ANATOLE FRANCE.
I had already been to Covent Garden twice. First, for Le Roi de Lahore, and then for Manon which was sung by Sanderson and Van Dyck.
I went back again for the rehearsals of La Navarraise. Our principal artists were Emma Calvé, Alvarez and Plancon.
The rehearsals with Emma Calvé were a great honor for me and a great joy as well, which I was to renew later in the rehearsals for Sapho in Paris.
The Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, attended the first performance of La Navarraise.
The recalls of the artists were so numerous and enthusiastic that finally they called for me. As I did not appear, for the good reason that I was not there, and could not be presented to the Prince of Wales who wanted to congratulate me, the manager could find only this way to excuse me both to the prince and to the public. He came on the stage and said, "M. Massenet is outside smoking a cigarette and won't come."
Doubtless this was true, but "the whole truth should not always be spoken."
I returned on board the boat with my wife, Heugel, my dear publisher, and Adrien Bernheim, the Governmental Commissary General of the subsidized theaters, who had honored the performance with his presence. Ever since he has been one of my most charming and dearest friends.
I learned that her Majesty Queen Victoria summoned Emma Calvé to Windsor to sing La Navarraise, and I was told that they improvised a stage setting in the queen's own drawing room, which was most picturesque but primitive. The Barricade was represented by a pile of pillows and down quilts.
Have I said that in the month of May preceding La Navarraise in London (June 20, 1894), the Opéra-Comique gave Le Portrait de Manon, an exquisite act by Georges Boyer, which was delightfully interpreted by Fugère, Grivot and Mlle. Lainé?