[to be continued.]
[MYSTERIES OF STAGE SCENERY.]
BY W. J. HENDERSON.
You have taken off your overcoat and made yourself as comfortable as possible in an angular little folding-chair that never was intended to give any human being a minute's comfort. The orchestra has crashed through the last measures of the overture. The footlights are turned up; the auditorium lights are turned down; the curtain rises. You see a beautiful valley, winding away among very purple mountains till it loses itself in the crimson of the glowing sunset. The sky is as luminous as if it were nature itself, and you are almost tempted to believe that the rear wall of the theatre has been removed, and that you are looking out at something real. Presently you notice a few soft fleecy clouds drifting across the sky. The crimson fades gradually, and the pale gray of a brief twilight follows. The sky grows darker and darker, and presently you see the twinkle of a single star, then another and another. And now a gentle greenish glow begins to pervade the scene. It increases in power till the stage is flooded with the bright refulgence of a summer moon. The whole thing is beautifully managed, and is most realistic.
MAKING THE FIRE IN THE LAST SCENE OF "DIE WALKÜRE."
Calciums, Cloud-machine, Lycopodium Torch, Red Fire, and Steam-box in Operation.
But after a time the moonlight fades out, and leaves behind it a threatening gloom. A dull distant peal of thunder proclaims the approach of a storm. There is a flash of lightning. The storm breaks. Peal upon peal of crashing thunder rends the sky. The wind howls and shrieks, and the sharp cut of the driving rain is distinctly heard. The curtain falls at the end of the act, and you rub your eyes and wonder if you have been dreaming or have really seen these things on a wooden stage.
The next act shows a scene in the forest, and as the sunlight filters through the rustling leaves, the dancing shadows on rock and trunk are plainly seen. Again the scene changes. This time it is a fire. The stage is filled with flames and smoke and the crash of falling timbers. You are almost tempted to believe that the house is really afire. But the same old curtain comes down at the end, and only a strong smell of powder reminds you of what you have seen. In the last act of this surprising play the hero and heroine, converted into disembodied spirits, go to the heavenly regions on a winged horse; and you see them, glowing with supernatural light, go flying across the deep blue sky. You leave the theatre in a state of wonder.
How is it all done?
Of course I have been imagining a play in which many different effects were combined; but nevertheless you have seen these illusions, though not all in the same play.
Spectral appearances are often managed nowadays with a stereopticon. For instance, in Siegfried there is a scene in the forest in which the music of the opera is supposed to depict the rustling of the leaves. In order to heighten the effect of this scene it is customary to produce the illusion of the flickering of the sunlight caused by the waving foliage. This is done by means of movable glasses, something like the arrangement of a kaleidoscope without the variety of colors. The white light is thrown through these moving glasses, and the audience sees the waving shadows, as if caused by sunlight filtering through wind-shaken leaves. In the last act of Die Walküre the sisters of Brünnhilde are heard coming through the air to their customary place of assembly to the wild measures of the "Ride of the Valkyries." It is also necessary that they should be seen. This necessity is fulfilled by the stereopticon. A picture of a Valkyr maid mounted on her steed is thrown on the dark drop-curtain at the back of the stage, and is made to pass from the upper left-hand corner down to the lower right-hand corner. By keeping the power of the light at a moderate pitch, the picture is prevented from being too hard and definite. Again, when the sisters, fleeing before the angry Wotan, depart in a body, a picture representing the group passes from the lower right-hand corner to the upper left-hand corner, while the stormy music of the "Ride" dies away. The effect is very fine indeed.
In the Flying Dutchman there is a view of the sea in the first scene, and a gale of wind is supposed to be blowing. The audience sees thin, gray, filmy scud scurrying across the sky from the beginning of the scene until the gale ends. This is also a stereopticon effect, and is produced by passing properly painted glasses across the opening of the lens. These few instances will give the reader some idea of the part which the stereopticon now plays in the illusions of the stage. It cannot be said that the results are always satisfactory, and, no doubt, in the course of time a better plan will be introduced.
