THE DAMROSCH OPERA COMPANY, 1895-1899
With the return of Abbey, Schoeffel, and Grau in 1891, Wagner virtually disappeared from the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House as their entire energies were turned toward producing operas of the French-Italian School. It was a natural reaction from the seven years of opera in German and the pendulum swung far to the other side. A company of truly great singers had been assembled by the new managers; the audiences revelled in their bel canto, and as Abbey, Schoeffel, and Grau assumed the entire financial responsibility of the enterprise, the directors of the opera-house were also well satisfied. They had become tired of the growing deficits of the German opera.
The head and controlling spirit of the firm was Henry Abbey, a magnificent and honorable gambler in “stars” whom he paid so liberally that, while he sometimes gained large profits, he many times lost more heavily. The chances of profit were too small and generally it was too much like the roulette tables at Monte Carlo, with the odds in favor of the stars.
John Schoeffel was not much more than the hyphen between Abbey and Grau. I never could see that he did anything except, perhaps, arrange for the advertisements of the opera company when it visited Boston, where he lived as lessee of the Tremont Theatre.
The actual direction of the opera season, the arranging of the repertoire, the engagement of the artists, and the handling of them was in the hands of Maurice Grau, who had developed into a first-class opera manager. He claimed but little knowledge of things artistic, but he was astute and had a real flair, up to a certain point, for giving the public what it wanted. He was honorable in his dealings with the artists and in a grudging way (which operatic artists often have) they liked him, although they tortured him incessantly. He used to sit in his office like a spider from morning until night, working out repertoires, quarrelling with the singers or placating them, and altogether having no interests in life beyond that—except, perhaps, the national game of poker, in which he and a small group of cronies used to indulge—and a great affection for his little daughter.
With the exception of “Lohengrin,” which had sporadic performances in the Italian language, poor Wagner was virtually boycotted, and with my great adoration for him I chafed under this condition more and more.
The winter of 1893-94 I had been asked to arrange something original in the way of an entertainment for a charity in which I was interested, and as Materna, Anton Schott, and Emil Fischer were at that time in America, I conceived the idea of giving a stage performance of the “Götterdämmerung” at Carnegie Hall. Materna was old and fat, but her voice was still glorious; Anton Schott still made a personable Siegfried, and Emil Fischer was at the height of his vocal and histrionic powers. The scenery, though simple, was well improvised and part of it specially painted, and the weapons and other properties were borrowed from the Metropolitan Opera House.
The success was so remarkable that we repeated the work several times and added “Walküre.” This seemed to me conclusive proof that the American public were more than ready for the return of Wagner, and I called on Abbey and Grau to suggest that they include a certain number of Wagner performances in German in their repertoire. They threw up their hands in horror at the idea, saying that Wagner spelled ruin, but as they were very kindly disposed toward me (I had conducted many orchestral concerts for some of their instrumental stars) they suggested that if I wanted to be foolish enough to give Wagner performances myself, they would gladly rent the Metropolitan Opera House to me in the spring and on easy terms. Almost irresistibly I was drawn into the resolve to take their suggestion seriously, although it was made laughingly and sceptically as to its outcome. I consulted a number of devoted friends who shared my optimism and finally decided to make the plunge, and, in order to finance my mad scheme properly, I sold my house on West 55th Street.
At the home of Miss Mary Callender and Miss Caro de Forest, both of them true friends and music lovers, a “Wagner Society” was formed, the purpose of which was to help the sale of subscription seats for my venture and to spread the propaganda for the project in every way. At the first meeting of this society so many seats were subscribed for that the success seemed assured, and, besides this, the directors of the Metropolitan Opera House, although they were entitled to the free use of their boxes, suggested to me very generously that as Abbey and Grau would charge a nominal rental of five hundred dollars a night for my performances they would pay me that amount for the use of their boxes, so that I should have the house virtually rent free.
Abbey and Grau, who looked on me as a kind of foolish boy who was plunging madly toward destruction, told me with equal generosity that I could have whatever of their enormous stock of costumes and properties might prove of use for the Wagner operas.
About this time I received a letter from Mr. William Steinway, then the head of the house of Steinway & Sons, and a great lover of music, asking me to come down to see him, as he was very much interested in my project for the return of Wagner to the Metropolitan. I did so and found him at his desk crippled with gout but very cheerful and happy over my venture, for which he prophesied great success. He suggested, however, that while he realized that the idea and the venture were entirely mine, and that I was entitled to every credit and advantage from it, it would be a very generous act on my part if I invited Anton Seidl to share the conducting of the Wagner operas and music-dramas. He pointed out that Seidl was looked on by the American public as a great Wagner conductor, and his co-operation would show that I intended to found my project on the broadest and most generous lines. He said that if I would agree to his suggestion, he would arrange a meeting for Seidl and myself at his office for the following day, and I could be sure of his heartiest personal and financial support.
