Let those who do not appreciate the virtuosity of this undertaking attempt to write as successful a scene in a similar vein. Even if they are able to do so, and I do not for a moment believe that there is another dramatic author in America who can, they will be the first to grant the difficulty of the achievement. With an apparently inexhaustible fund of fantasy and wit Mr. Hopwood pa.s.ses his wand over certain phases of so-called smart life, almost always with the happiest results. With a complete realization of the independence of his medium he often ignores the realistic conventions and the traditional technique of the stage, but his touch is so light and joyous, his wit so free from pose, that he rarely fails to establish his effect. His pen has seldom faltered. Occasionally, however, the heavy hand of an uncomprehending stage director or of an aggressive actor has played havoc with the delicate texture of his fabric. There is no need here for the use of hammer or trowel; if an actress must seek aid in implements, let her rather rely on a soft brush, a lacy handkerchief, or a sparkling spangled fan.
Philip Moeller has achieved distinction in another field, that of elegant burlesque, of sublimated caricature. His stage men and women are as adroitly distorted (the better to expose their comic possibilities) as the drawings of Max Beerbohm. Beginning with the Bible and the Odyssey (_Helena"s Husband_ and _Sisters of Susannah_ for the Washington Square Players) he has at length, by way of Shakespeare and Bacon (_The Roadhouse in Arden_) arrived at the Romantic Period in French literature and in _Madame Sand_, his first three-act play, he has established himself at once as a dangerous rival of the authors of _Caesar and Cleopatra_ and _The Importance of Being Earnest_, both plays in the same _genre_ as Mr. Moeller"s latest contribution to the stage. The author has thrown a very high light on the sentimental adventures of the writing lady of the early Nineteenth Century, has indeed advised us and convinced us that they were somewhat ridiculous. So they must have appeared even to her contemporaries, however seriously George took herself, her romances, her pa.s.sions, her petty tragedies. A less adult, a less seriously trained mind might have fallen into the error of making a sentimental play out of George"s affairs with Alfred de Musset, Dr. Pagello, and Chopin (Mr. Moeller contents himself with these three pa.s.sions, selected from the somewhat more extensive list offered to us by history). Such an author would doubtless have written _Great Catherine_ in the style of _Disraeli_ and _Androcles and the Lion_ after the manner of _Ben Hur_! Whether love itself is always a comic subject, as Bernard Shaw would have us believe, is a matter for dispute, but there can be no alternative opinion about the loves of George Sand. A rehearsal of them offers only laughter to any one but a sentimental school girl.
The piece is conceived on a true literary level; it abounds in wit, in fantasy, in delightful situations, but there is nothing precious about its progress. Mr. Moeller has carefully avoided the traps expressly laid for writers of such plays. For example, the enjoyment of _Madame Sand_ is in no way dependent upon a knowledge of the books of that auth.o.r.ess, De Musset, and Heine, nor yet upon an acquaintance with the music of Liszt and Chopin. Such matters are pleasantly and lightly referred to when they seem pertinent, but no insistence is laid upon them. Occasionally our author has appropriated some phrase originally spoken or written by one of the real characters, but for that he can scarcely be blamed. Indeed, when one takes into consideration the wealth of such material which lay in books waiting for him, it is surprising that he did not take more advantage of it. In the main he has relied on his own cleverness to delight our ears for two hours with brilliant conversation.
There is, it should be noted, in conclusion, nothing essentially American about either of these young authors. Both Mr. Hopwood and Mr. Moeller might have written for the foreign stage. Several of Mr.
Hopwood"s pieces, indeed, have already been transported to foreign climes and there seems every reason for belief that Mr. Moeller"s comedy will meet a similarly happy fate.
_November 29, 1917._
De Senectute Cantorum
_"All"eta di settanta Non si ama, ne si canta."_
Italian proverb.
