Chapters of Opera Part 11

Financially Wagner must save this season or it will suffer shipwreck.

Mr. Stanton knows that, and it is not a rash prediction to say that the whole unperformed list will be sacrificed from this time forth to the production of Wagner's works. The policy will be voted wise by the directors because it will go further than anything else to save the season; it will be welcomed by the public because of their disappointment with the novelties which a shortsighted policy attempted to foist upon them.

The prediction was fulfilled to the letter; after January 20th thirty-five representations took place, and all but ten of them were devoted to Wagner's works, notwithstanding that within this period Mme.

Minnie Hauk was added to the company and that the two operas in which she appeared ("L'Africaine" and "Carmen") proved more popular than any works of the non-Wagnerian list, with the single exception of "Fidelio."

An amusing evidence of the enforced change of heart in the directors was a promulgation of an order requesting the occupants of the boxes to discontinue the conversation during performances which had grown to be a public scandal. The resolution to publish the order was adopted, either at the meeting of the directors at which the agreement was reached with Mr. Abbey, or the day after; the order bore date January 15; the contract with Mr. Abbey was made on January 14th.

It is proper that I devote some attention to the story of the growth of the spirit which eventually overthrew German opera at the Metropolitan Opera House, or, rather, not German opera, but opera exclusively in the German tongue; for it was not long in developing that the new regime stood no show of success unless to Italian and French German opera was also added. The vicissitudes which brought with them this demonstration must be reserved for a subsequent chapter, but before I tell the story of the inst.i.tution's retrogression I owe to the student of history an outline of the doings of the season 1890-91. The season began on November 26th and lasted till March 21st. There were sixty-seven subscription performances, an extra performance of "Fidelio" for the benefit of the chorus, which yielded $1,849, giving each chorister $18.20, and a Sunday night performance of excerpts from "Parsifal,"

which brought in $1,872. I have enumerated the operas which had been given up to the production of "Diana von Solange"; after this date came "Die Meistersinger," "L'Africaine," "Siegfried," "Der Barbier von Bagdad," "Die Walkure," "Gotterdammerung," "Carmen," and "Tristan und Isolde." Arranged in the order of their popularity as indicated by attendance and receipts, the entire list was as follows: "Siegfried,"

four times; "Tannhauser," seven times; "Gotterdammerung," four times; "Fidelio," three times; "Die Meistersinger," six times; "Die Walkure,"

four times; "Lohengrin," seven times; "Carmen," three times; "The Flying Dutchman," four times; "L'Africaine," three times; "Le Prophete," once; "Tristan und Isolde," three times; "Asrael," five times; "Barber of Bagdad," four times; "Les Huguenots," three times; "Der Vasall von Szigeth," four times; "Diana von Solange," twice. The total receipts for the season (box office sales and subscriptions) were $198,119.25; the average, $2,957.

The last performance of the season was given to "Die Meistersinger"

on a Sat.u.r.day afternoon. The house was crowded from floor to ceiling and there were signs from the beginning that there was to be a large expression of public opinion. After the first and second acts there were calls and recalls for the singers and for Mr. Seidl. But this was but a preparation. After the fall of the curtain on the last act the mult.i.tude remained in the audience room for over half an hour (remained, indeed, till laborers appeared on the stage to get it ready for a concert in the evening), and called for one after another of the persons who were in one way or another representative of the system that was pa.s.sing away.

The greatest bursts of enthusiasm were those which greeted Mr. Stanton (whose sympathies were with the German movement), Mr. Seidl and Mr.

Fischer, though Mr. Walter Damrosch, Mr. Habelmann, Mr. Dippel, Fraulein Jahn, and other singers were not neglected. Mr. Stanton's unwillingness to receive the distinction which the audience plainly wished to shower upon him caused disappointment; but Mr. Stanton stood in an awkward position between the stockholders and the public. Finally, after an unusual outburst of plaudits for Mr. Fischer, that singer came forward carrying a gigantic wreath and half a dozen bouquets and said:

Ladies and Gentlemen: It is impossible for me to express what I feel for your kindness and love; and I hope it is not the last time (here a tremendous uproar interrupted the speaker for a s.p.a.ce) that I shall sing for you here, on this stage, in German.

