My Recollections Part 23

I have spoken of the extreme joy I experienced in writing _Sapho_, an opera in five acts. Henri Cain and dear Arthur Bernede had ably contrived the libretto.

Never before had the rehearsals of a work seemed more enrapturing. The task was both easy and agreeable with such excellent artists.

While the rehearsals were going on so well, my wife and I went to dine one evening at Alphonse Daudet's. He was very fond of us. The first proofs had been laid on the piano. I can still see Daudet seated on a cushion and almost brushing the keyboard with his handsome head so delightfully framed in his beautiful thick hair. It seemed to me that he was deeply moved. The vagueness of his short sightedness made his eyes still more admirable. His soul with all its pure, tender poetry spoke through them.

It would be difficult to experience again such moments as my wife and I knew then.

As they were about to begin the first rehearsals of _Sapho_, Danbe, who had been my friend since childhood, told the musicians in the orchestra what an emotional work they were to play.

Finally, the first performance came on November 27, 1897.

The evening must have been very fine, for the next day the first mail brought me the following note:

_My dear Ma.s.senet:_

I am happy at your great success. With Ma.s.senet and Bizet, _non omnis moriar_.

Tenderly yours, ALPHONSE DAUDET.

I learned that my beloved friend and famous collaborator had been present at the first performance, at the back of a box, although he had stopped going out save on rare occasions.

His appearance at the performance touched me all the more.

One evening I decided to go to the playhouse, in the wings, and I was shocked at Carvalho's appearance. He was always so alert and carried himself so well, but now he was bent and his eyes were bloodshot behind his blue gla.s.ses. Nevertheless his good humor and gentleness toward me were the same as ever.

His condition could but cause me anxiety.

How true my sad presentiments were!

My poor director was to die on the third day.

Almost at the same time I learned that Daudet, whose life had been so admirably rounded out, had heard his last hour strike on the clock of time. Oh mysterious, implacable Timepiece! I felt one of its sharpest strokes.

Carvalho's funeral was followed by a considerable crowd. His son burst into sobs behind his funeral car and could scarcely see. Everything in that sad, impressive procession was painful and heartrending.

Daudet's obsequies were celebrated with great pomp at Sainte Clotilde.

_La Solitude_ from _Sapho_ (the entr'acte from the fifth act) was played during the service after the chanting of the _Dies Irae_.

I was obliged to make my way almost by main force through the great crowd to get into the church. It was like a hungry, eager reflection of that long line of admirers and friends he had during his lifetime.

As I sprinkled holy water on the casket, I recalled my last visit to the Rue de Bellecha.s.se where Daudet lived. I had gone to give him news of the theater and carried him sprays of eucalyptus, one of the trees of the South he adored. I knew what intense pleasure that would give him.

Meanwhile _Sapho_ went on its way. I went to Saint Raphael, the country where Carvalho had liked to live.

I relied on an apartment which I had engaged in advance, but the landlord told me that he had let it to two ladies who seemed very busy.

I started to hunt another lodging when I was called back. I learned that the two who had taken my rooms were Emma Calve and one of her friends.

The two ladies doubtless heard my name mentioned and changed their itinerary. However, their presence in that place so far from Paris showed me that our _Sapho_ had necessarily suspended her run of performances.

What whims will not one pardon in such an artiste?

I learned that in two days everything was in order again at the theater in Paris. Would that I had been there to embrace our adorable fugitive!

Two weeks later I learned from the papers in Nice that Albert Carre had been made manager of the Opera-Comique. Until then the house had been temporarily under the direction of the Beaux-Arts.

Who would have thought that it would have been our new manager who would revive _Sapho_ considerably later with that beautiful artiste who became his wife. But it was she who incarnated the Sapho of Daudet with an unusually appealing interpretation.

Salignac, the tenor, had a considerable success in the role of Jean Gaussin.

At the revival Carre asked me to interweave a new act, the act of the Letters, and I carried out the idea with enthusiasm.

_Sapho_ was also sung by that unusual artiste Mme. Georgette Leblanc, later the wife of that great man of letters Maeterlinck.

Mme. Brejean-Silver also made this role an astonishingly lifelike figure.

How many other artists have sung this work!

The first opera put on under the new management was Reynaldo Hahn's _L'Ile de Reve_. He dedicated that exquisite score to me. That music is pervading for it was written by a real master. What a gift he has of wrapping us in warm caresses!

That was not the case with the music of some of our confreres. Reyer found it unbearable and made this image-raising remark about it:

"I just met Gretry's statue on the stairs; he had enough and fled."

That brings to mind another equally witty sally which du Locle made to Reyer the day after Berlioz's death,

"Well, my dear fellow, Berlioz has got ahead of you."

Du Locle could permit himself this inoffensive joke for he was Reyer's oldest friend.

I find this word from the author of _Louise_ whom I knew as a child in my cla.s.ses at the Conservatoire and who always felt a family affection for me:

Midnight, New Year's Eve.

_Dear Master_:

Faithful remembrance from your affectionate on the last day which ends with _Sapho_ and the first hour of the year which will close with _Cendrillon_.

GUSTAVE CHARPENTIER.

_Cendrillon_ did not appear until May 24, 1899. These works presented one after another, at more than a year's interval however, brought me the following note from Gounod:

"A thousand congratulations, my dear friend, on your latest fine success. The devil! Well, you go at such a pace one can scarcely keep up with you."

As I have said, the score of _Cendrillon_, written on a pearl from that casket of jewels "Les Contes de Perrault," had been finished a long time. It had yielded its turn to _Sapho_ at the Opera-Comique. Our new director Albert Carre told me that he intended to give _Cendrillon_ at the first possible chance, but that was six months away.

I was staying at Aix-les-Bains in remembrance of my father who had lived there, and I was deep in work on _La Terre Promise_. The Bible furnished a text and I got out an oratorio of three acts. As I said, I was deep in the work when my wife and I were overcome by the terrible news of the fire at the Charity Bazaar. My dear daughter was a salesgirl.

We had to wait until evening before a telegram arrived and ended our intense alarm.