"The production of Faust last evening by the Maretzek troupe was excellent indeed. But why, O why, the eternal Soldiers' Chorus? Why this everlasting, tedious march, when there are so many excellent band pieces on the market that would fit the occasion better?"
As a rule the public were quite satisfied with this chorus. It was whistled and sung all over the country and never failed to get eager applause. But no part of the opera ever went so well as the Salve dimora and the love scene. All the latter part of the garden act went splendidly although nearly everyone was, or professed to be, shocked by the frankness of the window episode that closes it. It is a pity those simple-souled audiences could not have lived to see Miss Geraldine Farrar draw Faust with her into the house at the fall of the curtain! There is, indeed, a place for all things. Faust is not the place for that sort of suggestiveness. It is a question, incidentally, whether any stage production is; but the argument of that is outside our present point.
Dear Longfellow came to see the first performance of Faust; and the next day he wrote a charming letter about it to Mr. James T. Fields of Boston. Said he:
"The Margaret was beautiful. She reminded me of Dryden's lines:
| "'So pois'd, so gently she descends from high, |
| It seems a soft dismission from the sky.'" |
CHAPTER IX
OPÉRA COMIQUE
TO most persons "opéra comique" means simply comic opera. If they make any distinction at all it is to call it "high-class comic opera." As a matter of fact, tragedy and comedy are hardly farther apart in spirit than are the rough and farcical stuff that we look upon as comic opera nowadays and the charming old pieces that formed the true "opéra comique" some fifty years ago. "Opéra bouffe" even is many degrees below "opéra comique." Yet "opéra bouffe" is, to my mind, something infinitely superior and many steps higher than modern comic opera. So we have some delicate differentiations to make when we go investigating in the fields of light dramatic music.
In Paris at the Comique they try to keep the older distinction in mind when selecting their operas for production. There are exceptions to this rule, as to others, for play-houses that specialise; but for the most part these Paris managers choose operas that are light. I use the word advisedly. By light I mean, literally, not heavy. Light music, light drama, does not necessarily mean humorous. It may, on the contrary, be highly pathetic and charged with sentiment. The only restriction is that it shall not be expressed in the stentorian orchestration of a Meyerbeer, nor in the heart-rending tragedy of a Wagner. In theme and in treatment, in melodies and in text, it must be of delicate fibre, something easily seized and swiftly assimilated, something intimate, perfumed, and agreeable, with no more harshness of emotion than of harmony.
Judged by this standard such operas as Martha, La Bohème, even Carmen—possibly, even Werther—are not entirely foreign to the requirements of "opéra comique." Le Donne Curiose may be considered as an almost perfect revival and exemplification of the form. A careful differentiation discovers that humour, a happy ending, and many rollicking melodies do not at all make an "opéra comique." These qualities all belong abundantly to Die Meistersinger and to Verdi's Falstaff, yet these great operas are no nearer being examples of genuine "comique" than Les Huguenots is or Götterdämmerung.