Half Brunswick went to the theatre every night of its life. The ladies made no pretence of elaborate toilets, but contented themselves with putting two tacks into the necks of their day gowns so as to make a V-shaped opening. (With present fashions this would not be necessary.) Over this they placed one of those appalling little arrangements of imitation lace and blue or pink bows, to be seen in the shop windows of every German town, and known, I think, as Theater-Garnitures. They then drew on a pair of dark plum-coloured gloves, and their toilet was complete. The contrast between the handsome white-and-gold theatre and the rows of portly, dowdy matrons, each one with her ample bosom swathed in a piece of antimacassar, was very comical. Every abonne had his own peg for hanging his coat and hat on, and this, and the fact that one's neighbours in the stalls were invariably the same, gave quite a family atmosphere to the Brunswick theatre.
The conductor was Franz Abt the composer, and the musical standard of the operatic performances was very high indeed. The mounting was always excellent, but going to the theatre night after night, some of the scenery became very familiar. There was a certain Gothic hall which seemed to share the mobile facilities of Aladdin's palace. This hall was ubiquitous, whether the action of the piece lay in Germany, Italy, France, or England, Mary Queen of Scots sobbed in this hall; Wallenstein in Schiller's tragedy ranted in it; Rigoletto reproved his flighty daughter in it. It seemed curious that personages so widely different should all have selected the same firm of upholsterers to fit up their sanctums.
The Spiegelbergs had many friends in the theatrical world, and I was immensely thrilled one evening at learning that after the performance of Lohengrin, Elsa and the Knight of the Swan were coming home to supper with us. When Elsa appeared on the balcony in the second act, and the moon most obligingly immediately appeared to light up her ethereal white draperies, I was much excited at reflecting that in two hours' time I might be handing this lovely maiden the mustard, and it seemed hardly credible that the resplendent Lohengrin would so soon abandon his swan in favour of the homely goose that was awaiting him at the Spiegelbergs', although the latter would enjoy the advantage of being roasted.
I was on the tip-toe of expectation until the singers arrived. Fraulein Scheuerlein, the soprano, was fat, fair, and forty, all of them perhaps on the liberal side. As she burst into the room, the first words I heard from the romantic Elsa, whom I had last seen sobbing over her matrimonial difficulties, were: "Dear Frau Spiegelberg, my..." (Elsa here used a blunt dissyllable to indicate her receptacle for food) "is hanging positively crooked with hunger. Quick! For the love of Heaven, some bread and butter and sausage, or I shall faint;" so the first words the heroine of the evening addressed to me were somewhat blurred owing to her mouth being full of sausage, which destroyed most of the glamour of the situation. Hedwig Scheuerlein was a big, jolly, cheery South-German, and she was a consummate artist in spite of her large appetite, as was the tenor Schrotter too. Schrotter was a fair-bearded giant, who was certainly well equipped physically for playing "heroic" parts. He had one of those penetrating virile German tenor voices that appeal to me. These good-natured artists would sing us anything we wanted, but it was from them that I first got an inkling of those petty jealousies that are such a disagreeable feature of the theatrical world in every country. Buxom Scheuerlein was a very good sort, and I used to feel immensely elated at receiving in my stall a friendly nod over the footlights from Isolde, Aida, Marguerite, or Lucia, as the case might be.
I wonder why none of Meyerbeer's operas are ever given in London. The "books," being by Scribe, are all very dramatic, and lend themselves to great spectacular display; Meyerbeer's music is always melodious, and has a certain obvious character about it that would appeal to an average London audience. This is particularly true with regard to the Prophete. The Coronation scene can be made as gorgeous as a Drury Lane pantomime, and the finale of the opera is thrilling, though the three Anabaptists are frankly terrible bores. As given at Brunswick, in the last scene the Prophet, John of Leyden, is discovered at supper with some boon companions in rather doubtful female society. In the middle of his drinking-song the palace is blown up. There is a loud crash; the stage grows dark; hall, supper-table, and revellers all disappear; and the curtain comes down slowly on moonlight shining over some ruins, and the open country beyond. A splendid climax! Again, the third act of Robert le Diable is magnificently dramatic. Bertram, the Evil One in person, leads Robert to a deserted convent whose nuns, having broken the most important of their vows, have all been put to death. The curtain goes up on the dim cloisters of the convent, the cloister-garth, visible through the Gothic arches of the arcade, bathed in bright moonlight beyond. Bertram begins his incantations, recalling the erring nuns from the dead. Very slowly the tombs in the cloister open, and dim grey figures, barely visible in the darkness, creep silently out from the graves. Bertram waves his arms over the cloister-garth, and there, too, the tombs gape apart, and more shadowy spectres emerge. Soon the stage is full of these faint grey spectral forms. Bertram lifts his arms. The wicked nuns throw off their grey wrappers, and appear glittering in scarlet and gold; the stage blazes with light, and the ballet, the famous "Pas de Fascination," begins. When really well done, this scene is tremendously impressive.
