II
There is a middle world of music that touches, on its one side, the more elevated regions of art, while, on the other, it does not lose its hold on the larger world of popular taste. This is the world of comic opera—using the term in its general sense of a stage piece with music of a lighter variety.
The American public was early taught to appreciate this form of artistic amusement; the history of opera in this country shows a continuous record of the production of such works in all the larger cities. Important agencies in the popularizing of comic opera were the early performances of the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, the brilliant seasons of French and Viennese opera at the Casino Theatre in New York, and the excellent services of the Bostonians in presenting ideally some of the most charming of the standard répertoire, besides revealing the merit of our native composers, in giving with success some of the first American comic operas to reach public hearing.
Up to the time of the Bostonians' championship of the American light opera composer there has been but an occasional performance of some work of local interest. Julius Eichberg is generally accredited with being America's first comic opera composer, his fame resting largely on a popular work entitled 'The Doctor of Alcantara' that was produced in Boston in 1862. Eichberg could be called an American composer only in that an American city happened to be the scene of his activities. There is nothing about his work to give it any special significance as American.
In fact, as we look over the entire product of our light opera composers, we are forced again to deplore the lack of a distinctive vein or local sense that would put the national seal on America's many and notable achievements in this field. Even England, whose cultivated art is almost as devoid of a national feeling as is America's, has, in the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, works of a truly national significance. Mr. Krehbiel has observed that George Ade has the requisite equipment of an American Gilbert, but that as yet there has not been found the composer who could be his Sullivan.
To assert convincingly America's claims to having contributed largely and valuably to the world's comic operas we have only to put forward these names: Reginald de Koven, Victor Herbert, and John Philip Sousa. The first name in this group is of one who is perhaps more closely identified with the comic opera stage than any other living composer. Reginald de Koven was born in 1861 at Middletown, Conn. After graduating at Oxford University in 1880 he began his career as a musician by studying in several European cities. The studies which were to bear the greatest fruit were those pursued under that master of comic opera, Suppé. On returning to America Mr. de Koven resided for some years in Chicago, where he did musical journalism and wrote the experimental scores that preceded his first and greatest success, 'Robin Hood.' Mr. de Koven's career since coming into the fame to which this work has brought him has been too familiar to need recounting. He is as well known for his songs as for his operas and his place in the lists of American lyricists is noted in Chapter XII.
If any of our younger composers of comic opera are possessed of an artistic ideal, doubtless in nine out of ten cases it is to write an opera that shall combine the sterling worth of good music with telling popular qualities in the measure that 'Robin Hood' does it. It is too late a day to write either a description or analysis of a work every page of which is familiar to the great majority of our music-loving public. It alone, of all the successes of past years, survives in the popular affection; and it is reassuring to those who fear an ultimate total depravity of taste that his work of charming grace and color can still hold the boards. 'Robin Hood' was the third opera which de Koven wrote. It was produced in 1890 by the Bostonians. Its success was not at first marked, but it did not take long for it to find its place, and it is estimated that the work now has over three thousand performances to its credit.
De Koven in this appealing work has successfully simulated the hale and hearty style of the English ballad and the idyllic simplicity of the country dance and pastoral scene. With these qualities he has combined the richer warmth of a glowing romantic melodiousness and a graceful and lilting gaiety after methods of the Viennese and French schools. Vocally stirring and effective in both its solo parts and ensembles, colorful if not brilliant in its orchestration, 'Robin Hood' is a masterpiece of its genre. Withal de Koven is always natural and spontaneously straightforward—traits that have laid him open to the accusation of persistent plagiarism. Mr. de Koven does at times employ themes that suggest other works, but this is true of many another composer whose integrity is unquestioned, and there is much truth in Mr. Hughes' designation of de Koven as 'the best abused composer in America.'
Since the success of 'Robin Hood' Mr. de Koven has been in the unfortunate position of a man attempting to repeat a success along similar lines. Once only has he made any near approach to it and that in his seventh opera, 'Rob Roy' (produced in 1894). There is in this score much of the same freshness that characterizes 'Robin Hood,' and its melodies are not too reminiscent of the earlier works. The same cannot be said of many of de Koven's other operas, for in his less inspired moments the composer's heartiness becomes a rather too square pomposity and his lighter moments often descend to a banality unworthy of his best style. The following are among the other operas of de Koven, with the dates of their productions: 'The Begum' (1887), 'Don Quixote' (1889), 'The Fencing Master' (1892), 'The Knickerbockers' (1893), 'The Algerian' (1893), 'The Tsigane' (1895), 'The Mandarin' (1896), 'The Paris Doll' (1897), 'The Highwayman' (1897).
Victor Herbert in his comic operas has contrived to write in a vein somewhat more varied than de Koven. While he has never achieved a success to equal that of 'Robin Hood,' his operas taken as a whole exhibit a more sustained power of invention and inspiration than those of de Koven. Herbert's style is more marked by piquancy and lightness, but he is not lacking in a melodic sense both charming and natural.
Herbert's style has undergone an evolution since his entrance into the comic opera field. His earlier works, such as 'The Wizard of the Nile,' 'The Serenade,' and 'The Idol's Eye,' are very simple in structure, while in some of his later works he employs an ambitious scheme that the laity are wont to identify with 'grand' opera. Some of Herbert's later scores are: 'The Red Mill,' 'Mlle. Modiste,' 'Algeria,' and 'Sweethearts.' Mr. Herbert was born in Ireland in 1859, was musically educated in Germany, and came to America at about the age of twenty-seven as solo 'cellist to the Metropolitan Opera House. His 'Americanism' is, therefore, acquired.