I thought well of his idea, and, while Seidl and I had never been on cordial personal terms during the old German opera days, nor afterward when we went our separate ways as concert conductors, I felt that the project might be much strengthened by a combination, and accordingly met Seidl, together with William Steinway, in the latter’s office the following day. I outlined my project to Seidl, told him of the support I had already gained, of my arrangement with Abbey and Grau, and that I was financing the scheme myself, but that, with full admiration for his work in America during the years of German opera after my father’s death, I should be glad to divide the Wagner operas with him. I showed him a list of the eight I intended to produce. They were, as I remember, as follows:
“Rhinegold”
“Walküre”
“Siegfried”
“Götterdämmerung”
“Tristan and Isolde”
“Meistersinger”
“Lohengrin”
“Tannhäuser”
I suggested to him that he should pick out the four which he preferred and that I would conduct the other four. Steinway pronounced this offer extremely fair and generous and urged Seidl to accept it, but Seidl said he would have to think it over and would notify Steinway of his decision.
The next day he called on Steinway at nine o’clock in the morning and told him that he had come to the conclusion that he would not divide the conducting of the Wagner operas with any one and, therefore, preferred not to have anything to do with the venture. Steinway was furious, and when he told me of this he said: “I am now with you heart and soul and here is my check for twenty-five hundred dollars for which I will take subscription seats for your season in different parts of the house.”
I arranged for a season of eight weeks at the Metropolitan and a tour of five weeks which should take us as far west as Kansas City, as this Far Western outpost had immediately put in a generous bid for three performances.
I went abroad that spring to engage my artists and succeeded in gathering a notable company of Wagnerian singers: Rosa Sucher, of the Berlin Royal Opera for the Brunhildes and Isolde; a young singer of twenty-three, Johanna Gadski, who sang for me in Berlin, for Elsa and Elizabeth; Emil Fischer, of the Dresden Royal Opera, for Wotan and Hans Sachs, and Max Alvary, the handsomest and most dramatic of Siegfrieds and a truly knightly Tristan. He had studied the latter rôle at Bayreuth and had sung it there at the first performances. At Bayreuth I also found a highly gifted English singer, Marie Brema, who was then almost unknown but who was the possessor of a rich and expressive mezzo-soprano. Her talent for acting was remarkable and her vocal range so great that I thought I could use her not only for Ortrude and Brangäne, but, if necessary, for the Brunhildes as well.
A great deal of the scenery for “Tristan” and the “Nibelung Trilogy” as well as for “Tannhäuser” I had especially painted in Vienna by the firm of Kautsky and Briosky. They were at that time at the head of their profession, and such beautiful foliage as, for instance, in the forest scene of “Siegfried,” had never before been seen on an American stage. Our New York painters gathered around it in amazement when it had been unpacked and properly mounted and hung.
Such an expert on naval matters as William J. Henderson, the eminent music editor of the New York Sun, deservedly criticised the architecture and rigging of the ship that bore Tristan and Isolde across the Irish seas to Cornwall. Vienna, the home of my scene-painters, is not a seaport, and the gorgeous tent of Isolde’s, and the sails and mast, while very picturesque, completely hid the course of the ship from Tristan at the helm, and if he had not been an operatic sailor, who knew exactly where the ship was going to land at the end of the act, he undoubtedly would have sent it crashing against the white-chalk cliffs of England instead of guiding it safely into the harbor of Cornwall.
In the meanwhile, the subscriptions for seats at our New York office had gone up by such leaps and bounds that the financial success of my “crazy venture” was assured before the box-office opened for the single sale of tickets.
I had chosen “Tristan” for the opening performance. It was in 1895. The general rehearsal had gone well and an immense audience filled every available space of the opera-house and greeted me warmly as I appeared on the conductor’s stand. I was just about to begin the prelude when a whisper reached me that the English horn player was not in his place. It was old Joseph Eller, who had played in the Philharmonic under my father many years before. He had, incredible to relate, forgotten his instrument and, discovering this only on his arrival at the Metropolitan, had rushed home but had not yet returned. Imagine my agitation! Everything was ready, the lights turned down and the audience expectant, and I finally did not dare to wait any longer. I assigned the English horn part to the third French horn player and we began the long-drawn sighs of the violoncellos of the introductory bars of the prelude. To my great relief I saw Eller slip into his place a few minutes later, and the performance moved well and dramatically toward a triumphant close, in which Alvary, especially, distinguished himself by his marvellous acting and impassioned singing in the scene preceding the arrival of the ship bearing Isolde. Sucher invested Isolde with a gentle, womanly dignity, but vocally she was no longer quite in her prime and did not, I think, equal Lilli Lehmann or Klafsky and Ternina, whom I brought to America the following year.
To re-enter the Metropolitan on such a Wagnerian wave after German opera had been so ignominiously snuffed out five years before, was a great triumph and satisfaction for me, more especially because my father had laid the foundation eleven years before.
I produced the other Wagnerian operas in quick succession, and as the houses were sold out for every performance the profit was considerable.
