Had one been able to explode a ton of dynamite when Mr. Fischer ended it would have been accepted by the audience as not more than a fitting amount of approbative noise. Twenty minutes later, the audience still clamoring for a speech, Mr. Seidl came forward, for perhaps the twentieth time, and spoke as follows:
Believe me, ladies and gentlemen, I understand the meaning of this great demonstration. For myself, the orchestra, and the other members of the company, I thank you.
To understand the story of the overthrow of German opera managed by the owners of the opera house, and the reversion to the system which had proved disastrous at the beginning and was fated to prove disastrous again, it is well to bear the fact in mind that instability was, is, and always will be an element in the cultivation of opera so long as it remains an exotic; that is, until it becomes a national expression in art, using the vernacular and giving utterance to national ideals. The fickleness of the public taste, the popular craving for sensation, the egotism and rapacity of the artists, the lack of high purpose in the promoters, the domination of fashion instead of love for art, the lack of real artistic culture—all these things have stood from the beginning, as they still stand, in the way of a permanent foundation of opera in New York. The boxes of the Metropolitan Opera House have a high market value to-day, but they are a coveted asset only because they are visible symbols of social distinction. There were genuine notes of rejoicing in the stockholders' voices at the measure of financial success achieved in the first three seasons of German opera, but the lesson had not yet been learned that an institution like the Metropolitan Opera House can only be maintained by a subvention in perpetuity; that in democratic America the persons who crave and create the luxury must contribute from their pockets the equivalent of the money which in Europe comes from national exchequers and the privy purses of monarchs. This fact did eventually impress itself upon the consciousness of the stockholders of the Metropolitan Opera House, but when it found lodgment there it created a notion—a natural one, and easily understood—that their predilections, and theirs alone, ought to be humored in the character of the entertainment. I have displayed a disposition to quarrel with the artistic attitude of the directors, but I would not be an honest chronicler of the operatic occurrences of the last twenty-five years if I did not do so. The facts in the case were flagrant, the situation anomalous. The stockholders created an art spirit which was big with promise while rich in fulfilment, and then killed it because its manifestation bored them. An institution which seemed about to become permanent and a fit and adequate national expression in an admired form of art, was set afloat again upon the sea of impermanency and speculation. About the middle of the fourth German season the directors formally resolved to continue the German representations. Not long afterward it developed that the receipts for the season would be considerably less than had been counted on, and immediately a clamor arose against the management. The champions of Italian opera joyfully proclaimed that the knell of German opera had rung, and attributed the falling off in popular support to the predominance of Wagner's operas and dramas in the repertory. The disaffection threatened mischief to the enterprise and had to be met; the directors met it by formally asking for an expression of opinion from the stockholders as to the future conduct of the institution. On January 21, 1888, they sent out a circular letter to the stockholders, in which they submitted two propositions, on which they asked for a vote. One was "To go on with German opera with an assessment of $3,200 a box"; the other, "To give no opera the next season, with an assessment of $1,000 a box, and to resume, if possible, the following season." The letter, which was signed by James A. Roosevelt, president, stated that the giving of Italian opera was not suggested because the directors "were convinced that to do so in a satisfactory manner will require a much larger assessment upon the stockholders than to give German opera." It was also set forth that the directors had estimated that the opera could be maintained for the assessment ($2,500 on each box), provided the receipts from the public amounted to $3,000 a performance. The subscription was 50 per cent. larger than the previous year (about $80,000, against $52,000), and larger receipts had been expected than in 1886-87, when the average was about $3,300. Instead, the receipts had fallen off and indicated an average of only $2,500. Rentals, however, had increased $14,000.
The answer of the stockholders was a vote of over four to one in favor of continuing German opera under the first proposition of the circular letter. Then, while the Italinissimi were still proclaiming that the Metropolitan opera had been killed by Wagnerism, there came the announcement of two weeks of consecutive representations of the three dramas of "The Ring of the Nibelung" (all but the prologue), which were in the repertory of the company. The two weeks, and a third in which "Götterdämmerung" was performed three times, brought more money into the exchequer of the opera than any preceding five weeks of the season. The average of $2,500 apprehended by the directors was raised to over $3,177.
