This opera was first heard here on February 17, 1914, at the Metropolitan Opera House, with Mary Garden, Vanni Marcoux, and Huberdeau. It had been produced by the Boston Opera Company in December, 1913, and by the present organization January 23, 1918. Miss Garden was the heroine on that occasion, and was greeted with overwhelming applause. The première of the play Monna Vanna occurred at the Nouveau Théâtre, Paris, May 17, 1902. We had the good fortune to see it a week later. Georgette Leblanc was the original Monna. Jean Froment, Darmont, and Lugné Poé were the other principals. The drama enjoyed an immediate success all over Europe from Bergen to Palermo. London alone stood firm against its blandishments. The censor forbade a production. New York first saw it in English with Bertha Kalich at the old Standard Theatre, Harrison Gray Fiske, manager.
As a play it was a new departure for Maeterlinck. It is almost theatric. In the heyday of his glory Sardou never devised anything more arresting than the dénouement—setting aside consideration of the psychologic imbroglio. There are spots in the dramatic scheme which tax the credulity. However, something of the improbable must always be granted a playwright, be he never so logical. The rapid mental change of Vanna hints at a native-born casuist, an Italian Renaissance type of mind. Her love of Colonna could not have been deep-rooted. But she did not betray him in the tent, and yet she has been adjudged profoundly immoral; in a word, not to put an edge too fine upon the sophistries of the situation, this heroine committed an imaginative infidelity as well as uttering a splendid falsehood. The madness of the finale is the logical outcome of her passion for Prinzevalle. All that has gone before in her life had been a bad dream. The true, the beautiful moment is at hand. It will be both her revenge and justification.
She goes to Prinzevalle in his cell. “This must end here; it is too perfect.... It is one blaze about me and within me.... Oh, some death will run its sudden finger round this spark and sever us from the rest!” Thus Browning sings In a Balcony.
The play’s the thing! though it did not seem to catch the conscience of the composer. Nevertheless, Monna Vanna is more grateful to our ears than Gismonda. There are too many “things” that are set to music in the Sardou libretto, while Maeterlinck deals only with the primal passions—love, jealousy, hatred, conflict of wills. There is more unity in action and mood in the older score. The music is Wagnerian from first to final curtain, but it is cleverly assimilated and swifter, more poignant. The introduction to the third act recalls the third act of Valkyrs; so we were not surprised to find Brunhilde pleading, or to hear the chorus shrilly cry out the Valkyr theme. In the tent scene, Tristan and Isolde reign, as might be expected. The first act has been cut and to its advantage.
From a photograph copyrighted by Mishkin
MARY GARDEN AS MONNA VANNA
At our first view of Mary Garden as the mediæval Judith who fetches to Pisa her beloved Holofernes, we frankly confess that the impressions of her interpretation were strong. Monna Vanna will rank in her portrait-gallery among the finest. It far outshines Gismonda, as Monna herself outshines the incredible, erotic Duchess of Athens. There was no attempt to make a disrobing scandal in the tent scene, which would be obviously theatrical flimflam. Miss Garden disposed of the situation simply. She did not appear half-nude, but clothed in exquisitely-toned draperies. But if she did not show her lovely person, she spilled for us the soul of the heroine who saved her country and lost her reputation. In the opening act she did little, but suggested the psychology of a woman who had begun to loathe a supine husband. Note the nuance with which she uttered “J’rai, mon père,” and the repetition when she says it to Colonna. It was like molten steel at first; it was cold, rigid steel, the steel of unalterable resolution the second time. Yet how tender is her “Si” when she turns to her fuming spouse.
There was tenderness in the tent scene, yes, true tenderness, not expressed by the sentimental symbols of the English theatre, but in the restrained terms of the French tradition; therefore, more eloquent, more artistic, despair and pride modulating into amazed joyfulness at meeting her early friend, stern Prinzevalle. But the last scene gave us the most moving side of this wonderful woman’s art. The shock of incredulity caused by her husband’s suspicions, merging into the supreme ecstasy as she grasps the key that is to unlock the future—in sooth, no such acting has been witnessed for a long time. The scale was essentially smaller than Bernhardt’s, but as subtle as the art of Sarah were the indications of love triumphant with death staring her in the face. The tiny play of shadows round her eyes and mouth as she sees her lover trapped were touching. That she was a picture in every act is a matter of course. Her slow steps to the open door most impressive. It was a veritable march to the scaffold. Fevrier’s music in this last episode rings true.