Madame Marie Brema proved herself such a valuable member of the company, both as Ortrude and Brangäne, that I felt it would be wise to give her the opportunity to sing Brunhilde in “Walküre” as well. I, therefore, quietly began to train her in that rôle. Unfortunately, during a rehearsal which I had with her alone on the stage, Madame Sucher happened to saunter in and, hearing the familiar music coming from my piano, she suddenly beheld another woman singing Brunhilde. She gave me one indignant but comprehensive glance and then majestically sailed off the stage. A few hours later I received a letter in which she announced to me that she wished to return to Germany on the next steamer, as she had not been accustomed until then to have “her” rôles sung by another as long as she was in the company.
This was the first letter of the kind that I had received during my short career as opera impresario, but it was but the prototype of many similar ones that followed each other like snowflakes in a storm during my various opera seasons.
I, of course, immediately sent Madame Sucher a large bouquet of roses and wrote to her that, quite apart from contractual obligations, I could not understand how she would want to leave America after she had “sung herself so gloriously into the hearts of my countrymen.” I do not know whether my letter or the roses had any effect, or whether wiser counsels prevailed, but she stayed with me and continued her work with great good nature and even endured the hated sight of having Marie Brema sing Brunhilde at several of the subsequent performances.
In Kansas City we ended our stay with a matinée performance of “Siegfried,” Madame Sucher as Brunhilde and Max Alvary, the handsome, as Siegfried. My readers will remember the great scene in which Brunhilde is awakened from her slumber of years by the kiss of Siegfried, who bends over her in that delightful but difficult position for a long time until a certain bar in the music denotes that the kiss is ended. The house was crowded and the greater part of the audience were women. Suddenly, while I was conducting the exquisite music accompanying the extended kiss, some one in the gallery inclined to facetiousness imitated very distinctly the smacking sound of kissing, and, to my horror, little ripples of feminine laughter rose and fell, awoke and died, to be renewed again. Alvary was wonderful. He raised his handsome head, gazed with calm eyes at the audience until a death-like silence reigned and then, with equal calm, returned to his previous occupation. It was certainly a triumph of man over woman, or rather women, and at the end of the act they greeted this young god with special and adoring enthusiasm.
The entire profits of my first venture as owner and director of an opera company for thirteen weeks amounted to about fifty-three thousand dollars. (Alas! I did not retain this quickly gained fortune a long time.)
I had again planted the flag of Wagner firmly in American ground and naturally did not wish to see it pulled down again. I therefore called on Abbey and Grau and—as I had no desire for managerial honors, the artistic side of it only interesting me—begged them to add a German department to their really splendid galaxy of French and Italian artists and to let me take care of it for them. But at that time they did not seem ready to alter their traditional operatic scheme, and my suggestion did not meet with a favorable response. I then decided that I would go on myself. My first season had taught me a great deal. I had acquired a considerable stock of scenery, costumes, and properties, and I knew where I could still further improve the artistic personnel of my company. I thought that by arranging for a longer season of five months I should be able to give my singers and orchestra better contracts financially and also introduce the Wagner operas over a greater territory.
All my friends except one urged me to go on with the work. The one exception was Andrew Carnegie who said, with that canny business acumen which made him one of the world’s richest men:
“Walter, you have made a great success, artistically as well as financially; your profits have been enormous. But such a success rarely repeats itself immediately. You rightly divined the desire of the public for a return of Wagner opera, but this current has drawn into it many people who have come for curiosity only, and to whom Wagner is still a closed book. Many of these will not come back another time. Be contented to rest on your laurels.”
Of course I would not listen to such good business advice and accordingly engaged a company of singers for the following year, who made a really remarkable ensemble. Among the newcomers was Madame Katherine Klafsky whose overwhelming impersonations of Brunhilde, Isolde, and especially of Fidelio, still vibrate in my memory. This last opera gave me such joy to conduct that, although it never drew within a thousand dollars as much as any of the other operas, I would insist on keeping it in the repertoire. This proves conclusively that the artist in me was much stronger than the impresario and that I really had no business to engage in the latter occupation.
Fidelio (Leonore), in the second act, liberates her husband from his shackles in the prison, and he says to her, “O, my Leonore, how much hast thou done for me!” She answers, “Nothing, nothing, my Florestan,” and the orchestra begins a soft murmur, upon which the two voices rise in an ecstatic duet of love. Klafsky gave this scene with such tenderness that the entire orchestra, as well as myself, were by this time almost choking with emotion, and it was all that I could do to lift my baton to give the signal for the beginning of the duet.
Madame Ternina, another newcomer, was prevented by illness from appearing in Chicago, but in Boston she created a genuine sensation. The public divided itself into two factions, the one extolling the almost elemental dramatic vehemence of Klafsky, who fairly poured out her glorious voice, while the other proclaimed Ternina the greater artist because of her more intellectual conception and a certain noble artistic reticence.
