To Félicien David must be accorded the credit of being perhaps the first to employ distinctively Eastern characteristics. It was doubtless this that helped to ensure the prodigious success that attended "Le Désert." Without in any way laying himself open to the charge of plagiarism, Reyer may be said to have followed in his footsteps with conspicuous success. Since then many composers have treated Oriental subjects, and have endeavoured to invest their music with the peculiar "cachet" associated with the East. Amongst these may be mentioned Bizet, in his "Pêcheurs de Perles" and "Djamileh," Rubinstein in "Feramors," Goldmark in "The Queen of Sheba," Saint-Saëns in "Samson et Dalila," Massenet in "Le Roi de Lahore," Bruneau in "Kérim," and Villiers Stanford in "The Veiled Prophet."
Bizet considered "La Statue" as the most remarkable opera that had been given in France for twenty years. It is sad that this, in company with many other works of value, should never have been offered to the judgment of the British public.
The composer's next operatic venture took place on German soil. It was at Baden-Baden, at that period in the prime of its glory and the chosen playground of Europe, that "Erostrate," a two act opera, was brought out in the summer of 1862.
Nothing at that moment seemed to presage any strained relations between France and Germany. French tourists came in crowds to the gay watering-place and deposited their offerings with a light heart in the temple of chance presided over by Mons. Bénazet; that very same year a cantata, the words of which were by Méry and the music by Reyer, given at Baden-Baden, celebrated the praises of "The Rhine, symbol of peace."
Quantum mutatus ab illis. The French element disappeared with the war of 1870, and the suppression of the tables has long since brought Baden-Baden down to the same level of respectability as many another "Kurort."
Musical amateurs sojourning in the picturesque valley of the Grand Duchy of Baden at this epoch seem to have had a good time of it.
Berlioz was in the habit of directing every year a grand festival at which were performed extracts from his orchestral works. Reyer states that each concert given by Berlioz used to cost a matter of 20,000 francs to Mons. Bénazet the energetic head of the "Kurhaus." Certain it is that this enterprising director must have had strong musical proclivities, for it is to his initiative that the production of Berlioz's "Béatrice et Benédict" is due. This work served to inaugurate the opening of the new theatre at Baden. Two days later witnessed the first performance of Reyer's "Erostrate," which was shortly afterwards followed by another new work, "Nahel," by Henry Litolff. "Erostrate" seems to have pleased the cosmopolitan public of Baden better than it did Parisian amateurs when it was transferred to the Grand Opéra ten years later, where it was only accorded two representations. The composer was reproached at this time for having dedicated his score to the Queen of Prussia. As if it were possible for any one, in 1862, to foresee the course of events that were destined to happen in 1870. Patriotism occasionally seems to have the effect of deadening the intelligence.
It certainly appears strange that after the favourable reception accorded to "La Statue" in 1861, Reyer should have been ostracised from the Paris theatres, if we except the two performances of "Erostrate" in 1872, and the revivals of "Maître Wolfram" in 1873, and of "La Statue" in 1878, for a period of twenty-four years, when he made a triumphal reappearance at the Opéra with "Sigurd." This last opera had been performed the year before at Brussels.
The Belgian capital seems to be a sort of refuge for those French composers who experience a difficulty in obtaining a hearing in their own country.
It was at the Théâtre de la Monnaie that the following operas were first produced: Reyer's "Sigurd" and "Salammbô," Massenet's "Hérodiade," the brothers Hillemacher's "St. Mégrin," Godard's "Jocelyn," and Chabrier's "Gwendoline." It was also there that some of Wagner's later music dramas were heard for the first time in French.