Memoirs of an American Prima Donna Part 30

Speaking of "gentle accent," I had, on one occasion, the full beauty of the Teutonic language borne in upon me in a peculiarly striking form. It was in _Robert der Teufel_, that I heard in Vienna. The instance that struck me was in the great scene during which he practises magic in the cave and makes the dead to rise so that they can dance a _ballet_ later on. Alice is wandering around, and the devil is in a great state of mind lest she has seen or overheard something of his magic.

"_Was hast du gesehen?_" says he.

"_Nichts!_" she replies.

"_Nichts?_" he repeats.

"_Nichts_," insists she.

That "_Nichts!_" was repeated over and over until the whole theatre echoed and resounded with "nichts-ts-ts-ts!" like spitting cats. There never was anything less musical.

"Heavens, Alfred," said I to Fischoff, who was with me at the time, "can't they change it to '_Nein?_'"

But he regarded me in a shocked manner at the very idea of so sacrilegiously altering the text!

German scores are full of loud ringing pa.s.sages, built on guttural, hissing, spitting consonants. But, then, we must remember that librettists the world over are apparently men of an inferior quality of intellect who know little about music or singing. I cannot help feeling that by nature and cultivation the German writers of the texts for opera suffer from an additional handicap of traditional density. Even one of the greatest of all operas, _Faust_, suffers from being built upon a German theme. At least, I should perhaps say, it suffers in sparkle, vivacity, dramatic glitter. In the deeper, poetic meanings it remains impervious alike to time, place, and individual view-point. I never fully appreciated the _role_ of Marguerite until I met the German people at close range. Then I learned by personal observation why she was so dull, and limited, and unimaginative. Such traits are, as I suddenly realised, not only individual; they are racial. Any middle-cla.s.s girl of sixteen might of course have been deceived by Faust with the aid of Mephisto, but that Gretchen was German made the whole thing a hundred times simpler.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

PETERSBURG

When I received my engagement to sing at the Opera in Petersburg I was much pleased. The opera seasons in Russia had for years been notably fine. Since then they have, I understand, gone off, and fewer and fewer stars of the first magnitude go there to sing. In 1880, however, it was a criterion of artistic excellence and position to have sung in the Petersburg Opera. My mother and I, a manager to represent me, my coloured maid Eliza, and some seventeen or eighteen trunks set out from Vienna; and we looked forward with pleasurable antic.i.p.ation to our winter in the mysterious White Kingdom, not knowing then that it was to be one of the dreariest in our lives.

Our troubles began just before we reached Warsaw, when we had to cross the frontier. We were, of course, stopped for the examination of pa.s.sports and luggage and, although the former were all right, the latter was not, according to the views of the Russian officials. I had, personally, fifteen trunks, containing the costumes for my entire _repertoire_ and to watch those Russians inspect these trunks was a veritable study in suspicion. It was late at night. Unpleasant travelling incidents always happen late at night it would seem, when everything is most inconvenient and one is most tired. The Russians appeared ten times more official than the officials of any other nation ever did, and the lateness of the hour added to this impression. Indeed they were highly picturesque, with their high boots and the long skirts of their coats. The lanterns threw queer shadows, and the wind that swept the platform had in it already the chill of the _steppes_. I have no idea what they believed me to be smuggling, bombs or anarchistic literature, but they were not satisfied until they had gone through every trunk to its uttermost depths. Even then, when they had found nothing more dangerous than wigs and cloaks and laces, they still seemed doubtful. The trunks might look all right; but surely there must be something wrong with a woman who travelled with fifteen personal trunks!

And I do not know that I altogether blame them. At all events they were not going to let me cross the frontier without further investigation, and I was rapidly falling into despair when, suddenly, I had a brilliant thought. I gave an order to my maid, who proceeded to scatter about the entire contents of one trunk and finally found for me a large, thin, official-looking doc.u.ment, with seals and signatures attached to it. The Russians stood about, watchful and mystified. Then I presented my talisman triumphantly.

"The Czar!" they exclaimed in awed whispers; "the Czar's signature!"

Whereupon several of them began bowing, almost genuflecting, to show their respect for anyone who possessed a paper signed by the Czar. It was only my contract. The singers at the Russian Opera are not engaged by an impresario, but by the Czar, and that doc.u.ment which served us so well on this occasion was a personal contract with His Imperial Majesty himself.

