wicked man was shot by the nephew, and there was thus a proper amount of bloodshed to justify the historical character of the work, the grewsomeness of which was modified by much edifying declamation on the part of the dying king, expressive of the lofty sentiments which, the world knows, always fill the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of monarchs. The opera was performed on January 9, 1891, and received two representations. A third was announced for a Sat.u.r.day afternoon, but called forth so emphatic a popular request for "Fidelio" that the representative of the stockholders adjudged it to be the course of wisdom to set aside Ernest II in favor of Beethoven.
For six weeks Mr. Stanton followed the line of policy laid down by his directors, and within that time brought forward the three novelties which I have described, besides "Tannhauser," "Lohengrin," "The Flying Dutchman," "Les Huguenots," "Le Prophete," and "Fidelio." Already in the third week of the season, however, it became manifest that the policy of the directors did not meet with the approbation of the public. One result of the German representations in the preceding six years had been to develop a cla.s.s of opera patrons with intelligent tastes and warm affections. A large fraction of this public had become season subscribers, and among these dissatisfaction with the current repertory was growing daily. It may be that the panicky feeling in financial circles had something to do with a falling off in general attendance in the early part of the season, but this is scarcely borne out by the fact that the advance subscription amounted to $72,000, representing about one thousand persons, and that, though the novelties would not draw, the three Wagnerian works proved to be as attractive as ever they had been.
The significance of the popular att.i.tude, indeed, was obvious enough, although the directors chose to close their eyes and ears to it. It was, in fact, so obvious that The Tribune newspaper did not hesitate to predict a tremendous success for "Fidelio" when it was announced "for one performance only" on December 26th, and to a.s.sert in advance of the performance that it would have to be repeated to satisfy the demand for good dramatic music which had grown up because of the Wagner cult and been whetted by Mr. Stanton"s neglect to put on the stage a few works imbued with the modern dramatic spirit. Two repet.i.tions of "Fidelio"
and the lifting of that opera to fourth place in the list attested the soundness of The Tribune"s diagnosis of the situation.
By a coincidence, on the night of the first representation for the season of one of the latter-day works of Wagner, which, had the directors chosen to read the signs of the times aright and be guided by them, might have ushered in the era of prosperity which they were sighing for but repelling by their course, the decision was reached to turn over the opera house to Mr. Abbey for performances in Italian and French. This date was January 14th. So far as the subscribers to the opera and the majority of its patrons were concerned, this action of the directors seemed like nothing else than the culmination of a conspiracy to set back the clock of musical progress in New York a quarter of a century at least. The news came upon the public like a bolt from the blue. The plan had been laid early in the summer (was, in fact, the fruition of the postprandial Patti season of 1889-90), but all concerned had been pledged to secrecy. Mr. Abbey seized the right moment to strike, and when he had bagged his game he exhibited it forthwith, and it was received with a loud chorus of cheers from the enemies of the German inst.i.tution. The directors gleefully continued their course for a little while longer, though the handwriting on the wall had begun to blaze forth when all the canons of art and the fruit of years of serious effort were insulted by the production of the amorphous creation of one whose sole claim on popular attention as a composer was that he was a royal duke and the brother-in-law of the Queen of England.
At the first performance, after the announcement of the projected change had been made, the public took it upon themselves to show their disapproval of the action of the directors. There seemed to be but one way to do this effectually without injury to the form of art which the public had learned to love, and that way was adopted: After January 14th not a single representation was conducted by Mr. Seidl at which the conductor was not compelled to appear upon the stage and accept a tribute of popular admiration. Mr. Seidl had come to be the representative in an especial manner of the new spirit as opposed to the directors, who, by their action, had shown that they stood for the old. And so the directors were rebuked in the honors showered upon the conductor. It needed as little prophetic gift to predict what course Mr.
Stanton would pursue in view of the new developments as it had required to predict the success of "Fidelio" after the experiences of 1888-89 had seemed to indicate that the opera had lost all charm for the public. On January 20th, only six days after Mr. Abbey had captured the directors, The Tribune, commenting editorially on the "Operatic Revolution,"
remarked: