In the seventies there was a great vogue of the Offenbach opéra bouffe, and such airy trifles as La belle Hélène and La grande duchesse occupied the public interest to the exclusion of more serious musical fare. As is usually the case in America, the interest reached the intensity of a mania and it was necessary that public curiosity be satisfied by a sight of the composer himself. Accordingly Offenbach came over in 1875. But as soon as the people had satisfied their curiosity they lost all interest in him and his tour was a complete failure.[46]
In 1876 Mlle. Teresa Tietjens came to America under the management of Max Strakosch and appeared at the Academy of Music with great success, especially in Norma and Lucrezia Borgia. Two years later a short season of opera was given at the Academy by a German company headed by Mme. Pappenheim and Charles Adams. It was far from successful, but during its brief existence New Yorkers had an opportunity of hearing Wagner's Lohengrin, Tannhäuser, Der fliegende Holländer, and Rienzi, Halévy's La Juive, and Gounod's Faust.
In 1878 Max Strakosch, with a company that included Clara Louise Kellogg and Annie Louise Cary, ignored the Academy of Music and settled down at the Booth Theatre. There he gave a season of three weeks, presenting Aïda, La Traviata, and Il Trovatore. The directors of the Academy, in the meantime, turned to Colonel James H. Mapleson, one of the most famous of operatic impresarios, who, as manager of Her Majesty's Theatre and of Drury Lane, London, had for some time been engaged in a lively operatic war with Frederick and Ernest Gye at Covent Garden. Mapleson was a most astute manager and a devoted protagonist of the 'star' system. During his first season in 1878-79 he brought over a brilliant company which included Minnie Hauck, Etelka Gerster, and Italo Campanini, with Luigi Arditi as conductor. His list of operas was less impressive. The only novelty was Bizet's Carmen. On the whole, the season was moderately successful and Mapleson made a contract with the stockholders of the Academy for the seasons of 1879-80, 1880-81, and 1881-82. Nothing occurred in any of those seasons which calls for special mention. They presented the same old list of operas in the same old way. Italian opera in New York was getting into a rut and was losing its hold on the people. The Academy was becoming more and more unsuited to the growing demands of New York Society. Everything was, in fact, ripe for the inauguration of a new epoch.
IV
It must be confessed that the evolution of opera in New York has been determined more by social than by artistic factors, and a history of New York society would be almost a necessary background for a complete narrative of its operatic development. Here it is necessary to mention that the Vanderbilt ball of 1882 marked the culmination of a social revolution in New York. During the early years of the nineteenth century there was an absolute ascendancy of that social element which is known by the name of Knickerbocker. It was composed, in the main, of old families with certain undeniable claims to birth, breeding, and culture. They constituted a caste which was not without distinction. But about 1840, with the rapid material development of the country, began the influx of a new element armed for assault on the social citadel with the powerful artillery of wealth. Gradually this new element widened a breach in the rampart of exclusiveness which the Knickerbocker caste had built around itself, and at the above-mentioned Vanderbilt ball the citadel finally surrendered. The effect on the operatic situation was immediate. There was not sufficient accommodation in the Academy for the newly amalgamated forces, and a box at the opera was, of course, a necessary badge of social distinction. Consequently, in 1883, the Metropolitan Opera House Company (Limited) was formed by a number of very prominent gentlemen for a purpose sufficiently indicated by its title. The very prominent gentlemen were James A. Roosevelt, George Henry Warren, Luther Kountze, George Griswold Haven, William K. Vanderbilt, William H. Tillinghast, Adrian Iselin, Robert Goelet, Joseph W. Drexel, Edward Cooper, Henry G. Marquard, George N. Curtis, and Levi P. Morton. This, financially speaking, impressive list is important because it helps us to understand the true nature of the enterprise upon which these gentlemen embarked.[47]
The Metropolitan Opera House was leased for the season of 1883 to Mr. Henry E. Abbey and was opened on October 22 with Gounod's Faust. In the cast on the opening night were Mesdames Nilsson and Scalchi and Signor Campanini, while Signor Vianesi acted as musical director. The season lasted until December 22, with regular subscription performances on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings and Saturday afternoons. Two performances missed from the regular subscription series were given after the return of the company from a trip to Boston on January 9 and 11. A spring season, begun on March 10, lasted until April 12. The operas given between October 22 and April 12, with order of their production, were: Gounod's Faust (in Italian), Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, Verdi's Il Trovatore, Bellini's I Puritani, Thomas's Mignon, Verdi's La Traviata, Wagner's Lohengrin (in Italian), Bellini's La Sonnambula, Verdi's Rigoletto, Meyerbeer's Robert le Diable (in Italian), Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Mozart's Don Giovanni, Boïto's Mefistofele, Ponchielli's La Gioconda, Bizet's Carmen, Thomas's 'Hamlet,' Flotow's 'Martha,' and Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots and Le Prophète. Apart from Mme. Nilsson and Signor Campanini, the principal artists engaged were Marcella Sembrich—probably the greatest coloratura soprano since Patti—who afterward became very familiar to New Yorkers; Mme. Fursch-Madi, a French contralto, who had already sung in New Orleans; and M. Capoul, French tenor, who had appeared at the Academy under Maurice Strakosch in 1871. The company gave fifty-eight performances in Brooklyn, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Washington, and Baltimore. Mr. Abbey's losses on the season have been estimated at more than $500,000. He had no ambition to undertake another one.