So we succeeded in eventually crossing the frontier and getting into Russia, and, after that, the _espionage_ became a regular thing. The spy system in Russia is beyond belief. One is watched and tracked and followed and records are kept of one, and a species of censorship is maintained of everything that reaches one. At first, one hardly realises this, for the officials have had so much practice that it is done with the most consummate skill. Every letter was opened before it reached me and then sealed up again so cleverly that it was impossible to detect it except with the keenest and most suspicious eye. Every newspaper that I received, even those mailed to me by friends in England and France, had been gone over carefully, and every paragraph referring to Russia--the army, the government, the diplomacy policy, the Nihilistic agitations--had been stamped out in solid black.

We stopped at the Hotel d'Europe, and one might think one would be free from surveillance there. Not a bit of it. We soon saw that if we wanted to talk with any freedom or privacy we should have to hang thick towels over the keyholes. And this is precisely what we did!

As soon as we reached Petersburg, I was called for a rehearsal--merely a piano affair. I went to it garmented in a long fur cloak, some flannel-lined boots that I had once bought in America for a Canadian trip, and a little bonnet perched, in the awful fashion of the day, on the very top of my head. It was early in October at this time and not any colder than our normal winter climate in the United States of America. There is but little vibration of temperature in Russia, but there are days before November when the snow melts that are very trying.

This was one of them. The first thing that happened to me at that rehearsal to which I went in my flannel-lined shoes and my little bonnet, was that a stern doctor confronted me and called me to account for the manner in which I was dressed! A doctor at a rehearsal was new to me; but it seemed that the thoughtful Czar employed two for this purpose. So many singers pretended to be ill when they really were not that His Majesty kept medical men on the spot to prove or disprove any excuses. The doctor who descended upon me was named Thomaschewski. He was the doctor mentioned in Marie Bashkirtseff's _Journal_; and he remained my friend and physician all the time I was in the city. Said he, brusquely, on this first meeting:

"Never come out dressed like that again! Get some goloshes immediately, and a hat that comes over your forehead!"

I did not understand at the moment why he insisted so strongly on the hat. I soon learned, however, what so few Americans are aware of, that it is through the forehead that one generally catches cold. As for the goloshes, it was self-evident that I needed them, and, after that morning, I never set foot out of doors in Russia without the regular protection worn by everyone in that climate. A big fur cap, tied on with a white woollen scarf arranged as we now arrange motor veils, completed the necessary outfit.

Marcella Sembrich and Lillian Nordica were both in the opera company that year. Sembrich had a small, high, clear voice at that time; but she was always the musician and well up in the Italian vocal tricks. Scalchi was there, too, and Cotogni, the famous baritone. He was a masterful singer and an amusing man, with a quaint way of putting things. He is still living in Rome and has, I am sorry to say, fallen from his great estate upon hard times. The tenors were Masini and a Russian named Petrovitch, with whom I sang the _Ballo in Maschera_. They were all very frankly curious about "the American _prima donna_" and about everything concerning her. The _Intendant_ of the Imperial Opera was a man with the t.i.tle of Baron Kuster, the son of one of the Czar's gardeners. No one could understand why he had been made a Baron, but, for some reason, he was in high favour.

My _debut_ was in _Traviata_, as Violetta. There was an enormous audience and the American Minister was in a stage box. Throughout the performance I never lost a sense of isolation and of chill. The strangeness, the watchfulness, the sense of apprehension with which the air seemed charged, were all on my nerves. It was said that the Opera-House had been undermined by the Nihilists and was ready to explode if the Czar entered. This idea was hardly conducive to ease of mind or cheerfulness of manner. I was glad that it was not sufficiently a gala occasion for the Czar to be present. Never before had I ever sung without having friends in front, friends who could come behind the scenes between the acts and tell me how I was doing and, if need be, cheer me up a bit. I knew n.o.body in the audience that first night, which gave me a most forlorn feeling, as if the place were filled with unfriendliness as well as with strangers. At last I thought of the American Minister, Mr. Foster (our legation in Russia had not yet attained the dignity of an emba.s.sy). I sent my agent to the Fosters'

box, asking them to call upon me in my _loge_ at the end of the opera.

When he delivered the message, he was met by blank astonishment.

"Of course we should be delighted--and it is very kind of Miss Kellogg," said Mr. Foster, "but there is not a chance that we should be allowed to do so!"

And they were not.

The vigilance, even on the stage, was something appalling. Every scene shifter and stage carpenter had a big bra.s.s number fastened conspicuously on his arm, strapped on, in fact, over his flannel shirt so that he could be easily checked off and kept track of. Everything in Russia is numbered. There are no individuals there--only units. I used to feel as if I must have a number myself; as if I, too, must soon be absorbed into that grim Monster System, and my feeling of helplessness and oppression steadily increased.

