Confessions of an Opera Singer Part 10

We played continuously nine months from September to June, and then scattered for the holidays. I often went to Munich for the Wagnerian _Festspiel_. We have many German relatives (though not a drop of German blood), as three of my grandfather's sisters married German officers.

Through remote ancestors we also have dozens of cousins in the north of Germany. The Munich relations I dearly loved. The son of the famous court architect, von Klenze, who built nearly all the n.o.ble buildings in Munich for the old King Ludwig of Bavaria, who abdicated his throne--married my mother's aunt, and their descendants were always very charming to me. The northern cousins who lived in East and North Prussia we always heard were quite different, cold, critical, and not warm, and artistic, and friendly, as I found our southern relations. In Darmstadt they seem between the two peoples in character, and of course in the theatre one meets all sorts.

Our _Souffleuse_, "Bobberle," was from Schwabia, and her sister was a character. She proved her elegance by wearing the most brilliant colours on her fat little body, and plastering the family jewelry all over herself. She screamed remarks about the members of the company to her friends between the acts, and the remarks were not as undiscerning as you might think.

The top box on the right side of the house, was reserved for the humble hangers-on of the _Personal_. My sister used often to sit up there as she could just walk in without my having to ask for a seat, while my mother sat in state in a specially reserved seat in the orchestra, for which I had to ask each time. The oldest mothers and the _Souffleuse's_ sister used to be an unending joy to my sister, in their comments. The order of their seats was theirs by divine right, they thought, and woe betide some comparatively new-comer who would venture to take one-eyed Frau S----'s or fat Frau W----'s chair. It was called the _Raben's Nest_ (the raven's nest), and we felt its influence hanging over us on the stage. I was quite familiar with the remarks that were made nightly:

"_Ach! unsere Kaethe spielt ja Heute!_" ("Oh! our little Katy plays tonight"), the mother of Katy would announce rapturously, and settle down with her chin on the rail, and her back bent like a jack-knife, for three hours of proud but critical joy. She had probably toiled most of the night with her little seamstress to turn out the marvels Kaethe wore.

There are certain props that lend an unfailing air of gorgeousness to the provincial German mind, whether viewed from in front of, or behind the footlights. An aigrette does duty for years and has a sure-fire elegance; pinned on a winter hat of black velvet, or a summer leghorn, or worn with a bow in an evening coiffure, you know its wearer belongs to the most exclusive social set. Our coiffeur had only one eye, but used to bring that one as close as possible to the head of her victim and make it do duty for two. She turned out wonderful puffs and curls.

In "Dollar Prinzessin" I introduced a new style of hair dressing from Paris: the hair parted, and a mult.i.tude of close curls at the back of the head, the whole surrounded by a rather broad band of ribbon of the shade one desired. This took Darmstadt by storm, and was repeated for two years in every conceivable version. The curls I am sorry to say, turned into tight sausages, but how much more _praktisch_! Couldn't the curls then be worn at least three times without being re-dressed?

A lorgnon is of course "Hoch elegant," also quite irresistibly snorty, if you are playing an elderly d.u.c.h.ess type of person. If you read that tunics are worn in Paris you put them on all your gowns, though they may be hideously unbecoming to you. Even the time-honoured hat-on-the-back-of-the-head outline had to be renounced one season, and every one peered out at you from a hat or toque brim almost down on the bridge of the nose in front, and c.o.c.ked up in the back. Unbecoming--it was admitted--, but "man" did it in Paris and should Darmstadt lag behind?

The problem of clothes for the actress is a terrific one, and I think almost every one in town knows and makes allowances for this. The men go further astray in the quest of fashion, or perhaps it is that the slightest lapse from rigid formality is so noticeable in their dress of today. In Metz d.i.c.keys, or small false fronts, were worn as a matter of course in the place of evening shirts. If you were long and the d.i.c.key was short you stuck a jaunty, flaming silk handkerchief in your vest in front, to hide dangerous glimpses of Jaegers. And then why stick slavishly to the bow tie of white cotton? A black or scarlet string tie was distinctly more novel, and attracted attention at once if worn with an otherwise conventional evening coat.