Had one been able to explode a ton of dynamite when Mr. Fischer ended it would have been accepted by the audience as not more than a fitting amount of approbative noise. Twenty minutes later, the audience still clamoring for a speech, Mr. Seidl came forward, for perhaps the twentieth time, and spoke as follows:

Believe me, ladies and gentlemen, I understand the meaning of this great demonstration. For myself, the orchestra, and the other members of the company, I thank you.

To understand the story of the overthrow of German opera managed by the owners of the opera house, and the reversion to the system which had proved disastrous at the beginning and was fated to prove disastrous again, it is well to bear the fact in mind that instability was, is, and always will be an element in the cultivation of opera so long as it remains an exotic; that is, until it becomes a national expression in art, using the vernacular and giving utterance to national ideals. The fickleness of the public taste, the popular craving for sensation, the egotism and rapacity of the artists, the lack of high purpose in the promoters, the domination of fashion instead of love for art, the lack of real artistic culture--all these things have stood from the beginning, as they still stand, in the way of a permanent foundation of opera in New York. The boxes of the Metropolitan Opera House have a high market value to-day, but they are a coveted a.s.set only because they are visible symbols of social distinction. There were genuine notes of rejoicing in the stockholders' voices at the measure of financial success achieved in the first three seasons of German opera, but the lesson had not yet been learned that an inst.i.tution like the Metropolitan Opera House can only be maintained by a subvention in perpetuity; that in democratic America the persons who crave and create the luxury must contribute from their pockets the equivalent of the money which in Europe comes from national exchequers and the privy purses of monarchs. This fact did eventually impress itself upon the consciousness of the stockholders of the Metropolitan Opera House, but when it found lodgment there it created a notion--a natural one, and easily understood--that their predilections, and theirs alone, ought to be humored in the character of the entertainment. I have displayed a disposition to quarrel with the artistic att.i.tude of the directors, but I would not be an honest chronicler of the operatic occurrences of the last twenty-five years if I did not do so. The facts in the case were flagrant, the situation anomalous. The stockholders created an art spirit which was big with promise while rich in fulfilment, and then killed it because its manifestation bored them. An inst.i.tution which seemed about to become permanent and a fit and adequate national expression in an admired form of art, was set afloat again upon the sea of impermanency and speculation. About the middle of the fourth German season the directors formally resolved to continue the German representations. Not long afterward it developed that the receipts for the season would be considerably less than had been counted on, and immediately a clamor arose against the management. The champions of Italian opera joyfully proclaimed that the knell of German opera had rung, and attributed the falling off in popular support to the predominance of Wagner's operas and dramas in the repertory. The disaffection threatened mischief to the enterprise and had to be met; the directors met it by formally asking for an expression of opinion from the stockholders as to the future conduct of the inst.i.tution. On January 21, 1888, they sent out a circular letter to the stockholders, in which they submitted two propositions, on which they asked for a vote. One was "To go on with German opera with an a.s.sessment of $3,200 a box"; the other, "To give no opera the next season, with an a.s.sessment of $1,000 a box, and to resume, if possible, the following season." The letter, which was signed by James A. Roosevelt, president, stated that the giving of Italian opera was not suggested because the directors "were convinced that to do so in a satisfactory manner will require a much larger a.s.sessment upon the stockholders than to give German opera."

It was also set forth that the directors had estimated that the opera could be maintained for the a.s.sessment ($2,500 on each box), provided the receipts from the public amounted to $3,000 a performance. The subscription was 50 per cent. larger than the previous year (about $80,000, against $52,000), and larger receipts had been expected than in 1886-87, when the average was about $3,300. Instead, the receipts had fallen off and indicated an average of only $2,500. Rentals, however, had increased $14,000.

The answer of the stockholders was a vote of over four to one in favor of continuing German opera under the first proposition of the circular letter. Then, while the Italinissimi were still proclaiming that the Metropolitan opera had been killed by Wagnerism, there came the announcement of two weeks of consecutive representations of the three dramas of "The Ring of the Nibelung" (all but the prologue), which were in the repertory of the company. The two weeks, and a third in which "Gotterdammerung" was performed three times, brought more money into the exchequer of the opera than any preceding five weeks of the season.