De Senectute Cantorum
"I am not sure," writes Arthur Symons in his admirable essay on Sarah Bernhardt, "that the best moment to study an artist is not the moment of what is called decadence. The first energy of inspiration is gone; what remains is the method, the mechanism, and it is that which alone one can study, as one can study the mechanism of the body, not the principle of life itself. What is done mechanically, after the heat of the blood has cooled, and the divine accidents have ceased to happen, is precisely all that was consciously skilful in the performance of an art. To see all this mechanism left bare, as the form of a skeleton is left bare when age thins the flesh upon it is to learn more easily all that is to be learnt of structure, the art which not art but nature has. .h.i.therto concealed with its merciful covering."
Mr. Symons, of course, had an actress in mind, but his argument can be applied to singers as well, although it is safest to remember that much of the true beauty of the human voice inevitably departs with the youth of its owner. Still style in singing is not noticeably affected by age and an artist who possesses or who has acquired this quality very often can afford to make lewd gestures at Father Time. If good singing depended upon a full and sensuous tone, such artists as Ronconi, Victor Maurel, Max Heinrich, Ludwig Wullner, and Maurice Renaud would never have had any careers at all. It is obvious that any true estimate of their contribution to the lyric stage would put the chief emphasis on style, and this is usually the explanation for extended success on the opera or concert stage, although occasionally an extraordinary and exceptional singer may continue to give pleasure to her auditors, despite the fact that she has left middle age behind her, by the mere lovely quality of the tone she produces.
In the history of opera there may be found the names of many singers who have maintained their popularity and, indeed, a good deal of their art, long past fifty, and there is recorded at least one instance in which a singer, after a long absence from the theatre, returned to the scene of her earlier triumphs with her powers unimpaired, even augmented. I refer, of course, to Henrietta Sontag, born in 1805, who retired from the stage of the King"s Theatre in London in 1830 in her twenty-fifth year and who returned twenty years later in 1849. She had, in the meantime, become the Countess Rossi, but although she had abandoned the stage her reappearance proved that she had not remained idle during her period of retirement. For she was one of those artists in whom early "inspiration" counted for little and "method" for much.
She was, indeed, a mistress of style. She came back to the public in _Linda di Chaminoux_ and H. F. Chorley ("Thirty Years" Musical Recollections") tells us that "all went wondrously well. No magic could restore to her voice an upper note or two which Time had taken; but the skill, grace, and precision with which she turned to account every atom of power she still possessed,--the incomparable steadiness with which she wrought out her composer"s intentions--she carried through the part, from first to last, without the slightest failure, or sign of weariness--seemed a triumph. She was greeted--as she deserved to be--as a beloved old friend come home again in the late sunnier days.
"But it was not at the moment of Madame Sontag"s reappearance that we could advert to all the difficulty which added to the honour of its success.--She came back under musical conditions entirely changed since she left the stage--to an orchestra far stronger than that which had supported her voice when it was younger; and to a new world of operas.--Into this she ventured with an intrepid industry not to be overpraised--with every new part enhancing the respect of every real lover of music.--During the short period of these new performances at Her Majesty"s Theatre, which was not equivalent to two complete Opera seasons, not merely did Madame Sontag go through the range of her old characters--Susanna, Rosina, Desdemona, Donna Anna, and the like--but she presented herself in seven or eight operas which had not existed when she left the stage--Bellini"s _Sonnambula_, Donizetti"s _Linda_, _La Figlia del Reggimento_, _Don Pasquale_; _Le Tre Nozze_, of Signor Alary, _La Tempesta_, by M. Halevy--the last two works involving what the French call "creation," otherwise the production of a part never before represented.--In one of the favourite characters of her predecessor, the elder artist beat the younger one hollow.--This was as Maria, in Donizetti"s _La Figlia_, which Mdlle. Lind may be said to have brought to England, and considered as her special property....
With myself, the real value of Madame Sontag grew, night after night--as her variety, her conscientious steadiness, and her adroit use of diminished powers were thus mercilessly tested. In one respect, compared with every one who had been in my time, she was alone, in right, perhaps of the studies of her early days--as a singer of Mozart"s music."