In Darmstadt the men knew better, but some of them tried to ape the officers in walk, monocle, or hair brushing, to the huge delight of the officers. One clever actor always made his greatest climax by suddenly throwing back his coat edge as he finished a "There, what do you say to that?" speech, and so revealing the gorgeous black satin lining. This of course was unanswerable, and never failed of its effect. You knew at once you had a man of the world before you, a man familiar with the most exclusive club life, valeted, perfumed and manicured irreproachably, and you succ.u.mbed accordingly.

The Grand Duke would sit, lynx-eyed, up in his box, and take this all in. I always felt he never missed anything, and it was inspiring to play to him. When his box was empty I always missed this scrutiny.

Sometimes one gets messages that well-known people have been out in front, and this knowledge, and the thought that some wandering _Intendant_ in search of talent may be watching you, always spurs you on if you are tired. Once a famous Dutch painter saw me as _Amneris_. He was of course quite unknown to me, but sent me word later to say what pleasure I had given him by recreating in his mind the Egyptian silhouettes and colouring he loved. I had striven so hard to do this, it was a great pleasure to know that I had succeeded in suggesting it.

A dear old gentleman in town, who had travelled much, sent me many postcards from Spain, because my _Carmen_ brought back to him his happy days there. He sent me a real Russian "Order" for my _Orlofsky_ in "Fledermaus," which I always afterwards wore with that gentleman's severe court dress. Laurel wreaths and wreaths of heavy silvered leaves were sent to me, with gold lettered inscriptions, and I kept them for ages in my music room.

During the last winter in Darmstadt I went up to Berlin to give a try-out recital. It was managed by the great Wolf Bureau, and my friend Mr. Fernow at once took an interest in me, which continued as long as I was in Germany. I heard of Coenraad von Bos, and wanted to have him play for me. We rehea.r.s.ed the day before the concert, and I soon found I had made another real friend in Bos. He said afterwards, when he was told I wanted just one rehearsal for a Berlin recital, he thought to himself I must be either very bad or very good. The truth was I could not get a longer leave of absence from the opera and so more than one rehearsal was impossible. I have always adored rehearsing, especially for a concert, with such an artist as Bos to play for me, and one of the greatest joys of my life was preparing a program with Erich Wolf for a later Berlin recital. To go back to my concert--Bos worked very hard that evening to make it a success, calling up all of his musical friends to tell them of his new find. It _was_ a great success and I have never read such notices as I received from all the papers. They told me no foreigner had ever had such unanimous and extraordinary praise for a first recital, and Papa Fernow kissed me in the green room.

I should have immediately followed up that concert with two or three more, but I was obliged to return to my duties, and so lost the opportunity of reaping the reward of an unusual beginning.

They wanted me to sign on in Darmstadt, but I felt that I had sung the repertoire faithfully for three years, and that I wanted more worlds to conquer, and a bigger town to criticize my work.

I went to Munich to sing for Baron S----, who liked me and offered me a contract, depending on the outcome of two _Gastspiele_, or guest performances, to be absolved the following October, my contract then to go into effect.

My farewell in Darmstadt was "Carmen" and the people _were_ good to me.

After the last curtain I left the stage for a minute, and when I came back to take my calls the stage was filled from side to side with flowers; they were banked and grouped all round me. The curtain then went up and down innumerable times, till I felt like weeping at leaving all these kind friends. For some reason my cab did not come for me and when I left the theatre the crowd waiting at the stage door followed me home, calling out "Come back soon," "Auf Wiedersehen," and many kind things. These are not perhaps great triumphs, but they make an artist's life very happy, and the life I led for those three years, comes very near being the ideal one for an opera singer.

