IV
It must be confessed that the evolution of opera in New York has been determined more by social than by artistic factors, and a history of New York society would be almost a necessary background for a complete narrative of its operatic development. Here it is necessary to mention that the Vanderbilt ball of 1882 marked the culmination of a social revolution in New York. During the early years of the nineteenth century there was an absolute ascendancy of that social element which is known by the name of Knickerbocker. It was composed, in the main, of old families with certain undeniable claims to birth, breeding, and culture. They constituted a caste which was not without distinction. But about 1840, with the rapid material development of the country, began the influx of a new element armed for assault on the social citadel with the powerful artillery of wealth. Gradually this new element widened a breach in the rampart of exclusiveness which the Knickerbocker caste had built around itself, and at the above-mentioned Vanderbilt ball the citadel finally surrendered. The effect on the operatic situation was immediate. There was not sufficient accommodation in the Academy for the newly amalgamated forces, and a box at the opera was, of course, a necessary badge of social distinction. Consequently, in 1883, the Metropolitan Opera House Company (Limited) was formed by a number of very prominent gentlemen for a purpose sufficiently indicated by its title. The very prominent gentlemen were James A. Roosevelt, George Henry Warren, Luther Kountze, George Griswold Haven, William K. Vanderbilt, William H. Tillinghast, Adrian Iselin, Robert Goelet, Joseph W. Drexel, Edward Cooper, Henry G. Marquard, George N. Curtis, and Levi P. Morton. This, financially speaking, impressive list is important because it helps us to understand the true nature of the enterprise upon which these gentlemen embarked.[47]
The Metropolitan Opera House was leased for the season of 1883 to Mr. Henry E. Abbey and was opened on October 22 with Gounod's Faust. In the cast on the opening night were Mesdames Nilsson and Scalchi and Signor Campanini, while Signor Vianesi acted as musical director. The season lasted until December 22, with regular subscription performances on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings and Saturday afternoons. Two performances missed from the regular subscription series were given after the return of the company from a trip to Boston on January 9 and 11. A spring season, begun on March 10, lasted until April 12. The operas given between October 22 and April 12, with order of their production, were: Gounod's Faust (in Italian), Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, Verdi's Il Trovatore, Bellini's I Puritani, Thomas's Mignon, Verdi's La Traviata, Wagner's Lohengrin (in Italian), Bellini's La Sonnambula, Verdi's Rigoletto, Meyerbeer's Robert le Diable (in Italian), Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Mozart's Don Giovanni, Boïto's Mefistofele, Ponchielli's La Gioconda, Bizet's Carmen, Thomas's 'Hamlet,' Flotow's 'Martha,' and Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots and Le Prophète. Apart from Mme. Nilsson and Signor Campanini, the principal artists engaged were Marcella Sembrich—probably the greatest coloratura soprano since Patti—who afterward became very familiar to New Yorkers; Mme. Fursch-Madi, a French contralto, who had already sung in New Orleans; and M. Capoul, French tenor, who had appeared at the Academy under Maurice Strakosch in 1871. The company gave fifty-eight performances in Brooklyn, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Washington, and Baltimore. Mr. Abbey's losses on the season have been estimated at more than $500,000. He had no ambition to undertake another one.
Colonel Mapleson, in the meantime, was holding on at the Academy, where he still retained Patti as the chief attraction, assisted by the fresh-voiced Etelka Gerster, then on the threshold of her career, Mme. Pappenheim, whom we have already met in German opera, Signor Nicolini,[48] a mediocre tenor, and Signor Galassi, a good baritone.
During this season, also, there occurred under his management the American operatic début of Mrs. Norton-Gower, afterward known as Mme. Nordica. The operas performed were Bellini's La Sonnambula and Norma, Rossini's La Gazza ladra, Donizetti's L'Elisir d'amore and Linda di Chamouni, the Ricci brothers' Crispino e la Comare, Gounod's Faust, Flotow's Martha, Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots, and Verdi's La Traviata, Rigoletto and Aïda.