It was after these last London seasons that Mme. Sontag undertook an American tour. She died in Mexico.
The great Mme. Pasta"s ill-advised return to the stage in 1850 (when she made two belated appearances in London) is matter for sadder comment. Chorley, indeed, is at his best when he writes of it, his pen dipped in tears, for none had admired this artist in her prime more pa.s.sionately than he. Here was a particularly good opportunity to study the bare skeleton of interpretative art; the result is one of the most striking pa.s.sages in all literature:
"Her voice, which at its best, had required ceaseless watching and practice, had been long ago given up by her. Its state of utter ruin on the night in question pa.s.ses description.--She had been neglected by those who, at least, should have presented her person to the best advantage admitted by Time.--Her queenly robes (she was to sing some scenes from _Anna Bolena_) in nowise suited or disguised her figure.
Her hair-dresser had done some tremendous thing or other with her head--or rather had left everything undone. A more painful and disastrous spectacle could hardly be looked on.--There were artists present, who had then, for the first time, to derive some impression of a renowned artist--perhaps, with the natural feeling that her reputation had been exaggerated.--Among these was Rachel--whose bitter ridicule of the entire sad show made itself heard throughout the whole theatre, and drew attention to the place where she sat--one might even say, sarcastically enjoying the scene. Among the audience, however, was another gifted woman, who might far more legitimately have been shocked at the utter wreck of every musical means of expression in the singer--who might have been more naturally forgiven, if some humour of self-glorification had made her severely just--not worse--to an old _prima donna_;--I mean Madame Viardot.--Then, and not till then, she was hearing Madame Pasta.--But Truth will always answer to the appeal of Truth. Dismal as was the spectacle--broken, hoa.r.s.e, and destroyed as was the voice--the great style of the singer spoke to the great singer. The first scene was Ann Boleyn"s duet with Jane Seymour. The old spirit was heard and seen in Madame Pasta"s _Sorgi!_ and the gesture with which she signed to her penitent rival to rise. Later, she attempted the final mad scene of the opera--that most complicated and brilliant among the mad scenes on the modern musical stage--with its two _cantabile_ movements, its s.n.a.t.c.hes of recitative, and its _bravura_ of despair, which may be appealed to as an example of vocal display, till then unparagoned, when turned to the account of frenzy, not frivolity--perhaps as such commissioned by the superb creative artist.--By that time, tired, unprepared, in ruin as she was, she had rallied a little. When--on Ann Boleyn"s hearing the coronation music of her rival, the heroine searches for her own crown on her brow--Madame Pasta turned in the direction of the festive sounds, the old irresistible charm broke out;--nay, even in the final song, with its _roulades_, and its scales of shakes, ascending by a semi-tone, the consummate vocalist and tragedian, able to combine form with meaning--the moment of the situation, with such personal and musical display as form an integral part of operatic art--was indicated: at least to the apprehension of a younger artist.--"You are right!" was Madame Viardot"s quick and heartfelt response (her eyes were full of tears) to a friend beside her--"You are right! It is like the _Cenacolo_ of Da Vinci at Milan--a wreck of a picture, but the picture is the greatest picture in the world!""
The great Mme. Viardot herself, whose intractable voice and n.o.ble stage presence inevitably remind one of Mme. Pasta, took no chances with fate. The friend of Alfred de Musset, the model for George Sand"s "Consuelo," the "creator" of Fides in _Le Prophete_, and the singer who, in the revival of _Orphee_ at the Theatre Lyrique in 1859, resuscitated Gluck"s popularity in Paris, retired from the opera stage in 1863 at the age of 43, shortly after she had appeared in _Alceste!_ (She sang in concert occasionally until 1870 or later.) Thereafter she divided her time princ.i.p.ally between Baden and Paris and became the great friend of Turgeniev. His very delightful letters to her have been published. Idleness was abhorrent to this fine woman and in her middle and old age she gave lessons, while singers, composers, and conductors alike came to her for help and advice. She died in 1910 at the age of 89. Her less celebrated brother, Manuel Garcia (less celebrated as a singer; as a teacher he is given the credit for having restored Jenny Lind"s voice. Among his other pupils Mathilde Marchesi and Marie Tempest may be mentioned), had died in 1906 at the age of 101. Her sister, Mme. Malibran, died very young, in the early Nineteenth Century, before, in fact, Mme. Viardot had made her debut.
