Memoirs of an American Prima Donna Part 26

My mother and I spent many summers at "Clarehurst," my country home at Cold Spring on the Hudson. The Vanderbilts' railroad, the New York Central, ran through Cold Spring, so that my Christmas present from William H. Vanderbilt each year was an annual pa.s.s. He began sending it to me alone, and then included my mother, until it became a regular inst.i.tution. We saw something of Mr. and Mrs. Vanderbilt at Saratoga also, which was then a fashionable resort, before Newport supplanted it with a higher standard of formality and extravagance. I remember I once started to ask William H. Vanderbilt's advice about investing some money.

"You may know of some good security--" I began.

"I don't! I don't!" he exclaimed with heat.

Then he shook his finger at me impressively, saying:

"Let me tell you something that my father always said, and don't you ever forget it. He said that 'it takes a smart man to make money, but a _d.a.m.ned sight smarter one to keep it_!'"

My place at Cold Spring was where I went to rest between seasons, a lovely place with the wind off the Hudson River, and gorgeous oak trees all about. When the acorns dropped on the tin roof of the veranda in the dead of night they made an alarming noise like tiny ghostly footsteps.

One day when I was off on an herb-hunting expedition, some highwaymen tried to stop my carriage, and that was the beginning of troublous times at Cold Spring. It developed that a band of robbers was operating in our neighbourhood, with headquarters in a cave on Storm King Mountain, just opposite us. They made a specialty of robbing trains, and were led by a small man with such little feet that his footprints were easily enough traced;--traced, but not easily caught up with! He never was caught, I believe. But he, or his followers, skulked about our place; and we were alarmed enough to provide ourselves with pistols. That was when I learned to shoot, and I used to have shooting parties for target practice. My father would prowl about after dark, firing off his pistol whenever he heard a suspicious sound, so that, for a time, what with acorns and pistols, the nights were somewhat disturbed.

During the summers I drove all over the country and had great fun stopping my pony--he was a dear pony, too,--and rambling about picking flowers. I never pa.s.sed a spring without stopping to drink from it. I've always had a pa.s.sion for woods and brooks; and was the enterprising one of the family when it came to exploring new roads. Of the beaten track I can stand only just so much; then my spirit rises in rebellion. I love a cowpath.

I used to be an adept, too, at finding flag-root, which was "so good to put in your handkerchief to take to church"! (We carried our handkerchiefs in our hands in those days.) Or dill, or fresh fennel, "to chew through the long service"! Now the dill flavour is called caraway seed; but it isn't the same, or doesn't seem so. And there was fresh, sweet, black birch! Could anything be more delicious than the taste of black birch? The present generation, with its tea-rooms and soda-water fountains, does not know the refreshment of those delicacies prepared by Nature herself. I feel sure that John Burroughs appreciates black birch, being, as he is, one of the survivals of the fittest!

CHAPTER XXVII

"THE THREE GRACES"

In 1877, I embarked upon a venture that was destined, in spite of much success, to be one of the most unpleasant experiences of my professional career. Max Strakosch and Colonel Mapleson, the younger--Henry Mapleson--organised a Triple-Star Tour all over America, the three being Marie Roze, Annie Louise Cary, and Clara Louise Kellogg. The press called us "The Three Graces" and wrote much fulsome nonsense about "three pure and irreproachable women appearing together upon the operatic stage, etc." The cla.s.sification was one I did not care for.

Here, after many intervening years, I enter and put on record my protest. At the time it all served as advertising to boom the tour and, as it was most of it arranged for by Mapleson himself, I had to let it go by in dignified silence.

Nor was Henry Mapleson any better than he should have been either, in his personal life or in his business relations, as his wives and I have reason to know. I say "wives" advisedly, for he had several. Marie Roze was never really married to him but, as he called her Mrs. Mapleson, she ought to be counted among the number. At the time of our "Three-Star Tour," she was playing the _role_ of Mapleson's wife and finding it somewhat perilous. She was a mild and gentle woman, very sweet-natured and docile and singularly stupid, frequently incurring her managerial "husband's" rage by doing things that he thought were impolitic, for he had always to manage every effect. She seldom complained of his treatment but n.o.body could know them without being sorry for her.

Previous to this relation with Mapleson, Marie Roze had married an exceedingly fine man, a young American singer of distinction, who died soon after the marriage. She had two sons, one of whom, Raymond Roze, pa.s.sed himself off as her nephew for years. I believe he is a musical director of position and success in London at the present day. Henry Mapleson did not inherit any of the strong points of his father, Col. J.