Part of the summer of 1894 I had spent in beginning the music of an opera on Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter.” The subject had always fascinated me and I had years before prepared a dramatic scenario for which I finally induced Hawthorne’s son-in-law, George Parsons Lathrop, to prepare a libretto. I completed the composition of the music the following summer and decided to produce it during the season 1895-96 with the Damrosch Opera Company in Boston, where the scene of the original novel is laid, in the old Colonial days of Governor Endicott.
I gave the rôle of Hester Prynne to Johanna Gadski. David Bispham played Roger Chillingworth, and Barron Berthold sang the clergyman, Arthur Dimmesdale.
The first performance took place February 10, 1896. American audiences are proverbially kind to authors on first nights, and Boston was especially interested in this opera because of Hawthorne’s novel. The scenery presented old Boston in very picturesque fashion, and I had spent a good deal of time with my stage-manager and costumer in the different Boston collections of Colonial belongings in order to give a correct picture of that period. Early portraits were consulted for the “make-up” of Governor Endicott and other old Boston celebrities, and the “company of ancient and honorable artillery” who appeared in the last act carried an exact copy of the banner which still hangs, I think, in Faneuil Hall.
Gadski gave a very touching impersonation of Hester, and Bispham fairly revelled in the fiendish machinations of Roger Chillingworth. The artists and composer received numberless recalls and the members of my company united in presenting me with several charming mementos of the day.
Mrs. John L. Gardner, who had already in those days become a real and loyal friend and supporter, and who has, according to her wonderful capacity for friendship, continued as such during these many years, sent a huge laurel wreath to the stage for me, the centre of which contained a large scarlet letter “A”! The reader may imagine what jokes were cracked at my expense about that very prominently displayed letter.
The music was, I think, well written and orchestrated, but so much of it had been conceived under the overwhelming influence of Wagner, that I am afraid Anton Seidl was right when, after hearing the work in New York, he confided cynically to his friends that it was a “New England Nibelung Trilogy.”
Reviewing the work critically myself after these many years, I would say that it showed sufficient talent and musicianly grasp to warrant a composer’s career, but life and its exigencies willed otherwise, and all the “might have beens” are but idle speculation.
An evil star seemed to shine over that winter’s opera season from the financial standpoint. The entire country was suffering from a severe financial depression and my company was large and expensive. I had to travel continually, and during the entire five months carried a company of one hundred and seventy people, including an orchestra of seventy men, as I considered so large an aggregation my solemn duty as a Wagner disciple and propagandist.
As Abbey and Grau finally decided to embark on a German opera department of their own, adopting my suggestion when it was too late for me to combine with them, they very naturally shut me out of the Metropolitan Opera House and I was compelled, for my New York season, to lease the old Academy of Music which had become a house for cheap theatrical productions and had lost its high fashionable estate of other years.
My seasons in Chicago and Boston had been profitable, but many cities in the South, with the exception of New Orleans, which gave me a wonderful welcome, could not pay expenses, as the theatres were too small and my company too large and literally too good.
In New Orleans we played an entire week at the old St. Charles Theatre. The dressing-rooms for the chorus were in the cellar and just before the first performance the women of the chorus ran shrieking up on the stage, vowing that they would not return, as rats as large as good-sized rabbits were scampering around the cellar. I could not believe them until I went down and saw those horrible creatures with my own eyes.
Our last performance was to have been on Saturday night, but on that day I received a petition signed by a number of citizens asking whether we could give them a “Fidelio” performance with Madame Klafsky on Sunday morning. As our train was to leave at three P. M. on that day, we had to begin this performance at eleven o’clock in the morning. The announcement that this extra performance was to be given was made only the night before and in the Sunday morning papers. By eleven o’clock the house was sold out.
I took the company as far west as Denver and everywhere virtually introduced for the first time the “Trilogy,” “Tristan,” and “Die Meistersinger” to the public.
I remember a performance in Providence, Rhode Island, where, in default of a theatre, the armory had been adapted for us by an improvised stage which was, however, so low that the orchestra could easily see what was going on. The opera was “Lohengrin,” and just before the scene in the last act, when Godfrey, the little brother of Elsa, appears in place of the magic swan to rush into the outstretched arms of Elsa, the stage-manager suddenly discovered that the little ballet girl who always assumed the rôle was not present. What to do? In the emergency he grabbed Hans, son of my prompter and at that time a kind of assistant to everybody as call-boy, assistant librarian, etc., etc. He was only fourteen and small of stature but with the excessive length of arms and legs characteristic of that age. By some painful process he was forced into the costume of Godfrey and pushed on the stage just in the nick of time. I suddenly noticed a commotion among my orchestra, and as I followed their astonished but delighted gaze I saw the uncanny apparition of Hans as a counterfeit Godfrey standing on the stage evidently frightened out of his wits. Gadski, who sang Elsa, with great presence of mind, stretched her arms wide and not only welcomed, but extinguished him beneath the voluminous folds of her cloak and I doubt whether the public realized that the real princely brother had not made his appearance.
When we finally arrived in New York, I had already lost a great deal of the large profits of the year before, and this loss was further increased by my season at the Academy of Music.
