The season of 1894-95, consisting again of thirteen weeks, began on November 19th, and closed on February 16th. It was marked by a number of incidents, some of which made a permanent impression on the policy of the Metropolitan Opera House. Chief of these was a remarkable eruption of sentiment in favor of German opera—so vigorous an eruption, indeed, that it led to the incorporation of German performances in the Metropolitan repertory ever after, though the change involved a much greater augmentation of the forces of the establishment than the consorting of French with Italian had involved. To this I shall give the attention which it deserves presently. Other features were the introduction of Saturday night performances of opera at reduced prices (a feature which became permanent), the appearance of several new singers, and the production of two novelties, one of them Verdi's "Falstaff," of first-class importance.
In their prospectus the managers promised a reformation of the chorus, and announced the re-engagement of "nearly all the great favorites of last year." The improvement of the chorus was not particularly noticeable except in appearance; a number of young and comely American women were enlisted, but their best service was to stand in front of the old stagers who knew the operas, and could sing but who seemed to have come down through the ages from the early days of the old Academy. The phrase "nearly all" was an ominous one, for it betokened the absence from the company of Mme. Calvé. The newcomers were Lucille Hill, Sybil Sanderson, Zélie de Lussan, Mira Heller, and Libia Drog, sopranos; G. Russitano and Francesco Tamagno, tenors, and Victor Maurel, who had been a popular favorite twenty years before at the Academy of Music. Luigi Mancinelli and E. Bevignani were the conductors, and Mr. Seidl was engaged to give éclat to the Sunday evening concerts. Mme. Melba's chief financial value to the management in the preceding season had been found to lie in these concerts, which this year were begun earlier than usual, and made a part of Melba's concert tour. The first opera was "Roméo et Juliette," with the cast beloved of society, and on the second night the introduction of the newcomers began. But woefully. The opera was "William Tell," and Signorina Drog sang the part of the heroine in place of Miss Hill, indisposed. Mathilde (or Matilda—the opera was sung in Italian), does not appear in the opera until the second act, and then she has the most familiar air in the opera to sing—"Selva opaca," an air which then belonged to the concert-room repertory of most florid sopranos. When Signorina Drog came upon the stage, it is safe to say that no one regretted her substitution for the English singer except herself. She was an exceedingly handsome person, who moved about with attractive freedom and grace, and disclosed a voice of good quality, especially in the upper register. She began her aria most tastefully, but scarcely had she begun when her memory played her false. For a few dreadful seconds she tried to pick up the thread of the melody but in vain. Then came the inevitable breakdown. She quit trying, and appealed pitifully to Signor Mancinelli for help. He seemed to have lost his head as completely as the lady had her memory. So had the prompter, who pulled his noddle into his shell like a snail and remained as mute. Signor Tamagno entered in character, and indulged in dumbshow to a few detached phrases from the orchestra. Then the awfulness of the situation overwhelmed him, and he fairly ran off the stage, leaving Matilda alone. That lady made a final appeal to the conductor, switched her dress nervously with her riding whip, went to the wings, got a glass of water, and then disappeared. The audience, which had good-humoredly applauded till now, began to laugh, and the demoralization was complete. It would have been a relief had the curtain fallen, but as this did not happen Signor Tamagno, Signor Ancona, and Édouard de Reszke came upon the stage and began the famous trio, in which Signor Tamagno sang with tremendous intensity and power. It was a remarkable performance of a sensational piece, and had it not been preceded by so frightful a catastrophe, and interrupted by Tamagno himself to bow his acknowledgments, pick up a bunch of violets thrown from a box, and repeat his first melody, its effect would have been dramatically electrifying. There was a long wait after the act to enable Signor Mancinelli to arrange the necessary cuts, and after the stage manager had made an apology on behalf of Signorina Drog, and explained that she had been seized with vertigo, but would finish the opera in an abbreviated form, the representation was resumed. It is due to the lady to add that she had never before attempted to sing the part, and that on the third evening she materially redeemed herself in "Aïda." Miss de Lussan, a native of New York, who had begun her operatic career a few years before in the Boston Ideal Opera Company, and had won a commendable degree of favor at Covent Garden as Carmen, had been engaged in the hope of continuing the prosperous career of Bizet's opera, but the hope proved abortive. It was the singer, not the song, which had bewitched the people of New York—Calvé, not Bizet. "Carmen" was excellently given, the charm of Melba's voice being called on for the music of Micaela's part; but the sensation had departed, and was waiting to be revived with the return of Calvé in the succeeding season.