M. Mapleson of London, who really did know something about giving opera, although he had his failings and was difficult to deal with. Henry Mapleson always disliked me and, over and over again, he put Marie in a position of seeming antagonism to me; but I never bore malice for she was innocent enough. She had some spirit tucked away in her temperament somewhere, only, when we first knew her, she was too intimidated to let it show. When she was singing _Carmen_ she was the gentlest mannered gypsy that was ever stabbed by a jealous lover--a handsome Carmen but too sweet and good for anything. Carlton was the Escamillo and he said to her quite crossly once at rehearsal,

"You don't make love to me enough! You don't put enough devil into it!"

Marie flared up for a second.

"I can be a devil if I like," she informed him. But, in spite of this a.s.sertion, she never put any devil into anything she did--on the stage at least.

[Ill.u.s.tration: =Colonel Henry Mapleson=

From a photograph by Downey]

Very few singers ever seem to get really inside Carmen. Some of the modern ones come closer to her; but in my day there was an unwritten law against realism in emotion. In most of the old standard _roles_ it was all right to idealise impulses and to beautify the part generally, but Carmen is too terribly human to profit by such treatment. She cannot be glossed over. One can, if one likes, play _Traviata_ from an elegant point of view, but there is nothing elegant about Merimee's Gypsy.

Neither is there any sentiment. Carmen is purely--or, rather, impurely--elemental, a complete little animal. I used to love the part, though. When I was studying the part, I got hold of Prosper Merimee's novel and read it and considered it until I really understood the girl's nature which, _en pa.s.sant_, I may say is more than the critic of _The New York Tribune_ had done. I doubt if he had ever read Merimee at all, for he said that my rendering of Carmen was too realistic! The same column spoke favourably in later years, of Mme. Calve's performance, so it was undoubtedly a case of _autres temps, autres moeurs_! Carmen was, of course, too low for me. It was written for a low mezzo, and parts of it I could not sing without forcing my lower register. The Habanera went very well by being transposed half a tone higher; but the card-playing scene was another matter. The La Morte _encore_ lies very low and I could not raise it. Luckily the orchestra is quite light there and I could sing reflectively as if I were saying to myself, as I sat on the bales, "My time is coming!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: Musical notation: Ri-pe-te-ra: l'av-el!....an-cor!

au-cor!..La Morte n-cor!]

In the fortune-telling quartette I arranged with one of the Gypsy girls--Frasquita, I think it was,--to sing my part and let me sing hers, which was very high, and thus relieve me.

A _role_ in which I made my _debut_ while I was with Marie Roze and Gary was Ada. Mapleson was anxious that Roze should have it, but Strakosch gave it to me. One of Mapleson's critics wrote severely about my sitting on a low seat instead of on the steps of the dais during the return of Rhadames, I remember in this connection. But nothing could prevent Ada from being a success and it became one of my happiest _roles_. A year or two later when I sang it in London my success was confirmed. Gary was Amneris in it and ranked next to the Amneris for whom Verdi wrote it, although she rather over-acted the part. I have never seen an Amneris who did not. There is something about the part that goes to the head.

Speaking of my new _roles_ at that period, I must not forget to mention my mad scene from _Hamlet_; nor my one act of _Lohengrin_ that I added to my _repertoire_. Lucia had always been one of my successes; and I believe that one of the points that made my Senta interesting was that I interpreted her as a girl obsessed with what was almost a monomania. She was a highly abnormal creature and that was the way I played her. It was a satisfaction to me that a few people here and there really appreciated this rather subtle interpretation. In commendation of this interpretation there appeared an anonymous letter in _The Chicago Inter-Ocean_, a part of which read:

"In her rendering of this strange character (Senta) Miss Kellogg keeps constantly true to the ideal of the great composer, Wagner.

In her acting, as well as in her singing, we see nothing of the woman; only the abnormal manifestations of the subject of a monomania. The writer is informed by a physician whose observations of the insane, extending over many years, enable him to judge of Miss Kellogg's acting in this character, and he does not hesitate to say that she delineates truthfully the victim of a mind diseased. Such a delineation can only be the result of a careful study of the insane, aided by a wonderful intuitive faculty. The representation of the mad Ophelia in the last act of _Hamlet_, given by Miss Kellogg last Sat.u.r.day, fully confirms the writer in the belief that no woman since Ristori possesses such power in rendering the manifestations of the insane."

