Chapters of Opera / Being historical and critical observations and records concerning the lyric drama in New York from its earliest days down to the present time

by Henry Edward Krehbiel

CHAPTER VIII

THE METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE

Not the chronicler of musical doings but the historian of society should discuss the genesis of the Metropolitan Opera House, which came twenty-five years ago to displace the Academy of Music as the home of grand opera in New York. In the second of these "Chapters of Opera" I cited the Metropolitan Opera House as the last illustration of the creative impulse which springs from the growth of wealth and social ambition, and stated that it marked the decay of the old Knickerbocker régime, and its amalgamation with the newer order of society. Before this latter occurrence, however, it had become plain that the Academy of Music could not accommodate all the representatives of the two elements in fashionable society, who, for one reason or another, wished to own or occupy the boxes which were the visible sign of wealth and social position. There was no manifest dissatisfaction, either, with the Academy of Music or with the performances under the direction of Colonel Mapleson, though these were conventional enough and the dress of the operas looked particularly shabby in contrast with the new scenery and costumes at the new theater when once the rivalry had begun. The house being satisfactory, popular taste contented with the representations, and there being no evidences of insufficient room in any part of the audience room except the private boxes, it seems obvious to the merest observer from without that social and not artistic impulses led to the enterprise which produced the new establishment.

The Metropolitan Opera House was built in the summer of 1883. The corporation which built it was called the Metropolitan Opera House Company (Limited), and its leading spirits were James A. Roosevelt, the first president of the board of directors; George Henry Warren, Luther Kountze, George Griswold Haven, who remained the active head of the amusement committee from the beginning till he died last spring; William K. Vanderbilt, William H. Tillinghast, Adrian Iselin, Robert Goelet, Joseph W. Drexel, Edward Cooper, Henry G. Marquand, George N. Curtis, and Levi P. Morton. The building is bounded by Broadway, Seventh Avenue, Thirty-ninth and Fortieth Streets. About one-quarter of the space is devoted to the audience room, another quarter to the stage and accessories, and the rest to administrative offices, apartments, etc. Its cost, including the real estate, was $1,732,978.71, and so actively was the work of construction pushed that the portion of the building devoted to the opera was completed when the first performance took place on October 22, 1883. J. Cleaveland Cady, the architect, had had no previous experience in building theaters, to which fact must be ascribed a few impracticable features of the house, most of which have since been eradicated, but he had made a careful study of the plans of the most celebrated opera houses of Europe, and the patrons of the house still have cause to be grateful to him for the care with which he looked after their safety and comfort. Since then the appearance of the interior has been changed very considerably. The two tiers of boxes were where they are now, but their fronts were perpendicular, and there was no bulging curve at the proscenium. Besides the two tiers of boxes, as they exist at present, there were twelve baignoirs, six on a side at the stage ends of the parquet circle, so-called. These were found to be unprofitable, and were abolished when the house was remodeled about ten years after the opening. The decoration of the interior was intrusted to E. P. Tredwill, an architect of Boston, who followed Mr. Cady's wishes in avoiding all garish display and tawdry effect. The deepest color in the audience room was the dark, rich red of the carpet on the floor. The silk linings of the boxes and the curtains between them and the small salons in the rear were of fabrics specially made for the purpose. They had an old gold ground and large, raised figures of conventional design in a darker shade, with dark red threads. The tier fronts, ceiling, and proscenium were of a light color, the aim having been to obtain a prevailing tint of ivory. Amid the filigree designs of the pilasters, which carried the work above the curtain opening, were pictures of singing and playing cherubs, and back of the bold consoles, which projected from the side walls, were figures called "The Chorus" and "The Ballet," painted by Francis Maynard, while above the middle of the opening, in a segmentary arch, was an allegory, with Apollo as the central figure, by Francis Lathrop. Statues of the Muses filled niches on both sides of the consoles. Over the ceiling, amidst the entwinings of ornamental figures, on a buff ground, were spread a large number of medallions of oxidized metal, which, in the illumination from the lights, shone with a copper luster. The house was lighted by gas, though preparations had been made for the installation of electrical appliances when that form of illumination should be found justified by economy. As originally built, the orchestra was sunk sufficiently below the level of the floor to conceal the performers from all but the occupants of the upper tiers. In the hope of attaining improved acoustic effects the floor of the orchestra was laid upon an egg-shaped sound-chamber of masonry. The innovation did not meet with the approval of Signor Vianesi, the first musical director at the opera house, and, after an experimental rehearsal, the floor was raised so that the old conditions obtained when the performances began. So the orchestra remained, the players spoiling the picture on the stage, until "Lohengrin" came to a performance. Then Signor Vianesi was prevailed upon to try the arrangement from which Mr. Cady had expected fine artistic results. The effect was good, and the device was adhered to for a space, and in more or less modified form ever since, though there has been continual experimentation with the disposition of the instrumentalists.