The first novelty in this season was "Elaine," an opera in four acts, words by Paul Ferrier, music by Herman Bemberg, brought forward on December 17, 1894. "Elaine" was produced because Mme. Melba and the brothers de Reszke wanted to appear in it out of friendship for the composer, who had dedicated the score to them, and come to New York to witness the production, as he had gone to London when it was given in Covent Garden. In America Bemberg was a small celebrity of the salon and concert room. His parents were citizens of the Argentine Republic, but he was born in Paris, in 1861. His father being a man of wealth, he had ample opportunity to cultivate his talents, and his first teachers in composition were Bizet and Henri Maréchal. Later he continued his studies at the Conservatoire, under Dubois and Massenet. In 1885 he carried off the Rossini prize, and in 1889 brought out a one-act opera at the Opéra Comique, "Le Baiser de Suzon," for which Pierre Barbier wrote the words. "Elaine" had its first performance at Convent Garden in July, 1892, with Mme. Melba, Jean and Édouard de Reszke, and M. Plançon in the cast. It was then withdrawn for revision, and restored to the stage the next year. If there is anything creditable in such a thing it may be said, to Mr. Bemberg's credit, that, so far as I know, he was the first musician who wrote music for Oscar Wilde's "Salome." The public, especially the people of the boxes, lent a gracious ear to the new opera, partly, no doubt, because of its subject, but more largely because of Mme. Melba, Mme. Mantelli, the brothers de Reszke, Plançon, and M. Castelmary, who were concerned in its production. All of Mr. Bemberg's music that had previously been heard in New York was of the lyrical order, and it seemed but natural that he was less successful in the developing of a dramatic situation than in hymning the emotions of one when he found it at hand. A ballad in the first act ("L'amour est pur comme la fiamme"), the scene at the close ("L'air est léger"), a prayer in the third act ("Dieu de pitié"), and the duets which followed them are all cases in point. They mark the high tide of M. Bemberg's graceful melodic fancy, and exemplify his good taste and genuineness of feeling. It is not great music, but it is sincere to the extent of its depth. For the note of chivalry which ought to sound all through an Arthurian opera M. Bemberg has chosen no less a model than "Lohengrin"; but his trumpets are feebler echoes of the original voice than his harmonies on several occasions, as, for instance, the entrance of Lancelot into the castle of Astolat. In general his instrumentation is discreet and effective. He has followed his French teachers in the treatment of the dialogue, which aims to be intensified speech. He has also trodden, though at a distance, in the footsteps of Bizet and Massenet in the device of using typical phrases; but so timidly has this been done that it is doubtful if it was discovered by the audience. The resources of the opera house in reproducing the scenes of chivalric life were commensurate with the music of the opera in its attempt to bring its spirit to the mind through the ear. It is more exciting to read of a tournament in Malory than to see a mimic one on the stage. It is true that there were men on horses who rode together three times, that a spear was broken, and that they afterward fought on foot; but they struck their spears together as if they had been singlesticks, instead of receiving each his opponent's weapon on his shield, and when the spear broke it was not all "toshivered." Then, when they had drawn their swords, they did not "lash together like wild boars, thrusting and foining and giving either other many sad strokes, so that it was marvel to see how they might endure," as the gentle Sir Thomas would doubtless have had them do. Still, the opera was enjoyed and applauded, as it deserved to be for the good things that were in it, and the Lily Maid had more lilies and roses and holly showered about her than she could easily pick up and carry away.