During the New York season my wife and I stayed at the stately old house of our dear friends, Sophie and Tina Furniss, on Fifth Avenue and Fortieth Street. With characteristic kindness, they not only took a large proscenium box for every performance, but, having heard that affairs had not gone well financially, insisted that we must be their guests for the entire New York season, in order, I suppose, that I should not have to incur the extravagance of an hotel.
These elderly ladies, together with a married sister, Mrs. Zimmermann, were the daughters of an old East India merchant who, in the earlier part of the nineteenth century, had amassed a fortune. Their house was full of lovely old furniture and mementos of a bygone age and they dispensed within its walls a very generous and dignified hospitality.
An old colored coachman named Brown had been with them for forty years. He always, together with a young colored footman, sat high up on their carriage in great state and solemnity. The young footman having been sent away in disgrace during our stay, Brown was instructed to procure another boy to take his place. A week elapsed and the new boy had not been found, and when Miss Sophie said to him: “Brown, why haven’t you gotten us a new boy? Are they difficult to find?” he answered:
“No, Miss Sophie, there’s plenty o’ boys, but ah find it so hard to ma’ch mah colah.”
He evidently was a great stickler for unanimity, not only in the color of the livery but of the skin as well.
Miss Sophie, the oldest of these three delightful ladies, had an incredible vitality, and although bodily infirmities and advancing years did their best to curb her, she remained active, cheerful, and undaunted until the end. Almost every night during my opera season of six weeks she would hobble from the carriage to her proscenium box, supported by her cane on one side and the footman on the other, and she listened to the Wagnerian music-dramas with unflagging attention. Not even the length of “Götterdämmerung” or “Meistersinger” would phase her, and after the performance, during supper, she would proudly repeat, while her eyes fairly snapped with laughter, some remark of mine that I had made two years before at their country place in Lenox, during my delivery of a series of explanatory recitals on the “Nibelung Trilogy.”
Another fellow guest was Doctor Sturgis Bigelow, an enthusiastic admirer of Madame Ternina’s art, who had come to New York especially to be present at all of her appearances. She was to have made her farewell to America in the “Götterdämmerung” and Doctor Bigelow had ordered enough flowers from half a dozen of the florists of Broadway and Fifth Avenue to fill the entire Academy, but unfortunately Madame Ternina became ill and her place had to be taken at the last moment by her rival, Madame Klafsky. Doctor Bigelow had no desire to present the floral testimony of his adoration to this rival singer, and therefore proceeded on the difficult task of cancelling his many orders, but as many of the wreaths and lyres had already been prepared, his bill for “damages” was quite large.
Before Ternina sailed for home she told me that she intended to stay away for a few years. I had paid her five hundred dollars an appearance which was a fair honorarium at that time, as she was absolutely unknown and therefore had not yet developed a sufficient “drawing power” to warrant a higher fee, but she said she would not come back to America until she could command a fee of a thousand dollars. This decision she adhered to, and when she did return a few years later, Maurice Grau cheerfully paid her the thousand dollars and she was immediately proclaimed one of the greatest Isoldes of our time.
My New York season opened on March 4, 1896, with Beethoven’s “Fidelio.” The audience was a distinguished one, containing a great many of the old Academy habitués. Grand opera had not been given there since 1888, when the tenor, Italo Campanini, had brought over an Italian opera company.
Of Klafsky I have already spoken, but my new barytone, Dimitri Popovici, also made a sensation. I had found him in Bayreuth, where he had sung Telramund and Kurvenal.
I produced my own opera, “The Scarlet Letter,” during the second week, and the reception accorded it was more than cordial. As the Symphony Society of New York wished to present me with an exquisitely bound copy of Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter” as a memento, Richard Welling, the secretary and an old friend, suggested to Anton Seidl, who was in the audience, that he be spokesman, but as he refused Welling presented the book to me himself.
While the balance-sheet of the five months’ season showed a “loss of forty-three thousand dollars,” the larger part of my gains of the year before, I cannot say that my wife and I were very much cast down. Youth is optimistic, and the loss of money is, in itself, not such a dreadful calamity if one still has enough to pay one’s debts; and all this time I was adding to my experience and artistic stature.
After a long consultation with my wife we both decided that the conditions under which I had worked that disastrous winter were not normal, and that we could well risk another season. Two factors influenced me greatly in this decision: one, that a group of Philadelphia citizens had come forward and desired me to consider their Academy of Music as my artistic home, and said that they would give every possible assistance to a regular season there, and the other was that Abbey and Grau frankly confessed to me that they had made a mistake in not accepting my offer of a combination. They had not been fortunate in the choice of their German singers and had lost a hundred and fifty thousand dollars on their German operas, which was nearly four times as much as I had lost. Grau suggested for the following season an interchange of certain artists, and if I would occasionally lend him Madame Klafsky, whom he admired greatly, he would in turn give me Madame Calvé for a few performances of “Carmen.” This arrangement seemed admirable to me, as I was beginning to feel that Wagner opera alone was not sufficient to give a well-balanced opera season, and that for a longer season Philadelphia would demand a more varied repertoire.
