"Galatea" had its first New York performance at the Academy of Music in Brooklyn, on December 30, 1886, under the direction of Arthur Mees; Delibes's ballet "Coppélia" at the Metropolitan on March 11, 1887, under the direction of Gustav Hinrichs. It is likely that both works were previously given by the National Opera Company on tour.
The fourth regular subscription season of opera at the Metropolitan Opera House (third season of opera in German) began on November 8, 1886, under the management of the board of directors, the direction of Edmund C. Stanton, with Anton Seidl and Walter Damrosch, conductors. It extended over fifteen weeks, the closing date being February 26, 1887, and comprised forty-five subscription nights, and fifteen matinées, no opera having been given from December 5th to January 3d. In the prospectus the directors had promised to produce fourteen operas, and the promise was kept as to number, though two operas, "Tristan und Isolde" and "Fidelio," were substituted for "Siegfried" (which had been completely staged) and "Les Huguenots." The operas thus substituted were the most successful of the list, "Fidelio" being received with so much favor on the two occasions for which it had been announced that an extra performance had to be given to satisfy the popular demand. Of this incident more presently. This extra performance raised the number of representations to sixty-one, which were distributed through the list of operas as follows:
Opera First performance Times given
"Die Königin von Saba" ……….. November 8 ……. 4
"Die Walküre" ……………….. November 10 …… 3
"Aïda" ……………………… November 12 …… 4
"Der Prophet" ……………….. November 17 …… 5
"Das Goldene Kreutz" and ballet .. November 19 …… 4
"Tannhäuser" ………………… November 28 …… 6
"Tristan und Isolde" …………. December 1 ……. 8
"Faust" …………………….. December 8 ……. 3
"Lohengrin" …………………. December 15 …… 4
"Merlin" ……………………. January 3 …….. 5
"Fidelio" …………………… January 14 ……. 3
"Die Meistersinger" ………….. January 21 ……. 5
"Rienzi" ……………………. January 31 ……. 5
"La Muette de Portici" ……….. February 16 …… 2
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Total performances ………………………….. 61
The cost of representation was $288,400, and of maintaining the opera house about $154,000; in this total of about $442,000 was included the cost of the scenery, wardrobe, and properties. The company's receipts comprised $202,751 from subscriptions and box office sales, about $33,000 from rentals, and about $175,000 from an assessment of $2,500 from each of the stockholders; in all about $410,751 I am able to be thus explicit about the financial affairs of the German régime because of courtesies received at the time from Mr. Stanton, with the sanction of the stockholders, who were inclined then to look upon their undertaking as one of public, not merely of private, concern. The figures will enable the student of this history to view intelligently some of the happenings at a later period, when the giving of opera became a business speculation pure and simple. In attendance, the measure of public patronage was represented by 137,399. The prices of admission ranged from fifty cents to four dollars, and the average receipts were $1.47 1/2 per individual.
The incidents of a particularly interesting character in the season were the first American performances of "Tristan und Isolde," and Goldmark's opera "Merlin," and the coming and going of Albert Niemann; secondary in importance were the production of Wagner's "Rienzi," with which was connected the return of Anton Schott to the ranks of the company, the surprising triumph of "Fidelio," and the production of Brüll's opera, "Das goldene Kreutz," and the ballet, "Vienna Waltzes." "Tristan und Isolde" was brought forward on December 1, 1886, under the direction of Anton Seidl. The distribution of characters was as follows: Tristan, Albert Niemann; Isolde, Lilli Lehmann; König Marke, Emil Fischer; Kurwenal, Adolf Robinson; Melot, Rudolph von Milde; Brangäne, Marianne Brandt; Ein Hirt, Otto Kemlitz; Steuermann, Emil Sanger; Seemann, Max Alvary. The interesting character of the occurrence was fully appreciated by the public, and the drama was seen and heard by a remarkable assembly. The last seat had been sold four days before, and the vast audience room was crowded in every portion. The tenseness of the attention was almost painful, and the effect of Herr Niemann's acting in the climax of the third act was so vivid that an experienced actress who sat in a baignoir at my elbow grew faint and almost swooned. At the request of Mr. Stanton, or Mr. Seidl, he never ventured again to expose the wound in his breast, though the act is justified, if not demanded, by the text. The enthusiasm after the first act was tremendous. The performers came forward three times after the fall of the curtain, and then Mr. Seidl, who had won the greenest laurels that had yet crowned him, was called upon to join them, and twice more the curtain rose to enable the performers to receive the popular tribute. Five recalls after an act would have meant either nothing or a failure in an Italian theater; it was of vast meaning here. The reception accorded Wagner's love drama was not such an one as comes from an audience easily pleased or attracted by curiosity alone. It told of keen and lofty enjoyment and undisguised confession of the power of the drama. The applause came after the last note of the orchestral postludes. The drama was performed eight times in seven weeks, and took its place as the most popular work in the repertory, though in average attendance it fell a trifle short of the three representations of "Fidelio," which also served to signalize the season.
