The principal problem remains, however. The business dynamism which affects so much of our music life constantly perpetuates itself, and, as can be observed in matters remote from music, often achieves a quasi-ideological status, fostering as it does a system of values favorable to business as such. There is nothing new in the ideas themselves: the taste of the public—that is, supposedly, the majority of listeners—is invoked as the final criterion, the court of last appeal. Much effort and research is devoted to the process of discovering what this majority likes best, the objective being programs and repertory in accordance with the results of this research. Actually it is not that simple, especially since, with the beginning of radio and the spectacular development of the phonograph and recordings in the twenties, the musical public has grown enormously in size. Instead of numbering a few thousands concentrated in a few centers it now numbers many millions distributed over all parts of the country. It still continues to grow, not only in the provinces, but also in the centers themselves. Such a public shows the widest possible variety of taste, background, and experience. Hence it makes specific demands. As one looks at the situation from the point of view of a large musical enterprise, one may well ask which public it aims to satisfy. The tendency must be to try to satisfy, as far as possible, the majority of listeners, to offer programs which will draw the greatest possible number of people into the concert hall, and to convince them that they hear the best music that can be heard anywhere. The result is a kind of business ideology which bears a curious resemblance to the sincerely and justly despised ideology of the totalitarians, even though the coercive aspects are absent. There are signs that the tendency may be gradually receding as a more alert public is becoming constantly more mature and more demanding, and before the ceaseless self-criticism, another characteristic feature of our cultural life. Perhaps, and above all, through the courageous efforts of some leading personalities (such as the late Serge Koussevitzky, who always insisted on the recognition of contemporary music, and especially our American, and like Dimitri Mitropoulos who has waged a fight for music which is considered “difficult”) a change is in store. These efforts have often been surprisingly successful, and while the battle is far from won—is such a battle ever really and finally won?—one remembers, for instance, the spectacular success which Mitropoulos achieved in the 1950/51 season with a concert performance of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck. One also remembers the case of Bélà Bártòk—it is frequently asked, especially in the United States, why this great composer had to die almost ignored by our musical public, while scarcely a year after his death he became, and, on the whole, has remained virtually a classic whose music today is heard, played, and even loved all over the country. Such cases, however, do not alter the fact that there still exists a curious disproportion between the reputation, accepted almost without challenge throughout the country, of a Stravinsky or a Schönberg, and the fact that Verklärte Nacht and L’Oiseau de Feu are still their most frequently performed works, while their mature and more characteristic music is relatively seldom performed. This disproportion is partly rectified by the existence of many recordings of Schönberg’s music, as it was, momentarily, balanced by performances of his works in his memory just after his death.
The great public finds all music difficult to grasp, not only contemporary music. Contemporary music meets with opposition in the United States because it is unfamiliar and hence difficult. On the other hand, with only slight exaggeration it can be pointed out that tradition has very little value as a weapon against those who would prefer hearing a concerto by Rachmaninoff to one by Mozart. If, in the policy governing the choice of programs, one succeeded in satisfying only the majority of listeners, nothing would be left for the elite, the certainly much smaller public wishing to hear contemporary music and, as well, the more exacting and profound music of the past. The prestige and glamor of the great names of the past rather than tradition checks this trend, opposing to it the growing demands of a considerable segment of the public. That public is gradually developing in size and experience. Furthermore, the artistic conscience of several leading musical personalities in the United States (unfortunately not all of them, whether of American or European background) oppose the “system,” the rewards of which are naturally great for those who come to terms with it; many a European performer, during the whole course of our development, has been willing to seek success in the United States at the lowest level, with little concern for the musical development of our country. Such performers usually excuse their departure from standards with the supposedly low level of culture in our “backward” country and are supported in their attitude by business interests and as well by a certain element of cultural snobbery, still persisting. Fortunately there have always been others, such as Theodore Thomas of earlier days, or Karl Muck, forty-five years ago in Boston, or like the pianist Artur Schnabel, and there are still others who maintained the highest standards here as elsewhere and thus manifested fundamental respect for the American public, themselves, and their art. These personalities created, in the largest measure, our music life, and their inspired followers today obstruct its debasement.
In such a brief résumé of the forces characterizing our music life much is necessarily omitted, and oversimplification is inevitable. The emerging picture is gloomy in certain respects, but it can be counterbalanced by such considerations as were voiced at the beginning of our discussion. One sometimes hears the question: if things are really so, if there is an absence of genuine tradition and we have to consider the existence of economic forces pervading our music life in an almost mechanistic fashion, is it not chimerical to hope for the development of a genuine music culture in the United States? Part of the answer will be given later when, after consideration of the even gloomier situation of the musical theater in the United States, attention must be given to the various forces which are rapidly developing outside our organized music life and which constitute a real and perpetual challenge. One must insist once more on the fluidity of our culture, which is in constant development, or, as the German philosophers would say, in a constant state of “becoming.” It is interesting, at least to this author, to observe how in such a discussion one passes from a negative to a less pessimistic point of view, and one wonders why. The answer lies not only in faith in one’s own national culture, but in thousands of facts which crowd in, sometimes emanating from unexpected sources. These facts support that faith. They point to the genuine, the most vital need for musical experience in the United States, and drive toward it; they constantly seek and possibly discover fresh channels through which these experiences can be achieved. The development, in fact, is so rapid that any discussion such as the present may seem outdated even before the ink is dry. It should be remembered, finally, that economic forces, however mechanistic, are, in the last analysis, the projection of spiritual forces and eventually are subject to them. In this respect, as in most others relating to our musical development, the best antidote to pessimism is retrospection.