For the following season of 1897-98 affairs moved much easier for me. The Philadelphia committee gave me a guarantee for a regular opera season at the Philadelphia Academy of Music. This assured me a home and a permanent place for my large store of scenery, costumes, and properties. Rehearsals also were thus made easier and, for my New York season in the spring, Abbey and Grau again rented the Metropolitan Opera House to me.
I had re-engaged Madame Klafsky, but to our great sorrow she died, and the problem of finding a successor was a serious one. Madame Gadski, who had charmed our audiences with Elsa, Elizabeth, and Sieglinde, was rather young for the heavy dramatic rôles, although I had begun to train her in the “Walküre” and “Siegfried” Brunhildes. I began negotiations with Lilli Lehmann and was successful in obtaining her wonderful services for the following year—but of this I have written in detail in another chapter.
The financial results of this season were quite satisfactory, but I was beginning to chafe more and more under the unsympathetic task of manager. To rehearse singers and orchestra from morning until night was a pleasure, because there was an artistic ideal to be achieved and because there were all manner of musical difficulties to be overcome. That was part of my work as a musician and conductor, and the fatigues and worries connected with this were easily endured. But the managerial duties annoyed me, and the constant intrigues among the singers, directed sometimes against each other and at other times against the management, often seemed to me unbearable.
In the spring of 1898 Madame Nellie Melba, the golden-voiced, told me that she would like to join my company for the following winter, and suggested that her manager, Mr. Charles Ellis, well known as the manager of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, form a partnership with me, the company to be called The Damrosch-Ellis Opera Company, half of the repertoire to be devoted, as before, to the Wagner operas and the other half to the performance of French-Italian operas with herself as the principal singer. We were to pay her fifteen hundred dollars a night, ten times a month, guaranteed. The suggestion seemed to me reasonable and advantageous, and arrangements were made accordingly. This combination aroused great indignation on the part of Mr. George Haven, the president of the Metropolitan Opera House. Mme. Melba had been one of the principal singers there for several years and he felt that it was an act of ingratitude on her part to leave the Metropolitan, and on mine to take her into my company, as I had myself been associated with the Metropolitan during so many years while he was president. I did not think that his anger was justified, as a great deal of water had flowed down-stream since those days; and, as Melba, for reasons of her own, had definitely decided to sever all connections with the Metropolitan, I could not see why I should not make her a member of my company. But he could not, or would not, see my side of the controversy, and vowed that as long as he was president of the Metropolitan I should never set foot in it again in a professional capacity. This vow, however, was subsequently not adhered to, as I not only gave performances there later with my own company, but during the seasons of 1900-01 and 1901-02 officiated again as conductor of the Wagner operas for Maurice Grau, who had then become the sole director and lessee of the Metropolitan.
The combination of Wagnerian operas with the operas of the French-Italian school, of which Melba was the glorious star, proved successful from a popular and financial standpoint, and the season showed a handsome profit for Ellis and myself, although a great part of this was dissipated by a spring tour in which Melba, supported by a small company of singers, chorus, and orchestra, toured the Western cities. This tour was managed by my partner, Ellis, and I did not accompany them, as my services as conductor were not needed for the French operas. I had by that time definitely decided to give up all further connection with opera as manager and devote my future life absolutely to purely musical work as a symphonic conductor and, as I hoped, also as composer. The harassing occupation of “managing” singers proved increasingly distasteful to me, and I felt that I was too good a musician and artist to waste my time with such things in which the only advantage could be a possible pecuniary gain.
I found that many singers were like children with no clear conception of right or wrong. Their constant life in close proximity to each other at rehearsals and performances often begets an exaggerated conception of themselves and their importance to the world. They think that as their contact with the public is only over the footlights, where they receive enthusiastic acclaim for their artistic representations, the public literally exists only for the purpose of hearing them sing, and they willingly ignore the fact that the public may have other interests, such as family, finance, politics, or religion to claim its attention. As it is important for a manager not only to maintain a balance in his ledger but to seek the best results that a disciplined ensemble may attain, he cannot always be in harmony with all the individual desires and demands of his artists. He must often cast his opera in opposition to their personal pride, and I have letters to-day from several of the greatest artists of my company insisting that they must leave or break their contracts because I had wounded their deepest sensibilities in putting so and so in the rôle which they claimed for their very own.
I found that some of them even indulged in occasional efforts at petty blackmailing. One of my tenors, who shall be nameless, had a clause in his contract that he should not be called upon to sing Tristan the day after a very long railway journey. We had played in Cleveland, giving a “Lohengrin” performance in which, however, the other tenor had appeared, and took a night train in comfortable sleeping-cars in one of which my tenor occupied a drawing-room to Pittsburgh, which is, as my reader is aware, a distance of only 150 miles or so. As we left Cleveland my friend the tenor appeared in my drawing-room, and, calling attention to the clause in his contract relating to Tristan and a “long” railway trip, insisted that he could not sing Tristan the following day in Pittsburgh without endangering his voice. But if I would pay him five hundred dollars extra he would take the great risk of injuring his voice and would agree to sing. Naturally I was furious and told him politely but firmly what I thought of him, and then sent for my other tenor and told him that his rival was trying to blackmail me and I suggested to him that if he would sing Tristan for me in spite of his having sung Lohengrin the night before, I would consider it as a performance outside of his guarantee. Needless to say he jumped at the opportunity of gaining an extra six hundred dollars and at the same time “putting one over” on his hated rival. I then went to bed and slept soundly on a pillow made downy by a deed well done.