In 1884 Leopold Damrosch submitted to the directors of the Metropolitan a proposition for a season of German opera under his management, and, faute de mieux, the directors acceded. Dr. Damrosch secured a very strong company, including Amalia Materna, who, in Bayreuth, had created the part of Kundry in Parsifal; Marianne Brandt, also known in Bayreuth; Marie Schroeder-Hanfstängel of the Frankfort Opera, a pupil of Mme Viardot-García and the chief coloratura singer of the company; Auguste Seidl-Krauss, wife of Anton Seidl, then conductor of the Stadt Theater in Bremen, and Anton Schott, a tenor of considerable reputation in Wagnerian rôles, whose explosive methods led von Bülow to describe him as a Militärtenor—ein Artillerist. The list of operas given included Wagner's Tannhäuser, Beethoven's Fidelio, Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots, Weber's Der Freischütz, Rossini's 'William Tell,' Wagner's Lohengrin, Mozart's Don Giovanni, Meyerbeer's Le Prophète, Auber's La Muette de Portici, Verdi's Rigoletto, Halévy's La Juive, and Wagner's Die Walküre. It is not surprising that the season was a pronounced success. The receipts up to the middle of January were double those of the corresponding period in the previous year, though the prices had been reduced considerably. But the season was brought to a tragic close and the cause of German opera in New York was set back many years by the unexpected death of Dr. Damrosch on February 15, 1885.
During the previous year a season of Italian opera had been given at the Star Theatre by James Barton Key and Horace McVicker with the Milan Grand Opera Company, recruited from Italian singers who had been stranded by the failure of operatic ventures in Mexico and South America. The only interesting feature of the season was the production of Il Guarany, a Spanish-American opera by Señor Gomez. Colonel Mapleson started his seventh season at the Academy on November 10, 1884. He still retained Patti and had annexed Scalchi and Fursch-Madi from Abbey's disbanded forces, but his season presented nothing of interest while it gave every evidence that his operatic reign in New York was drawing to a close. The season of 1885-86 was his last with the exception of a short attempt in 1896. He had lost Patti but he still presented a strong company, which included Alma Fohström, Minnie Hauck, and Mlle. Felia Litvinoff, better known as Madame Litvinne. The season ended in a dismal failure after twelve evening and four afternoon performances. With the exception of Carmen, Fra Diavolo, and L'Africaine there was no variation from the stereotyped program of which New York must have been intensely sick. During a short return engagement, however, Mapleson's company gave Massenet's Manon for the first time in America (Dec. 23, 1885).
A very much better showing was made by the German company, which gave a season during the same time at the Thalia Theatre under the management of Gustav Amberg and the conductorship of John Lund, a chorus master and assistant conductor under Dr. Damrosch at the Metropolitan. The repertory included Der Freischütz, Adam's Le Postilion de Lonjumeau, Nicolai's Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor, Victor Nessler's Trompeter von Säkkingen, and Maillart's Les Dragons de Villars Germanized as Das Glöckchen des Eremiten. A light program, of course, but very refreshing. During the same season an American opera company made a loud attempt to do something, but it blew up with a bad odor of scandal before it went very far. Its artistic director was Theodore Thomas, and during its short existence it gave Goetz's 'Taming of the Shrew,' Gluck's Orpheus, Wagner's Lohengrin, Mozart's 'Magic Flute,' Nicolai's 'Merry Wives of Windsor,' Delibes' 'Lakmé',' Wagner's 'Flying Dutchman,' and Massé's 'Marriage of Jeanette'; Delibes' ballet 'Sylvia' was also performed. Considering this fine start, it is a very great pity the American Opera Company could not keep its head straight.
After the death of Dr. Damrosch the directors of the Metropolitan sent Edmund C. Stanton and Walter Damrosch to Europe to organize a company for a second season of German opera. The result was perhaps the finest operatic organization New York had yet seen. It included Lilli Lehmann, the greatest of all Wagnerian sopranos; Marianne Brandt, Emil Fischer, the inimitable 'Hans Sachs,' Auguste Seidl-Krauss, and Max Alvary, who set the matinee-idol fashion in operatic tenors. Anton Seidl was conductor and Walter Damrosch assistant conductor. The operas produced were Wagner's Lohengrin, Die Walküre, Tannhäuser, Die Meistersinger, and Rienzi, Meyerbeer's Der Prophet, Bizet's Carmen, Gounod's Faust, and Goldmark's Die Königin von Saba.