[Ill.u.s.tration: =Clara Louise Kellogg as Ada=

From a photograph by Mora]

The portion of my tour with Roze and Cary under the management of Max Strakosch that took me to the far West, was particularly uncomfortable.

Fortunately the financial results compensated in a large measure for the annoyances. Not only did I have Mapleson's influence and his determination to push Marie Roze at all costs to contend with, and the trying actions and personality of Annie Louise Cary, but I also was subjected to much embarra.s.sment from a manager named Bianchi, with whom, early in my career, I had partially arranged to go to California. Our agreement had fallen through because he was unable to raise the sum promised me; so, when I did go, with Roze and Cary and Strakosch, he was exceedingly bitter against me.

Annie Louise Cary was, strictly speaking, a contralto; yet she contrived to be considered as a mezzo and even had a try at regular soprano _roles_ like _Mignon_. It is almost superfluous to state that she disliked me. So far as I was concerned, she would have troubled me very little indeed if she had been willing to let me alone. I would not know her socially, but professionally I always treated her with entire courtesy and would have been satisfied to hold with her the most amicable relations in the world, as I have with all singers with whom I have appeared in public. Annie Louise Cary, however, willed it otherwise. _The Tribune_ once printed a long editorial in which Max Strakosch was described as pacing up and down the room distractedly, crying: "Oh, what troubles! For G.o.d's sake, don't break up my troupe!"

This was rather exaggerated; but I daresay there was more truth than fiction in it. Poor Max did have his troubles!

Max Strakosch was an Austrian by birth and, having lived the greater part of twenty-five years in this country, considered himself an American. He began his career with Parodi, somewhere back in the rosy dawn of our operatic history. Parodi was a great dramatic singer--the only woman of her day--brought over as the rival of Jenny Lind. Later Max Strakosch was with Thalberg, after which he was connected with the importation of various opera troupes having in their lists such singers as Madame Gazzaniga, Madame Coulsen, Albertini, Stigelli, Brignoli, and Susini. In all these early enterprises he was a.s.sociated with his brother Maurice. He would himself have become a musician, but Maurice advised differently. So, as he expressed it, he always engaged his artists "by ear"; that is, he had them sing to him and in that way judged of their availability. Maurice used to say to him, "If you are merely a technical musician you can only tell what will please musicians. If you have general musical culture, and know the public, you can tell what will please the public." And, as Max sometimes amplified, "I have discovered this to be correct in many cases. Jarrett, who acted as the agent of Nilsson and Lucca, is not a practical musician. Neither is Morelli, who is a great impresario; neither is Mapleson. But they know what the public want and they furnish it." After he separated from his brother in operatic management, Max travelled with Gottschalk, with Carlotta Patti, and first brought Nilsson to America. Capoul, Campanini, and Maurel all made their appearance on the American operatic stage under his guidance.

Do you find your artists difficult to manage? [he was asked by a San Francisco reporter].

In some respects, yes, [was his reply]. They have certain operas which they wish to sing and they decline to learn others. The public get tired of these and demand novelty. With Miss Kellogg there is never this trouble. She knows forty operas and knows them well. She has a wonderful musical memory. She is a student, and learns everything new that is published. She has worked her way to her present high position step by step. She is sure of her position. She has an independent fortune, but loves her art and her country. But she is not obliged to confine herself to America. She has offers from London, Paris, and St. Petersburg, and will probably visit those places next season. She is just now at the zenith of her powers. She has learned _Paul and Virginia_, a very charming opera written for Capoul, and which will be given here for the first time in the United States. If we give our contemplated season of opera here she will sing Valentine in _The Huguenots_ for the first time.

This same reporter has described Max as follows:

He can be seen almost at any hour about the Palace Hotel when not engaged with a myriad of musicians--opera singers long ago stranded on this coast, young vocalists with voices to be tried, chorus singers seeking employment, players on instruments wanting to perform in his orchestra, and people who come on all imaginable errands--or looking at the objects of curiosity about the city. He is always in a state of vibration; has a tongue forever in motion and a body never at rest. He is as demonstrative as a Frenchman. He talks with all the oscillations, bobs, shrugs, and nervous twitchings of the most mercurial Parisian. He has a p.r.o.nounced foreign accent. When speaking, his voice runs over the entire gamut, only stopping at _C_ sharp above the lines. In the dining-room he attracts the attention of guests and waiters by the eagerness of his manner. When interested in the subject of conversation, he throws his arms sideways, endangering the lives of his neighbours with his knife and fork, rises in his seat, makes extravagant gestures.... His greeting is always cordial, accompanied by a grasp of the hand like a patent vice or the gentle nip of a hay-press.