Few singers have had the wisdom to follow Mme. Viardot"s excellent example. The great Jenny Lind, long after her voice had lost its quality, continued to sing in oratorio and concert. So did Adelina Patti. Muriel Starr once told me of a parrot she encountered in Australia. The poor bird had arrived at the n.o.ble age of 117 and was entirely bereft of feathers. Flapping his stumpy wings he cried incessantly, "I"ll fly, by G.o.d, I"ll fly!" So, many singers, having lost their voices, continue to croak, "I"ll sing, by G.o.d, I"ll sing!"
The Earl of Mount Edgc.u.mbe, himself a man of considerable years when he published his highly diverting "Musical Reminiscences," gives us some extraordinary pictures of senility on the stage at the close of the Eighteenth Century. There was, for example, the case of Cecilia Davis, the first Englishwoman to sustain the part of prima donna and in that situation was second only to Gabrielli, whom she even rivalled in neatness of execution. Mount Edgc.u.mbe found Miss Davies in Florence, unengaged and poor. A concert was arranged at which she appeared with her sister. Later she returned to England ... too old to secure an engagement. "This unfortunate woman is now (in 1834) living in London, in the extreme of old age, disease, and poverty," writes the Earl. He also speaks of a Signora Galli, of large and masculine figure and contralto voice, who frequently filled the part of second man at the Opera. She had been a princ.i.p.al singer in Handel"s oratorios when conducted by himself. She afterwards fell into extreme poverty, and at the age of about seventy (!!!!), was induced to come forward to sing again at the oratorios. "I had the curiosity to go, and heard her sing _He was despised and rejected of men_ in _The Messiah_. Of course her voice was cracked and trembling, but it was easy to see her school was good; and it was a pleasure to observe the kindness with which she was received and listened to; and to mark the animation and delight with which she seemed to hear again the music in which she had formerly been a distinguished performer. The poor old woman had been in the habit of coming to me annually for a trifling present; and she told me on that occasion that nothing but the severest distress should have compelled her so to expose herself, which after all, did not answer to its end, as she was not paid according to her agreement. She died shortly after." In 1783 the Earl heard a singer named Allegranti in Dresden, then at the height of her powers. Later she returned to England and reappeared in Cimarosa"s _Matrimonio Segreto_. "Never was there a more pitiable attempt: she had scarcely a thread of voice remaining, nor the power to sing a note in tune: her figure and acting were equally altered for the worse, and after a few nights she was obliged to retire and quit the stage altogether." The celebrated Madame Mara, after a long sojourn in Russia, suddenly returned to England and was announced for a benefit performance at the King"s Theatre after everybody had forgotten her existence. "She must have been at least seventy; but it was said that her voice had miraculously returned, and was as good as ever. But when she displayed those wonderfully revived powers, they proved, as might have been expected, lamentably deficient, and the tones she produced were compared to those of a _penny trumpet_. Curiosity was so little excited that the concert was ill attended ... and Madame Mara was heard no more. I was not so lucky (or so unlucky) as to hear these her last notes, as it was early in the winter, and I was not in town. She returned to Russia, and was a great sufferer by the burning of Moscow.
After that she lived at Mitlau, or some other town near the Baltic, where she died at a great age, not many years ago."
