V
The line of demarcation between grand opera and comic opera is not easy to trace. Both have run together with a promiscuity which makes it very difficult to follow the history of one as distinguished from that of the other. Le Nozze di Figaro and Il Barbiere di Siviglia go hand in hand with Fidelio and Norma; Die Meistersinger is a companion of Tristan. The convenient tendency to spread the generic name of opera over all forms of musico-dramatic expression is found in all countries and periods. It is particularly noticeable in America, where even the dignified Metropolitan Opera House found it consistent to conjoin Die Fledermaus and Der Zigeunerbaron with Parsifal and Salome.
In our general survey of opera in America we have touched on the comic opera activities which went on more or less in association with grand opera, and it only remains for us to refer briefly to the activities of such companies as devoted themselves exclusively to the lighter form of entertainment. The first of these, of course, were the French companies from New Orleans who familiarized the country with Pergolesi, Rousseau, Piccini, Cimarosa, Méhul, Grétry, Dalayrac, Boieldieu, Auber, and other masters of the light opera. Apart from the companies playing English ballad opera—a distinct genre—these were the only troupes of note which presented exclusively the lighter side of operatic art until late in the nineteenth century.
The real era of comic opera in America began about 1870 and lasted for somewhat less than twenty years. The first notable event of this period was the importation of Miss Emily Soldene and company—then the rage of London—by Messrs. Grau and Chizzola. They opened a season of opéra bouffe in English at the Lyceum Theatre, New York, in November, 1874, and played to crowded houses for several months, presenting Généviève de Brabant, Chilperic, La Fille de Madame Angot, and Madame l'Archiduc. Afterward they visited Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Boston—'beautiful, bald-headed Boston,' as Miss Soldene called it—Washington, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Chicago, Louisville, St. Louis, Houston, Galveston, and New Orleans. In 1875 Madame Aimée arrived with her French opéra bouffe company, also under the management of Messrs. Grau and Chizzola, and soon afterward came the Offenbach craze and the ill-starred visit of the composer.
Next came the vogue of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, with very fortunate results for America. The manager of the Boston Theatre was then engaged in a desperate and unsuccessful hunt for novelties and, in the extremity of his need, he appealed to his musical director. 'See here,' said the latter, 'this "Pinafore" that everybody is crazy about has been already done to death in many ways—but has it been really sung? Never! Well, then, why not get Phillips and Whitney and Barnabee and Tom Karl together and see what the piece is like, musically.'[53] The suggestion appealed to the manager and it was agreed that the proposed cast would be ideal. Hence the formation of the company known as the Boston Ideals, which produced 'Pinafore' on April 14, 1879. For all-round artistic excellence nothing like that performance had ever been given by an English-speaking company in America, nor did any opera company ever make such a success in this country as was achieved by the Boston Ideals.
Miss Soldene's troupe, it is true, was a tremendous rage, but she is frank enough to confess that its success was not exactly a triumph of pure art. Setting a precedent for all managers of musical comedy, she selected a chorus with a minimum of voice and a maximum of personal pulchritude. She was rewarded by liberal patronage from the sort of men who know the difference between a chorus girl and a show girl. The Boston Ideals, on the other hand, were a splendidly talented and efficient organization, containing some of the finest artists America had produced and inspired with a sincere enthusiasm for their work. During the six years following the production of 'Pinafore' they played 'The Sorcerer,' Boccaccio, Olivette, 'The Mascot,' 'Czar and Carpenter,' 'Bohemian Girl,' 'Chimes of Normandy,' 'The Musketeers,' 'Pirates of Penzance,' 'Patience,' 'Marriage of Figaro,' Fra Diavolo, 'The Weathercock' (their only failure), Giroflé-Girofla, Barbe-Bleue, 'Martha,' Fanchonette, Giralda, L'Elisir d'Amore, and 'Visit of the Blue Stocking.'
Subsequently the company was reorganized and, at the suggestion of Colonel Henry Watterson, was christened 'The Bostonians.' Under its new name the company lived for twenty-five years, surviving by considerable length the popularity of comic opera in America. Among the works it produced were 'The Poachers,' 'Dorothy,' Don Pasquale, Don Quixote, Mignon, 'Pygmalion and Galatea,' 'Robin Hood,' 'The Knickerbockers,' 'The Ogalallas,' 'Prince Ananias,' 'In Mexico, or a War-time Wedding,' 'The Serenade,' 'Rip Van Winkle,' 'Maid Marian,' 'Rob Roy,' 'Vice Roy,' 'The Smugglers,' 'Maid of Plymouth,' and 'Queen of Laughter.' Of these the most successful by far was De Koven's 'Robin Hood,' which the Bostonians played for twelve years without dimming the freshness of that most delightful of American light operas. Not the least valuable of the services rendered to music by the Bostonians was the opportunity they gave to young American singers. 'The Bostonians,' said Henry Clay Barnabee, 'gave the United States the most successful school for operatic study that this country has ever had, and from its ranks graduated an astonishing number of well-known singers. No other organization has done more, if as much, toward assisting American writers of opera.' A list of the well-known graduates of the Bostonians would be too long to quote, but among the familiar names may be mentioned Marie Stone, Alice Nielsen, Grace Van Studdiford, Jessie Bartlett Davis, Marcia Van Dresser, Kate Condon, Tom Karl, Joseph Sheehan, George B. Frothingham, Eugene Cowles, Allan Hinckley, and W. H. MacDonald, besides the inimitable comedian—Barnabee. The company, of course, devoted its efforts largely to Boston, New York, and other Eastern cities, but it made frequent tours west of the Mississippi, playing every city of importance between that river and the Pacific Coast.