Miss Sybil Sanderson, who had gone to Paris from the Pacific Slope some years before, and had achieved considerable of a vogue, particularly in Massenet's operas, made her American début on January 16, 1895, in Massenet's "Manon," in which M. Jean de Reszke sang the part of the Chevalier des Grieux for the first time. The opera had been heard at the Academy of Music, in Italian, nine years before, and this was its first performance in the original French, a language which the fair débutante used with admirable distinctness and charmingly modulated cadences, a fact which contributed much to the pretty triumph which she celebrated after the first act. She did not maintain herself on the plane reached in this act. The second had scarcely begun before it became noticeable that she was wanting in passionate expression as well as in voice, and that her histrionic limitations went hand in hand with her vocal. But she was a radiant vision, and had she been able to bring out the ingratiating character of the music she might have held the sympathies of the audience, obviously predisposed in her favor, in the degree contemplated by the composer. This quality of graciousness is the most notable element in Massenet's music. As much as anything can do so it achieves pardon for the book, which is far less amiable than that of "Traviata," which deals with the same unlovely theme. Another quasi novelty was Saint-Saëns's "Samson et Dalila," which had one performance—and one only—on February 8th to afford Mme. Mantelli an opportunity to exhibit her musical powers, and Signor Tamagno his physical. The music was familiar from performances of the work as an oratorio; as an opera it came as near to making a fiasco as a work containing so much good and sound music could.
The most interesting event in the whole administration of Mr. Abbey and his associates happened on February 4th, when Verdi's "Falstaff" was presented. Signor Mancinelli conducted, and the cast was as follows:
Mistress Ford …………………. Mme. Emma Eames
Anne …………………………. Mlle. de Lussan
Mistress Page …………………. Mlle. Jane de Vigne
Dame Quickly ………………….. Mme. Scalchi
Fenton ……………………….. Sig. Russitano
Ford …………………………. Sig. Campanari
Pistol ……………………….. Sig. Nicolini
Dr. Caius …………………….. Sig. Vanni
Bardolph ……………………… Sig. Rinaldini
Sir John Falstaff ……………… M. Victor Maurel
(His original creation.)
To construct operas out of Shakespeare's plays has been an ambition of composers for nearly two centuries. Verdi himself yielded to the temptation when he wrote "Macbeth" forty years ago. Probably no one recognized more clearly than he did when he wrote "Falstaff" how the whole system of lyrico-dramatic composition should undergo a transformation before anything like justice could be done to the myriad-minded poet's creations. Who would listen now to Rossini's "Otello"? Yet, in its day, it was immensely popular. A careless day it was—the day of pretty singing, and little else; the day when there was so little concern for the dramatic element in opera that the grewsome dénouement of Rossini's opera is said once to have caused a listener to cry out in astonishment: "Great God! the tenor is murdering the soprano!" Then it might have been possible for a composer, provided he were a Mozart, to find a musical investment for a Shakespearian comedy, but assuredly not for a tragedy. No literary masterpiece was safe from the vandalism of opera writers at that time, however, and Shakespeare simply shared the fate of Goethe and their great fellows. With the dawn of the new era there came greater possibilities, and now it may be said we have a few Shakespearian operas that will endure for several decades at least: let us say Nicolai's "Merry Wives of Windsor," Gounod's "Romeo and Juliet," Verdi's "Othello" and "Falstaff." Ambroise Thomas's "Hamlet" and Saint-Saëns's "Henry VIII" seem already to have outlived their brief day, at least in all countries save France, where the personal equation in favor of a native composer seems strong enough to keep second-class composers afloat while it permits genius to perish. As for Goetz's "Taming of the Shrew," it was too much like good Rhine wine, and too little like champagne to pass as a comic opera. When Verdi's last opera appeared the only Falstaff who had vitality was the fat knight of Nicolai's work. Yet he had had many predecessors. Balfe composed a "Falstaff" for the King's Theater in London, which was sung with the capacious-voiced Lablache in the titular part, and Grisi, Persiani, and Ivanoff in the cast. That was in 1838. Forty years earlier Salieri had composed an Italian "Falstaff" for Vienna. In 1856 Adolphe Adam produced a French "Falstaff" in Paris, and the antics of the greasy knight amused the Parisians eighty-six years earlier in Papavoine's "Le Vieux Coquet." Nicolai's predecessors in Germany were Peter Ritter, 1794, and Dittersdorf, 1796.