The average of $2,500 apprehended by the directors was raised to over $3,177.

During the next season the average receipts were practically the same, nor was there anything to change the situation from a financial point of view. The stockholders had voted themselves into a mood of temporary quiescence, and the opera pursued its serious course unhampered by more than the ordinary fault-finding on the part of the representations of careless amus.e.m.e.nt seekers in the public press, and the grumbling in the boxes because the musical director and stage manager persisted in darkening the audience room in order to heighten the effect of the stage pictures.

The aristocratic prejudice against gloom extended to the operas which contained dark scenes, and when Mr. Stanton once exercised his authority as director and had the stage lights going at almost full tilt in the dungeon scene of "Fidelio," the effect of Florestan's exclamation, "Gott! welch' Dunkel hier!" upon an audience fully three-fourths of which was composed of Germans or descendants of Germans the ludicrous effect may be imagined. Many stories were current among the artists of the blithe indifference of the occupants of the boxes to artistic proprieties when they interfered with the display of gowns and jewels.

One of them was that the chairman of the amus.e.m.e.nt committee of the directors had requested that the last act of "Die Meistersinger" be sung first, as it was "the only act of the opera that had music in it," and the boxholders did not want to wait till the end. The conduct of the occupants of the boxes now grew to be so intolerable that there were frequent demonstrations of disapproval and rebuke from the listeners who sat in the parquet and balconies. The matter became a subject for newspaper discussion; in fact, it had been such a subject ever since the loud laugh of a woman at the climacteric moment of "Fidelio" had caused Fraulein Brandt to break down in tears in the opening measures of the frenetically joyous duet, "O namenlose Freude!" In the course of this extraordinary discussion one of the directors boldly a.s.serted the right of the stockholders in the boxes to disturb the enjoyment of listeners in the stalls. Not only did he repeal the old rule of "n.o.blesse oblige,"

but he also intimated that the payment of $3,000 acquitted the box owner and his guests of one of the simplest and most obvious obligations imposed by good breeding. At length the directors were forced to rebuke their own behavior. On the night of January 21, 1891, the following notice was found hung against the wall in each of the boxes:

January 15, 1891.

Many complaints having been made to the directors of the Opera House of the annoyance produced by the talking in the boxes during the performances, the board requests that it be discontinued.

By Order of the Board of Directors.

This was the first sop to Cerberus after the directors had concluded a contract with Mr. Abbey, leasing the house to him a second time and subst.i.tuting opera in Italian and French for opera in German. The public had begun to speak its mind, not only by making a mighty demonstration in honor of Mr. Seidl and the singers when a German opera was given, but in remaining away when the weak-kneed novelties were given; in requesting by pet.i.tion a performance of "Fidelio" on a Sat.u.r.day afternoon for which the opera by the royal composer had been set down, and in crowding the house and giving an ovation to the singers when their pet.i.tion was granted. The next sop was to set aside all the works which it had been projected should take the place of the later dramas of Wagner, which the stockholders (or the majority of them) did not like, and to devote the remainder of the season almost exclusively to Wagner.

The operas thus sacrificed were Marschner's "Templer und Judin,"

Ma.s.senet's "Esclarmonde," Lalo's "Le Roi d'Ys," Goetz's "Taming of the Shrew," and Nicolai's "Merry Wives of Windsor." Not love of Wagner but fear of financial consequences dictated the step, which was successful in extricating the inst.i.tution from the slough into which it had fallen.

How much the Wagner operas and dramas did to keep the Metropolitan Opera House alive can be shown by the statistics of the last five German seasons, which I compiled at the close of the season of 1890-91, and printed in The Tribune of March 25th of the latter year. Here is the table:

Season Season Season Season Season 1886-1887 1887-1888 1888-1889 1889-1890 1890-1891 Total representations .......... 61 64 68 67 67 Wagnerian representations .......... 31 36 35 37 39 Non-Wagnerian representations .......... 30 28 33 30 28 Total receipts ........ $202,751.00 $185,258.50 $209,581.00 $204,644.70 $198,119.25 Average receipts ........... 3,323.78 2,894.66 3,141.63 3,054.39 2,957.00 Wagnerian receipts ......... 111,049.50 116,449.75 115,784.50 121,568.70 125,169.25 Non-wagnerian receipts .......... 91,701.50 68,808.75 93,796.50 83,076.00 72,950.00 Wagnerian average ............ 3,582.21 3,234.72 3,308.13 3,285.65 3,209.46 Non-Wagnerian average ............ 3,056.71 2,457.45 2,842.32 2,769.20 2.605.37 Average difference in favor of Wagner ... 525.50 777.27 465.81 516.45 604.09