One of the most familiar and beautiful effects produced upon the stage is the change from day to night or from night to day. The former, owing to the conditions surrounding stage illusions, is the more striking, and is that most frequently seen. In order to produce this effect the rearmost piece of scenery is a "drop," which is made about double the height of the ordinary scenes. This drop is painted to represent sky. The lower half is colored with the bright tints of the sunset, and these gradually blend in the middle of the drop into the subdued shades of a moonlit night. Sometimes the setting sun itself is shown, and this is effected by cutting a circular hole in the drop, pasting a piece of red muslin over the back of it, and putting a light behind it. The drop is now hung so that the lower half alone is visible. Now the scenery of the distance is painted upon a separate piece, which is "profiled"—that is, the irregular line made by trees, houses, mountains, etc., is cut out with a circular saw. This profile piece is set about four feet in front of the sky drop. Some six or eight feet further toward the front is hung what is called a cut-gauze drop, though this is sometimes omitted, especially if the view at the rear embraces an expanse of water. If it is woods, however, the cut-gauze drop is always used. This drop has sides and a top of canvas, painted as the case requires. The open central part is filled with stout gauze netting, which gives a charming aerial effect to the distance.
Now all is ready for the sunset except the lights, which are arranged thus: Behind the profile a row runs across the stage to throw its light on the lower part of the sky drop. The top part is illuminated by the border lights. A similar arrangement is made in front of the profile, while the foreground depends for its light on the borders and footlights. In all new theatres these are electric lights in three circuits. One circuit consists of lights with white globes, another red, and the third green. For broad daylight effects the white are used. In the scene we are describing, beginning with sunset, the red circuit is turned on. Calcium-lights with red glasses are stationed at the sides of the stage, and thus the whole scene is suffused with a glow of red light. The change from sunset to moonlight is effected by slowly and imperceptibly lowering the sky drop. As the sun disappears behind the distant hills the red "mediums," as they are called, are turned off and the green ones gradually turned on. When the night sky has fairly got down to its place the green mediums are all turned on at full force, and green glasses are placed in front of the calciums. The stage appears now to be flooded with moonlight. Of course the moon cannot be shown, for it would naturally be too far toward the audience. I was once in a theatre where the sun went down behind a mountain, and in half a minute the moon rose in the very same place. And the strangest part of it was that the audience did not pay any attention to this astounding freak of nature.
BEHIND THE SCENES.
Man up in the Flies producing flickering Sunlight.
The change from moonlight to sunrise is, of course, effected by simply reversing the process just described. Either one of these changes may be rendered more effective by certain additions. For instance, in the sunset part of the drop all the spaces between the clouds may be cut out. Muslin is then pasted over these openings, and is painted to represent the sky between the clouds. By placing lights behind this muslin a beautiful transparent sky is produced, and by gradually changing the color and intensity of the light as the sun goes down the appearance of the scene is made very realistic. This method is seldom employed, except in plays in which the scenic effects are an important element. A moonlit river is made also by cutting out the canvas, putting in muslin, and lighting it from the rear.
Moonrise is produced with a sky drop, cut out between the clouds, as in the case of the sunset just described, and a "moon-box." This moon-box is simply a box with a circular hole cut in one side of it. Over this hole is pasted a piece of white muslin, and inside the box is a light. The box is placed behind the muslin sky drop, with the hole against the drop. The light is turned on, and the moon is drawn slowly upward by wires. Of course the illuminated face of the moon shows through the muslin, and disappears when it passes behind the thick canvas clouds. By having another piece of muslin painted red, and imperceptibly fading to white in its upper part, the orb of night can be made to appear red at the horizon, and gradually change to pale yellow as it floats upward, just as it does on a summer night. A few floating clouds may be added to the general effect by hanging in front of the sky drop a gauze drop with a few muslin clouds sewn on it, and moving the whole slowly. These matters charm the eye and create an illusion when they are skilfully managed.
I spoke of a moonlit river. Sometimes you see in the theatre a river or a bay which does not simply lie calmly luminous under the rays of the stage moon, but which sparkles with dancing ripples. This is a very pretty stage effect, and is by no means difficult to produce. The position of the moon having been determined, the next thing is to make what Mr. Howard Pyle so gracefully describes as the "moon path." Beginning at the upper edge of the water, a number of irregular holes are cut in the scene. These are then covered on the back with muslin, and the whole is painted over to represent water. Behind these holes is placed an endless sheet of canvas, passing around two cylinders of wood, one at the top and the other at the bottom. The lower cylinder has a crank by which the sheet is turned. In the sheet are cut a number of holes similar to those in the scene. A strong light is now placed between the two sides of the sheet. When the crank is turned the flashing of the light from the moving holes in the sheet through the stationary ones in the scene produces a fine ripple. It is necessary to turn the crank so that the front part of the sheet is always ascending, because in this way the holes through which the light flows pass upward, and that makes the mimic waves seem to dance upward toward the sky. Sometimes the man who turns the crank becomes tired, and the audience is surprised to see the ripples go by fits and starts. For this reason an electric motor is better, or a steam attachment, if such a thing can be had in the theatre. The moonlit sky above the waters may be improved by the addition of a few twinkling stars, and these are easily enough produced by hanging large spangles on bent pins. The slightest tremor of the drop will cause them to shake, and the flashing of the light which they reflect produces the illusion of twinkling.