Here is Michael Kelly"s account of the same event: "With all her great skill and knowledge of the world, Madame Mara was induced, by the advice of some of her mistaken friends, to give a public concert at the King"s Theatre, in her seventy-second year, when, in the course of nature her powers had failed her. It was truly grievous to see such transcendent talents as she once possessed, so sunk--so fallen. I used every effort in my power to prevent her committing herself, but in vain. Among other arguments to draw her from her purpose, I told her what happened to Monbelli, one of the first tenors of his day, who lost all his well-earned reputation and fame, by rashly performing the part of a lover, at the Pergola Theatre, at Florence, in his seventieth year, having totally lost his voice. On the stage, he was hissed; and the following lines, lampooning his attempt, were chalked on his house-door, as well as upon the walls of the city:--
_"All" eta di settanta Non si ama, ne si canta.""_
W. T. Parke, forty years princ.i.p.al oboe player at Covent Garden Theatre, is kinder to Madame Mara in his "Musical Memoirs," but it must be taken into account that he is kinder to every one else, too.
There is little of the acrimonious or the fault-finding note in his pages. This is his version of the affair: "That extraordinary singer of former days, Madame Mara, who had pa.s.sed the last eighteen years in Russia, and who had lately arrived in England, gave a concert at the King"s Theatre on the 6th of March (1820), which highly excited the curiosity of the musical public. On that occasion she sang some of her best airs; and though her powers were greatly inferior to what they were in her zenith, yet the same pure taste pervaded her performance.
Whether vanity or interest stimulated Mara at her time of life to that undertaking, it would be difficult to determine; but whichsoever had the ascendency, her reign was short; for by singing one night afterwards at the vocal concert, the veil which had obscured her judgment was removed, and she retired to enjoy in private life those comforts which her rare talent had procured for her."
Parke also speaks of a Mrs. Pinto, "the once celebrated Miss Brent, the original Mandane in Arne"s _Artaxerxes_," who appeared in 1785 at the age of nearly seventy in Milton"s _Mask of Comus_ at a benefit for a Mr. Hull, "the respectable stage-manager of Covent Garden Theatre."
She was to sing the song of Sweet Echo and as Parke was to play the responses to her voice on the oboe he repaired to her house for rehearsal. "Although nearly seventy years old, her voice possessed the remains of those qualities for which it had been so much celebrated,--power, flexibility, and sweetness. On the night _Comus_ was performed she sung with an unexpected degree of excellence, and was loudly applauded. This old lady, as a singer, gave me the idea of a fine piece of ruins, which though considerably dilapidated, still displayed some of its original beauties."
The celebrated Faustina, whose quarrel with Cuzzoni is as famous in the history of music as the war between Gluck and Piccinni, was less daring. Dr. Burney visited her when she was seventy-two years old and asked her to sing. "Alas, I cannot," she replied, "I have lost all my faculties."
La Camargo, the favourite dancer of Paris in the early Eighteenth Century, the inventor, indeed of the short ballet skirt, and the possessor of many lovers, retired from the stage in 1751 with a large fortune, besides a pension of fifteen hundred francs. Thenceforth she led a secluded life. She was an a.s.siduous visitor to the poor of her parish and she kept a dozen dogs and an angora cat which she overwhelmed with affection. In that quaint book, "The Powder Puff," by Franz Blei, you may find a most charming description of a call paid to the lady in 1768 in her little old house in the Rue St. Thomas du Louvre, by Duclos, Grimm, and Helvetius, who had come in bantering mood to ask her whom, in her past life, she had loved best. Her reply touched these men, who took their leave. "Helvetius told Camargo"s story to his wife; Grimm made a note of it for his Court Journal; and as for Duclos, it suggested some moral reflections to him, for when, two years later, Mlle. Marianne Camargo was carried to her grave, he remarked: "It is quite fitting to give her a white pall like a virgin.""
Sophie Arnould, one of the most celebrated actresses and singers of the Eighteenth Century, died in poverty at the age of 63 and there is no record of her burial place. She had been the friend of Voltaire, Rousseau, d"Alembert, Diderot, Helvetius, and the Baron d"Holbach. She had "created" Gluck"s _Iphigenie en Aulide_ and the composer had said of her, "If it had not been for the voice and elocution of Mlle.
