"Siberia" has no overture. In place of an instrumental introduction there is a chorus of mujiks, which, Russian in idea as well as in harmonization and manner of performance, introduces at once the most interesting as it is the most effective element in the score. Without this element the opera would be deplorably dull, so far as its music is concerned. Giordano's original melody is for the greater part commonplace and unexpressive. The dramatic scenes between the lovers in each of the acts are passionate only to ears accustomed or willing to find passion in strenuousness. Throughout Stephana and Vassili sing as the Irishman played the fiddle—by main strength. In the second act there is much more to warm the fancy and delight the ear. Here the lack of an opening overture is made good by an extended instrumental introduction of real beauty and power. In a way the music is both meteorological and psychological; it pictures the dreary waste of country; it seems to speak of the falling snow and biting frost; but it also gives voice to the heavy-heartedness which is the prevailing mood of the act. It introduces, too, as a thematic motive, the opening phrase of the Russian folk-song which the convicts sing as they enter. This melody is one of the gems of Russian folk-song so much admired by the composers of the Czar's empire that there are few of them who have not put it to artistic use. It is "Ay ouchnem," the song originally created for the bargemen of the Volga, who to its sighing and groaning measures, with broad straps across their breasts, towed heavy vessels against the current of the river. Now it is also used by workmen to assist them in the lifting and carrying of burdens. Giordano makes excellent use of it at the end as well as at the beginning of the act, though as a direct quotation, not for thematic treatment as Puccini uses the Japanese themes in his score. This is one of the characteristics of Giordano's opera and one which illustrates his inferiority as a musician to his more successful rival. In the second act a semi-chorus of women quote again from Russian folk-song by singing the melody of the air known to all musical folklorists by its German title, "Schöne Minka." In the third act there is a Russian Easter canticle which has little of the Russian character but makes an agreeable impression upon the popular ear by reason of its effective use of bell-chimes. There is another folk-melody in the opera which has gained publicity in a manner different from that which made "Ay ouchnem" and "Schöne Minka" widely known; it is the melody of the "Glory" song—"Slava"—which Beethoven used in the scherzo of one of his Rasoumowski Quartets.
The season was not without its humorous incidents. A quarrel of Messrs. Conried and Hammerstein over MM. Dalmorès and Gilibert, who were enticed away from their old allegiance by Mr. Conried but would not stay bought, was one of these. Another was a circular letter sent out by Mr. Hammerstein on December 23d, scolding his subscribers because they were not coming up to his help against the mighty. The letter caused much amused comment amongst the knowing, who asked themselves whether it was the scolding of the innocent or the coming of "Louise," Tetrazzini, and "Pelléas et Mélisande" which turned the tables in the favor of the manager. Mr. Hammerstein seemed to believe that the letter had been efficacious.
APPENDIX I
THREE SEASONS AT THE METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE
Season 1908-1909
The twenty-fourth regular subscription season of grand opera at the Metropolitan Opera House began on November 16th, 1908, and ended on April 10th, 1909. The subscription was for one hundred regular performances in twenty weeks, on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday evenings, and Saturday afternoons. In their prospectus the directors, Messrs. Giulio Gatti-Casazza and Andreas Dippel, announced a change of plan in respect of the Saturday night performances which had been given for a number of years. Those at the reduced prices which had hitherto prevailed were to be limited to the first twelve and the last two weeks of the season; the others were to be at regular rates. From the end of February till April a series of special performances on Tuesday and Saturday nights was projected. Wagner's "Parsifal" was to be reserved for the customary holiday performances, and there were to be two performances of other works, the proceeds of which were to go into a pension and endowment fund, the establishment of which, it was hoped, would help to give greater permanency to the working forces of the institution. There was a promise of a large increase in the orchestra as well as the chorus, not only to give greater brilliancy to the local performances, but also to make possible a division of the company, with less injury than used to ensue, when it became necessary to give two performances on the same day—one in the Metropolitan Opera House and one in Philadelphia or Brooklyn as the case might be.