IV
All that has been said about the business organization of our concert life applies with at least equal force to our musical theater. The latter is the most costly as well as the most complicated form of musical production, and therefore the most problematical economically. However, the somewhat embarrassing situation of the musical theater in the United States is not only of economic origin. It may even be said that the economic difficulties are at least partly derived from other problems, so to speak anterior to economics.
These problems may be broadly summarized in the statement that the serious music drama has shown signs of becoming popular only in recent years. A certain portion of the public has always shown interest and enthusiasm for opera, to be sure, and such a public has always existed; however, there are signs that it has grown both larger and more adept through the influence of radio programs, concert performances, and other forces to be discussed later. Of late, it has become customary to devote a concert to the partial or complete performance of an operatic work rarely heard in the theater in the United States, and still more recently this practice has been extended to the performance of works even from the standard repertory. Significant events were the concert renditions, by Mitropoulos in New York, of Strauss’s Elektra, Berg’s Wozzeck, and Schönberg’s Erwartung; and, by Monteux in San Francisco, of Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande and Gluck’s Orfeo. The results were not equally successful; while Elektra achieved rare acclamation in New York, the success of Pelléas in San Francisco was less conspicuous, as those who know the opera well will readily understand. But the fact that such performances are in fashion is evidence that there is still need for them at this point in our music life, and the enthusiasm for them is evidence that a public stands ready to embrace something other than the standard fare ordinarily offered by our established operatic institutions. This is only one of many symptoms of the situation. Many enterprises throughout the country have sprung up during the last twenty or twenty-five years which show that a public for opera is developing; only the means of satisfying it is lacking.
The above statement that serious opera only recently has begun to show signs of becoming popular requires elucidation. The best way of approaching the question is to consider the basis on which our operatic institutions grew. We started with the institutions because, as always in the United States, there were people in those days who did not wish to be deprived in the New World of all they had been able to enjoy in the Old. The ever-present snobs gradually joined their ranks, and at the time the Metropolitan Opera was founded, twenty years after the Civil War, their influence was at its height. It was the epoch of great fortunes, of tremendous expansion of American industry and finance, and of the arrogance of recently acquired wealth. Much has been made of the fact that in the original architectural planning of the Metropolitan Opera House express provision was made for the demands of social exhibitionism. All this is tiresome, no doubt, but it is relatively harmless. More important, perhaps, is that the problem of building an intelligent public was faced in all too casual a manner. The small European and cosmopolitan nucleus had no need for such education; the snobs needed little or nothing, since their aims were far from the desire for genuine artistic experience. Most others contented themselves with accepting or rejecting what was offered.
It is worth considering our operatic situation not only in itself, but in its relations to the environment into which it was transplanted. There is every reason to believe that the performances of that period were of the highest quality, and that that level declined only much later, under pressures similar to those already mentioned in connection with our concert life, which in both cases arose roughly at the time of the World War I with the decline of patronage. In the last years of the nineteenth century there existed not only enough wealth fully to support such enterprises, but also a willingness to follow the best artistic advice obtainable. What was wanted was, in the direct terms, the collaboration of the most distinguished artists of Europe, and such collaboration was cheerfully and handsomely rewarded. The latest novelties were desired along with all the standard repertory, and they were mounted in the most sumptuous manner. Occasional world premières took place at the Metropolitan; the author has already referred to the fact that his parents sought the advice of foreign composers, in this case of Puccini and Humperdinck, who were in New York for the world premières of The Girl of the Golden West and of Königskinder, respectively. Among the conductors at the Metropolitan were Anton Seidl, and later, Gustav Mahler and Arturo Toscanini. While the repertory favored the nationality of the manager (under Conried German opera and under Gatti-Casazza Italian), such favoritism was, at least in part, amended by other organizations. Oscar Hammerstein, for instance, through his Manhattan Opera Company, introduced the then new German and French operas to New York. This was early in our century, and though his project was short-lived, operatic institutions, all different in complexion, were springing up in Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and San Francisco. In the South, in New Orleans, French opera was still in existence. In the United States as in Europe the most celebrated melodies of Verdi, Donizetti, Gounod, Bizet, and even Wagner were played and sung. Why then, one will ask, did opera fail to become popular?
The question is not of opera but of music drama, and has nothing to do with either the dramatic quality of the performances or with melodies. The author treasures the memory of certainly first-class performances of Otello, Die Meistersinger, Carmen, Pelléas, even of Don Giovanni and of Gluck’s Orpheus. However, certainly for most devotees opera meant something other than music drama; and this for reasons ultimately deriving from the fact that opera in the United States was still a luxury article, imported without regard for its true purpose or its true nature, and that the circumstances of its production accentuated that fact. For a public with this orientation, opera possessed the magic of an emanation from a distant and glamorous world, one which retained the element of mystery. Since the artists were highly paid—as a result of a quite natural desire to have the very best available at any price—it was equally natural that the public overestimated the importance of individual singers and their voices, and remained comparatively unaware of the importance of ensemble. The “star system” did not originate in the United States, to be sure, but it found fertile soil here, as did the widespread idea of opera as a masquerade concert, a romantic pageant in which various celebrities played their roles, and the primary purpose of which was to provide sumptuous entertainment.