[STUDYING TO BE MUSICIANS.]
Some agreeable writer, whose name I have forgotten, said that there was no art which had so many devotees as music, and none of which there was such widespread ignorance. If I should say that there must be in the city of New York not less than 50,000 girls engaged in learning how to play upon the piano, I should perhaps astonish some of the readers of this paper, yet it is my firm belief that these figures are much too small. Such institutions as the National Conservatory of Music and the New York College of Music have each from 600 to 800 piano students, and there are some thirty smaller conservatories in the city. The number of private pupils is enormous, and one often wonders whether it can be possible that Americans are so fond of music that every family contains a student. The truth is, however, that nine-tenths of the girls who study the piano—I had almost said study music, but they do not do that—are actuated not by a love of music, but simply by a desire to possess an accomplishment. These young women are quite contented if they can acquire sufficient technical skill to perform a few brilliant, showy pieces in such a manner as to surprise their friends. There are a few, of course, who learn to play the piano because they are really fond of music, and desire to be able to give themselves artistic pleasure. And there are a few others who are studying seriously in the hope of becoming fine artists, capable of delighting the public, or, at the worst, of becoming professors in conservatories. Even then they are not much worse off than the great artists of the concert stage, for it is only once in a generation that a man like Paderewski arises, who can earn hundreds of thousands of dollars. Most of the noted pianists are compelled to teach in order to make a living, for concert engagements are not numerous. Their devotion to their art is the result of a deep and absorbing love for it, which must be its own reward.
Life in the music schools of New York is by no means as picturesque as life in the art schools, so charmingly described by Mr. Ralph; but it is interesting, and it has a remarkable jargon of its own, quite unintelligible to the non-musical person. The girls—the boy students are very few—flock to the New York schools from the entire surrounding country. Every morning train brings them from Newark, Paterson, Elizabeth, Yonkers, Tarrytown, Nyack, Greenwich, and other outlying towns and cities, where, indeed, good teachers may often be found, but not the advantage of conservatory systems. The New York girls come in street cars, in carriages with liveried coachmen, and on foot, for the students are of all classes. It is an inspiriting sight to see them trooping in on a stormy winter morning, with their heavy wraps, their snow-covered furs, their stout overshoes, their arms full of music, their cheeks full of roses, and their eyes dancing with the glow of exercise. Then there is the usual chatter about the lessons as they assemble in the waiting-room.
"Oh, I don't believe I shall ever manage that queer passage in the bass—the one where the chord of five notes is, don't you know?"
"Yes, I had that sonata last year; but, my dear, it's child's play to the Schumann piece I have now."
"Oh, dear!" says another, drearily, "I do wish that Bach had never lived. I'm sure I can't see anything pretty in his eternal fugues."
"Well, I don't think they're any worse than these Deppe two-finger exercises."
"Wait till you begin counterpoint, dear," says another, consolingly.
And then the bell strikes, and off they all go, still chattering, to the various class-rooms or lesson-rooms. A few minutes later the conservatory becomes a dreadful babel of confused sounds. Down in the basement some one is groaning out an organ fugue by Thiele, with a great clattering of heels on the pedals. On the first floor the sight-reading class is droning angularly a part song by Weinzierl in the large room, while in the apartment next to them the "gold medal" pupil is pounding Schumann's Etudes Symphoniques into sounding brass without any tinkling of cymbals. Upstairs one young woman is pursuing the uneven sopranos of her way up and down the scale, a boy is playing a violin étude in several kinds of pitch, and a dozen girls are hammering out their semi-weekly allowance of Bach, Beethoven, Weber, Mozart, and Chopin all at once. The teachers—German, Polish, Russian, French, Italian, occasionally American—sit, stand, or pace the floor, according to their temperaments, and correct, guide, and urge gently or excitably as the case may be.