In the fall of 1885 there was a short season at the Academy of Music by the Angelo Grand Italian Opera Company. Angelo was a graduate of the luggage department of Mapleson's organization. His season lasted two weeks, during which he presented Verdi's Luisa Miller, I Lombardi, Un Ballo in Maschera, and I due Foscari, as well as Petrella's Ione. The American Opera Company, in the meantime, had been reorganized as the National Opera Company, which, still under the directorship of Theodore Thomas, gave performances in English at the Academy, the Metropolitan, and in Brooklyn. Among the interesting features of their program were Rubinstein's Nero, Goetz's Der Widerspenstigen Zähmung, Delibes' Lakmé, and a number of ballets, including Delibes' Coppelia. In the spring of 1887 Madame Patti appeared at the Metropolitan in a 'farewell' series of six operas under the management of Henry E. Abbey. She continued to make 'farewell' appearances for over twenty years.
The most notable features of the Metropolitan season of 1886-87 were the productions of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, Beethoven's Fidelio, Goldmark's Merlin, and Brüll's Das goldene Kreuz. Notable, also, was the appearance of Albert Niemann, histrionically the greatest of all Tristans.[49] The season of 1887-88 saw the production of Wagner's Siegfried and Götterdämmerung, besides Nessler's Der Trompeter von Säkkingen, Weber's Euryanthe, and Spontini's Ferdinand Cortez. There were two consecutive representations of the entire Ring des Nibelungen during the season of 1888-89, the only novelty being Das Rheingold. Der fliegende Holländer, Un Ballo in Maschera, Norma, and Cornelius's Der Barbier von Bagdad were added to the list in his season of 1889-90.
Outside the Metropolitan there was a season of German opera at the Thalia Theatre in 1887, the prima donna being Frau Herbert-Förster, the wife of Victor Herbert. The list of operas offered was commonplace. In 1888 the National Opera Company, without Theodore Thomas but with a distinguished tenor in Barton McGuckin, gave a short and unsuccessful season at the Academy of Music. A notable event of the same year was the first performance in America of Verdi's Otello by a company brought from Italy by Italo Campanini. The enterprise failed, partly owing to the incompetence of the tenor, Marconi, who was cast for the title rôle, and partly owing to the fact that New Yorkers, for some peculiar reason, seem constitutionally incapable of appreciating Verdi in his greatest and least conventional works. Eva Tetrazzini, sister of the more famous Luisa, was the Desdemona of the occasion.
The only performance of Italian opera in New York during the season of 1888-89 was a benefit for Italo Campanini at which he appeared with Clémentine de Vère in Lucia di Lammermoor. During the season of 1889-90 some performances of opera in English were given by the Emma Juch Opera Company at Oscar Hammerstein's Harlem Opera House, which was also the scene of a short postlude to the Metropolitan season by a company conducted by Walter Damrosch and including Lilli Lehmann. The Metropolitan in the meantime was occupied by a very strong Italian company under the management of Henry E. Abbey and Maurice Grau. The company included Patti, Albani, Nordica, and Tamagno,[50] with Arditi and Romualdo Sapio as conductors. Tamagno's presence meant, of course, the production of Otello, and this was the only interesting feature of the repertory. Patti was still singing a 'farewell' in the old hurdy-gurdy list.
The season of 1890-91 proved to be the end of German opera at the Metropolitan for some years. Der fliegende Holländer, Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, the Ring operas (except Das Rheingold), Tristan und Isolde, and Die Meistersinger, Beethoven's Fidelio, Cornelius's Der Barbier von Bagdad, Bizet's Carmen, and Meyerbeer's Le Prophète, Les Huguenots, and L'Africaine were chosen from the regular repertory, while the novelties were Alberto Franchetti's Asraël, Anton Smareglia's Der Vasall von Szigeth, and Diana von Solange by His Royal Highness Ernest II, duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. The two first-named novelties were of slight account, while the last-named was so trivial as to lend color to the innuendos that the justly famed liberality of His Royal Highness in the matter of decorations was being exercised for the benefit of some persons not unknown at the Metropolitan.