Verdi's return to Shakespearian subjects after reaching the fulness of his powers in his old age, and after he had turned from operas to lyric dramas, is in the highest degree significant of the thoroughness of the revolution accomplished by Wagner. The production of "Otello" and "Falstaff" created as great an excitement in Italy as the first performance of "Parsifal" did in Germany; and it must have seemed like the irony of fate to many that Wagner should have to be filtered through Verdi in order to bear fruit in the original home of the art form. But that is surely the lesson of "Otello," "Falstaff," and the fervid works of Leoncavallo, Mascagni, and Puccini.
Even more strikingly than "Otello" this comic opera of the youthful octogenarian disclosed the importance which Boito had assumed in the development of Verdi. That development is one of the miracles of music. In manner Verdi represents a full century of operatic writing. He began when, in Italy at least, the libretto was a mere stalking horse on which arias might be hung. All that he did besides furnishing vehicles for airs was to provide a motive for the scene painter and the costumer. Later we see the growth of dramatic characterization in his ensembles, and the development of strongly marked and ingeniously differentiated moods in his arias without departure from the old-fashioned forms. In this element lay much of the compelling force of his melodies, even those commonplace ones which were pricked for the barrel organ almost before the palms were cool which first applauded them—like "Di quella pira" and "La donna è mobile." Then set in the period of reflection. The darling of the public began to think more of his art and less of his popularity. Less impetuous, less fecund, perhaps, in melodic invention, he began to study how to wed dramatic situations and music. This led him to enrich his harmonies, and to refine his instrumentation, which in his earlier works is frequently coarse and vulgar in the extreme. At this stage he gave us "La Forza del Destino" and "Aïda." Now the hack writers of opera books would no longer suffice him. He had already shown high appreciation of the virtue which lies in a good book when he chose Ghislanzoni to versify the Egyptian story of "Aïda." But the final step necessary to complete his wonderfully progressive march was taken when he associated himself with Boito. Here was a man who united in himself in a creditable degree the qualifications which Wagner demanded for his "Artist of the Future"; he was poet, dramatist, and musician. No one who has studied "Otello" can fail to see that Verdi owes much in it to the composer of "Mefistofele"; but the indebtedness is even greater in "Falstaff," where the last vestige of the old subserviency of the text to the music has disappeared. From the first to the last the play is now the dominant factor. There are no "numbers" in "Falstaff"; there can be no repetition of a portion of the music without interruption and dislocation of the action. One might as well ask Hamlet to repeat his soliloquy on suicide as to ask one of the characters in "Falstaff" to sing again a single measure once sung. The play moves almost with the rapidity of the spoken comedy. Only once or twice does one feel that there is an unnecessary eddy in the current.
And how has this play been set to music? It has been plunged into a perfect sea of melodic champagne. All the dialogue, crisp and sparkling, full of humor in itself, is made crisper, more sparkling, more amusing by the music on which, and in which, it floats, we are almost tempted to say more buoyantly than comedy dialogue has floated since Mozart wrote "Le Nozze di Figaro." The orchestra is bearer of everything, just as completely as it is in the latter-day dramas of Richard Wagner; it supplies phrases for the singers, supports their voices, comments on their utterances, and gives dramatic color to even the most fleeting idea. It is a marvelous delineator of things external as well as internal. It swells the bulk of the fat knight until he sounds as if he weighed a ton, and gives such piquancy to the spirits of the merry women (Mrs. Quickly monopolizing the importance due to Mrs. Page), that one cannot see them come on the stage without a throb of delight. In spite of the tremendous strides which the art of instrumentation has made since Berlioz mixed the modern orchestral colors, Verdi has in "Falstaff" added to the variegated palette. Yet all is done so discreetly, with such utter lack of effect-seeking, that it seems as if the art had always been known. The flood upon which the vocal melody floats is not like that of Wagner; it is not a development of fixed phrases, though Verdi, too, knows the use of leading motives in a sense, but a current which is ever receiving new waters. The declamation is managed with extraordinary skill, and though it frequently grows out of the instrumental part, it has yet independent melodic value as the vocal parts of Wagner's "Die Meistersinger" have. Through this Verdi has acquired a comic potentiality for his voice parts which goes hand in hand with that of his instrumental parts.