III
As we have seen in an earlier chapter, the opéra comique had developed after Boildieu into a new type, of which Auber, Hérold, Halévy, and Adam were the principal exponents. These were the men who prepared the way for the new lyric drama which grew out of the opéra comique—for the romantic opera of Gounod and Thomas. The romantic movement in French literature had, we may recall, received its impulse by Victor Hugo, whose Hernani appeared in 1829. Its influence on French music was most powerful from 1840 on. Composers of all schools yielded to it in one way or another, from Berlioz, who followed the ideals of Gluck, to Halévy, whose Jaguarita l’Indienne pictures romance in the tropics.
The direct result of this influence of literary romanticism was the creation of the drame lyrique. Yet it must not be thought that Thomas and Gounod deliberately created the drame lyrique as a distinct operatic form. Auber and others of his school had already produced operas which may justly lay claim to the titles of lyric dramas. And the earlier works of both Thomas and Gounod themselves were light in character. In fact, Thomas’ La double échelle and Le Perruquier de la Régence are opéras comique of the accepted type; and Le Caïd has received the somewhat doubtful compliment of being considered ‘a precursor of the Offenbach torrent of opéra bouffe.’ In Gounod’s Médecin malgré lui, wherein he anticipated Richard Strauss and Wolf-Ferrari in choosing a Molière comedy for operatic treatment, the composer achieved a success. Yet this opera, as well as that charming modernization of a classic legend, Philemon et Baucis, both adhere strictly to the conventional lines of opéra comique.
Gounod’s Faust remains the epochal work of his career. His Sapho (1851) never achieved popularity, but is of interest because it foreshadows his later style in its departure from tradition; in the final scene he ‘struck a note of sensuous melancholy new to French opera.’ Adam (in his capacity as a music critic) even claimed that in Sapho Gounod was trying to revive Gluck’s system of musical declamation.
In March, 1859, the first performance of Faust took place at the Théâtre Lyrique in Paris. In a manner it represents the ideal combination of the brilliant fancy, dreamy mysticism, and picturesque description that is the stuff of which romanticism is made. Goethe’s masterpiece, which had already been used operatically by Spohr, and, to mention a few among many, had also inspired Schumann, Berlioz, Liszt, and Wagner, achieved as great a success in the land of Goethe as it did in France. It was well received at its debut by the critics of the day, but its success in Paris was gradual, notwithstanding the fact that the Révue des Deux Mondes spoke of ‘the sustained distinction of style, the perfect good taste shown in every least detail of the long score, the color, supreme elegance and discreet sobriety of instrumentation which reveal the hand of a master.’ But it must be remembered that at the time of its production Rossini and Meyerbeer were still regarded as the very incarnation of music.
Gounod’s own style was essentially French, yet he had studied Mendelssohn and Schumann, and the charm of the poetic sentimentality that permeated his music was novel in French composition. For several decades Faust remained the recognized type of modern French opera, of the drame lyrique, embodying the poesy of an entire generation. The dictum ‘sensuous but not sensual,’ which applies in general to all Gounod’s work, is especially appropriate to Faust. It shows at its best his lyric genius, his ability to produce powerful effects without effort, and that languorous seduction which has been deprecated as an enervating influence in French dramatic art. In spite of elements unsympathetic to the modern musician, Faust, taken as a whole, is a work of a high order of beauty, shaped by the hand of a master. ‘Every page of the music tells of a striving after a lofty ideal.’
In Faust Gounod’s work as a creator culminates. His remaining operas repeat, more or less, the ideas of his masterpiece. The four-act Reine de Saba, given in England under the name of ‘Irene,’ contains noble pages, but was unsuccessful. Neither did Mireille (1864), founded on a libretto by the Provençal poet Mistral, nor Colombe, a light two-act operetta, win popular favor. Romeo et Juliette (1867) ranks as his second-best opera. The composer himself enigmatically expressed his opinion of the relative values of the two operas in the words: ‘“Faust” is the oldest, but I was younger; “Romeo” is the youngest, but I was older.’ Romeo et Juliette was an instant success in Paris, and was eventually transferred to the repertory of the Grand Opera, after having for some time formed part of that of the Opéra Comique. Gounod’s last operas Cinq Mars and Le Tribut de Zamora, which is in the style of Meyerbeer, were alike unsuccessful.
Gounod struck a strong personal note, and he may well be considered the strongest artistic influence in French music up to the death of César Franck. His art is eclectic, a curious mixture of naïve and refined sincerity, of real and assumed tenderness, of voluptuousness and worldly mysticism, and profound religious sentiment. The influence of ‘Faust’ was at once apparent, and its new and fascinating idiom was soon taken up by other composers, who responded to its romantic appeal.
Among these was Charles-Louis-Ambroise Thomas (1811-1896), who had already produced five ambitious operas with varying success before the appearance of Faust. But Mignon (1866) is the opera in which after Faust the transition from the opéra comique to the romantic poetry of the lyric drama is most marked. Gounod’s influence acted on Thomas like a charm. Mignon is an opera of great dramatic truth and beauty, one which according to Hanslick is ‘the work of a sensitive and refined artist,’ characterized by ‘rare knowledge of stage effects, skill in orchestral treatment, and purity of style and sentiment.’ Like Gounod, Thomas had chosen a subject by Goethe on which to write the opera which was to raise him among the foremost operatic composers of his day. Mme. Galti Marie, the creator of the title rôle, had modelled her conception of the part of the poor orphan girl upon the well-known picture by Ary Scheffer, and Mignon at once captivated the public, and remained one of the most popular operas of the second half of the nineteenth century.[103]
Again, like Gounod, Thomas turned to Shakespeare after having set Goethe. His ‘Hamlet’ (1868) was successful in Paris for a long time. And, though the music cannot match its subject, it contains some of the composer’s best work. The vocal parts are richly ornamented; the poetically conceived part of Ophelia is a coloratura rôle, such as modern opera, with the possible exception of Delibes’ Lakmé, has not produced, and the ballet music is brilliant. Françoise de Rimini (1882) and the ballet La Tempête were his last and least popular dramatic works.