I think it was two years before this, on returning to Paris, that I took part in Strauss' "Salome." We gave six performances at the Chatelet. I took the page's small part, just for the fun of it, and so as to study the opera. The stage manager was a German of course, and spoke very little French. The singers were all Germans, and the "figurants,"

supers, all French. Things did not go well at rehearsals. Burrian, as the King would cry for wine or grapes, and no one moved to get what he wished, as no one understood what he was saying, and so could not get the musical cue. I was the only person able to speak the two languages fluently, and finally the stage manager asked me to take charge of all the business on my side of the stage. "_Suivez Madame!_" he would yell.

So I said "Remove throne." "Bring golden vessels." "Clear stage," etc., to the intelligent crowd of supers, many of whom were young actors, who wanted as I did to study the opera. I remember one hideous little girl, who had an unattractive sore lip. Some one told her that it did not matter much, trying to comfort her, as she seemed so depressed about it, but she was inconsolable, and replied darkly, "it was always seven days lost." This brave effort to create the impression of an otherwise lurid existence deceived no one however, though they were too polite to show their doubt.

Destinn's voice rose thrillingly in the love phrases that _Salome_ pours at _John_; and though she wore a costume that my young French friends considered consisted chiefly of _chats enrages_,--mad cats,--as it had two huge animal heads of gold, where such types of stage villainesses are always heavily protected, the tense quality of her voice, and the simple strength of her acting suited the character as Strauss had painted it with his music, and she achieved results that no other singer I know of could have done.

I had gone back as usual to de Reszke to have my voice put in order, and was having, at the same time, my taste put in order by my sculptor brother Cecil, in our walks and talks about Paris and its museums. My brother's wonderfully clear vision of art and beauty is never clouded, and I owe much to my a.s.sociation with him. We used to go to all the Salons, and I remember vividly the first time we stumbled on a specimen of the modern Spanish school, then quite new to us. We had looked at dreary wastes of raspberry jam Venuses, resting on the crests of most solid waves, dozens of canvases still in the Louis XVI era, and much pastel-coloured mediocrity, when suddenly I called out "Look, Cec, something new!" It was a big square of flaming colour--women and a child in red checked cotton, picking scarlet tomatoes from high-trained vines, in the brilliant sun. It glowed and fairly zizzed with colour, and had that radiating, vibrating quality that things have in the hot sunshine.

We had had the "confetti" and "spot" types of work for some years, but this canvas dwarfed anything modern I had seen in Paris. We have never found another one by the same man, and have often wondered what became of his work.

I think that was when I first fell in love with colour _per se_, though I had flirted with it before. We had loved Monet and the opalescent, shimmering lights in his water-garden series, but never had I been so stirred and thrilled by mere paint on canvas as I was by this Spaniard's work. It seems that a man only rarely can put colours together that will have the living dazzling look that one sees in nature. Matisse was a past master of it, and even though one might not agree with him otherwise, his colour was a joy.

Later the Cubists and Futurists invaded Paris. When I am with Cecil and he talks to me of their work, I see their aims quite clearly, and understand what they are trying to express, for their "line of talk" is much more lucid than their work: but when I am not with my brother I must confess my understanding is dimmed, and I forget the arguments he used.

We lived very simply in Paris, having our meals sometimes at the _quartier_ restaurants, and sometimes getting _filets_ of fresh mushrooms, peas, and delicious Paris potatoes, with big strawberries shaped like little whisk-brooms, and _creme d' Isigny_ in its stubby little earthen pots, and preparing them at home. I had a small apartment in the same house as my mother, and my brother had his studio some blocks from us.

We met Spaniards, Norwegians, French, anything but Americans, of whom we knew but few--we learnt so much more through talking with people of other nationalities than our own. Paris is such a marvellous place for development. As my brother said, he never knew when some one whose opinion he must respect might not drop into the studio, and give his work a searching inspection. The atmosphere of having to keep constantly at your very best because of the rigid intellectual criticism you encounter at every turn, is most stimulating.