Next morning I received word from tenor No. 1 that he had changed his mind, was feeling very well, and would sing, but I very haughtily told him that it was too late and that I had already made other arrangements.
So far this story seems a wonderful example of virtue triumphant and vice defeated, but, alas, life’s problems do not always work out that way! During the day my dramatic soprano who was to have sung Isolde became hoarse and the opera had to be changed, so that all my carefully reared structure of righteousness and meting out of punishment to the guilty one fell to the ground with a very dull thud.
This is only one of many such instances, some of them childish and others really wicked. But the most unmoral thing about it is that when the culprits were great artists, no matter how much they enraged me by their wickedness, after they had appeared again triumphantly as Siegfried or Isolde I would often become so enthusiastic over their work that their slate would be washed clean and I was ready to forgive them again and to begin anew. Such is the power of art, and a grateful public will always be willing to remember only the artistic uplift which they have received from the artist and forget his personal weaknesses.
Naturally my strictures apply only to certain of the singers. There were many who were always honorable in their relations with me. Among the most devoted of the members of my company I should mention the singers of the chorus. Many of these had been at the Metropolitan in the German opera days. Their salaries were small, but if one of their number fell ill or suffered other misfortune, none so quick as they to help, and they always endured the hardships of travel with great good humor and unfailing courtesy and decency toward me.
Among other reasons that impelled me finally to give up the opera was the realization how comparatively seldom absolute artistic perfection can be obtained at a stage performance. There are so many people concerned in it that it is almost impossible always to obtain a cast which is thoroughly satisfactory, and one “second rater” can spoil an ensemble. Still another problem was the question of stage illusion. I gave this a great deal of attention and study, and spent a great deal of money on scenery and lighting. I examined the best inventions in this direction in the opera-houses of Germany and imported many of them. I was the first to bring over the very clever swimming-machines used in Dresden by the Rhine Maidens in “Rhinegold.” But Wagner’s demands on the stage are so extraordinary that a real illusion is not often possible. His music excites the imagination and is often all sufficient. One can see the glorious flames crackling and burning around the sleeping Brunhilde when one hears an orchestra of a hundred playing the music of the “Fire Charm,” but how seldom does a stage performance enhance this illusion! The Brunhilde may be too big and too fat, or the light of the flames may too clearly show that the scenery is but painted canvas and pasteboard after all, and our sophisticated eyes know only too well how the plumber’s steam-pipes convey the steam that is intended to simulate the smoke of the flames from the boiler in the cellar. It sometimes seemed to me, after striving in vain to carry out Wagner’s ideal of a union of all the arts in order to produce a new and perfect art form (the “music-drama”), as if this great genius had really committed a gigantic mistake, and as if the very artistic illusion and semblance of verity was destroyed by the scenic paraphernalia.
Of course there were performances over which a happy star seemed to shine and which now and then gave us complete satisfaction and happiness. But the static quality of scenery became to me more and more a hindrance to an imagination ready to soar on the wings of the music.
I carried on my opera company for another year in conjunction with Mr. Charles Ellis, and then definitely resolved to cease all managerial activities and to confine myself absolutely to purely musical work. It took me some time to arrive at this decision, as opera work has also a very fascinating side, and I had made real friends with many of my singers.
I had found Ellis to be a delightful partner. He had had years of experience as manager of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and his equable temperament and fairmindedness had made him many friends. I sold to him my share in all our scenery, costumes, and properties as he wished to continue operatic work with Madame Melba as his principal star, and I agreed to conduct a limited number of Wagner performances for him in Philadelphia during the following season.
After the four hectic years I had spent with the Damrosch Opera Company I was glad of such an opportunity to take stock of the past and cogitate on the future.
My wife and I rented the old Butler place in Westchester County, near Hartsdale—a lovely old mansion surrounded by dark pine forests and with the little Bronx River trickling through—and there we spent most of the winter until May. I wrote a violin sonata there and enjoyed the tranquillity of a life freed from operatic worries and excitements.
In 1900 I was once more tempted into the field of opera, but this time it carried with it no managerial or financial responsibility.