These plans were carried out practically to the letter, Mr. Gatti-Casazza reinforcing the Italian side of the house, and Mr. Dippel the German, with artists, scenery, and choristers, as each thought best, under the supervision of the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of what became the Metropolitan Opera Company as soon as that style could be legally adopted. The management found it less easy to keep its word in reference to the repertory. Eight novelties were promised, viz.: D'Albert's "Tiefland," and Smetana's "The Bartered Bride" in German; Catalani's "La Wally," Puccini's "Le Villi," and Tschaikowsky's "Pique Dame" in Italian; Laparra's "Habanera" in French; Frederick Converse's "Pipe of Desire," and either Goldmark's "Cricket on the Hearth," or Humperdinck's "Königskinder" in English. Only the first four of these works was produced. A promise that three operas of first class importance—Massenet's "Manon," Mozart's "Nozze di Figaro," and Verdi's "Falstaff"—would be revived was brilliantly redeemed. To the subscription season of twenty weeks one week was added for Wagner's Nibelung drama and extra performances of "Aïda" and "Madama Butterfly," and Verdi's "Requiem," composed in honor of Manzoni, having been twice brilliantly performed in the series of Sunday night concerts which extended through the season, was repeated instead of an opera on the night of Good Friday. The extra performances, outside of those of the last week, were the holiday representations of "Parsifal" on Thanksgiving Day, New Year's Day, Lincoln's birthday, and Washington's birthday, and benefit performances for the French Hospital, the German Press Club, the Music School Settlement, and the Pension and Endowment Fund benefit. To the latter one of the Sunday night concerts was also devoted. At the operatic benefit performance, as also at a special representation at which Mme. Sembrich bade farewell to the operatic stage in America (on February 6th, 1909), the program was made up of excerpts from various operas—a fact which must be borne in mind (as must also the double bills at regular performances) when the following tabulated statement of the season's activities is studied. The table which now follows gives the list of all the operas performed in the order of their production and the number of representations given to each in the entire season of twenty-one weeks:
Opera First performance Times
"Aïda" ……………………. November 16 ………. 8
"Die Walküre" ……………… November 18 ………. 5
"Madama Butterfly" …………. November 19 ………. 8
"La Traviata" ……………… November 20 ………. 5
"Tosca" …………………… November 21 ………. 6
"La Bohème" ……………….. November 21 ………. 7
"Tiefland" ………………… November 23 ………. 4
"Parsifal" ………………… November 26 ………. 5
"Rigoletto" ……………….. November 28 ………. 3
"Carmen" ………………….. December 3 ……….. 6
"Faust" …………………… December 5 ……….. 7
"Götterdämmerung" ………….. December 10 ………. 5
"Le Villi" ………………… December 17 ………. 5
"Cavalleria Rusticana" ……… December 17 ………. 7
"Lucia di Lammermoor" ………. December 19 ………. 2
"Il Trovatore" …………….. December 21 ………. 5
"Tristan und Isolde" ……….. December 23 ………. 4
"L'Elisir d'Amore" …………. December 25 ………. 2
"Pagliacci" ……………….. December 26 ………. 5
"La Wally" ………………… January 6 ………… 4
"Le Nozze di Figaro" ……….. January 13 ……….. 6
"Die Meistersinger" ………… January 22 ……….. 5
"Manon" …………………… February 3 ……….. 6
"Tannhäuser" ………………. February 5 ……….. 7
"The Bartered Bride" ……….. February 19 ………. 6
"Fidelio" …………………. February 20 ………. 1
"Falstaff" ………………… March 20 …………. 3
"Don Pasquale" …………….. March 24 …………. 1
"Il Barbiere di Siviglia" …… March 25 …………. 2
"Siegfried" ……………….. March 27 …………. 2
"Das Rheingold" ……………. April 5 ………….. 1