This town boasts of being the Austrian Birmingham. I will not hurt the feelings of my Birmingham readers, some of whom find their large and busy city a fine and charming place. If I don't share their taste entirely, it matters little. But Brünn! Brünn with its one inhabitant to Birmingham's ten! Brünn with its wide and empty roads in the new town, and with its narrow and crooked streets in the old one! Brünn with its one and only beautiful building: the Jewish synagogue, and its one and only curiosity: the lunatic asylum! Brünn with its population of manufacturers—most worthy people no doubt, but with an interest only in buttons, hooks and eyes, pins, steel pins, cotton spinning and other kinds of engineering—Brünn was no place for me to enjoy myself in the least.
Nor was it any better for Franz von Heidenbrunn and his sister Augusta, who were both all the more bored with the place as the strict military regulations did not allow the lieutenant to spend even an occasional evening in Vienna. Their gratification at meeting Mitzi several times a week may easily be imagined. I will only say that when Mitzi and I lunched at the Grand Hotel, which is situated quite near the theatre, covers were generally laid for four. Of course, I was always allotted the Countess Augusta, who proved a rather insignificant girl, by whose side I remained unfathomably calm, while Mitzi seemed to enjoy the nuttish and, let me say it, silly conversation of her partner, which is, I believe, a privilege of most lieutenants in Austria. I have, now, an idea that the talk was also carried on under the table—what do we keep feet for when dining?—but I was too well brought up by Daniel Cooper & Co. to investigate the nether world.
Slowly the poison entered my blood. "Trifles light as air are to the jealous confirmation strong." And soon I found myself burning as by "the mines of sulphur." (How good of Shakespeare to have provided me with all the terms necessary to describe my feelings.)
Had Mitzi been only my fiancée, I dare say that I would have put a rapid end to the matter. But she was also my Lady Macbeth in formation, and this could not be forgotten even for one moment. So I had to endure my secret sufferings. Besides, I must say, Mitzi was never as sweet to me as during these days. Full of hope and confidence, she always comforted and cheered me when I was disheartened, which happened more than once. Poor Doblana, who on his side was busy rehearsing Aladdin, had no such solace from her when he was dejected as, I am sure, most composers are every other day. Our respective works were to be performed nearly at the same time, Aladdin only about ten days after Lady Macbeth.
At last the morning of the great day arrived. I must have given you a very wrong impression of Daniel Cooper if you do not know that he arrived the day before with mater. They were very pleased with Mitzi, although not a word was said about our betrothal. And Daniel Cooper was greatly amused by being called the "great Mr. Cooper" by Doblana. It was on this occasion only that I found out that the good horn-player, who knew but few things save what belonged to horns and ballets, mixing up Insurance and Cooperation, had, when I first told him about my father's trade, thought that Daniel Cooper was the originator of Cooperative Societies.
What Dad spent on that memorable evening wants a special historian. I do not speak of his innumerable tips, nor of a basket of flowers which had to be transported to Brünn by the first Viennese florist in a specially hired motor lorry. I speak of such unexpected things as, for instance, a magnificent set of diamonds he presented to my mother in remembrance of my coming triumph. Needless to say that mater, on his special order, was attired like a queen, and that Dad himself had a new dress suit; an old one would never have been judged worthy by him of listening to Patrick Cooper's music.
The house was not very full. Besides the one hundred and fifty seats which I had judged to be too bad, there were about another three hundred unoccupied, a fact which totally upset my unfinished calculations. However, it is well-known that in German and Austrian provincial towns first nights are not well attended, the general public being rather mistrustful. But all my friends of the Round Table and other acquaintances were present, and they did their hand work well. There was first—honour to whom honour is due—the Herr Graf, then old Hammer, on whose account I had been obliged to invent a special scheme so as to make him accept a railway ticket, for he would not have been able to come otherwise without imposing great privations upon himself, Doctor Bernheim, and even Giulay with his mother. Of course, Doblana had made himself free in order to ascertain whether Miss Amizia Dobanelli was really the she-cat that walked miaowing over the boards. And he must have been deceived if he expected such a thing, for hers was an unparallelled triumph.
Quite a lot of theatrical managers, from that of the Vienna Opera downwards, had been invited, but only one, that of the Graz municipal theatre had come.
The performance was good, as performances in Germany and even more in Austria generally are. I am not afraid to state that a third-rate theatre, as, for instance, that of Brünn, would be ashamed of most of our conventional society performances at the Royal Theatre Covent Garden, in spite of all the stars. Confound the stars, who can never be brought to a complete, harmonious agreement, who sing their parts each for his or her own sake, and never think for one moment of the work and its meaning.
From what I have told already, you may have conjectured how very necessary such harmonious ensemble playing was in my Lady Macbeth. It was not a loud opera, and I could expect that the critics would not reproach me with being too noisy in my orchestration. Indeed, it was found too soft by those gentlemen, who never are satisfied. They did not understand that this softness was required for the general atmosphere of my opera.