Maurice Grau was at that time the lessee of the Metropolitan Opera House. Abbey had died a few years before and the directors, who had gradually realized that it was Grau who had been the real “man behind the gun,” gave him and a small group of financial backers the lease of the Metropolitan Opera House. Grau invited me to return to the Metropolitan as conductor for the Wagner operas. He had at that time a strong group of Wagnerian singers. At the head was the inimitable Jean de Reszke, together with his brother Edouard. Grau had also taken over from my company Madame Ternina, David Bispham, and Madame Gadski. The latter had been a member of the Damrosch Opera Company for the entire four years of its existence. She was only twenty-three when I first engaged her, possessor of a lovely voice, and an indefatigable worker. There were weeks on our Western tours when she would appear on five successive days as Elsa, Elizabeth, Sieglinde, and Eva. She was a hard student and her voice developed more and more. During her last year with me she added the “Walküre” and “Siegfried” Brunhildes to her repertoire, studying them with me, partly on the trains while travelling, partly in the hotels and theatres of the various cities we visited. When she went into the Grau Company, she added the “Götterdämmerung” Brunhilde and Isolde, thereby completing the entire circle of Wagner soprano parts, except Kundry.
Jean de Reszke, like Lilli Lehmann, turned to the Wagnerian rôles in the high noon of his operatic career. He had made his fame in the French-Italian operas, but Wagner attracted him irresistibly.
I remember that during one of the seasons of the Damrosch Opera Company we were playing in Boston at the Boston Theatre while the Abbey and Grau Company were performing in the huge Mechanic’s Hall. Jean and Edouard de Reszke attended one of my “Siegfried” performances with Max Alvary in the title-rôle. They applauded their colleague vociferously, and after the performance Jean lamented to me that he was compelled to sing nothing but Fausts and Romeos and Werthers, while it was the ambition of his life to sing Wagner. The memory of his extraordinary impersonations of these rôles later on is too vivid to need comment from me. Illness kept him away from America one year, and when he returned I was again at the Metropolitan as conductor of the Wagner operas. It was a joy to work with this man. Great artist, courteous gentleman, and generous colleague, and (what is most valuable to a conductor) indefatigable at rehearsals. His return was like the triumphant entry of a victorious monarch. He was a marvellous mimic, and used to give us delicious imitations of the various artists of the company coming into his dressing-room to offer their congratulations after his first reappearance.
De Reszke would first depict the French tenor colleague who in polite, reserved, and even patronizing accents would say:
“Vraiment, mon cher, vous-avez chanté très bien ce soir, très bien, je vous assure!”
Then would come the German barytone in a double-breasted frock coat and punctiliously polite manner, saying:
“Erlauben Sie mir, Herr de Reszke, Ihnen meine grosse Hochachtung aus zu drücken für den wirklich ausgezeichneten Genuss den Sie uns heute Abend bereitet haben.”
He was followed by the Italian barytone, who would rush in impulsively and, kissing Jean on both cheeks, would exclaim:
“Caro mio, carissimo!” followed by a flood of Italian words.
Then came the real climax of the scene. Enter the electrician who, thrusting a “horny hand of toil” into that of de Reszke, would exclaim in real “Yankee” accents:
“Jean, you done fine!”
Edouard de Reszke, the huge bass brother with the heart of a child and an imperturbable good nature, was an equally good mimic. But his wonderful stories and impersonations were of a decidedly Rabelaisian character and will not bear repetition here.
With these two well-corseted but un-Corsican brothers, Madame Ternina or Madame Nordica, Madame Schumann-Heink, and David Bispham we gave performances of “Tristan” which came as near perfection as I ever hope to witness.
Madame Nordica had been for years a so-called “utility” singer at the Metropolitan. She had been trained in the French-Italian repertoire, and while her voice was beautiful she had not yet achieved full stardom, perhaps because she was American born and lacked the European cachet, which at that time was more important than it is to-day. She was not by nature musically gifted and was able to learn a rôle only by the hardest and most painful work of endless repetition and rehearsals. But her ambition was boundless—she bided her time and, like Lilli Lehmann, gradually worked herself into the Wagner repertoire. Realizing its advertising value, she offered herself to Madame Cosima Wagner for the “Lohengrin” production at Bayreuth. She meekly accepted every instruction given her there during the months of preparations, no matter how meticulous or artificial some of them seemed to her, and the success which she obtained there launched her successfully on her career as a Wagner singer. I trained her in the Brunhildes as well as Isolde and was amazed at the way in which she achieved through hard work what nature gives to others overnight.
I remember her coming to Philadelphia to sing “Götterdämmerung” with my company. She arrived the previous day and I found her still very uncertain in the second act, which is rhythmically very difficult. I sat down with her at eight o’clock that evening and we went over that second act again and again until about four o’clock in the morning. It was ghastly but wonderful. At ten A. M. I gave her an orchestral rehearsal and in the evening she sang the rôle with perfect assurance and with hardly a mistake.
One performance of “Tristan” which we gave with the Grau Company in Baltimore at the Lyric Theatre, which has perhaps the best acoustics of any auditorium in the country, still stays vividly in my memory. At the close we were so elated that all concerned kissed each other ecstatically after the last curtain fell. Those are the rare moments that make one forget the many times perfection in opera seems impossible to attain.
MATHILDE MARCHESI
NELLIE MELBA