"No, my dear, the accent on the second beat, and the pedal taken after it, and held over to the first beat of the next bar."
"Ach! You, dere! You play mit your knuckle! Vat is dat? Bay, bay; hit de bay!"
"Ah, mon enfant! You sing wiz ze troat vide oppen, so—ba-a-a-ah. Is it not? Vell, I vish you sing viz ze glottis a lettle pinch, so—bu-u-u-uh. Now, sing."
And the unhappy pupil closes her throat up, as if she had a sort of artistic croup, and tries to force her voice through by main strength. In the mass of pupils in the conservatory there are always twenty or thirty who are studying seriously, with the hope of making artistic careers for themselves. These do not simply study the pianos or singing; they study music, which is a vastly more laborious undertaking. For once a week there is the lesson in harmony, which is one of the driest and most discouraging topics in the world. Yet no one can be said to know anything about music who does not understand harmony. Just think of it—harmony, counterpoint and fugue, form, theory, composition, instrumentation, sight-reading, history of music. Those are the subjects which the educated musician must know, and they are all taught in the regular music-schools. Harmony is the science of chords, you know. The teacher explains the laws by which the various intervals are governed, leading the pupil step by step till he has advanced from a simple "resolution" like this:
to something like this:
Then comes that wonderful art of counterpoint, culminating in the building of a grand and complex composition out of two little phrases, called subject and answer, which flash and frown one against the other like lightnings against a blue-black sky. The student has to learn all about form—how a symphony is constructed from the humble beginning of a simple motive like this:
Furthermore, he must study instrumentation, and learn how the small army of voices in the modern orchestra are to be used. He must know their compass, their capacity for fast performance, the notes upon which it is possible to make trills, the keys in which they stand, and, above all, the character of the writing best suited to them. And again, he must be acquainted with the history of his art, for without it he is quite ignorant of the purposes of the composers whose works he attempts to perform. What a light it throws upon the correct interpretation of Mozart to know that in his day smoothness, finish, and a singing tone were the requisites of good playing. What a valuable thing it is for the pupil to know that Mozart desired to have the passages flow like oil, and that he was opposed to all decided violations of the time. What a flood of illumination it throws on all music to know the meaning of the three great periods of musical history, polyphonic, classic, and romantic. These subjects are taught to classes by lectures and special teachers; but it is a sufficient evidence of the light-mindedness with which most pupils approach, music that not more than five per cent. of the conservatory students enter these classes. The composition classes, of course, are only for very advanced students. Indeed, in Dr. Antonin Dvoràk's composition class at the National Conservatory several well-known composers are to be found.
And what do the music students outside of their study and practice hours? You can see them by the dozen at concerts and at the opera. They are especially conspicuous at the matinée entertainments. They have a school-girlish look, coupled with an air of wisdom, and they devote great attention to pianists' hands and arms. If the student is an aspiring young vocalist, she uses her opera-glass continually. I said to one of them at an opera matinée once,
"Why do you constantly watch Madame Lehmann through your opera-glass?"
"Well," she replied, "my teacher says that I must keep my tongue flat, because all good singers do, and I'm trying to see how Madame Lehmann holds hers."
"And how does she?"
"I can't see it all; I believe she has swallowed it."
Another said to me:
"I am watching Mr. Paderewski's wrists. My teacher says I must keep my wrists up, and there he goes every few minutes and lets his drop below the key-board."
"Perhaps when you are as far advanced as Mr. Paderewski," I suggested, "your teacher will allow you to do as you please with your wrists."
It takes time and devotion to make a good musician. I know that Mr. Paderewski is in the habit of practising from four to six hours a day, in addition to the performance of his long and difficult concert programmes, in order to preserve the skill which he acquired by long and wearisome labor. Even the men who play in the orchestras spend several hours each day in practice, for fingers will grow stiff and awkward unless they are used constantly.
[FALCONRY, OR "HAWKING."]
BY ZITELLA COCKE.
The training of hawks was a recognized profession in the last century. There were men who devoted their lives to it, and drew immense salaries for their labor. Louis XIII., who was devoted to this sport, and always rode out with his falconer and falcon for a hunt before going to mass in the morning, paid his trainer by the day a sum which seemed fabulous. Poor Louis XVI. did not care for the sport, and dismissed trainers and falcons from his service as an unnecessary expense.
