LILLI LEHMANN
In the spring of 1885 I was to accompany Mr. Stanton as assistant director and musical adviser to engage singers for the following season of German opera at the Metropolitan Opera House, but as Mr. Stanton’s little daughter became ill and subsequently died, I went over alone and have always been quite proud of the four contracts I had ready for Stanton’s signature when he, a month later, arrived in Germany. These were Lilli Lehmann, soprano from the Royal Opera House in Berlin; Emil Fischer, bass from the Royal Opera House in Dresden; Max Alvary, lyric tenor from Weimar, and Anton Seidl, conductor of the Angelo Neumann Wagner Opera Company. These four artists became subsequently the mainstay of the German opera and in America developed to greater and greater power and fame.
Lilli Lehmann, at that time forty years of age, had sung principally the coloratura rôles, and with these had made a great local reputation throughout Germany and Austria. She had sung the First Rhine Maiden at Bayreuth in 1876, and an occasional Elsa in “Lohengrin,” but it was not until she came to America that she began to sing the Brunhildes and Isoldes which made her one of the greatest dramatic sopranos of her time. Curiously enough, she insisted on making her first appearance in America as Carmen, a rôle to which she gave a dramatic, tragic, and rather sombre significance, but in which the lighter, coquettish touches were perhaps not sufficiently emphasized.
She had achieved her pre-eminence as a dramatic soprano only after years of the hardest kind of work, and had only through her indomitable will and energy changed her voice from a light coloratura to a dramatic soprano, and as I was at that period only twenty-three and already occupied a position of considerable responsibility, it took some time before she was ready to concede that I was really a musician of serious purpose who was working day and night to fit myself for the various responsibilities so suddenly thrust upon me.
Conducting is an art with a technic of its own, and good musicianship alone is not sufficient. During a performance the conductor must know how to make his singers and players convey his interpretation, and to do this, a glance of the eye and many different movements of hands and head have to speak a language of their own which his executants must quickly understand and follow. The conductor must also know when and how to follow a soloist with sympathy. This technic cannot be acquired overnight, and I owe to Lilli Lehmann a valuable hint in this connection. As Anton Seidl was the accredited and celebrated Wagner conductor, these operas and any other novelties of importance naturally fell to him, and it remained for me to conduct only such operas as he did not care to assume—Meyerbeer’s “Le Prophète,” Verdi’s “Trovatore,” etc., etc. This caused me great sorrow and anguish of heart, as a great part of my training had been in the modern operas. I almost knew the Wagner music-dramas by heart and had received a very thorough training in the symphonies of the classic composers, but for the operas of Meyerbeer and Verdi, I had a youthful intolerance, and of their traditions of tempi and nuance I knew but little, with the exception, perhaps, of Meyerbeer’s “Le Prophète,” which had been marvellously performed under my father the preceding year and in which Marianne Brandt had sung the part of the mother with incredible pathos and nobility.
One day, while I was rehearsing “La Juive,” of Halévy, Lilli Lehmann turned on me during the intermission and said: “Walter, in those old operas you do not watch the singers enough, you are occupied with the orchestra as if you were conducting a symphony. You give them the cue for their entrances and you look at them instead of at your singers. We need you and you need us. The orchestra have their printed parts before them; we sing by heart and have to rely on the conductor for difficult entrances. Watch my lips when I sing, and you will know when I breathe and you will breathe with me; you will immediately also sense the tempo rubato which is such an important part in the proper phrasing of these older operas.”
This advice was a revelation to me, and I found to my delight that by heeding it, not only was I able to follow the singers with the orchestra, but even to influence the singers in regard to tempi. At the performance of “La Juive” I must have stared at Lilli like a Cheshire cat whenever she was singing. The music went with remarkable unanimity and elasticity, and at the close of the performance Lilli, who was never very profuse in praise, turned to me and said: “You see, Walter, how well it goes. What did I tell you?”
In this way, slowly and often painfully, I strengthened my grasp of the technic of my craft, and with increased assurance on my part came an increased compliance on the part of the singers to follow my artistic desires as regards the interpretation of their rôles.
But the operas that I was permitted to conduct were still only the left-overs from Anton Seidl’s richly laden table, and he was naturally not willing to give up any of his prerogatives to a man so much younger. My first real opportunity came in the year 1890, when Seidl was to conduct an exquisite opera by Peter Cornelius, “The Barber of Baghdad.” Paul Kalisch, Lilli Lehmann’s husband, was to sing Nureddin and Emil Fischer the loquacious Barber. Cornelius had been a devoted and close friend of my father and mother in the old Weimar days under Liszt. Liszt had produced this opera in Weimar in those days, but the Weimar public had rejected it because of what they considered to be its ultramodern tendencies, and because of this, Liszt had resigned his position of Grand Ducal Kapellmeister. I was naturally much interested in our New York production. I had attended almost every rehearsal and had revelled in the exquisite beauties and humor of the work.