Léo Delibes (1836-1891), a pupil of Adam, is widely known by his charming ballets. The ballet, which had played so important a part in eighteenth century opera, was quite as popular in the nineteenth century. If Vestris, the god of dance, had passed with the passing of the Bourbon monarchy, there were Taglioni (who danced the Tyrolienne in Guillaume Tell and the pas de fascination in Meyerbeer’s Robert le Diable), Fanny Elssler, and Carlotta Grisi, full of grace and gentility, to give lustre to the art of dancing. The ballet as an individual entertainment apart from opera was popular during the greater part of the nineteenth century, and was brought to a high perfection, best typified by the famous Giselle, written for Carlotta Grisi, on subject taken from Heinrich Heine, arranged by Théophile Gautier, and set to music by Adam. To this kind of composition Delibes contributed music of unusual charm and distinction. La Source shows a wealth of ravishing melody and made such an impression that the composer was asked to write a divertissement, the famous Pas des Fleurs to be introduced in the ballet Le Corsaire, by his old master Adam, for its revival in 1867. His ‘Coppelia’ ballet, written to accompany a pretty comedy of the same name, and the grand mythological ballet ‘Sylvia’ are considered his best and established his superiority as a composer of artistic dance music.
The music of Delibes’ operas is unfailingly tender and graceful, and his scores remain charming specimens of the lyric style. Le roi l’a dit (1873) is a dainty little work upon an old French subject, ‘as graceful and fragile as a piece of Sèvres porcelain.’ Jean de Nivelle has passed from the operatic repertory, but Lakmé is a work of exquisite charm, its music dreamy and sensuous as befits its oriental subject, and full of local color. In Lakmé and the unfinished Kassaya[104] Delibes shows an awakening to the possibilities of oriental color. Ernest Reyer’s (1823-1909) Salammbo is in the same direction; but it is Félicien David (1810-1876) who must be credited with first drawing attention to Eastern subjects as being admirably adapted to operatic treatment. He was a pupil of Cherubini, Reber[105] and Fétis, and he was for a time associated with the activity of the Saint-Simonian Socialists. Later he made a tour of the Orient from 1833 to 1835; then, returning to Paris with an imagination powerfully stimulated by his long stay in the East, he set himself to express the spirit of the Orient in music. The first performance of his symphonic ode Le Désert (1844) made him suddenly famous. It was followed by the operas Christophe Colomb, Eden, and La Perle du Brésil, which was brilliantly successful. Another great operatic triumph was the delightful Lalla Roukh which had a run of one hundred nights from May in less than a year (1862-1863). At a time when the works of Berlioz were still unappreciated by the majority of people, David succeeded in making the public take an interest in music of a picturesque and descriptive kind, and in this connection may be considered one of the pioneers of the French drame lyrique. Le Désert founded the school which counts not only Lakmé and Salammbo but also Massenet’s Le Roi de Lahore and many others among its representatives.
No French composer responded more delightfully to the orientalism of David than Georges Bizet (1838-1875) in his earlier works. His Pêcheurs de Perles (1863) tells the loves of two Cingalese pearl fishers for the priestess Leila. It had but a short run, though its dreamy melodies are enchanting. Several of its forceful dramatic scenes foreshadow the power and variety of Carmen. His second opera La jolie fille de Perth (1867), a tuneful and effective work, was based upon one of Sir Walter Scott’s novels; but in Djamileh (1872), his third opera, he returned to an Eastern subject. This was the most original effort he had thus far made, and it was thought so advanced at the time of its production, that accusations of Wagnerism—at that time anything but praise in Paris—were hurled at the composer. He was more fortunate in the incidental music he wrote for Alphonse Daudet’s drama L’Arlésienne, which is still a favorite in the concert hall.
It has been said that the quality of Bizet’s operatic work, like that of Gluck, depended in a measure on the value of his book. He was indeed fortunate in the libretto of Carmen, adapted from Prosper Merimée’s celebrated study of Spanish gypsy character, by Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, the best librettists of their day. The dramatic element in the story as written was hidden by much descriptive analysis, but by discarding this the authors produced one of the most famous libretti in the whole range of opera. Carmen was brought out at the Opéra Comique in 1875. Bizet’s occasional use of the Wagnerian leading motive was perhaps responsible for some of the coldness with which the work was originally received. Its passionate force was dubbed brutality, though we now know that it is a most fine artistic feeling which makes the score of Carmen what it is. Carmen was to Bizet what Der Freischütz was to Weber. It represents the absolute harmony of the composer with his work. In modern opera of real artistic importance it is the perfect model of the lyric song-play type, and as such it has exercised a great influence on dramatic music. It is in every way a masterpiece. The libretto is admirably concise and well balanced, the music full of a lasting vitality, the orchestration brilliant. Unhappily, only three months after its production in Paris the genial composer died suddenly of heart trouble. His early death—he was no more than thirty-seven—robbed the French school of one of its brightest ornaments, one who had infused in the drame lyrique of Gounod and Thomas the vivifying breath of dramatic truth. The later development of French operatic romanticism in Massenet and others, as well as Saint-Saëns’ revival of the classic model, are more fitly reserved for future consideration. Our present object has been to describe the development of the drame lyrique out of the older comic opera, and in a manner this culminates in Carmen.