Rembrandt Bugatti was a great friend of my brother's, of whom I think he was really fond, and this was a priceless a.s.sociation for a young student. Bugatti was a genius, unrivalled by any other man of his age, and very few of any other age, and his tragic death is a great loss to the art world. His growing deafness and his acute sensitiveness must have made life impossible for him. His recollection of the happy years spent in Antwerp, when he and my brother were well-known figures there--wearing long, swinging, dark blue, Italian cavalry capes, smoking eternal pipes and working all day in the open air in the Zoo--compared to what the Germans have made of Belgium, proved too great a spiritual burden for him.

CHAPTER XXII

ROYAL HUMOUR

During that summer Baron S---- died in Munich. This of course was a great blow to me and I did not know what I could do about my contract. I went to Berlin to see Herr Harder, who told me I must _gastieren_ according to contract in October, but as the new _Intendant_ was not to come into office till November, no one could really engage me, especially as a very exacting new musical director was coming from Vienna later in the season, and they would both undoubtedly want to choose their own first contralto.

However, I went and sang under trying circ.u.mstances, with a very sore throat and a sinking heart. The colleagues thought I would be engaged, but I did not see who was to do it, and as it turned out I was right--and there _was_ no one to do it. This depressed me extremely, but I resolved to return to Berlin, and devote the year to following up my previous recital. As a matter of fact, this apparent blow turned out to be all for the best, as so often happens, for otherwise I should have been caught in Germany at the beginning of the war, and my career upset, which happened to several other girls.

The concert field is a rich one in Europe and I had made a good beginning. I booked a tour in Holland, through the kindly offices of Bos, where I was as well received as I had been in Berlin. The critics wrote such eulogies that I almost blush to read them. People quite unknown to me would go from town to town to hear me, and I would see them at Rotterdam or Utrecht smiling up at me. I have never sung to such adorable audiences. They seem to understand all languages, and a "Claire de Lune" sung in French seems to please them as much as Schubert's magnificent "Allmacht."

The "coffee pause" half way down the program, was quite a shock to me the first night, but I soon grew to look for it, and enjoyed the smell of the strong smoking coffee the waiters used to carry round on trays to the audience. It was rather disturbing, however, to have to watch the waiters finish up the contents of the pots, at the back of the hall, while I began on the second half of the program. Evidently to them the coffee, and the audience, were of first importance, and the mere singer quite secondary; all of which is point of view.

My sister and I lived at The Hague, and Holland is so delightfully small that we could nearly always return there, after the evening's concert in another town. I went back in the spring for another series of recitals and felt that I was returning to old friends. I was offered a tour to Java, and would love to have undertaken it, but could not see my way clear just then.

In December I was in Berlin for a week or two, and Harder sent me word to come and sing for Mr. Percy Pitt of Covent Garden. The two contracts I had held so far had been closed with a minimum of delay and trouble, and now I was to make the biggest one of my career in the same simple way. I was not in the best of voice when I sang for Mr. Pitt, but I sang the Siegfried _Erda_, and was disgusted with myself for singing so badly. He asked me if I were ready to sing the list of leading roles which he read to me, and on my answering in the affirmative engaged me on the spot; proving, to me at least, that successful or unsuccessful _Vorsingen_ and even _Gastspiele_ have very little to do with most engagements. In the case of a singer of any reputation at all, the Director has usually made up his mind pretty well beforehand what he is going to do. If he wants you he takes you, even if you have sung badly that particular time, and if he does not want you, nothing that I have heard of can make him engage you.

This contract was for the following spring. We were to give the "Ring"

of Wagner, three times, and Arthur Nikisch was to conduct. Also "Koenigskinder" was to be given for the first time at Covent Garden, and I was one of the few who had sung the _Witch_ at that time. "The Flying Dutchman" completed the list of operas I was to sing in.

After closing the contract we left for Bergen, Norway, where I had a concert engagement. One great advantage of having my dear friends, the Jones, back of me, was, that I could take a big journey like this; and though it might eat up all of my profit I did not have to refuse it on that account.