Two days before the performance, Seidl became dangerously ill and I was in a fever of uncertainty whether Stanton would postpone the performance or let me conduct it. I found that Lilli Lehmann protested loudly that it would be impossible for me to conduct this work, that it was too difficult and too intricate, and that it needed a conductor of many years’ experience and plenty of rehearsals at that. But I seemed to have “good friends at court” and it was decided that I should conduct the general rehearsal that morning for which singers, chorus, and orchestra had been hastily called together, and if all went well I was to conduct the performance. As I walked into the orchestra pit I could see Lilli Lehmann seated all by herself a few rows back, looking at me with what seemed to me baleful and threatening eyes. But as I turned my back on her and gave the signal for the overture, my apprehension left me and I gave myself up completely to the music. The curtain rose and Kalisch began Nureddin’s lovely song together with his attendants on awakening from his long illness to renewed health and with renewed longings for his beloved Margiana. Everything went as if on wings and at the end of the act I saw, to my delight, among the singers who were rushing toward me with affectionate congratulations, Lilli, the stately, telling me that she had not believed it possible, but was now convinced that I had a thorough grasp of the music and could conduct it successfully.
The performance the next day went even better than the rehearsal, and I date from this my entry as a full-fledged opera conductor, and my relations with Lilli Lehmann became artistically more and more fraternal and personally more and more friendly.
In 1897-98 I engaged her to sing Isolde and the Brunhildes in my Damrosch Opera Company and paid her a thousand dollars a night and all hotel and travelling expenses for two people (her sister Marie travelled with her), and she also insisted that I must pay her laundry bills. But I found that this remarkable woman, having established her right to these perquisites by contract, refused to abuse them, and when she found that I paid quite a large figure for her “parlor, bedroom, and bath” at the Normandie Hotel near the Metropolitan, she was furious; and, saying that she did not see why these rascally hotel proprietors should be enriched by me, she moved to a much cheaper suite at the top of the hotel and she and her sister did a great deal of their laundry in their own bathroom, partly because she wished to save me the expense, and also because she insisted that all American laundries ruined delicate lingerie. Incidentally the elevator boys insisted that she never tipped them, and I sent my manager to her hotel to do this, as otherwise she would not have received adequate service.
So much has been written about her marvellous portrayal of the heroic figures in the Wagner music-dramas that it is hardly necessary for me to add anything to the general chorus of admiration, but I wish to emphasize the fact that by far the greater part of the credit belongs to her for her indomitable will and perseverance, as nature had not given her originally a dramatic voice. It was a wonderfully clear and high coloratura soprano, but by persistent practice she developed an ample middle and lower register and made it equal to the emotional demands of an Isolde or a Brunhilde.
Her acting was majestic, but in the first act of “Tristan” and in the second act of “Götterdämmerung” her anger was like forked flashes of lightning. I suppose that her technic of acting would be called old-fashioned to-day, as those were the days of statuesque poses, often maintained without changes for long stretches at a time.
On the forenoon of the days that she had to sing Isolde she always sang through the entire rôle in her rooms with full voice, just to make sure that she could do it in the evening. Compare this to those delicate prima donnas who, on the days when they have to sing, often speak only in whispers in order that their precious vocal cords may not be affected.
Having achieved so much through her own energy and triumphed over so many obstacles, she thought that she could similarly transform her husband, Paul Kalisch, from a lyric to a dramatic tenor. How she worked and harassed that poor man! She certainly was the stronger of the two, and while his entire inclination was toward easy and delightful companionship with others of similar inclinations, she forced him to study and to sing for hours at a stretch, but with only partial success as far as his transformation into a real dramatic and “heroic” Wagner tenor was concerned. It simply was not in his nature to become “heroic,” and when, as sometimes happened, he committed some blunder, some false entrance while singing Siegfried in the “Götterdämmerung,” the glances which Brunhilde cast upon him on the stage were so terrible, so pregnant with punishment to come, that from my conductor’s stand I used to pity the poor man thus compelled to swim around in a pond which was so much larger than he wanted; and often after such a performance I would find him moodily seated all alone at a table in the restaurant of the hotel with a pint bottle of champagne before him and with no desire to go upstairs and face the anger of his Brunhilde spouse.