During the next season the average receipts were practically the same, nor was there anything to change the situation from a financial point of view. The stockholders had voted themselves into a mood of temporary quiescence, and the opera pursued its serious course unhampered by more than the ordinary fault-finding on the part of the representations of careless amusement seekers in the public press, and the grumbling in the boxes because the musical director and stage manager persisted in darkening the audience room in order to heighten the effect of the stage pictures.
The aristocratic prejudice against gloom extended to the operas which contained dark scenes, and when Mr. Stanton once exercised his authority as director and had the stage lights going at almost full tilt in the dungeon scene of "Fidelio," the effect of Florestan's exclamation, "Gott! welch' Dunkel hier!" upon an audience fully three-fourths of which was composed of Germans or descendants of Germans the ludicrous effect may be imagined. Many stories were current among the artists of the blithe indifference of the occupants of the boxes to artistic proprieties when they interfered with the display of gowns and jewels. One of them was that the chairman of the amusement committee of the directors had requested that the last act of "Die Meistersinger" be sung first, as it was "the only act of the opera that had music in it," and the boxholders did not want to wait till the end. The conduct of the occupants of the boxes now grew to be so intolerable that there were frequent demonstrations of disapproval and rebuke from the listeners who sat in the parquet and balconies. The matter became a subject for newspaper discussion; in fact, it had been such a subject ever since the loud laugh of a woman at the climacteric moment of "Fidelio" had caused Fräulein Brandt to break down in tears in the opening measures of the frenetically joyous duet, "O namenlose Freude!" In the course of this extraordinary discussion one of the directors boldly asserted the right of the stockholders in the boxes to disturb the enjoyment of listeners in the stalls. Not only did he repeal the old rule of "noblesse oblige," but he also intimated that the payment of $3,000 acquitted the box owner and his guests of one of the simplest and most obvious obligations imposed by good breeding. At length the directors were forced to rebuke their own behavior. On the night of January 21, 1891, the following notice was found hung against the wall in each of the boxes:
January 15, 1891. Many complaints having been made to the directors of the Opera House of the annoyance produced by the talking in the boxes during the performances, the board requests that it be discontinued. By Order of the Board of Directors.
This was the first sop to Cerberus after the directors had concluded a contract with Mr. Abbey, leasing the house to him a second time and substituting opera in Italian and French for opera in German. The public had begun to speak its mind, not only by making a mighty demonstration in honor of Mr. Seidl and the singers when a German opera was given, but in remaining away when the weak-kneed novelties were given; in requesting by petition a performance of "Fidelio" on a Saturday afternoon for which the opera by the royal composer had been set down, and in crowding the house and giving an ovation to the singers when their petition was granted. The next sop was to set aside all the works which it had been projected should take the place of the later dramas of Wagner, which the stockholders (or the majority of them) did not like, and to devote the remainder of the season almost exclusively to Wagner. The operas thus sacrificed were Marschner's "Templer und Jüdin," Massenet's "Esclarmonde," Lalo's "Le Roi d'Ys," Goetz's "Taming of the Shrew," and Nicolai's "Merry Wives of Windsor." Not love of Wagner but fear of financial consequences dictated the step, which was successful in extricating the institution from the slough into which it had fallen. How much the Wagner operas and dramas did to keep the Metropolitan Opera House alive can be shown by the statistics of the last five German seasons, which I compiled at the close of the season of 1890-91, and printed in The Tribune of March 25th of the latter year. Here is the table:
Season Season Season Season Season 1886-1887 1887-1888 1888-1889 1889-1890 1890-1891 Total representations ………. 61 64 68 67 67 Wagnerian representations ………. 31 36 35 37 39 Non-Wagnerian representations ………. 30 28 33 30 28 Total receipts …….. $202,751.00 $185,258.50 $209,581.00 $204,644.70 $198,119.25 Average receipts ……….. 3,323.78 2,894.66 3,141.63 3,054.39 2,957.00 Wagnerian receipts ……… 111,049.50 116,449.75 115,784.50 121,568.70 125,169.25 Non-wagnerian receipts ………. 91,701.50 68,808.75 93,796.50 83,076.00 72,950.00 Wagnerian average ………… 3,582.21 3,234.72 3,308.13 3,285.65 3,209.46 Non-Wagnerian average ………… 3,056.71 2,457.45 2,842.32 2,769.20 2.605.37 Average difference in favor of Wagner … 525.50 777.27 465.81 516.45 604.09