In New York the chief purveyor of comic opera during the seventies was Maurice Grau, who had brought over Emily Soldene and Mme. Aimée and who continued to import European favorites, including the Offenbach operetta queen, Madame Théo. Rudolph Aronson, who had done some successful experimenting in concert direction, next came forward with an original scheme for a combined theatre, concert hall, restaurant, and roof garden—an American adaptation of such European institutions as the Ambassadeurs, Kroll's Garten, and the Volksgarten. With the backing of nearly all the socially and financially prominent gentlemen in New York he formed the New York Casino Company and built the Casino, a Mauresque structure which is as much in place on Broadway as Independence Hall would be in Algiers. With the operetta company of John A. McCaull, taken over from the Bijou Opera House, the Casino opened in October, 1882, presenting Johann Strauss's 'The Queen's Lace Handkerchief.' After a very successful run this operetta was taken off to make room for the Maurice Grau French Opera Company headed by Madame Théo, which gave La Jolie Parfumeuse, Romeo et Juliette, Paul et Virginie, La Fille de Madame Angot, and La Mascotte. The McCaull Opera Company, with Lillian Russell, then returned to the Casino, presenting 'The Sorcerer,' 'The Princess of Trebizond,' 'The Queen's Lace Handkerchief,' 'Prinz Methusalem,' 'The Beggar Student,' 'Merry War,' 'Polly,' 'Billie Taylor,' 'Nanon,' 'Amorita,' 'Gypsy Baron,' 'Erminie,' 'The Marquis,' 'Madelon,' 'Nadjy,' 'The Yeomen of the Guard,' 'The Brigands,' 'The Drum Major,' 'The Grand Duchess,' 'The Brazilian,' 'Madame Angot,' 'Poor Jonathan,' 'Apollo,' 'Indigo,' 'The Tyrolean,' Cavalleria rusticana, 'Uncle Celestin,' 'Child of Fortune,' 'The Vice-Admiral,' and 'The Rainmaker of Syria.' This company had become known in the meantime as the Casino Comic Opera Company. In 1886 it went on tour, playing Boston, Philadelphia, and Brooklyn, while the Casino was occupied by the Violet Cameron Opera Company from London. The latter presented 'The Commodore' and 'Kenilworth' with little success. In 1892 Mr. Aronson decided to change the policy of the Casino and to produce there lighter works of the best French and German operatic schools. While he was in Europe the directors of the Casino decided to turn the house into a music hall on the style of the Empire and the Alhambra in London.
By this time, however, comic opera had lost its hold on the fickle affections of the American people and frequent efforts to revive interest in it since then have met with no more than the success of a temporary curiosity. Much of the decline in the popularity of comic opera was due to the rise of the English musical comedy, beginning with 'Florodora' and 'The Belle of New York.' Except for occasional excursions into Orientalism, like 'The Geisha' and 'San Toy,' musical comedy rapidly ran into a set type of 'girl' show invariably characterized by inanity of plot, mediocrity of text and music, and a lavish display of feminine charms. For a time the success of Lehàr's 'Merry Widow' induced a vogue of Viennese light opera, of which traces still exist, and occasional revivals de luxe of 'Erminie,' 'Robin Hood,' and the Gilbert and Sullivan operas aroused temporary interest. But since the old Casino days there has been no public in New York for comic opera and in that respect the fashion of New York has been followed by the rest of the country. No comic opera which has come before the public on its own merits and without the support of some such stimulus as the 'Soul Kiss' waltzes of the new Viennese school, has been able to win any measure of success. An instance may be cited in the complete failure of 'Veronique.' Attempts to reach a public educated above the musical attractions of the ordinary theatres have been no more fruitful. Oscar Hammerstein made a gallant and costly effort with French comic opera at the Manhattan and the Metropolitan followed his good example more eclectically at the New Theatre (now the Century). In neither case was New York interested. Even when the indomitable and persevering Mr. Hammerstein shifted to Broadway and to the vernacular, his productions of 'Hans the Flute Player' and 'The Firefly,' flavored with the sauce piquante of Emma Trentini, failed to stimulate a lasting appetite in the New York theatre-goers. Andreas Dippel opened a series of comic opera productions in the season of 1914-15. How far and how successfully his plans will mature remains to be seen. But so far the lethargy of the public toward comic opera has triumphantly resisted every attempt to rouse it and the prospects of the enterprising impresario in that field are far from encouraging. The trouble seems to lie deeper than mere indifference to a particular genre of musical entertainment. It is presumably symptomatic of a general apathy toward good music, or rather of a general lack of intelligent æsthetic appreciation. That the faculty of intelligent æsthetic appreciation is somewhat rudimentary in the average American of to-day is a fact that the unbiased observer can hardly escape.
W. D. D.
FOOTNOTES:
[52] 'The Beginning of Grand Opera in Chicago,' 1913.
[53] See 'Reminiscences of Henry Clay Barnabee,' Boston, 1913.
CHAPTER VIII
INSTRUMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES
The New York Philharmonic Society and other New York orchestras—Orchestral organizations in Boston—The Theodore Thomas orchestra of Chicago; Orchestral music in Cincinnati—The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra—Orchestral music in the West; the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra—Chamber music ensembles—Visiting orchestras.