A tragic but rather amusing occurrence in Pittsburgh should here be recorded. The Damrosch Opera Company was playing a week there at the Alvin Theatre. On the night in question we were to give “Götterdämmerung” with Lilli Lehmann as Brunhilde. All was well. No singers had sent ominous messages of illness during the day, and I had just sat down to a quiet dinner at the Duquesne Club, previous to the performance, when a telephone summoned me. It was my wardrobe mistress, Frau Engelhardt, an excellent woman, devoted to her work, who had been at the Metropolitan in the old German opera days and who had been with me ever since the founding of the Damrosch Opera Company. She implored me to come to the theatre immediately as something dreadful had happened. I of course left my dinner with but faint hope of eating it later on, arrived at the theatre and found the stage silent as the grave, the scene set for the first act of “Götterdämmerung” and seemingly no one there but Frau Engelhardt, who in greatest agitation begged me to come immediately to Madame Lehmann’s dressing-room, where the “something dreadful had happened.”
I knocked at her door and heard a tragic and hollow voice call “come in,” and as I opened the door a sight indeed terrible met my astonished gaze. There stood Lilli Lehmann, already apparelled in her white Brunhilde garb, but covered from head to foot with soot, so black that she seemed more fit for a minstrel show than a Wagner music-drama. Her face was covered with black streaks, especially where her tears had made long and terrible furrows down her cheeks. I could not imagine what had happened, and only gradually and between hysterical bursts of tears, I learned that Lilli, according to her custom, had gone to the theatre hours before the performance and had proceeded to dress herself, only looking into the glass at the last moment to prepare her make-up. She had then discovered the terrible condition of her face and costume. It seemed that the janitor had given the heater in the cellar a special raking which had sent tons of this dreadful Pittsburgh soft-coal soot flying through the registers and into the dressing-rooms where it settled like a pall on everything within reach.
Lilli vowed that it was absolutely impossible for her to sing that night and I was in despair. It suddenly came to me that if I could divert her mind in some way the tension might be eased, and I therefore turned on poor trembling Frau Engelhardt and told her in as angry tones as I could dramatically summon, that she was discharged, that it was her duty to take care of my artists, and to allow such an outrage to happen to the greatest of all of them was something which I could not understand or forgive.
As soon as I denounced our wardrobe mistress in this manner, Lilli pricked up her ears and remonstrated with me at my injustice. She insisted that it was not Frau Engelhardt’s fault and that it was very wrong of me to discharge her. It showed that I had no heart and she for one would never hold her responsible for such an occurrence. Slowly I allowed myself to be persuaded and at the psychological moment gently left the dressing-room, giving Frau Engelhardt a comprehensive glance which she understood. I knew that the two women together would soon set matters to right.
Outside the dressing-room I found my faithful Hans, son of my prompter, Goettich. I gave him some money and told him to run to a florist and buy a bunch of the whitest flowers that he could find and to bring them to Madame Lehmann with my compliments. I then returned to the club and finished my dinner.
When I got back to the theatre just before the performance, I found Lilli already on the stage, newly attired in clean white robes, but as she turned toward me I could still discern darkish streaks beneath the make-up of her cheeks, and in her sombre, dramatic voice she said: “Walter, I thank you for the lovely white flowers, but they will never, never wash me clean again.” Her singing that night seemed to me more glorious than ever.
From Pittsburgh we went to New York, where I had arranged with Abbey and Grau to give me the Metropolitan Opera House for a short season of three weeks. As I wanted a special attraction for New York, I engaged Madame Nordica for a few “Lohengrin” performances in which she was to sing Elsa, and Lilli Lehmann, Ortrude, a part that she had never sung in New York, but whose dramatic possibilities interested her very much and for which she was eminently suited. At first she was furious that I had engaged any other singer for New York. “If I was sufficient to carry on your season out of town, I do not see why you have to engage that —— for New York.” But I explained to her my managerial reasons and somewhat pacified her, and as soon as we arrived in New York I arranged for a little rehearsal on the stage of the Metropolitan for Lehmann, Nordica, and myself, in order that all the scenes, especially of the second act, in which their acting together was of importance, might be properly arranged. At this rehearsal Lehmann treated Nordica with icy disdain, but Nordica acted with such clever tact and deference that Lehmann could find no hook upon which to hang her anger, and the rehearsal passed off with outward calmness, although I could feel the volcano trembling beneath. As we passed out into the street in the late afternoon a terrible rain-storm was raging and Lilli saw Madame Nordica approach a coachman in livery who was waiting with opened umbrella to take her to her coupé. Lilli, clad in a long gray rain-coat and old hat, turned to Nordica: “Ha, you ride? I valk!” she said, as she lifted her dress and showed a pair of great boots.
Incidentally my “showman’s instinct” had proved correct. Our performances of “Lohengrin” with this combination proved artistically very interesting and the public flocked to hear them. Nordica’s Elsa had been very carefully trained at Bayreuth, and Lehmann’s Ortrude was truly demoniac, worthy to rank with that of Marianne Brandt’s in its representation of concentrated hatred.
LILLI LEHMANN AS ISOLDE