I had over twenty curtain calls that evening--the largest number I ever had. But they did not entirely repay me for the heaviness of heart from which I suffered. Never before or since was I so unhappy during a performance. The house had been undoubtedly cold at first. As an American correspondent to one of the newspapers wrote home: "The house had small confidence in an operatic singer from America, for all history of that country is silent on the subject of _prime donne_, while there is no lack of account of such other persons as Indians, Aztecs, and emigrants from the lower orders of Europe!"

In Russia they still reserve the right of hissing a singer that they do not like. It is lucky that I did not know this then, for it would have made me even more nervous than I was. My curtain calls were a real triumph. Even the ladies of the audience arose and waved their handkerchiefs, calling out many times: "Kellogg, _sola_!" They wanted me to receive the honours alone; and the gentlemen joined in their calls, "Kellogg! Kellogg! Kellogg!" until they were hoa.r.s.e.

The subscribers to the opera were divided into three cla.s.ses in Petersburg; and, as a singer who was popular was demanded by all the subscribers for each of the three nights, it was a novel sensation to conquer an entirely new audience each night.

In the Opera-House, as in every other house in Petersburg, one had to go through innumerable doors, one after the other. This architectural peculiarity is what makes the buildings so warm. Russians build for the cold weather as Italians build for warm. The result is that one can be colder in an Italian house than anywhere else on earth, and more correspondingly comfortable in a Russian. Even the Petersburg public Post-Office had to be approached through eight separate doorways. There were a number of other unusual features about that theatre. One was the custom of permitting the _isvoshiks_ (drivers) and _mujiks_ (servants) to come inside to stay while the opera was going on. It struck me as most inconsistent with the general strictness and red tape; but it was entertaining to see them stowed away in layers on ledges along the walls, sleeping peacefully until the people who had engaged them were ready to go home. Another odd thing was the odour that permeated the house. It was not an unpleasant odour; it seemed to me a little like Russia leather. I could not imagine what it was at first. Afterwards I found that it _did_ come from the sheep-skins worn by the _isvoshiks_.

The skins are cured in some peculiar way which leaves them with this faint smell.

The thing I particularly appreciated that first night was the honour and good fortune of making my _debut_ with Masini, who, according to my opinion, was without exception the best tenor of his time. He would have pleased the most exacting of modern critics, for he was the true _bel canto_. It is told of him that, in the early years of his career, he sang so badly out of tune that no impresario would bother with him.

So he retired, and worked, until he had not only overcome it but had also made himself into a very great artist. The night before I sang with him, I went to hear him. At first I thought his voice a trifle husky, but, before the evening was over, I did not know if it were husky or not, he sang so beautifully, his method was so perfect, his breath-control was so wonderful. It was a naturally enchanting voice besides. I have never heard a length of breath like his. No phrase ever troubled him; he had the necessary wind for anything. In _L'Africaine_ there is a pa.s.sage in the big tenor solo needing very careful breathing.

Masini did simply what he liked with it, swelling it out roundly and generously when it seemed as if his breath must be exhausted. When the breath of other tenors gave out, Masini only just began to draw on his.

I am placing all this emphasis on his method because I know breathing to be the whole secret of singing--and of living, too! Masini was a grave, kind man, not a great actor, but with a stage presence of complete repose and dignity. His manner to me was charmingly thoughtful and considerate during our work together. Yet he was a man who never spoke.

I mean this literally: I cannot recall the sound of his speaking voice, although I rehea.r.s.ed with him for a whole season. His greatest _role_ was the Duke in _Rigoletto_ and there was no one I ever heard who could compare with him in it.

Nordica was a young singer doing minor _roles_ that season and, both being Americans, we saw a good deal of each other and exchanged sympathies, for we equally disliked Russia. Our Yankee independence was being constantly outraged by the Russian spy system, and we were always at odds with it. One night, when we were not singing ourselves, we had a box together to hear our fellow-artists, and invited Sir Frederick Hamilton to share it with us. As we knew there was sure to be a crowd after the opera, Nordica suggested that we should leave our wraps in an empty dressing-room behind the scenes and go out by that way when the performance was over. This we accordingly did, going behind through the house by the back door of the boxes, and as a matter of course we took Sir Frederick with us. We had momentarily forgotten that in Russia one never does what one wants to, or what seems the natural thing to do.

When we were discovered bringing an Englishman behind the scenes, there was nearly a revolution in that theatre!