John Philip Sousa's fame, as is well known, is not primarily that of an opera composer. As the 'march king' Mr. Sousa's fame is as unique as it is deserved. Sousa is of German-Spanish descent. He was born in Washington in 1859. His career has been one of rich practical experience and opportunity, leading to an engagement as the leader of the United States Marine Band. In 1892 he organized the band which bears his own name and that organization has, perhaps, a more world-wide fame than any other feature of our musical life.
Mr. Sousa has been often held up as the most representative of American composers, an estimate that is not without considerable truth. An analogy has been made between the Strauss waltzes and the Sousa marches: the latter have not perhaps so much art as the former, but they are all admirable pieces of composition, solid in harmonic structure, and stirring in their melodic directness. 'The Washington Post,' 'The Liberty Bell,' 'The High School Cadets,' and 'King Cotton' have each, in turn, inspired the land with their martial vigor, while 'The Stars and Stripes Forever' has become permanent in the people's affections, being, indeed, a national anthem more eloquent in Americanism than many of the tunes that bear the official seal as such.
Sousa has written several comic operas. One only of these, 'El Capitan,' has met with success. It contains much music of an agreeable brilliancy and gracefulness, notably one of the best examples of the composer's marches. There is lacking, however, in Sousa's music a quality very essential to the rounding out of a successful opera score. We refer to the more sensuous melodic line which lends color to the sustained portions of a work. Later operas of Sousa include: 'The Bride Elect,' 'The Charlatan,' 'Chris and the Wonderful Lamp,' and 'The Glass Blowers,' and it may be added that Mr. Sousa has made several incursions into the field of more serious music, having written a symphonic poem and several other works for orchestra.
One of the most prolific composers of American light opera was Julian Edwards (1855-1910). Mr. Edwards' list of about twenty operas includes the names of several that have had remarkable success. 'Brian Boru' and 'Dolly Varden' are more than names to many. In 1904 Mr. Edwards wrote the opera 'Love's Lottery,' which served as the vehicle whereby Mme. Schumann-Heink entered the comic opera field.
Ludwig Englander and Gustav Luders are other names endeared to American comic opera lovers. Both are of foreign birth, however. The operas of the latter include 'King Dodo,' 'Grand Mogul,' and 'The Prince of Pilsen,' all works which, though neither marked by originality nor over-refined, contained enough of musical vitality to have won a place in the public esteem.
Less known writers who have from time to time added their quota to the country's enlivening and tuneful music include: G. Thorne, whose opera, 'A Maid of Plymouth,' was one of the first in the répertoire of the Bostonians; Henry Waller, the composer of 'Olgallalas,' which was also produced by the Bostonians; Carl Pflueger, who wrote '1492,' given by the Boston Cadets, an amateur organization, in one of their excellent productions; and Barnet, whose 'Jack and the Beanstalk' was also sung at one of the Cadets' 'shows.'
Several of the more serious composers have essayed the comic opera, not always successfully. George W. Chadwick's 'Tabasco,' first produced by the Boston Cadets, had a fair success when subsequently given professionally, but Edgar Stillman-Kelley's 'Puritania' and Henry Hadley's 'Nancy Brown' were decided failures. One of the recent successes was Deems Taylor's 'The Echo,' originally written as a college 'show' but achieving a long run on New York's Broadway.
Viewed in the light of present-day conditions and compared with the class of works that constitute the large part of modern musical stage-works, most of the foregoing operas may be classed as hopelessly old-fashioned and passé. The decline of comic opera commenced with the ascendency of the English 'musical comedy.' There are, it is true, many works of the latter order that contain pages of music far better than what is to be found in many of the more strictly operatic works. Such works as 'Florodora' and 'The Geisha,' as well as many later ones, have had much charm and refinement. It is the tendency of these works to abolish the romantic strain of the old-fashioned opera that constitutes its baneful influence. The play and the music have become gradually more and more divorced and to-day the musical portions of such a work have little or no bearing on the action or the scene, but consist almost entirely of topical songs introduced in much the same irrelevant manner in which they are so ingeniously brought into a vaudeville 'act.' Paraphrasing Voltaire, the majority of this degenerate class is neither musical nor comic.
This is the direction followed by our lighter musical plays of most recent times. It is to be regretted that the grace and refinement that marks many of the English musical comedies is so entirely lacking in the American imitations of the same class. A note of vulgarity insinuates itself unfailingly into the bulk of our contemporaneous popular music. Flagrant examples of the ultimate type of musical play above described are those of George M. Cohan, in whose inspiration some have seen the first manifestation of the American 'genius.' The titles of some of Mr. Cohan's plays, such as 'Yankee Doodle Boy,' 'Little Johnny Jones,' and 'George Washington, Jr.,' reveal the jingoistic qualities of his inspirations. The musical numbers of these works are expressed in terms more or less Mr. Cohan's own. He has utilized 'ragtime' largely and in the rhythmical excitement of his songs lies their strongest appeal. Other authors whose works follow generally either the Americanized form of the English musical comedy or the more distinctly native form of Mr. Cohan's 'musical shows' are: Jean Schwartz, Silvio Hein, Gus Edwards, Manuel Klein, Raymond Hubbel, and Robert H. Bowers.
It is to be hoped that there will be a return to the more legitimate forms of lighter operas and that a revival of taste for the more refined forms of stage work may soon offer again to the American composer opportunities to demonstrate the very suitable field which this branch of the art offers to his talent. An optimistic observer of present conditions may see in the unqualified vulgarity of our popular music to-day only the token of a vitality which, when softened by the refining touch of the next decade, shall result in an expression of individual charm.
B. L.