But such a life is lawless, it creates infidelity, nourishes incontinence; its seeming freedom is but slavery to passion, and this, too, the poet proclaims in Manru's confession that faithfulness is impossible to one to whom each new beauty offers irresistible allurement, and whose heart must remain unstable as his habitation.
Into the music of Manru's songs, which tell of these things, Mr. Paderewski has poured such passionate emotional expression as makes them convincing, and he has done more. Music is the language of the emotions, and the Gipsies are an emotional folk. The people of Hungary have permitted the Gipsies to make their music for them so long, and have mixed the Romany and Magyar bloods so persistently, that in music Gipsy and Hungarian have become practically identical terms. It was a Hungarian gentleman who said: "When I hear the 'Rakoczy' I feel as if I must go to war to conquer the whole world. My fingers convulsively twitch to seize a pistol, a sword, or bludgeon, or whatever weapon may be at hand; I must clutch it, and march forward." It is because of this spirit, scarcely overstated in this story, that the Austrian Government, fearful of the influence of the "Rakoczy" during periods of political excitement, has several times prohibited its performance on public occasions, and confiscated the copies found in the music shops. Mr. Paderewski makes admirable use of this passion as a dramatic motive. When neither the pleadings of his tribal companions nor the seductive artifices of Asa suffice to break down Manru's sense of duty to his wife and child, the catastrophe is wrought by the music of a gipsy fiddler.
As the subject of the opera has to do with the conflict between Christian and Pagan, Galician and Gipsy, so the music takes its color now from the folk-song and dance of Mr. Paderewski's own people, and anon from the Gipsies who frequent the mountainous scenes in which the opera plays. The use of an Oriental interval, beloved of Poles and Gipsies, characterizes the melos of the first act; the rhythm of a peasant dance inspires the ballet, which is not an idle divertissement, but an integral element of the play, and Gipsy fiddle and cimbalom lend color and character to the music which tempts Manru to forget his duty. The contest in Manru's soul has musical delineation in an extended orchestral introduction to the last act, in which Gipsy and Polish music are at war, while clouds and moon struggle for the mastery in the stage panorama.
The season 1902-03 may be said to have been eventful only in its tragic outcome, of which I have already spoken—Mr. Grau's physical collapse. There was a painful and most unexpected echo a few weeks after the doors of the opera house had been closed for the summer vacation in the death of Mr. Frank W. Sanger, who had been acting as associate manager with Mr. Grau, and who had been largely instrumental in persuading Mr. Grau to abandon work and seek health in France. The season covered seventeen weeks, and comprised sixty-eight subscription nights, seventeen subscription matinées, seventeen popular Saturday nights, and six extra performances—ninety-one performances in all. Promises of a serial performance of the chief works of Verdi and Mozart had to be abandoned, partly on account of the illness of Mme. Eames. Only one new opera was brought forward, and that under circumstances which reflected no credit on the institution or its management, the opera (Miss Ethel Smyth's "Der Wald") not being worth the labor, except, perhaps, because it was the work of a woman, and the circumstances that private influences, and not public service, had prompted the production being too obvious to invite confidence in the opera. Simply for the sake of the integrity of the record mention is made that the production took place on March 11, 1903, that Alfred Hertz conducted, and that Mme. Gadski, Mme. Reuss-Belce, Georg Anthes, Mr. Bispham, Mr. Blass, and Mr. Mühlmann were concerned in the performance. The newcomers in Mr. Grau's forces were Mme. Reuss-Belce, Georg Anthes, Emil Gerhäuser, Aloys Burgstaller, and the conductor of the German operas, Mr. Hertz, who, like Mr. Burgstaller, has remained ever since, and they were all active agents in promoting the sensational feature of the first season of the administration which succeeded Mr. Grau's. I have tabulated the performances which took place in the subscription seasons under Mr. Grau as follows:
THE GRAU PERIOD, 1898-1903
Operas 1898-1899 *1899-1900 1900-1901 1901-1902 1902-1903
"Tannhäuser," ………….. 6 5 4 2 4
"Il Barbiere" ………….. 4 4 0 0 3
"Roméo et Juliette" …….. 6 5 4 3 2
"La Traviata" ………….. 2 2 0 1 4
"Die Walküre" ………….. 4 6 3 3 3
"Siegfried" ……………. 1 2 1 1 3
"Nozze di Figaro" ………. 3 4 0 2 1
"Carmen" ………………. 2 11 0 7 3
"Lohengrin" ……………. 7 7 6 4 7
"Faust" ……………….. 7 9 5 5 7
"Tristan und Isolde" ……. 5 3 4 3 4
"Don Giovanni" …………. 4 1 1 0 1
"Aïda" ………………… 3 5 3 5 7
"Les Huguenots" ………… 4 2 3 3 3
"Das Rheingold" ………… 1 2 1 1 2
"Götterdämmerung" ………. 1 2 2 2 2
"Martha" ………………. 1 0 0 0 0
"L'Africaine" ………….. 1 1 1 0 0
"Rigoletto" ……………. 1 1 1 0 1
"Le Prophète" ………….. 2 2 0 0 1
+ "Ero e Leandro" ………. 2 0 0 0 2
"Lucia di Lammermoor" …… 1 2 2 0 0
"Il Trovatore" …………. 0 3 0 0 1
"Der Fliegende Holländer" .. 0 3 1 0 0
"Mignon" ………………. 0 1 0 0 0
"Don Pasquale" …………. 0 3 0 1 1
"Cavalleria Rusticana" ….. 0 6 3 4 1
"Pagliacci" ……………. 0 1 0 1 6
"Die Meistersinger" …….. 0 4 2 1 2
"Die Lustigen Weiber" …… 0 1 0 0 0
"Fidelio" ……………… 0 1 1 0 0
"The Magic Flute" ………. 0 5 0 3 2
"La Bohème" ……………. 0 0 5 0 3
"Mefistofele" ………….. 0 0 2 0 0
"Le Cid" ………………. 0 0 3 2 0
+ "Tosca" ……………… 0 0 3 3 4
+ "Salammbô" …………… 0 0 2 0 0
"Fille du Régiment" …….. 0 0 0 3 6
+ "Messaline" ………….. 0 0 0 3 0
"Otello" ………………. 0 0 0 3 3
+ "Manru" ……………… 0 0 0 3 0
"Ernani" ………………. 0 0 0 0 3
"Un Ballo in Maschera" ….. 0 0 0 0 1
+ "Der Wald" …………… 0 0 0 0 2
* Performances in the supplementary season included.
+ Novelties.
Massenet's "Manon" had two performances with Saville and Van Dyck in the season 1898-'99; but both were outside the subscription.