Arnould, my _Iphigenie_ would never have been performed in France." In her youth she had interested not only Marie Antoinette but also the King, and she had been the object of Mme. de Pompadour"s suspicion and Mme. du Barry"s rage. Garrick declared her a better actress than Clairon. She was as famous for her wit as for her singing and acting.
When Mme. Laguerre appeared drunk in _Iphigenie en Tauride_ she exclaimed, "Why this is _Iphigenie en Champagne_!" Indeed, she made so many remarks worthy of preservation that shortly after her death in 1802, a book called "Arnoldiana," devoted to her epigrams, was issued.... Nevertheless, this lady was hissed at the age of 36, when, after a short absence from the stage she reappeared as Iphigenie in 1776. She was neither old nor ugly and if her voice may have lost something her nineteen years of stage life in Paris might have weighed against that. On one occasion, according to La Harpe, when she had the line to sing, "You long for me to be gone," the audience applauded vociferously. To protect Sophie, Marie Antoinette sat in a box on several nights and stemmed the storm of disapproval, but in the end even the presence of the queen herself was insufficient to quell the hissing. One sad story completes the picture. In 1785, when her financial troubles were beginning, her two sons, who bore her no love, called for money. She had none to give them. "There are two horses left in the stable," she said. "Take those." They rode away on the horses.
Latin audiences are notoriously unfaithful to their stage favourites.
In "The Innocents Abroad" Mark Twain tells us of the bad manners of an Italian audience. The singer he mentions is Erminia Frezzolini, born at Orvieto in 1818. She sang both in England and America. Chorley said of her: "She was an elegant, tall woman, born with a lovely voice, and bred with great vocal skill (of a certain order); but she was the first who arrived of the "young Italians"--of those who fancy that driving the voice to its extremities can stand in the stead of pa.s.sion. But she was, nevertheless, a real singer, and her art stood her in stead for some years after nature broke down. When she had left her scarce a note of her rich and real soprano voice to scream with, Madame Frezzolini was still charming." She died in Paris, November 5, 1884. Now for Mark Twain:
"I said I knew nothing against the upper cla.s.ses from personal observation. I must recall it. I had forgotten. What I saw their bravest and their fairest do last night, the lowest mult.i.tude that could be sc.r.a.ped out of the purlieus of Christendom would blush to do, I think. They a.s.sembled by hundreds, and even thousands, in the great Theatre of San Carlo to do--what? Why simply to make fun of an old woman--to deride, to hiss, to jeer at an actress they once worshipped, but whose beauty is faded now, and whose voice has lost its former richness. Everybody spoke of the rare sport there was to be. They said the theatre would be crammed because Frezzolini was going to sing. It was said she could not sing well now, but then the people liked to see her, anyhow. And so we went. And every time the woman sang they hissed and laughed--the whole magnificent house--and as soon as she left the stage they called her on again with applause. Once or twice she was encored five and six times in succession, and received with hisses when she appeared, and discharged with hisses and laughter when she had finished--then instantly encored and insulted again! And how the high-born knaves enjoyed it! White-kidded gentlemen and ladies laughed till the tears came, and clapped their hands in very ecstasy when that unhappy old woman would come meekly out for the sixth time, with uncomplaining patience, to meet a storm of hisses! It was the cruellest exhibition--the most wanton, the most unfeeling. The singer would have conquered an audience of American rowdies by her brave, unflinching tranquillity (for she answered encore after encore, and smiled and bowed pleasantly, and sang the best she possibly could, and went bowing off, through all the jeers and hisses, without ever losing countenance or temper); and surely in any other land than Italy her s.e.x and her helplessness must have been an ample protection for her--she could have needed no other. Think what a mult.i.tude of small souls were crowded into that theatre last night!"
English audiences, on the other hand, are notoriously friendly to their old favourites. When Dr. Hanslick, the Viennese critic, visited England and heard Sims Reeves singing before crowded houses as he had been doing for forty or fifty years, he remarked, "It is not easy to win the favour of the English public; to lose it is quite impossible."
