The subscription was so small that it seemed unnecessary to differentiate in the table between regular and extra performances. Of the latter there were twenty on Saturday nights, at popular prices, besides others given on holidays and for benefits. Though it is to be noted as a matter of history that the competition of the Manhattan Opera House did not appreciably affect the subscription of the Metropolitan, it is also to be noted that as a rule the attendance on the Saturday night popular performances was larger at the new house.
A few of the incidents of the season deserve to be passed in review. Of the singers whose presence in Mr. Hammerstein's company lent distinction to it, Signor Bonci appeared on the opening night in "I Puritani." The opera failed to awaken interest, but Bonci caught the popular fancy and held it to the end. Toward the close of February, however, it was announced that he had made a contract with Mr. Conried to sing at the Metropolitan Opera House the next season. Mr. Hammerstein first met the move of his rival by announcing the engagement of Signor Zenatello, but afterward began legal proceedings to prevent Signor Bonci from fulfilling his contract with the manager of the house in upper Broadway. M. Renaud, the great French barytone, effected his entrance in "Rigoletto," but he was not in his best voice and condition, and only later conquered recognition for his fine talents. The opera, however, took its place on the popular list, since it employed, at different times, the finest talent at the command of the management. The first large and complete triumph by an opera was won on December 14th, by "Carmen," in which Mme. Bressler-Gianoli appeared as the heroine. She enacted the part fifteen times before Mme. Calvé came to take back the territory which had so long belonged to her.
A second success followed hard on the heels of "Carmen." This was "Aïda," the triumph of which was one of ensemble, in which the chorus, under Signor Campanini, played no small part. Mme. Melba's coming, on January 2d, was the signal for the awakening of society's interest in Mr. Hammerstein's enterprise. She remained until March 25th, when she said farewell in a performance of Puccini's "Bohème," the production of which by Mr. Hammerstein in defiance of the rights of Mr. Conried (according to the allegations of the publishers, Ricordi) and the legal proceedings ending with the granting of an injunction against Mr. Hammerstein at the end of his season, was one of the diverting incidents of the merry operatic war. Mme. Melba sang three times in "La Traviata," five times in "Rigoletto," twice in "Lucia di Lammermoor," once in "Faust," and four times in "La Bohème."
The Bonci incident and the interest created in Mr. Hammerstein's enterprise by Mme. Melba's popularity stimulated interest in the offerings for a second season, which the manager answered by announcing the engagement, besides Zenatello and Sammarco, of Nordica and Schumann-Heink, and the re-engagement of Renaud, Bressler-Gianoli, Gilibert, and Dalmores. He also opened his subscription for the next season on March 19th, and announced the day after that he had received subscriptions amounting to $200,000, of which $110,000 had come from the four principal ticket speculators in the city. Mme. Calvé, who was engaged to give éclat to the conclusion of the season, effected her entrance on March 27th, and sang nine times—four in "Carmen," three in "Cavalleria Rusticana," and two in "La Navarraise."
CHAPTER XXIV
A BRILLIANT SEASON AT THE MANHATTAN
The prospectus which Mr. Hammerstein published for his second season was magnificently grandiloquent in its promises, but the season itself marvelous in its achievements. Eight operas "never produced in this city or country," "masterpieces of the most celebrated composers," which were his "sole property," were to be brought forward, in addition to many familiar works. He announced the engagement of "the greatest sopranos, mezzo sopranos, contraltos, barytones, and bassos of the operatic world." The eight new operas were to be Massenet's "Thaïs," Debussy's "Pelléas et Mélisande," Charpentier's "Louise," Breton's "Dolores," Massenet's "Jongleur de Notre Dame," Saint-Saëns's "Hélène," Offenbach's "Les Contes d'Hoffmann," and "an opera by our American composer, Victor Herbert." Offenbach's charming opera had been heard in New York before, from a French company managed by Maurice Grau, but it required a memory that compassed twenty-five years to recall that fact; so in respect of it Mr. Hammerstein's slip was venial at the worst. His list of the greatest singers in the world read as follows: Sopranos: Nellie Melba, Lillian Nordica, Mary Garden, Gianinna Russ, Camille Borello, Ludmilla Sigrist, Giuseppina Giaconia, Helen Koelling, Fanny Francisca, Mauricia Morichina, Jeanne Jomelli, Emma Trentini, and Alice Zeppilli; mezzo sopranos and contraltos: Ernestine Schumann-Heink, Bressler-Gianoli, Eleanore de Cisneros, J. Gerville-Reache, Emma Zaccaria, Gina Severina; tenors: Giovanni Zenatello, Amadeo Bassi, Charles Dalmorès, Jean Perier, Leone Cazauran, Carlo Albani, Emilio Venturini, Francesco Daddi; barytones: Maurice Renaud, Charles Gilibert, Mario Sammarco, Vincenzo Reschiglian, Mario Ancona, Hector Dufranne, Nicolo Fossetta; bassos: Adamo Didur, Victorio Arimondi, Luigi Mugnoz; basso buffo: Fernando Galetti-Gianoli. Cleofonte Campanini was again musical director.
These the magnificent promises. Had half of them been kept the fact would have amazed a public whom long experience had taught to put no more faith in the promises of impresarios than in those of princes. As a matter of fact, barring the extravagant attributes alleged to be due to the singers, the majority of whom were worse than mediocre, more than half were kept, and the deficiency more than counterbalanced by new elements which were introduced from time to time, as happy emergencies called for them. Chief of these was the engagement of Luisa Tetrazzini; of which more in its proper place. The official announcement was of subscription performances on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings, and Saturday afternoons, for twenty weeks. Also there were to be twenty Saturday evenings at popular prices. Just before the opening of the season there was semi-official talk of popular performances also on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, which, had it been realized, would have kept the opera company as busy with a large repertory as the ordinary theatrical company with its single play running through a season. A beginning was made with the Thursday performances, but Mr. Hammerstein concluded after a short trial of the experiment, that the game was not worth the candle, and so abandoned it. Before the close of the season Mr. Hammerstein announced an extra week of five performances, which he invited his subscribers to enjoy without money and without price, on the ground that the exigencies of the season had compelled him to repeat operas on subscription nights. The season of twenty-one weeks, which began on November 4, 1907, and ended on March 28, 1908, was thus made to embrace 116 representations in all; that is to say, eighty subscription nights and matinées, twenty popular Saturday nights, five performances in the extra week, and eleven special afternoons and evenings. The discrepancy between these figures and the total of the last column in the appended table, showing the dates of first productions in the season, and the number of performances given to each opera, is accounted for by the fact that nine times in the course of the season the entertainment consisted of two operas, and once there was a bill of shreds and patches from various operas.
To complete the statistical record of the company's activity, it must be added that two performances were given in Philadelphia, and that there were eighteen concerts on Sunday nights, at the last few of which operas were given in concert form. Twice the opera house was kept closed on Sunday nights because of the enforcement of a rigid interpretation of the law prohibiting theatrical entertainments on Sunday.
A study of the list of performances shows that the 116 performances were distributed among twenty-three operas. Of these four had never been given in New York before (they were "Thaïs," "Louise," "Siberia," and "Pelléas et Mélisande"), three had been given in New York, but so long ago that they were to all intents and purposes novelties ("Les Contes d'Hoffmann," "Crispino e la Comare," and "Andrea Chenier"), and three, though familiar to the public, were new to the house ("La Gioconda," "La Damnation de Faust," and "Ernani"); the other thirteen were in the Manhattan repertory for the season of 1906-07.