Once more, only a few weeks ago, I stood in the presence of Mr. Registrar Hazlitt, and, as in the days of Sir Michael Costa's disputed cheque, had Mr. Russell Gole by my side. Once more, too, when an order of bankruptcy was impending over me it was withdrawn partly through the instrumentality of my solicitor, but mainly, of course, through the goodwill of my creditors, who subscribed among themselves sufficient money to pay into Court a sum which was at once accepted in liquidation of all claims.
I am generally regarded and have got into the habit of looking upon myself as a manager of Italian Opera. But, accepting that character, I do not think I can be fairly accused of exclusiveness as towards the works of German or even of English composers. Nor can I well be charged with having neglected the masterpieces of the lyric drama by whomsoever composed. For a great many years past no manager but myself has given performances of Cherubini's Medea. Fidelio is a work which, from the early days of Mdlle. Titiens until my last year at Her Majesty's Theatre, with Mdlle. Lilli Lehmann in the principal part, I have always been ready to present. I was the first manager to translate Wagner's Tannhäuser and Lohengrin into Italian, and the only one out of Germany who has been enterprising enough to produce the entire series of the Ring des Nibelungen.
As regards English Opera, Macfarren's Robin Hood and Wallace's Amber Witch owe their very existence to me. It was I who, at Her Majesty's Theatre in 1860-61, brought out both those works, which had been specially composed for the theatre. I myself adapted Balfe's Bohemian Girl to the Italian stage, and in the course of my last provincial tour I gave for the first time in Italian, and with remarkable success, the Maritana of Wallace.
Casting back my recollection over a long series of years I find that the only composer of undisputed influence and popularity whose propositions I could at no time accept were those of Jacques Offenbach; whom, however, in his own particular line I am far from undervaluing. The composer of La grande Duchesse de Gérolstein, La Belle Hélène, and a whole series of masterpieces in the burlesque style, tried to persuade me that his works were not so comic as people insisted on believing. They had, according to him, their serious side; and he sought to convince me that La Belle Hélène, produced at Her Majesty's Theatre with an increased orchestra, and with a hundred or more additional voices in the chorus, would prove a genuine artistic success. I must admit that I gave a moment's thought to the matter; but the project of the amiable maestro was not one that I could seriously entertain. I may here remind the reader that Offenbach began life as a composer of serious music. He was known in his youth as an admirable violoncellist, playing with wonderful expression all the best music written for the instrument he had adopted. He was musical conductor, moreover, at the Théâtre Français in the days when the "House of Molière" maintained an orchestra, and, indeed, a very good one. When Offenbach composed the choruses and incidental music for the Ulysse of M. Ponsard he did so in the spirit of Meyerbeer, who had undertaken to supply the music of the piece; and he then showed his aptitude for imitating the composer of Les Huguenots in a direct manner, as he afterwards did in burlesquing him.
Offenbach was destined not to be appreciated as a serious composer, though in one of his works, the little-known Contes d'Hoffmann, there is much music which, if not learned or profound, is at least artistic.
Had I agreed to Offenbach's offer, I was also to accept his services as conductor; which would have been more, I think, than Sir Michael Costa, who would have had to direct on alternate nights, would have been able to stand. Sir Michael was not only peculiarly sensitive, but also remarkably vindictive; and the engagement of Offenbach at a theatre where he was officiating would certainly have caused him no little resentment. He forgave no slight, nor even the appearance of one in cases where no real slight could possibly have been intended. When he left the Royal Italian Opera he was of opinion that the late Mr. Augustus Harris, who was Mr. Gye's stage manager at the time, should also have quitted the establishment; and carrying his hostile feelings in true vendetta fashion from father to son, he afterwards objected to the presence of the Augustus Harris of our own time, at any theatre where he, Sir Michael, might be engaged.
"Who is that young man?" he said to me one day when the future "Druriolanus" was acting as my stage manager. "He seems to know his business, but I think I heard you call him 'Harris.' Can he be the son of my enemy?"
I tried to explain to Sir Michael that the gentleman against whom he seemed to nourish some feeling of animosity could not be in any way his foe. But the great conductor would not see this. The father, he said, had shown himself his enemy, and he was himself the enemy of the son.
The hatred sometimes conceived by one singer for another of the same class of voice and playing the same parts, is, if not more reasonable, at least more intelligible. I shall never forget the rage which the tenor Fancelli once displayed on seeing the name of the tenor Campanini inscribed on a large box at a railway station with these proud words appended to it: "Primo Tenore Assoluto, Her Majesty's Opera Company." It was the epithet "assoluto" which, above all, raised Fancelli's ire. He rushed at the box, attacked the offending words with his walking-stick, and with the end of it tried to rub off the white letters composing the too ambitious adjective, "assoluto."
"Assoluto" was an epithet which Fancelli reserved for his own private use, and to which he alone among tenors considered himself justly entitled. Unfortunately, he could not write the word, reading and writing being accomplishments which had been denied to him from his youth upwards. He could just manage to scribble his own name in large schoolboy characters. But his letter-writing and his "autographs" for admiring ladies were done for him by a chorister, who was remunerated for his secretarial work at the rate of something like a penny Pickwick per month. The chorister, however, in agreeing to work on these moderate terms, knew that he had the illustrious tenor in his hands; and in moments of difficulty he would exact his own price and, refusing cheap cigars, accept nothing less than ready money.