I once heard in Paris, Levasseur, the French counterpart of our own Corney Grain, giving a skit on Robert le Diable, illustrating various stage conventions. Levasseur, seated at his piano, and keeping up an incessant ripple of melody, talked something like this, in French, of course:—
"The stage represents Isabelle's bedroom. As is usual with stage bedrooms, Isabelle's bower is about the size of an average cathedral. It is very sparsely furnished, but near the footlights is a large gilt couch, on which Isabelle is lying fast asleep. Robert enters on tip-toe very very gently, so as not to disturb his beloved, and sings in a voice that you could hear two miles off, 'Isa-belle!' dropping a full octave on the last note. Isabelle half awakes, and murmurs, 'I do believe I heard something. I feel so nervous!' Robert advances a yard, and sings again, if anything rather louder, 'Isa-belle!' Isabelle says: 'Really, my nerves do play me such tricks! I can't help fancying that there is some one in the room, and I am so terribly afraid of burglars. Perhaps it is only a mouse.' Robert advances right up to Isabelle's bed, and shouts for the third time in a voice that makes the chandelier ring again, 'Isa-belle!' Isabelle says, 'I don't think that I can have imagined that. There really is some one in the room. I'm terribly frightened, and don't quite know what to do,' so she gets out of bed, and anxiously scans the stalls and boxes over the footlights for signs of an intruder. Finding no one there but the audience, she then searches the gallery fruitlessly, and getting a sudden inspiration, she looks behind her, and, to her immense astonishment, finds her lover standing within a foot of her." This, as told with Levasseur's inimitable drollery, was excruciatingly funny.
Robert is an expensive opera to put on, for, owing to hideous jealousies at the Paris Opera, Meyerbeer was compelled to write two prima-donna parts which afforded the rival ladies exactly equal opportunities. In the same way Halevy, the composer of La Juive, had to re-arrange and transpose his score, for Adolphe Nourrit, the great Paris tenor, in 1835, when the opera was first produced, was jealous of the splendid part the bass had been given, the tenor's role being quite insignificant. So it came about that La Juive is the only opera in which the grey-bearded old father is played by the principal tenor, whilst the lover is the light tenor. Mehul's Biblical Joseph and his Brethren is the one opera in which there are no female characters, though "Benjamin" is played by the leading soprano. In both the Prophete and Favorita the contralto plays the principal part, the soprano having a very subsidiary role. Meyerbeer wrote the part of the Prophet himself specially for Roger, the great tenor, and that of "Fides" for Mme. Viardot. By the way, the famous skating scene in the Prophete was part of the original production in Paris of 1849, and yet we think roller-skating an invention of yesterday.
I had German lessons from a Professor Hentze. This old man was the first example of a militant German that I had come across. He was always talking of Germany's inevitable and splendid destiny. Although a Hanoverian by birth, he was a passionate admirer of Bismarck and Bismarck's policy, and was a furious Pan-German in sentiment. "Where the German tongue is heard, there will be the German Fatherland," he was fond of quoting in the original. As he declared that both Dutch and Flemish were but variants of Low German, he included Holland and Belgium in the Greater Germany of the future, as well as the German-speaking Cantons of Switzerland, and Upper and Lower Austria. Mentally, he possibly included a certain island lying between the North Sea and the Atlantic as well, though, out of regard for my feelings, he never mentioned it. Hentze taught English and French in half a dozen boys' and girls' schools in Brunswick, and his brother taught history in the "Gymnasium." These two mild-mannered be-spectacled old bachelors, who in their leisure moments took snuff and played with their poodle, were tremendous fire-eaters. They were both enormously proud of the exploits of a cousin of theirs who, under the guise of a harmless commercial traveller in wines, had been engaged in spying and map-making for five years in Eastern France prior to 1870. It was, they averred (no doubt truthfully enough), owing to the labours of their cousin and of countless others like him, that the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 had been such an overwhelming success for Germany. Where German interests were concerned, these two old brothers could see nothing under a white light. And remember that they were teachers and trainers of youth; it was they who had the moulding of the minds of the young generation. I think that any one who knows Germany well will agree with me that it is the influence of the teaching class, whether in school or university, that has transformed the German mentality so greatly during the last forty years. These two mild-mannered old Hentzes must have infected scores and hundreds of lads with their own aggressively militant views. By perpetually holding up to them their own dream of a Germany covering half Europe, they must have transmitted some of their own enthusiasm to their pupils, and underlying that enthusiasm was a tacit assumption that the end justified any means; that provided the goal were attained, the manner in which it had been arrived at was a matter of quite secondary importance. I maintain that the damnable spirit of modern Germany is mainly due to the teaching profession, and to the doctrines it consistently instilled into German youth.
The Hentzes took in eight resident German pupils who attended the various schools in the town, mostly sons of wealthy Hamburg business-people. Hentze was always urging me to associate more with these lads, three of whom were of my own age, but I could discover no common ground whatever on which to meet them. The things that interested me did not appeal to them, and vice versa. They seemed to me dull youths, heavy alike in mind and body. From lack of sufficient fresh air and exercise they had all dull eyes, and flabby, white faces that quivered like blancmanges when they walked. In addition, they obstinately refused to talk German with me, looking on me as affording an excellent opportunity for obtaining a gratuitous lesson in English. One of Hentze's pupils was a great contrast, physically, to the rest, for he was very spare and thin, and seldom opened his mouth. I was to see a great deal of this silent, slim lad later on.