CHAPTER XVI

ITALIAN OPERA AGAIN AT THE METROPOLITAN

The figures which I have printed showing a loss to the stockholders of the Metropolitan Opera House on opera account year after year during the German period, do not tell the whole story of the financial condition into which the Metropolitan Opera House Company (Limited) had fallen.

This condition had much to do with creating a desire on the part of the stockholders for a change of policy. The first German season cost the stockholders only about $42,000 above the amount realized from the box a.s.sessment, which was, I believe, $2,000--two-thirds of the sum that has ruled ever since. There were seventy stockholders, and in view of the loss made by Mr. Abbey the year previous this deficit was a trifle scarcely worth considering. The growth in popular interest as indicated by the support of the subscriptions for the season of 1890-91 was promising; but the stockholders themselves were not all prompt in meeting their obligations to their own organization. By 1890 there was an account of unpaid a.s.sessments amounting to $46,328. Of this, $21,112 was canceled by the acquisition of two boxes by the company, but the balance sheet at the end of the last German season still showed $25,216 due from stockholders on a.s.sessment account. The floating debt at this time amounted to $84,044.48. The prices of admission had been greatly reduced in the German years, and the capacity of the house, represented in money, was not more than fifty per centum of what it is to-day. The demands of singers were growing greater year after year, and were not lessened, as may easily be imagined, by the thrifty complacency of those German managers who granted furloughs to their singers in consideration of a share of their American earnings. Under the circ.u.mstances it is not to be wondered at that Mr. Abbey's agreement to give Italian and French opera at his own risk was alluring, especially to those who had never sympathized with the serious tendency of German opera.

The contract of the directors for opera in the season of 1891-92 was made with Henry E. Abbey and Maurice Grau, who figured in all the announcements as the managers. With them was a.s.sociated as silent partner Mr. John B. Schoeffel, of Boston, who had shared in all of Mr.

Abbey's daring theatrical ventures since 1876, and, consequently, also in the unfortunate season of 1883-84, when Maurice Grau acted as manager at a salary of $15,000. Mr. Abbey's mind was not closed to the lessons of the German seasons. A few days after he had signed the contract he told me that he had had a project in contemplation to bring Materna, Winkelmann, Scaria, and others to America for Wagnerian opera before Mr.

Thomas had brought them for concert work; that he looked upon German opera as more advantageous to the manager, not only on account of its smaller costliness, but, also, because it enabled a manager to adjust his singers to a repertory instead of the repertory to the singers. But he had speculated successfully with Patti under the "farewell" device, the managerial virus was again in his veins, and he cherished a foolish belief that, as one of the results of the German regime, he would be able to exact different service from the artists of Italian and French opera than they had been wont to give. On this point he was soon painfully disillusionized. Had it not been for the presence in his company of Mme. Lehmann, M. La.s.salle, and the brothers Jean and edouard de Reszke, whose instincts and training kept them out of the old Italian rut, his performances would never have gotten away from the old hurdy-gurdy list. As it was, when he wanted to give "L'Africaine," in order to present M. La.s.salle in one of his most effective roles, though he had Emma Eames, Marie Van Zandt, Albani, the sisters Giulia and Sophia Ravogli, Pettigiani, and Lillian Nordica in his company (the last hired specially for the purpose), he was obliged to ask Mme. Lehmann to learn the part of Selika. She did so, but the strain, combined with other things, broke down her health, and she was useless to her manager for the second half of the season. She had been engaged as a lure for the German element among the city's opera patrons, and to it also were offered propitiatory sacrifices in the shape of performances in Italian of "Fidelio," "The Flying Dutchman," and "Die Meistersinger" under the direction of Mr. Seidl. After the lesson had been still more thoroughly learned a German contingent was added to the Italian and French, and German opera was added to the list, making it as completely polyglot as it has ever been since. But before then many financial afflictions were in store for the enterprise.

