Subscription weeks …………………………………… 20
Extra week …………………………………………… 1
Regular performances (afternoons and evenings) …………. 120
Special representations of the dramas in "Der Ring" ………. 4
Special benefit and holiday performances ……………….. 10
Italian operas in the repertory ……………………….. 17
German operas in the repertory ………………………… 10
French operas in the repertory …………………………. 3
Bohemian opera in the repertory ………………………… 1
German representations ……………………………….. 45
Italian representations ………………………………. 79
French representations ……………………………….. 19
Oratorial performance on opera night ……………………. 1
Double bills ………………………………………… 11
Mixed bills ………………………………………….. 2
Novelties produced ……………………………………. 4
To arrive at the sum of the company's activities there must be added fifteen performances given in the new Academy of Music in the Borough of Brooklyn; twenty-four performances in the Academy of Music, Philadelphia; and four performances in the Lyric Theater, Baltimore. Brooklyn and Baltimore were privileged to hear "Hänsel und Gretel," which was denied to the Borough of Manhattan.
There was an unusual number of artists new to New York in the company. With Giulio Gatti-Casazza, the Italian General Manager, came Arturo Toscanini, who, though an Italian, chose Wagner's "Götterdämmerung" as the opera in which to make a striking demonstration of his extraordinary abilities as a conductor. It was he, too, who prepared the revival of "Falstaff" and the production of the two Italian novelties, "Le Villi" and "La Wally." His assistant in the Italian department was Signor Spetrino, to whom was intrusted the Italian and French operas of lighter caliber. Of the two German conductors, Mr. Mahler and Mr. Hertz, neither was a newcomer. The former brought about the revival of "Le Nozze di Figaro" and the production of "The Bartered Bride," two of the most signal successes of the season. Mr. Hertz placed "Tiefland" on the stage and added to his long Wagnerian record the first performance heard in America of an unabridged "Meistersinger." Singers new to the Metropolitan Opera House Company were Miss Emmy Destinn (whose engagement had been effected by Mr. Conried some two years before), Mmes. Alda, Gay, Di Pasquali, L'Huillier, Ranzenberg, and Flahaut; and Messrs. Amato (an admirable barytone), Grassi, Didur (a bass who had sung in previous seasons in Mr. Hammerstein's company), Hinckley, Feinhals, Schmedes, Jörn, and Quarti.
A painful and pitiful incident of the season was the vocal shipwreck suffered by Signor Caruso. After the first week of March he was unable to sing because of an affection of his vocal organs. At the last matinée of the subscription season and again on the following Wednesday evening, he made ill-advised efforts to resume his duties, but the consequences were distressful to the connoisseurs and seemed so threatening to his physician that it was deemed advisable to relieve him of his obligation to go West with the company.
Season 1909-1910
This, the twenty-fifth subscription season at the Metropolitan Opera House, began on November 15th, 1909, and ended on April 2nd, 1910, and thus endured twenty weeks. But the twenty weeks of the local subscription by no means summed up the activities of the Metropolitan company; there was a subscription series of twenty representations in the Borough of Brooklyn, a subscription series of two representations each week during the continuance of the Metropolitan season at the New Theater in the Borough of Manhattan, many special performances, and subscription representations in Philadelphia and Baltimore which, though they did not belong to the local record must still be mentioned because of the influence which they exerted on the local performances. The first performance of the company took place in Brooklyn on November 8th, and before the season opened at the official home of the company representations had also been given in the distant cities mentioned which heard twenty performances each. There were also eleven performances in Boston, five in January and six in the last week of March. After all this there still remained before the company a Western tour and a visit to Atlanta, Ga. The season began with a proclamation of harmonious cooperation between the General Manager, Signor Gatti-Casazza, and the Administrative Manager, Mr. Dippel, and ended with what amounted to the dismissal of the latter, who solaced himself by accepting the directorship of the Chicago-Philadelphia Opera Company, which was called into existence after the principal financial backers of the Metropolitan Opera House had retired Mr. Hammerstein from the field by the purchase of the opera house which he had built in Philadelphia and paid him for abandoning grand opera at the Manhattan Opera House in New York, which had been the Metropolitan's rival for four years. The season of operas of a lighter character than those given at the Metropolitan Opera House which was undertaken at the New Theater, a beautiful playhouse built for high purposes by a body of gentlemen most of whom were interested in the larger institution, proved to be a disastrous failure for reasons which are not to be discussed here, but which were not wholly disconnected with the causes which, a year later, led to the abandonment of the New Theater to the same uses to which the other playhouses of the city are put.
The local season can be most clearly and succinctly set forth in tabular form, it being premised that apparent discrepancies between the number of meetings and the number of performances are to be explained by the fact that frequently two, and sometimes three, works were brought forward on one evening or afternoon. These double and triple bills came to be very numerous in the last month, when it was found that the Russian dancers, Mme. Pavlowa and M. Mordkin, exerted a greater attractive power than any opera or combination of singers:
SUBSCRIPTION SEASON AT THE METROPOLITAN
Opera First performance Times given
"La Gioconda" …………….. November 15 ……… 5
"Otello" …………………. November 17 ……… 6
"La Traviata" …………….. November 18 ……… 3
"Madama Butterfly" ………… November 19 ……… 6
"Lohengrin" ………………. November 20 ……… 6
"La Bohème" ………………. November 20 ……… 6
"Tosca" ………………….. November 22 ……… 6
* "Cavalleria Rusticana" …… November 24 ……… 7
* "Pagliacci" …………….. November 24 ……… 7
"Il Trovatore" ……………. November 25 ……… 6
"Tristan und Isolde" ………. November 27 ……… 5
"Aïda" …………………… December 3 ………. 6
"Tannhäuser" ……………… December 4 ………. 4
"Manon" ………………….. December 6 ………. 3
"Siegfried" ………………. December 16 ……… 2
"Orfeo ed Eurydice" ……….. December 23 ……… 5
"The Bartered Bride" ………. December 24 ……… 1
"Faust" ………………….. December 25 ……… 5
"Rigoletto" ………………. December 25 ……… 2
"Die Walküre" …………….. January 8 ……….. 3
"Il Barbiere di Siviglia" ….. January 15 ………. 3
"Germania" ……………….. January 22 ………. 5
"L'Elisir d'Amore" ………… January 27 ………. 1
* "Hänsel und Gretel" ……… January 29 ………. 1
"Don Pasquale" ……………. February 2 ………. 2
"Stradella" ………………. February 3 ………. 2
"Fra Diavolo" …………….. February 6 ………. 3
"Falstaff" ……………….. February 16 ……… 2
"Das Rheingold" …………… February 24 ……… 1
"Werther" ………………… February 28 ……… 2
* "Coppélia" (ballet) ……… February 28 ……… 4
"Götterdämmerung" …………. March 4 …………. 1
"Pique Dame" ……………… March 5 …………. 4
"Der Freischütz" ………….. March 11 ………… 2
* "The Pipe of Desire" …….. March 18 ………… 2
"Die Meistersinger" ……….. March 26 ………… 2
* "Hungary" (ballet) ………. March 31 ………… 2
"La Sonnambula" …………… April 2 …………. 1