Later Queens of the French Stage

by H. Noel Williams

The result of all this was most unfortunate for Sophie. The contest between the Gluckists and their opponents had now reached a very acute stage, and it was the general belief of the composer’s admirers that the partisans of the old school were prepared to employ the most questionable methods in order to counteract the ever-increasing popularity of the German. A rumour spread that a cabal had been formed to ensure the failure of Alceste, and that Sophie and her friends had joined it. There seems to have been little truth in this report, the best refutation of it being the fact that, although Alceste was somewhat coldly received at first, its success grew with each performance, and none at all, so far as it concerned Sophie, who, in a letter to a theatrical journal, Le Nouveau Spectateur, in acknowledgment of some sympathetic references to herself which had appeared in a previous issue, expressly disclaimed all hostility to Gluck or Rosalie Levasseur:

“I await with impatience your judgment on the opera of Alceste, which is about to interest and divide all Paris. Your views will confirm those which I myself have formed from witnessing the rehearsals only. If the success which I obtained in Iphigénie might have predisposed me in favour of the authors, their want of consideration, I even venture to say their bad conduct, towards me might have served to alter my opinion of them. But I have too much respect for myself to join (as these gentlemen would have people believe) in any cabal which may be formed for or against the new work. Such things I have always considered beneath me; the former savours of charlatanerie, the latter of baseness. I have confined my vengeance to not asserting my right to the principal rôle.[54] But no personal reason will make me underrate genius, nor prevent me from rendering justice to that of M. Gluck. He is, I proclaim it aloud, the musician of the soul and master of all the modulations that express sentiment and passion, especially grief.

“As to the author of the words, I leave to the public the task of judging him. If I belonged to the Académie-Française, my opinion would carry as much weight as that of any other of the Forty. But I belong to the Académie Royale de Musique. I acknowledge my incompetence and my motto is: tacet. I will merely permit myself to say that one does not always find subjects as interesting as Iphigenia, nor models as sublime as Racine.

“In regard to the performers, if I may be allowed to speak of them, I should praise the acting of M. Gros [Legros], in the part of Admetus, and the singing of Mlle. Rosalie, in the part of Alceste.

“I have the honour to be, very perfectly, Monsieur,
“Your very humble and very obedient servant,
“Sophie Arnould.”

The good effect which this letter might have produced was, unhappily, entirely discounted by a series of bitter attacks upon Alceste, Gluck, and Rosalie, which appeared in subsequent issues of the same journal. On the day after the first performance of the new opera, the Nouveau Spectateur published an anonymous letter, containing the following choice morsel of criticism:

“It seemed as if the music was being sung by invalids who had just swallowed half a pint of emetic and were making futile efforts to vomit.”

This was soon followed by a second letter reproaching Gluck for having taken “a girl like Rosalie to play the part of Alceste,” and several articles declaring that the opera was “more mournful than affecting,” and that, in preferring Mlle. Levasseur to Mlle. Arnould, the composer showed that he “misunderstood the taste of the nation in music as well as in acting.”

These letters, there can be little doubt, were the work of Lefuel de Méricourt, the editor of the journal in question, a libellous scribe of the school of Pidansat de Mairobert.[55] But the admirers of Gluck and the friends of Rosalie believed, or affected to believe, that, if not written, they had, at any rate, been inspired by Sophie, and thirsted for revenge.