Mr. Abbey began his season December 14, 1891, after having given opera for five weeks in Chicago. In his company, besides the sopranos just named, were Mme. Scalchi and Jane de Vigne, contraltos; Jean de Reszke, Paul Kalisch, M. Montariol, and a younger brother of Giannini, tenors; Martapoura, Magini-Coletti, La.s.salle, and Camera, barytones; edouard de Reszke, Vinche, and Serbolini, ba.s.ses, and Carbone, buffo. As conductor, Vianesi, known from the season of 1883-84, returned. The subscription season came to a close on March 12th, and presented thirty-nine subscription evening performances, thirteen matinees, three extra evenings, and one extra afternoon--in all, fifty-six representations.

The list of operas contained not a single novelty, unless Gluck's "Orfeo," which had been heard in New York in 1866, and Mascagni's "Cavalleria Rusticana," which had been performed by two companies in English earlier in the season, were changed into novelties by use of the Italian text. But under such a cla.s.sification Wagner's comic opera would also have to be set down as a novelty. The list included ten operas not in the repertories of the German companies, which had occupied the opera house between the two administrations of Mr. Abbey. Inasmuch as a new departure was signalized by this season, I present herewith a table of performances in the subscription season, with the extra representations mentioned:

Opera First performance

"Romeo et Juliette" ............................ December 14 "Il Trovatore" ................................. December 16 "Les Huguenots" ................................ December 18 "Norma" ........................................ December 19 "La Sonnambula" ................................ December 21 "Rigoletto" .................................... December 23 "Faust" ........................................ December 25 "Ada" ......................................... December 28 "Orfeo" and "Cavalleria Rusticana" ............. December 30 "Le Prophete" .................................. January 1 "Martha" ....................................... January 2 "Lohengrin" .................................... January 4 "Mignon" ....................................... January 8 "Otello" ....................................... January 11 "L'Africaine" .................................. January 15 "Don Giovanni" ................................. January 18 "Dinorah" ...................................... January 29 "Hamlet" ....................................... February 10 "Lakme" ........................................ February 22 "I Maestri Cantoni" ............................ March 2 "Carmen" ....................................... March 4

The first and most obvious lesson of the season, so far as it was an index of popular taste, may be seen by a critical glance at the list of performances. A beginning was made on the old lines. The familiar operas of the Italian list were brought forward with great rapidity, but not one of them drew a paying house. The turning point came with the arrival of M. La.s.salle on January 15th. Messrs. Abbey and Grau then recognized that salvation for their undertaking lay in one course only, which was to give operas of large dimensions, and in each case employ the three popular men who had taken the place in the admiration of the public usually monopolized by the prima donna--the brothers de Reszke, and M.

La.s.salle. How consistently they acted on that conviction is shown by the circ.u.mstance that, though seventeen operas had been brought out between December 14th and January 15th, only six were added to them in the remaining two months.

It was not a "star" season in the old sense. The most popular artists were the three men already mentioned, but it required that they should all be enlisted together with Miss Eames and Mme. Scaichi to make the one "sensation" of the season--Gounod's "Faust," which had six regular performances, and two extra. Of the women singers the greatest popularity was won by Miss Eames, whose youthfulness, freshness of voice, and statuesque beauty, compelled general admiration. The smallness of her repertory, however, prevented her from helping the season to the triumphant close which it might have had if the company had been enlisted to carry out the policy adopted when the season was half over. Miss Eames's debut was made on the opening night in Gounod's "Romeo et Juliette." In many ways she was fortunate in her introduction to the operatic stage of her people--her people, though she was born in China. She was only twenty-four years old, and there was much to laud in her art, and nothing to condone except its immaturity. Her endowments of voice and person were opulent. She appeared in the opera in which she had effected her entrance on the stage at the Grand Opera in Paris less than three years before, and for which her gifts and graces admirably fitted her. She appeared, moreover, in the company of Jean de Reszke, who was then, and who remained till his retirement, in all things except mere sensuous charm of voice, the ideal Romeo. She came fresh from her first successes at Covent Garden, which had been made in the spring of the year, and disclosed at once the lovely qualities which, when they became riper, gave promise of the highest order of things in the way of dramatic expression. At the end of the period whose history I am trying to set down she was still one of the bright ornaments of the Metropolitan stage, though she had not realized all the promises which she held out at the close of the first decade of her career.