Mme. Grisi made her last appearance in London in 1866 at the theatre she had left twenty years previously, Her Majesty"s. The opera was _Lucrezia Borgia_. At the end of the first act she miscalculated the depth of the ap.r.o.n and the descending curtain left her outside on her knees. She had stiffness in her joints and was unable to rise without a.s.sistance.... This situation must have been very embara.s.sing to a singer who previously had been an idol of the public. In the pa.s.sionate duet with the tenor she made an unsuccessful attempt to reach the A natural. Notwithstanding the fact that she was well received and that she got through with the greater part of the opera with credit, her impressario, J. H. Mapleson, relates in his "Memoirs"
that after the final curtain had fallen she rushed to tell him that it was all over and that she would never appear again. In "Student and Singer" Charles Santley writes of the occasion: "I had been singing at the Crystal Palace concert in the afternoon, and after dining there I went up to the theatre to see a little of the performance. I felt very sorry for Grisi that she had been induced to appear again; it was a sad sight for any one who had known her in her prime, and even long past it."
However, even English audiences can be cold. John E. c.o.x, in his "Musical Recollections," recalls an earlier occasion when Grisi sang at the Crystal Palace without much success (July 31, 1861): "On retiring from the orchestra, after a peculiarly cold reception--as unkind as it was inconsiderate, seeing what the career of this remarkable woman had been--there was not a single person at the foot of the orchestra to receive or to accompany her to her retiring room!
I could imagine what her feelings at that moment must have been--she who had in former years been accustomed to be thronged, wherever she appeared, and to be the recipient of adulation--often as exaggerated as it was fulsome--but who was now literally deserted. With Grisi--although I had been once or twice introduced to her--I never had any personal acquaintance. I could not, however, resist the impulse of preceding her, without obtruding myself on her notice, and opening the door of the retiring room for her, which was situated at some considerable distance from the orchestra. Her look as I did this, and she pa.s.sed out of sight, is amongst the most painful of my "Recollections.""
German audiences are usually kind to their favourites. In America we adopt neither the att.i.tude of the English and Germans, nor yet that of the Italians and French. We simply stay away from the theatre. Mark Twain has put it succinctly, "When a singer has lost his voice and a jumper his legs, those parties fail to draw."
Benjamin Lumley in his "Reminiscences of the Opera," quoting an anonymous friend, relates a touching story regarding Catalani, who was born in 1779 and who retired from the stage in 1831. When Jenny Lind visited Paris in the spring of 1849 she learned to her astonishment that Catalani was in the French capital. The old singer, who resided habitually in Florence, had come to Paris with her daughter who, as the widow of a Frenchman, was obliged to go through certain legal forms before taking possession of her share of her husband"s property.
Through a friend of both ladies it was arranged that the two should meet at a dinner at the home of the Marquis of Normansby, the English amba.s.sador to the Tuscan court, but the Swedish singer could not restrain her impatience and before that event she set out one forenoon for Mme. Catalani"s apartment in the Rue de la Paix and sent in her name by a servant. The old singer hastened out to greet her distinguished visitor with obvious delight. She had known nothing of Mlle. Lind"s presence in Paris and had feared that such a chance would never befall her, much as she had longed to see the celebrated singer who had excited the English public in a way which recalled her own past triumphs and who rivalled her in her purity and her charity. They talked together for an hour.... At the dinner the Marchioness of Normansby considerately refrained from asking Jenny Lind to sing, because no one is allowed to refuse such an invitation made by a representative of royalty. Catalani, however, had no such scruples.
She went up to the Nightingale and begged her to sing, adding, "_C"est la vieille Catalini qui desire vous entendre chanter, avant de mourir!_" This appeal was irresistible. Jenny Lind sat down to the piano and sang _Non credea mirarti_ and one or two other airs, including _Ah! non giunge_. Catalani is described as sitting on an ottoman in the centre of the room, rocking her body to and fro with delight and sympathy, murmuring, "_Ah la bella cosa che la musica, quando si fa di quella maniera!_" and again "_Ah! la carissima! quanto bellissima!_" A dinner at Catalani"s apartment followed, but a few days later it became known that the old singer was ill, an illness which proved fatal. She had, however, heard the Swedish Nightingale sing "_avant de mourir_."