We were fascinated by Scandinavia, and though I went to sing with the orchestra in one concert only, I remained in Bergen to give three recitals by myself. The trip across the Finse railway, over the snowy glaciers, I shall never forget. The line had only recently been opened, and very few pa.s.sengers shared the trip with us. We saw a herd of reindeer, and I fed some of them with coa.r.s.e salt at one of the stations. Bergen itself was warm and muggy and smelt of fish. Everything in the place smelt of fish, even the hotel towels. Two kindly women managers took charge of my concerts, and I felt far away from America till I saw a portrait of Miss Emma Thursby in their music shop.

The warm-hearted Norwegians were delightful to us, and we met many of Grieg's relations, and heard tales of him. One of his cousins, I think, came all the way to Berlin to study with me, but to my great regret I had no time to give her.

I was interviewed on my first day by a nice little fellow, who could hardly speak German, and no English nor French. Our conversation was conducted under difficulties, but was most enjoyable none the less. The next day I received a request for a photo from him, with a card saying: "_Seit ich Ihnen sah bin ich sterblich verliebt._"--This bad German means approximately, "Since I saw you I am mortally in love."

We loved our stay in Scandinavia. I remember when we first arrived in Christiania we could not make out why the streets were thronged with good looking men and women, from two o'clock till three in the afternoon, and quite empty after that. We walked through the snowy, glittering avenues, and met all these healthy red-cheeked pedestrians talking and laughing and having a wonderful social time. We then discovered their meal times are quite different from ours. You have an early cup of coffee, then a light breakfast at eleven o'clock, then dinner at three or four, preceded sometimes by this walk. Supper is served at eight-thirty or nine, and is usually laid out on a long table in the centre of the room. There are cold meats and salads; cold fish and pickled fish; queer breads; and, of course, you go first for the wonderful _hors d'oeuvres_ of countless varieties, for this is where they grow.

A Swede once told me you could always tell a German travelling in Sweden, because when the _Schwedische Platte_ or _hors d'oeuvres_ were pa.s.sed to him, he made a meal of the dainty mayonnaise and savoury morsels, instead of eating them as an appetizer, as is intended. In the beautiful station of Copenhagen, decorated in the old Norse style, with scarlet-painted wooden carved beams, we were served with all we could eat of these dainties with bread and b.u.t.ter, for about forty cents--and I wished I were a German!

On the way home, we were storm-bound at Copenhagen, and I at once fell in love with that city, and its wonderful blond race of big men and women. We heard stories of divorces and pa.s.sionate love affairs, that made other nations pale by contrast. One delightful man told us he had had no objection to his wife having _one_ lover, but when he found she had seven, he thought it time to get a divorce! He still quite often saw her, and said they were the best friends in the world. He liked to take her out to dinner and the theatre and tell her all about everything. He called us "The Misses Chickens Howard," and was only restrained by business engagements from following us from place to place. That was a hobby of his, he said, when he found a sympathetic artist.

We crossed back to Germany, and I sang with Nickisch for the first time, in Hamburg. His room behind the stage swarmed with ladies, in the _entr'acte_, and the concert master told me it was always so. A valet looked him over carefully before he went on the stage, pulled down his coat, and patted the Herr Professor's shoulders. I remembered the cuff story in Metz and watched through the crack of the door to see if it still held good--and it did!

Later I sang with Mengelberg in Frankfort. He said to me, eating apples the while: "I engaged you because friends of mine in Holland told me you could sing. Can you?" After the concert he came to me again, still eating apples, and said: "_Es is wahr. Sie haben eine Prachtvolle Stimme, und koennen prachtvoll singen_," and kissed my hand.

To hear Mengelberg direct "Tod und Verklaerung" of Strauss, with his own orchestra is one of the most tremendous things I have ever experienced.

One is transported. A little man with a tight mouth and an aureole of fair hair, he is feared by his men, but _how_ he is respected! That winter he spent almost every night in the train, as he conducted regularly in Holland, Germany and Russia.

I have always been able to get on with really great musicians, and have found only the second best _difficile_ and small. The path seems suddenly smooth when in rehearsal, you feel this wealth of absolute knowledge and authority supporting, leading and inspiring you. Anxiety vanishes and one's best pours from one without effort, only with the sensation of wringing every last drop of beauty from the phrase.