Curiosity was piqued, and a kindly spirit of patriotism enlisted by the debut of Miss Marie Van Zandt on December 21st. She, too, was an American, but she had been before the European public ten years, and had won as much favor as any American artist ever enjoyed in Paris.

Mr. Abbey had pointed to her engagement (and that of Mme. Melba, whose star was just rising above the horizon) as a persuasive argument with the directors. Everything about the little lady, not excepting some unfortunate experiences which put an end to her Parisian career, invited to kindliness of utterance touching her debut. Those of her hearers who had followed the history of opera in America for a score of years remembered her mother with admiration. Long before the days when every effort to produce opera in the vernacular was heralded as a great patriotic undertaking, Mme. Jenny Van Zandt headed companies which exploited as varied and dignified repertories as those of the German companies at the Metropolitan Opera House, barring the Wagnerian list.

Miss Van Zandt, diminutive, but winsome in voice as well as figure, and ingratiating in manner, recalled an old observation about precious things being done up in small parcels. Her coming seemed to betoken the return of the day of small things. She appeared in "La Sonnambula," and it was not until two months had pa.s.sed that the patrons of the opera were privileged to hear her in "Lakme," the opera with which her name was chiefly a.s.sociated in Paris. Meanwhile she appeared in "Martha,"

"Mignon," "Don Giovanni," and "Dinorah," without rousing the public out of the apathy which it felt toward operas of their character. And when her battle-horse was led into the ring the task of sustaining interest in the season had fallen upon the shoulders of the masculine contingent in the company.

Curious questionings were raised by the production of "Fidelio" and "Die Meistersinger" in Italian. It was generally recognized that Mr.

Abbey offered them as sops to Cerberus; but the German element in the population, which they were designed to appease, plainly were lacking in that peculiar bent of mind necessary to understand why Beethoven's opera done in Italian with a cast one-half good was supposed by the management to be worth two-thirds more than the same opera done in a language which it could understand with a cast all good (two of the princ.i.p.als, Mme.

Lehmann and Mr. Kalisch, being the same), during the preceding seven years. Was the Italian language sixty-seven per cent. more valuable than the German in an opera conceived in German, written in German, and composed in the German spirit by a German? The public thought not, and "Fidelio" had only two performances. A more kindly view was taken of the Italian "Meistersinger," Which enabled the Germans to give expression to their feelings by making demonstrations over Mr. Seidl. There was much to admire, moreover, in the singing and acting of Jean de Reszke as Walther, and M. La.s.salle as Hans Sachs. There was nothing of the conventional operatic marionette in these men. One night while they and edouard de Reszke were on the stage at the same time I expressed my admiration at the sight of three such fine specimens of physical manhood to Mme. Lehmann, who sat near my elbow in a baignoir.

"Inspiring, isn't it?"

"Yes," was the reply, "and they might be as fine artists as they are men if they would but study."

We all know that their American experience was as little lost on the brothers de Reszke as it was on Mme. Lehmann herself, who stepped into the foremost rank of tragic singers so soon as America offered her the opportunity to shuffle off the obligation of "singing princesses," as she called it.

Mascagni's "Cavalleria Rusticana," the hot-blooded little opera which was destined to make so great a commotion in the world (had already begun to make it, indeed), had its first production at the Metropolitan Opera House on December 30th. The opera was no novelty, having already made an exciting career before the Metropolitan opera season opened; but there were two features of the performances calculated to live in the memory of serious observers as characteristic of the change in spirit which had come over the inst.i.tution since the departure of the German artists: Miss Eames wore a perfectly exquisite accordion-pleated skirt as the distraught Sicilian peasant, and Signor Valero sang the siciliano on the open stage, the overture being stopped and the curtain raised so that he might sing his serenade to Lola with greater effect.

He sang behind Lola's house, and winning a call in spite of his stridulous voice and singular phrasing, he stepped out from cover, bowed his acknowledgments, and, returning to his hiding place, serenaded his love over again. After he had come forward a second time Signor Vianesi found his place in the score and resumed the overture.