My Recollections Part 19

In August, 1887, I wanted to pay a visit to my master Ambroise Thomas.

He had bought a group of islands in the sea near the North Coast and I had been there to see him. Doubtless my visit was pleasant to him, for I received from him the next summer in Switzerland the following pages:

ILLIEC, Monday, August 20, 1888

Thanks for your good letter, my dear friend. It has been forwarded to me in this barbarous island where you came last year. You remind me of that friendly visit of which we often speak, but we regret that we were only able to keep you two days.

It was too short!

Will you be able to come again, or rather, shall I see you here again? You say you work with pleasure and you appear content.... I congratulate you on it, and I can say without envy that I wish I were able to say as much for myself. At your age one is filled with confidence and zeal; but at mine!...

I am taking up again, not without some difficulty, a work which has been interrupted for a long time, and what is better, I find that I am already rested in my solitude from the excitement and fatigue of life in Paris.

I send you the affectionate regards of Mme. Ambroise Thomas, and I say au revoir, dear friend, with a good grip of the hand.

Yours with all my heart,

AMBROISE THOMAS.

Yes, as my master said, I did work with pleasure.

Mlle. Sibyl Sanderson, her mother and three sisters were also living at the Grand Hotel at Vevey and every evening from five o'clock until seven I made our future Esclarmonde work on the scene I had written that day.

After _Esclarmonde_ I did not wait for my mind to grow fallow. My publisher knew my sad feelings about _Werther_ which I persisted in being unwilling to have given to a theater (no management had then made advances to obtain the work) and he opened negotiations with Jean Richepin. They decided to offer me a great subject for the Opera on the story of Zoroaster, ent.i.tled _Le Mage_.

In the course of the summer of 1889 I already had several scenes of the work planned out.

My excellent friend the learned writer on history, Charles Malherbe, was aware of the few moments I made no use of, and I found him a real collaborator in these circ.u.mstances. Indeed, he chose among my scattered papers a series of ma.n.u.scripts which he indicated to me would serve in the different acts of _Le Mage_.

P. Gailhard, our director at the Opera, was as ever the most devoted of friends. He put the work on with unheard of elaborateness. I owed to him a magnificent cast with Mmes. Fierens and Lureau Escalas and Mm.

Vergnet and Delmas. The ballet was important and was staged in a fairylike way and had as its star Rosita Mauri.

Although it was knocked about a good deal by the press, the work ran for more than forty performances.

Some were glad of the chance to seek a quarrel with our director who had played his last card and had arrived at the last month of his privilege.

It was useless trouble on their part. Gailhard was shortly afterwards called upon to resume the managerial scepter of our great lyric stage. I found him there a.s.sociated with E. Bertrand when _Thas_, of which I shall speak later, was put on.

Apropos of this, some verses of the ever witty Ernest Reyer come to mind. Here they are:

_Le Mage_ est loin, _Werther_ est proche, Et deja _Thas_ est sous roche; Admirable fecondite ...

Moi, voila dix ans que je pioche Sur _Le Capuchin enchante_.

You may be astonished at never having seen this work of Reyer's played.

Here is the theme as he told it, with the most amusing seriousness, at one of our monthly dinners of the Inst.i.tute, at the excellent Champeaux restaurant, Place de Bourse.

First and Only Act!

The scene represents a public square; on the left the sign of a famous tavern. Enter from the right a Capuchin. He stares at the tavern door.

He hesitates; then, finally, he decides to cross the threshold and closes the door. Music in the orchestra--if desired. Suddenly, the Capuchin comes out again--enchanted, a.s.suredly enchanted by the cooking!

Thus the t.i.tle of the work is explained; it has nothing to do with fairies enchanting a poor monk!

CHAPTER XIX

A NEW LIFE

The year 1891 was marked by an event which had a profound effect on my life. In the month of May of that year the publishing house of Hartmann went out of business.

How did it happen? What brought about this catastrophe? I asked myself these questions but could get no answer. It had seemed to me that all was going as well as could be expected with my publisher. I was utterly stupefied at hearing that all the works published by the house of Hartmann were to be put up at auction; that they would have to face the ordeal of a public sale. For me this was a most disturbing uncertainty.

I had a friend who had a vault, and I entrusted to him the orchestral score and piano score of _Werther_ and the orchestral score of _Amadis_.

He put these valueless papers beside his valuables. The scores were in ma.n.u.script.

I have already written of the fortunes of _Werther_, and perhaps I shall of _Amadis_, the text of which was by our great friend Jules Claretie of the French Academy.

As may be imagined, my anxiety was very great. I expected to see my labor of many years scattered among all the publishers. Where would _Manon_ go? Where would _Herodiade_ bring up? Who would get _Marie Magdeleine_? Who would have my _Suites d'Orchestra_? All this disturbed my muddled brain and made me anxious.

Hartmann had always shown me so much friendliness and sensitiveness in my interests, and he was, I am sure, as sorrowful as I was about this painful situation.

Henri Heugel and his nephew Paul-emile Chevalier, owners of the great firm Le Menestrel, were my saviors. They were the pilots who kept all the works of my past life from shipwreck, prevented their being scattered, and running the risks of adventure and chance.

They acquired all of Hartmann's a.s.sets and paid a considerable price for them.

In May, 1911, I congratulated them on the twentieth anniversary of the good and friendly relations which had existed between us and at the same time I expressed the deep grat.i.tude I cherish towards them.

How many times I had pa.s.sed by Le Menestrel, and envied without hostility those masters, those published, all those favored by that great house!

My entrance to Le Menestrel began a glorious era for me, and every time I go there I feel the same deep happiness. All the satisfactions I enjoy as well as the disappointments I experience find a faithful echo in the hearts of my publishers.

Some years later Leon Carvalho again became the manager at the Opera-Comique. M. Paravey's privilege had expired.

I recall this card from Carvalho the day after he left in 1887. He had erased his t.i.tle of "directeur." It expressed perfectly his sorrowful resignation:

"_My dear Master_,

"I scratch out the t.i.tle, but I retain the memory of my great artistic joys where _Manon_ holds a first place....

"What a fine diamond!

"LEON CARVALHO."

His first thought was to revive _Manon_ which had disappeared from the bills since the fire of mournful memory. This revival was in October, 1892.