Interpreters

by Carl Van Vechten

I may say that if my profession kept me from knowing anybody I really wanted to know I should relinquish that profession without hesitation. It is absurd to feel that you cannot dine with a singer without praising her performances. Many days in each month I dine with authors whose works I abhor. I find their companionship delightful. Should I be deprived of their society because I happen to be a critic? I suppose I have a price—almost everybody has—but I should like to state right here and now that it is not a dinner, or a series of dinners, or even an emerald scarf-pin. I should be inclined, however, I admit frankly, to say at least gentle things about a lady who made me a present of a blooded silver cat.

But the crux of the matter lies deeper than this. No mere music critic can hope to write about singing, violin playing, or piano playing without knowing singers, violinists, and pianists. He can learn much from books, from the reviews of other critics, from hearing performances, but the great critics are those who study from the lips of the interpreters themselves. The valuable hints, suggestions, and inspiration that a critic with an open mind can gather from an interpreter are priceless, and not to be found elsewhere. Not that an interpreter will always tell the truth, not that he always knows what the truth is in his particular case. Nevertheless any virtuoso will always have something of interest to say. It stands to reason that any man or woman who has devoted his life to his profession will know more about its difficulties, limitations, and tricks, than a mere critic can hope to learn in any way except through social intercourse with the interpreter. A young critic may learn much through reading Chorley, Burney, Schumann, Ernest Newman, and James Huneker. He can further prepare himself for his trade by listening with open ears to concerts and operas (although, in passing, it may be stated categorically that no critic learns immediately the value of opening his ears, so steeped is he in the false tradition of his craft), by burying his nose in the scores of the masters, and by reading all that the composers themselves may have said about the performances of their works. But he can learn more in a five-minute conversation with a great orchestral conductor, a great singer, or a great instrumentalist than he can in all the other ways combined.

Arturo Toscanini, Mary Garden, Ysaye, Marcella Sembrich, Yvette Guilbert, Pablo Casals, Fritz Kreisler, Waslav Nijinsky, Marguerite d'Alvarez, or Leo Ornstein can give any reviewer, young or old, invaluable lessons. Such as these are their own severest critics and they teach the writer-critic to be severe—and just. One piece of advice, however, I would give to prospective critics. Become acquainted with artist-interpreters by all means, but other things being equal, it is perhaps better to meet good artists than bad ones!

III

Chaliapine, Nijinsky, Mazarin, and Fremstad[A] have not appeared on the New York stage since I painted their portraits; nor have I seen them elsewhere. Consequently any revision I might make in these pictures would be revision of what I felt then in terms of what I feel now. Nothing could be more ridiculous. So I let them stand as they are.

With Yvette Guilbert the case is somewhat different. She has been before the American public almost consistently since the original publication of this book. Her work at her own recitals is still the fine thing it was and probably will remain so for a great many years to come. Madame Guilbert, however, has seen fit to appear in a play at the Neighbourhood Playhouse in New York, a fourteenth century French miracle play called Guibour.

It is often said of an actress that she is too great to fail even when a part does not suit her. But this is an utterly fallacious theory. Only great actresses can fail. A really bad actress always fails and consequently cannot be considered at all. A mediocre or conventional actress is neither very good nor very bad in any rôle, but a great actress, when she fails, fails magnificently, because she plays with such precision and authority that she is worse than a lesser person possibly could be.

Certainly Yvette Guilbert failed magnificently in Guibour. I have been told that her infrequent performances in comedy in Paris have been equally unsuccessful. When Guilbert sings a song she is forced by the very nature of her method to make much of little; without setting, frequently without costume, without the aid of other actors, she is obliged in a period of three or four minutes to give her public an atmosphere, several characters, and a miniature drama. Now, taking into consideration the average low rate of intelligence and the almost entire lack of imagination of the ordinary theatre audience, she is compelled to chuck in as much detail as the thing will hold. The result is generally admirable. In a play, however, this method becomes monotonous, tiresome, picayune, fussy, overelaborate. One does not want the lift of an eyelash, a gesture with every line; one does not want emphasis on every word. The great actors employ broader methods. It was here that Madame Guilbert failed, by applying the extremely efficacious technique of her own perfect craft to another craft which calls for another technique.

Geraldine Farrar has been seen and heard in a number of impersonations at the Metropolitan Opera House (she has also enlarged her cinema répertoire), since I wrote my paper about her, Orlanda in La Reine Fiamette, Lodoletta, Thais, Suor Angelica, and Zaza, but I can add very little to what I have said. Orlanda, Lodoletta, and, naturally enough, Thais, she has permanently dropped, I think, after a short period of experimentation. In Zaza, however, it seems possible, although it is too early to predict with certainty, as I am writing these lines a month after her assumption of the part, that she has found a rôle in which she will meet popular satisfaction for some years to come. On the whole, however, I must leave the case as I pleaded it originally, withal it is probably a trifle rosier than I would plead it now. Nevertheless I must state in fairness that Madame Farrar has probably never sung so well before as she is singing this winter (1919-20) and that she retains the admiration of opera-goers in general. It seems apparent to me now that in exploiting herself as a "character" actress she has perhaps made a mistake. Her best work has not been done in operas like Thais, Carmen, and Zaza, but as Elisabeth in Tannhäuser, as the Goosegirl in Königskinder, and as Rosaura in Le Donne Curiose. Usually, indeed, she is charming in what are called "ingenue" rôles. It may therefore be considered unfortunate that these are the rôles in her repertoire to which she is most indifferent. However it must be admitted that it seems impertinent and even stupid to storm and fret about a career which has been so evenly successful. The public must admire Madame Farrar or it would not go to see her, and at the Metropolitan Opera House it is a recognized fact that she is one of two singers in the company who is always sure of drawing a full house.