William Gardiner visited Madame Catalani in 1846. "I was surprised at the vigour of Madame Catalani," he says, "and how little she has altered since I saw her in Derby in 1828. I paid her a compliment on her good looks. "Ah," said she, "I"m sixty-six!" She has lost none of that commanding expression which gave her such dignity on the stage.
She is without a wrinkle, and appears to be no more than forty. Her breadth of chest is still remarkable: it is this which endowed her with the finest voice that ever sang. Her speaking voice and dramatic air are still charming, and not in the least impaired."
Is Christine Nilsson still alive? I think so. She was born August 20, 1843. In Clara Louise Kellogg"s very entertaining, but not always trustworthy, "Memoirs" there is an interesting reference to this singer in her later career. Dates, unfortunately, are not furnished.
"I was present," declares Mme. Kellogg, "on the night ... when she practically murdered the high register of her voice. She had five upper notes the quality of which was unlike any other I ever heard and that possessed a peculiar charm. The tragedy happened during a performance of _The Magic Flute_ in London.... Nilsson was the Queen of the Night, one of her most successful early roles. The second aria in _The Magic Flute_ is more famous and less difficult than the first aria, and also, more effective. Nilsson knew well the ineffectiveness of the ending of the first aria in the two weakest notes of a soprano"s voice, A natural and B flat. I never could understand why a master like Mozart should have chosen to use them as he did. There is no climax to the song. One has to climb up hard and fast and then stop short in the middle. It is an appalling thing to do and that night Nilsson took those two notes at the last in _chest tones_. "Great heavens!" I gasped, "what is she doing? What is the woman thinking of!" Of course I knew she was doing it to get volume and vibration and to give that trying climax some character. But to say that it was a fatal attempt is to put it mildly. She absolutely killed a certain quality in her voice there and then and she _never recovered it_. Even that night she had to cut out the second great aria. Her beautiful high notes were gone forever." As I have said, the date of this incident, which, so far as I know, is not recorded elsewhere, is not mentioned, but Christine Nilsson sang in New York in the early Eighties and continued to sing until 1891, the year of her final appearance in London.
Adelina Patti, born the same year as Nilsson but six months before (February 10, 1843; according to some records, which by no means go undisputed, a quartet of famous singers came into the world this year.
The other two were Ilma de Murska and Pauline Lucca) made many farewell tours of this country ... one too many in 1903-4, when she displayed the _beaux restes_ of her voice. She is living at present in retirement at Craig-y-Nos in Wales. Her greatest rival, Etelka Gerster, too, is alive, I believe.
Lilli Lehmann, one of the oldest of the living great singers, was born May 13, 1848. She was a member of the famous casts which introduced many of the Wagner works to New York. Her last appearances in opera here were made, I think, in the late Nineties, but she has sung here since in concert and in Germany she has frequently a.s.sisted at the performances of the Mozart festivals at Salzburg and has even sung in _Norma_ and _Gotterdammerung_ within recent years! Her head is now crowned with white hair and her n.o.ble appearance and magnificent style in singing have doubtless stood her in good stead at these belated performances, which probably were disappointing, judged as vocal exhibitions.
Lillian Nordica had a long career. She was born May 12, 1859, and made her operatic debut in Brescia in _La Traviata_ in 1879. She continued to sing up to the time of her death in Batavia, Java, May 10, 1914.
Indeed she was then undertaking a concert tour of the world at the age of 55! But the artist, who in the Nineties had held the Metropolitan Opera House stage with honour in the great dramatic roles, had very little to offer in her last years. Never a great musician, defects in style began to make themselves evident as her vocal powers decreased.