I shall have something to say presently about Herr Niemann, and a criticism of his interpretation of the character of the hero of the tragedy can be spared. From a histrionic point of view it has been equaled only by his performances of Siegmund and Tannhäuser; nothing else has shown such stature that has been witnessed on the operatic stage of New York. Nor has his declamation of the text been equaled, though the compelling charm of Wagner's melody was potently presented years later by Jean de Reszke. Herr Niemann was long past the prime of life when he came to New York, and when he went back to Berlin after his last visit there was very little left of his public career; but the youngest artist in the company might have envied him the whole-souled enthusiasm with which he set about his tasks. How completely he dedicated himself to the artistic duty was illustrated when, in the season of 1887-88, he realized what had been the ambition of years, and gave a first performance of Siegfried in "Götterdämmerung." He had studied the part a dozen years before in the hope of appearing in it at the first Bayreuth festival; but Wagner did not want the illusion spoiled by presenting the actor of Siegmund on one evening as the actor of Siegfried on another, and Niemann's Siegmund was a masterpiece that must not be despoiled. In New York, on Niemann's second visit, he asked for the privilege of enacting the Volsung's part in the last division of the tetralogy, and studied the part ab initio with Seidl. I chanced one evening to be a witness of his study hour—the strangest one I ever saw. It was at the conductor's lodgings in the opera house. There was a pianoforte in the room, but it was closed. The two men sat at a table with the open score before them. Seidl beat time to the inaudible orchestral music, and Niemann sang sans support of any kind. Then would come discussion of readings, markings of cues, etc., all with indescribable gravity, while Frau Seidl-Krauss, a charming ingénue budding into a tragedienne, sat sewing in a corner. After the performance of the drama, I sat again with Niemann and Seidl over cigars and beer. I thanked Niemann for having discarded a universal trick in the scene of Siegfried's murder, and for carrying out Wagner's stage directions to the letter in raising his shield and advancing a step to crush Hagen, and then falling exhausted upon it.
"I am glad you noted that," said Niemann in his broad Berlinese. "Years ago I was angered by the device which all Siegfrieds follow of lifting the shield high and throwing it behind themselves before they fall. Das hat doch gar kein Sinn. There's no sense in that; if he has strength enough to throw the shield over his head, he certainly has strength enough to hurl it at the man he wants to kill. He lifts the heavy shield for that purpose, but his strength gives way suddenly, and he falls upon it with a crash. It's dangerous, of course. A fellow might easily break a finger or a rib. But if you do a thing, do it right. I have waited more than ten years to sing Siegfried, and now I've done it; but, youngster (to Seidl), if we meet again years from now, and I've fifty marks in my pocket, I'll get an orchestra, and you will conduct just enough to let me sing 'Ach! dieses Auge, ewig nun offen,' and then I'll die in peace! That's the climax of Siegfried's part, and it must sound red, blood red—Siegfried is red; so is Tristan. Vogl sings Tristan well, but he's all yellow—not red, as he ought to be."
I recall another bit of Niemann's characteristic criticism: Adolf Robinson, the barytone of the first few German seasons, was an excellent singer and also actor; but he belonged to the old operatic school, and was prone to extravagant action and exaggerated pathos. He was, moreover, fond of the footlights. At one of the last rehearsals for "Tristan und Isolde," Robinson, the Kurwenal of the occasion, was perpetually running from the dying hero's couch to the front of the stage to sing his pathetic phrases with tremendous feeling into the faces of the audience. Niemann, reclining on the couch, immovable as a recumbent statue, as was his wont, without a gesture, all evidence of the seething impatience which is consuming him mirrored in the expression of his face, and particularly his eyes, watched the conventional stage antics of his colleague till he could endure them no longer. He gave a sign to Seidl, who stopped the orchestra to hear the dying knight addressing his squire in wingèd, but un-Wagnerian, words to this effect:
"My dear Robinson, this scene is not all yours—Tristan has also something to say here; but how am I to make my share of the dramatic effect if you are always going to run down to the audience and sing at it? After a while there will be nothing left for me to do but to get up and hurl my boots into the audience room. And I'm a very sick man. Now, there's a good fellow, come over here to the couch; stay by me and nurse me, and you'll see there's something in my part, too."