So much time and pains were taken in the training of these birds that it was the occasion of a regular technical language, understood only by those who were versed in the art and the sport. Training the bird was called "manning it." Jesses were part of the bird's equipment, and consisted of narrow strips of strong leather fastened to its leg, by which it could be held when not on the hunt. Flat gold or silver rings called "varvels" were attached to the end of these jesses, with the owner's name and address written upon them. Bells were frequently tied to the leg of the bird, so that when it flew out of sight it could be traced by sound of the bell. To teach the bird to do what was called "jumping to the fist" was a great art, and took great time and care to accomplish. And a pretty sight it must have been—a sight quite worthy of being portrayed in Queen Matilda's embroidered tapestry—to see the bird, eager and impatient, about to spring to its master's fist. The graceful motion could not, of course, be represented in a picture, but as we imagine it, we cannot wonder that hunting with hawks was even more fascinating than hunting with hounds. And then to see it spring from the gauntleted fist into the air, and soar far away until it became a mere speck in the sky, yet never forgetting its resting-place, and returning to it after a flight of many a mile.
And this glove, or gauntlet, upon the hand of the falconer, and sometimes the monarch, was an important feature of the equipment. It was made of thick buckskin, and the royal gauntlets were wondrously adorned with gold and silver threads, and even jewels, set in forms of flowers and family crests. The bird itself often wore a helmet bedecked with plumes and jewels, to be removed, however, when it was pluming itself for flight. The call to the hawk was a spirited cry—"Yo-ho-hup—yohup—yohup"; and another, "Helover—helow—helow—helover."
When the bird was taken out and exercised, with a view to keeping him in good physical condition, as well as in thorough acquaintance with the various things taught him by his trainer, it was called "weathering."
The distance accomplished by these birds in a short time seems almost incredible, and this circumstance alone would make them a terror to their victims. Few birds could compete with the falcon. Its flight was as rapid as it was untiring, keeping always a little above the victim, and swooping down upon it in such a way as to make resistance impossible. In the air the heron itself was unable to resist his assailant, but if the two fell to the earth the heron had the advantage, and the falcon rarely escaped without losing one or both eyes. It was the eye always at which the heron aimed. A German Duke is said to have wept bitterly when his favorite falcon, falling to the earth with a heron in his talons, lost both of its eyes in the encounter which took place on the ground.
Lovers of dogs insisted that the hawk came to the "lure" only—the "lure" being the feed which constitutes a part of the training—and was never actuated by an affection for its master. But lovers of falconry declare the falcon to be capable of warm and lasting affection. A Colonel Johnson, of the Rifle Brigade, was ordered to Canada with his battalion. He had devoted much time and expense to the "manning," or training, of two falcons, and he took them with him across the Atlantic. During the voyage, after feeding them, he would fly them every day. Sometimes they sailed far out of sight, but always returned to the master. One evening, after a longer flight than usual, one of the falcons returned alone; the other, the chief favorite, was missing. Colonel Johnson made up his mind that he would never see his falcon again, but one day, after the arrival of the regiment in America, he saw a paragraph in a Halifax newspaper announcing that the captain of an American schooner had in his possession a fine hawk, which had suddenly made its appearance on board his ship during his passage from Liverpool. Colonel Johnson believed this bird to be his much-prized falcon, and obtaining leave of absence, started in pursuit of it. He went to Halifax, saw the captain of the schooner, and asked permission to see the bird. The captain refused the request, "guessed" that he would keep the bird himself, and asserted his disbelief in the Englishman's story. Colonel Johnson proposed that his claim to the ownership of the bird should be put to the test by an experiment. It was this: Colonel Johnson was to be admitted to an interview with the hawk, which had shown no partiality for any person since its arrival in the New World, and had repelled the caresses of its new owner. If at this meeting it exhibited unequivocal signs of recognition such as would convince the by-standers that Colonel Johnson was its original master, the American captain was to surrender all claim to it. Several Americans present admitted this test to be perfectly reasonable, and the captain was persuaded to acquiesce. He went up stairs, and returned with the falcon. The door was hardly opened before the bird jumped from the captain's fist and perched upon the shoulder of its long-lost master, rubbing its head against his cheek, taking hold of his buttons and champing them playfully in its beak, and evincing by every way in its power its delight and affection. The verdict was unanimous. Even the hard-hearted captain relented, and the falcon was restored to its rightful owner.