Operatic performances began at the new house on October 22, 1883, and after sixty-one representations, at which nineteen operas were produced, the first season came to an end. I shall tell the story of the season in greater detail in the next chapter, contenting myself for the present with an account of the results of the merry war which ensued between the rival establishments. Colonel Mapleson was intrenched in the Academy of Music, which opened its doors for its regular season on the same evening. The advantage lay with Mr. Henry E. Abbey, who had a new house, the fruit of an old longing, and the realization of long cherished social aspirations. With the Academy of Music there rested the charm of ancient tradition, more potent then than it has ever been since, and the strength of conservatism. There were stars of rare refulgence in both constellations, which met the Biblical description in differing one from another in their glory. With Colonel Mapleson was Mme. Adelina Patti, who, in so far as she was an exponent of the art of beautiful vocalization, was without a peer the whole world over. She served then to keep alive the old traditions of Italian song as Mme. Sembrich does now. At her side stood Mme. Etelka Gerster, with a voice youthful, fresh, limpid, and wondrously flexible, and a style that was ripening in a manner that promised soon to compass all the requirements of the Italian stage from the sentimental characters in which she won her first successes to the deeper tragic parts which had begun to make appeal to her ambition. With Mr. Abbey was Mme. Christine Nilsson. Mme. Patti, though she had grown to womanhood and effected her entrance on the operatic as well as concert stage in New York, was not so familiar a figure as Mme. Nilsson. Patti had begun her operatic career at the Academy of Music in 1859, and had gone to Europe, where she remained without revisiting her old home until the fall or winter of 1881, when she came on a concert trip. The trip was more or less a failure, the public not yet being prepared to pay ten dollars for a reserved seat to hear anybody sing. After singing at a concert for the benefit of the sufferers from forest fires in Michigan, she announced a reduction of prices to two dollars for general admission, and five dollars for reserved seats. Under these conditions business improved somewhat, but in February, 1882, she found it necessary to organize an opera company in order to awaken interest fairly commensurate with her great merit and fame. It was a sorry company, and the performances, only a few, took place in the Germania Theater, on Broadway, at Thirteenth Street, formerly Wallack's; but they were received with much enthusiasm. So far as London was concerned, she was under engagement at the time to Mr. Gye, Colonel Mapleson's rival at Covent Garden. Mr. Abbey claimed that he had an option on any American engagement for opera, but she appeared next season at the Academy, and the doughty English manager held her as his trump card in the battle royal which ensued on the opening of the Metropolitan.

In the twenty years of Mme. Patti's absence from New York, Mme. Nilsson, who had come to the metropolis in the heyday of her European fame in 1870, had won her way deep into the hearts of the people. In 1883 she was no longer in her prime, neither her voice nor her art having stood the wear of time as well as those of Mme. Patti, who was six months her senior in age, and five years in stage experience, but she was more than a formidable rival in the admiration of the public. She was no less happy in the companionship of Mme. Sembrich as a junior partner than Patti was with Mme. Gerster. Both of the younger singers were fresh from their first great European successes. Three years later Mme. Gerster went back to Mme. Marchesi, her teacher, with her voice irreparably damaged. "The penalty of motherhood," said her friends; "the result of worry over the failure to hold her place in the face of opposition," said more impartial observers. Mme. Sembrich went back to Europe to continue her triumphs after disaster had overtaken her first American manager, and in a decade returned, to remain an ornament of the Metropolitan ever since.

In Mr. Abbey's ranks were also Mme. Fursch-Madi, Mme. Scalchi, Mme. Trebelli, Mme. Lablache (who gave way to her daughter till a quarrel over her between the impresarios was determined), and Mme. Valleria, who had come to the Academy some time before from London, though she was a Baltimorean by birth—a sterling artist who is remembered by all connoisseurs with gratitude and admiration. Chief among Colonel Mapleson's masculine forces was Signor Galassi, a somewhat rude but otherwise excellent barytone. At the head of the tenors was Signor Nicolini, the husband of Mme. Patti, who sang only when she did, but not always. The circumstance that Mme. Patti insisted upon his engagement, also, whenever she signed a contract gave rise to a malicious story to the effect that she had two prices, one of, let us say merely for illustration, 6,000 francs for herself alone, one of 4,000 francs for herself and Nicolini. The rest of the male contingent was composed mostly of small fry—Vicini, Perugini, and Falletti, tenors, Cherubini and Lombardini, basses, and Caracciolo, buffo. Mr. Abbey had carried off three admired men singers from the Academy—Campanini, Del Puente, and Novara—and brought an excellent barytone, Kaschmann, from Europe, and a redoubtable tenor, Stagno.

There was little to interest a public supposedly weary of the barrel-organ list in the promises made in the rival announcements. Colonel Mapleson held forth the prospect of Patti in Gounod's "Roméo et Juliette," and "Mireille" (in Italian, of course), as well as in Rossini's "La Gazza ladra," a forgotten opera then and again forgotten now; other old works which were to be revived for her and Mme. Gerster were "Crispino e la Comare," and "L'Elisir d'Amore." Mme. Pappenheim's presence as the dramatic soprano of the company (a less necessary personage in the companies of that day than now) led to the promise of "Norma" and "Oberon." Only the Italian work was given. Mr. Abbey's book of good intentions embraced twenty-four operas, all of them familiar except "La Gioconda," which had been the novelty of the preceding London season.

The outcome of the battle between the opera houses was defeat for both. The Academy of Music survived for two more campaigns, out of which the new house came triumphant, while the old went down forever. It was different with the men. Mr. Abbey retired after one season, forswearing opera, as he said, for all time; Colonel Mapleson, though defeated, was a smaller loser, and he was not only brave enough to prepare for a second encounter, but also adroit enough to persuade Mme. Patti to place herself under his guidance again. Mr. Abbey's losses have been a matter of speculation ever since. It was known at the time that he had lost all the profits of three or four other managerial enterprises, and some years ago I feared that I might be exaggerating when I set down the deficit of the Metropolitan Opera House in its first season at $300,000. As I write now, however, I have before me a letter from Mr. John B. Schoeffel, who was associated with Mr. Abbey as partner, in which he says that the losses of the season were "nearly $600,000."

[The operas performed at the Academy of Music in the season 1883-1884 were: "La Sonnambula," "Rigoletto," "Norma," "Faust," "Linda di Chamouni," "La Gazza ladra," "Marta," "La Traviata," "Aïda," "L'Elisir d'Amore," "Crispino e la Comare," and "Les Huguenots" (in Italian).]