I sang in _Traviata_ four or five times in Petersburg and in _Don Giovanni_ and in _Semiramide_. This last was the forty-fifth _role_ of my _repertoire_. The Russian Opera season was less brilliant than usual that year because the Czarina had recently died and the Court was in mourning. The situation was one that afforded me some amus.e.m.e.nt. The Czar, Alexander, who was killed that same winter, had for a long time lived with the Princess Dolgoruki, as is well known, and, when the Czarina died, he married the Dolgoruki within a few weeks. To be sure, the marriage did not really count, for she could never be a Czarina because she was not royal, but she was determined to establish her social position as his wife and insisted on keeping him in the country with her at one of the out-of-the-way places. And all the time the Czar went right on with his official mourning for the Czarina! There was something about this that strongly appealed to my American sense of humour. When the Czar did finally leave the country palace and come back to Petersburg, he was in such fear of the Nihilists that he did not dare come in state, but got off the train at a way-station and drove in.

Fancy the Czar of all the Russias having to sneak into his own city like that! And the worst of it was that all that vigilance was proved soon after to have been justified. Because of the situation of affairs, the Royal Box at the Opera was never occupied. Even the Czarevitch and his wife (Dagmar of Denmark, sister of Alexandra of England) could not appear. I am inclined to believe that, on the whole, Petersburg society was rather glad of the dull season. As there were no Court functions, the individual social leaders did not have to keep up their end either, and it must have been a relief, for times were hard, owing to the recent Nihilistic panic, and Russians do not know how to entertain unless they can do it magnificently. As a result of the dull social season, I did not go out much in society. But I was much interested in such glimpses as I had of it, for "smart" Russia is most gorgeously picturesque. Many Americans visit Petersburg in summer when everyone is away and so never see the true Russian life. Indeed, it is a very stunning spectacle. The sleighs, the splendid liveries, the beautiful horses, the harnesses, the superb furs--it is all like a pageant. I loved to see the _troikas_ drawn by three horses, with great gold ornaments on the harnesses; and the _drozhkis_ in which the _isvoshiks_ drive standing up. The third horse of the _troika_ is one of the typically Russian features. He is attached to the pair that does the work, and his part is to play the fool.

I remember a famous sleigh ride I had in a very smart _drozhki_, behind a horse belonging to one of the English Emba.s.sy secretaries. The horse was an extraordinarily fast one and the _drozhki_ was exceptionally light and small. The seat was so narrow that the secretary and I had to be literally b.u.t.toned into it to keep us from falling out. The _isvoshik's_ seat was so high that he was practically standing erect and nearly leaning back against it. Evidently the man's directions were to show off the horse's gait to the best advantage; and I know that the speed of that frail sleigh upon the icy snow crust became so terrific that I had to grip the sash of the _isvoshik_ in front of me to stay in the sleigh at all.

And, oh, the flatness and mournfulness of those chill wastes of snow outside the city! It was of course bitterly cold, but one did not feel that so much on account of the fine dryness of the air. For me the light--or, rather, the lack of it,--was the most difficult thing to become accustomed to. But if I did not altogether realise the cold for myself, I certainly realised it for my poor horses. I had a splendid pair of blacks that winter and, when I was driven down to the theatre, they would be lathered with sweat. When I came out they would be covered with ice and as white as snow. There would be ice on the harness too, and the other horses we pa.s.sed were in the same condition. I was much distressed at first, but it appeared that Russian horses were quite used to it and, so I was told, actually throve on it.

Petersburg is full of little squares and in every square were heaps of logs, laid one across another like a funeral pyre, which were frequently lighted as a place for the _isvoshiks_ to warm themselves. The leaping flames and the men crowded about, in such contrast to the white snow, seemed so startling and theatrical in the heart of the city that nothing could have more sharply reminded us that we were in a strange and unknown land.

The fact that the days were so unbelievably, gloomily short (dawn and bright noonday and the afternoon were unknown) grew to be very depressing. Coasting on the great ice-hills is a favourite Russian amus.e.m.e.nt, and it is a fine winter sport. But that, too, is shadowed by the strange half-light, which, to anyone accustomed to the long, bright days of more temperate lands, is always conducive to melancholy. There was no sun to speak of. Such as there was moved around in almost one place and stopped shining at four in the afternoon. I never had the least idea of the time; hardly knowing, in fact, whether it was day or night.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

GOOD-BYE TO RUSSIA--AND THEN?

Prince Oldenburg, the Czar's cousin, was the only member of the Royal Family who could be called a patron of music and had himself composed more or less. On his seventy-fifth birthday the Imperial Opera organised a concert in his honour, that took place at the Winter Palace; and we were really quite _intriguee_, having heard of the Winter Palace for years. I said to Nordica:

"If you'll find out how we get there, I'll send my carriage for you and we will go together."