Mlle. Ilma de Murska, "The Hungarian Nightingale," was with us part of the time on this tour. She was a well-known Amina in _Sonnambula_ and appeared in our all-star casts of _Don Giovanni_. She was said to have had five husbands. I know she had a chalk-white face, a belt of solid gold, and a menagerie of snakes and lizards that she carried about with her. This is all I remember with any vividness of Murska.

It all seems long, long ago; and, I find, it is the ridiculously unimportant things that stand out most clearly in my memory. For instance, we gave extra concerts, of course, and one of them lasted so long, thanks to _encores_ and general enthusiasm, that Strakosch had to send word to hold the train by which we were leaving. But the audience wanted more, and yet more, and at last I had to go out on the stage and say:

"There's a train waiting for me! If I sing again, I'll miss that train!"

Then the people laughingly consented to let me go.

Another funny little episode happened in San Francisco, when I did for once break down in the middle of a scene. It was--let me see--I think it must have been in our last season of English opera, instead of in "The Three Graces" tour, for it occurred in _The Talisman_, but speaking of California suggests it to me. We carried six Russian singers. They all joined the Greek Church choir later. One of them was a little man about five feet high, with a sweet voice, but an extremely nervous temperament. There was an unimportant _role_ in _The Talisman_ of a crusading soldier who had to rush on and sing a phrase to the effect that St. George's boats and horses were approaching from both sides; I do not recall the words. The only man who could sing the "bit" was our five-foot Russian friend. He had to wear a large Saracen helmet and carry a shield six feet high; and his entrance was a running one. I, playing Lady Edith Plantagenet, looked around to see the poor little chap come staggering along under the immense shield and to hear a very shaky and frightened voice gasp: "Sire, St. George's floats and boats, and flounts and mounts--" I tried to sing "A traitor! A traitor!" but got only as far as "A trai--" when I was overcome with an impulse of laughter and the curtain had to be rung down!

I recall, too, a visit I had from a Chinese woman. I had bought something from a Chinese shop in San Francisco, and the wife of the merchant, dressed most ceremoniously and accompanied by four servants, came to see me and expressed her desire to have me call on her. So a cousin who was with me and I went, expecting to see a Chinese interior; but we found the most _ba.n.a.l_ of American furnishings and surroundings.

Afterwards we visited Chinatown and one of the opium dens, where we saw the whole process of opium smoking by the men there, lying in bunks along the wall like shelves. It was on this trip, too, when going West, that, as we reached the Junction in Utah to branch off to Salt Lake City, we found the tracks were all filled up with the funeral train--flat decorated cars with seats--left from the funeral of Brigham Young.

But the strongest recollection of all--yes, even than the troubles between Annie Louise Cary and myself--stands out, of that Western tour, the knowledge of the good friends I won, personally and professionally, a collective testimonial of which remains with me in the form of a large gold brooch shaped like a lyre, across which is an enamelled bar of music from _Faust_ delicately engraved in gold and with diamonds used as the notes. On the back is inscribed:

"Farewell from friends who love thee."

The same year I sang at the triennial festival of the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston. Emma Thursby, a high coloratura soprano, was with us.

So were Charles Adams and M. W. Whitney. Gary also sang. It was a very brilliant musical event for the Boston of those days. It was in Boston, too, although a little later, that Von Bulow called on me and, speaking of practising on the piano, showed me his fingers, upon the tips of every one of which were very tough corns. In further conversation he remarked, with regard to Wagner, "Ah, he married my widow!" When singing in Boston one night, during "The Three Graces" tour, at a performance of _Mignon_, there was noted by one newspaper man who was present the somewhat curious fact that in singing that Italian opera only one of the princ.i.p.als sang in his or in her native tongue. Cary was an American, Roze a Frenchwoman, Tom Karl (Carroll) an Irishman, Verdi (Green) an American, and myself. The only Italian was Frapoli, the new tenor.

[Ill.u.s.tration: =Faust Brooch Presented to Clara Louise Kellogg=]