Amusing incidents were not wanting. As we stood before Beard's 'Watchers' (an impressive representation of a company of crows watching the last struggles of a dying deer), we heard a lady ask her attendant the meaning of the picture and of its name. The reply was, 'Why—do you not see? Those birds are owls, and they are asleep, and the deer is asleep too, and so they are all watchers!' 'Ah!' returned the lady, as if this lucid explanation had flooded the subject with light. We were accompanied by a very bright young girl, who, desirous of visiting the studio of Mr. Church, and disappointed at learning that it had not been opened to the guests of the building, exclaimed, 'Heart of the Andes, indeed! Where is his own?' No lover of the true and the beautiful could have resisted the pleading of those earnest blue eyes. We also overheard that 'the Tenth-street boys hold their heads mighty high!' Long may they continue to do so, and long may success of every kind crown their efforts, whether as artists or as conscientious, patriotic men!
GOUNOD'S 'FAUST.'
This opera has attracted large audiences wherever it has been represented, and has elicited much attention and criticism from the musical public. Dwight's Journal of Music, Boston, January 23d, contains the best review of its merits and defects which we have thus far chanced to meet. Mr. Dwight gives M. Gounod ample credit for the good judgment, common sense, science, taste, poetic feeling, rich and highly dramatic orchestration, ingenious musical characterization of individuals and situations, and the many passages of beautiful music found in this elaborate work, but denies to him the highest inspiration, the spontaneity of genius, and the attainment of any very lofty ideal in the production of continuous, elevated, and soul-entrancing melodies. We think this a pretty fair statement of the facts in the case. Mr. Dwight, however, says: 'Not even Mozart in 'Don Juan' had so great a subject;' and in this connection we feel compelled to offer a few remarks. We think every great composer owes it to his own God-gift, and to the human beings whom he is to influence, not to select intrinsically repulsive subjects, and such have we found both 'Don Juan' and 'Faust.' Now we are not morbidly fastidious, and we well know the freedom that must be accorded to art, that it may have ample scope and range in the delineation of human feeling and romantic situation; but when we see a representation of 'Don Juan,' we instinctively strive to ignore the plot, with its odious characters (the sensual Don, the coarse-minded servant, the unwomanly, man-seeking Elvira, the vengeful Anna, the insignificant Ottavio, the light-headed and shallow-hearted Zerlina), and live only in the beautiful music which the prodigality of genius has wasted upon so poor a theme. Not even that libretto could degrade the pure, serious, and essentially innocent character of Mozart's conceptions; but, in turn, his refined musical conception has been unable to lift the subject from the mire of Da Ponte's delineation. We know that page after page has been written to unfold the mystic meanings and profound philosophy contained in the story, but our observation has been, that the effect of the whole upon pure minds is simply—disgust. The musical grandeur of the finale rarely saves its becoming ludicrous in the representation, and the good joke of a life of unblushing immorality is in no way lessened by the appearance of demons, in whose existence half the world (at least of of opera goers) has ceased to believe.
The 'Faust' is nearly, if not quite, as bad. The undisguised sensuality of Faust, both in Goethe's drama and in the operatic rendering, is such that it nearly destroys our sympathy with Margaret, and scenes that should be pathetic are either merely repulsive, or excite our indignation to such a degree that we 'turn all our tears to sparks of fire.'
Nothing but loathing can attend the open, deliberate, and utterly gross destruction of virtue as planned and executed by that miserable libertine. Mephistopheles himself is scarcely more corrupt, and the representation of these two great poisonous spiders, weaving their meshes round their unfortunate and but too easy prey, can never in any sense impress us as lofty specimens of high art.
How different is the plot of 'Fidelio,' where one can yield oneself to the beauty of the music and the pathos of the story without a single jarring sensation!
Let the masters then beware! Music is essentially pure, and should never by great minds be wedded to coarse ideas. The subject must have an influence upon the immortality of the work. The really noble and truly art-loving men and women of all countries will, as they advance in mental cultivation and comprehension of the higher aims of art, banish such gross delineations and festering moral sores from the stage, and fine musical works thus sullied will continue to live solely as represented by such instrument or instruments as may best be calculated to express their real value and meaning.
We go to the opera for relaxation, improvement, and enjoyment, and none of these can be found in the spectacle of noble means perverted to corrupt ends. May the day soon come when such important channels of public amusement and instruction may be guided by a refined taste and correct views of the intimate connection between the Beautiful and the Absolute Good!