Colonel Mapleson, in the meantime, was holding on at the Academy, where he still retained Patti as the chief attraction, assisted by the fresh-voiced Etelka Gerster, then on the threshold of her career, Mme. Pappenheim, whom we have already met in German opera, Signor Nicolini,[48] a mediocre tenor, and Signor Galassi, a good baritone.
During this season, also, there occurred under his management the American operatic début of Mrs. Norton-Gower, afterward known as Mme. Nordica. The operas performed were Bellini's La Sonnambula and Norma, Rossini's La Gazza ladra, Donizetti's L'Elisir d'amore and Linda di Chamouni, the Ricci brothers' Crispino e la Comare, Gounod's Faust, Flotow's Martha, Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots, and Verdi's La Traviata, Rigoletto and Aïda.
In 1884 Leopold Damrosch submitted to the directors of the Metropolitan a proposition for a season of German opera under his management, and, faute de mieux, the directors acceded. Dr. Damrosch secured a very strong company, including Amalia Materna, who, in Bayreuth, had created the part of Kundry in Parsifal; Marianne Brandt, also known in Bayreuth; Marie Schroeder-Hanfstängel of the Frankfort Opera, a pupil of Mme Viardot-García and the chief coloratura singer of the company; Auguste Seidl-Krauss, wife of Anton Seidl, then conductor of the Stadt Theater in Bremen, and Anton Schott, a tenor of considerable reputation in Wagnerian rôles, whose explosive methods led von Bülow to describe him as a Militärtenor—ein Artillerist. The list of operas given included Wagner's Tannhäuser, Beethoven's Fidelio, Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots, Weber's Der Freischütz, Rossini's 'William Tell,' Wagner's Lohengrin, Mozart's Don Giovanni, Meyerbeer's Le Prophète, Auber's La Muette de Portici, Verdi's Rigoletto, Halévy's La Juive, and Wagner's Die Walküre. It is not surprising that the season was a pronounced success. The receipts up to the middle of January were double those of the corresponding period in the previous year, though the prices had been reduced considerably. But the season was brought to a tragic close and the cause of German opera in New York was set back many years by the unexpected death of Dr. Damrosch on February 15, 1885.
During the previous year a season of Italian opera had been given at the Star Theatre by James Barton Key and Horace McVicker with the Milan Grand Opera Company, recruited from Italian singers who had been stranded by the failure of operatic ventures in Mexico and South America. The only interesting feature of the season was the production of Il Guarany, a Spanish-American opera by Señor Gomez. Colonel Mapleson started his seventh season at the Academy on November 10, 1884. He still retained Patti and had annexed Scalchi and Fursch-Madi from Abbey's disbanded forces, but his season presented nothing of interest while it gave every evidence that his operatic reign in New York was drawing to a close. The season of 1885-86 was his last with the exception of a short attempt in 1896. He had lost Patti but he still presented a strong company, which included Alma Fohström, Minnie Hauck, and Mlle. Felia Litvinoff, better known as Madame Litvinne. The season ended in a dismal failure after twelve evening and four afternoon performances. With the exception of Carmen, Fra Diavolo, and L'Africaine there was no variation from the stereotyped program of which New York must have been intensely sick. During a short return engagement, however, Mapleson's company gave Massenet's Manon for the first time in America (Dec. 23, 1885).