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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/32979-8.txt b/32979-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c5261d5 --- /dev/null +++ b/32979-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4109 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Interpreters, by Carl Van Vechten + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Interpreters + +Author: Carl Van Vechten + +Release Date: June 26, 2010 [EBook #32979] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INTERPRETERS *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images at The Internet Archive.) + + + + + + + + + +INTERPRETERS + +by + +CARL +VAN VECHTEN + + + +_BOOKS BY CARL VAN VECHTEN_ + + +INTERPRETERS + +IN THE GARRET + +THE MUSIC OF SPAIN + +THE MERRY-GO-ROUND + +MUSIC AND BAD MANNERS + +THE TIGER IN THE HOUSE + +MUSIC AFTER THE GREAT WAR + +[Illustration: MARY GARDEN AS CHÉRUBIN (1905)] + + + + +Interpreters + +_Carl Van Vechten_ + +_A new edition, revised, with sixteen illustrations and an epilogue_ + +[Illustration] + +New York Alfred A Knopf + +MCMXX + +COPYRIGHT, 1917, 1920, BY +ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC. + +PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + + _To + the unforgettable interpreter of Ariel, + Zelima, Louka, Wendla, + and Columbine, + Fania Marinoff, my wife_ + + + + +CONTENTS + + +Olive Fremstad 11 + +Geraldine Farrar 39 + +Mary Garden 59 + +Feodor Chaliapine 97 + +Mariette Mazarin 117 + +Yvette Guilbert 135 + +Waslav Nijinsky 149 + +Epilogue 177 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +Mary Garden as Chérubin _Frontispiece_ + + FACING + PAGE + +Olive Fremstad as Elsa 18 + +Olive Fremstad as Sieglinde 20 + +Olive Fremstad as Kundry 24 + +Geraldine Farrar as Elisabeth 40 + +Geraldine Farrar as Violetta 46 + +Geraldine Farrar as Louise in _Julien_ 52 + +Mary Garden as Chrysis 72 + +Mary Garden as Mélisande 76 + +Mary Garden as Fanny Legrand 90 + +Feodor Chaliapine as Mefistofele 112 + +Mariette Mazarin as Elektra 128 + +Yvette Guilbert 140 + +Waslav Nijinsky in Debussy's _Jeux_ 168 + +Geraldine Farrar as Zaza 190 + +Mary Garden as Cléopâtre 196 + + + + +Olive Fremstad + + +_"C'est que le Beau est la seule chose qui soit immortelle, et qu'aussi +longtemps qu'il reste un vestige de sa manifestation matérielle, son +immortalité subsiste. Le Beau est répandu partout, il s'étend même +jusque sur la mort. Mais il ne rayonne nulle part avec autant +d'intensité que dans l'individualité humaine; c'est là qu'il parle le +plus à l'intelligence, et c'est pour cela que, pour ma part, je +préférerai toujours une grande puissance musicale servie par une voix +défectueuse, à une voix belle et bête, une voix dont la beauté n'est que +matérielle._" + +Ivan Turgeniev to Mme. Viardot. + + +The career of Olive Fremstad has entailed continuous struggle: a +struggle in the beginning with poverty, a struggle with a refractory +voice, and a struggle with her own overpowering and dominating +temperament. Ambition has steered her course. After she had made a +notable name for herself through her interpretations of contralto rôles, +she determined to sing soprano parts, and did so, largely by an effort +of will. She is always dissatisfied with her characterizations; she is +always studying ways and means of improving them. It is not easy for her +to mould a figure; it is, on the contrary, very difficult. One would +suppose that her magnetism and force would carry her through an opera +without any great amount of preparation. Such is not the case. There is +no other singer before the public so little at her ease in any impromptu +performance. Recently, when she returned to the New York stage with an +itinerant opera company to sing in an ill-rehearsed performance of +_Tosca_, she all but lost her grip. She was not herself and she did not +convince. New costumes, which hindered her movements, and a Scarpia with +whom she was unfamiliar, were responsible in a measure for her failure +to assume her customary authority. + +If you have seen and heard Olive Fremstad in the scene of the spear in +_Götterdämmerung_, you will find it difficult to believe that what I say +is true, that work and not plenary inspiration is responsible for the +effect. To be sure, the inspiration has its place in the final result. +Once she is certain of her ground, words, music, tone-colour, gesture, +and action, she inflames the whole magnificently with her magnetism. +This magnetism is instinctive, a part of herself; the rest is not. She +brings about the detail with diligent drudgery, and without that her +performances would go for nought. The singer pays for this intense +concentration. In "Tower of Ivory" Mrs. Atherton says that all Wagnerian +singers must pay heavily. Probably all good ones must. Charles Henry +Melzer has related somewhere that he first saw Mme. Fremstad on the +stage at Covent Garden, where between her scenes in some Wagner music +drama, lost in her rôle, utterly oblivious of stage hands or +fellow-artists, she paced up and down in the wings. At the moment he +decided that she was a great interpretative artist, and he had never +heard her sing. When she is singing a rôle she will not allow herself to +be interrupted; she holds no receptions between scenes. "Come back +after the opera," she says to her friends, and frequently then she is +too tired to see any one. She often drives home alone, a prey to +quivering nerves which keep her eyeballs rolling in ceaseless +torture--sleepless. + +Nothing about the preparation of an opera is easy for Olive Fremstad; +the thought, the idea, does not register immediately in her brain. But +once she has achieved complete understanding of a rôle and thoroughly +mastered its music, the fire of her personality enables her easily to +set a standard. Is there another singer who can stand on the same +heights with Mme. Fremstad as Isolde, Venus, Elsa, Sieglinde, Kundry, +Armide, Brünnhilde in _Götterdämmerung_, or Salome? And are not these +the most difficult and trying rôles in the répertoire of the lyric stage +to-day? + +In one of her impatient moods--and they occur frequently--the singer +once complained of this fact. "How easy it is," she said, "for those who +make their successes as Marguerite and Mimi.... I should like to sing +those rôles...." But the remark was made under a misconception of her +own personality. Mme. Fremstad would find Mimi and Marguerite much more +difficult to compass than Isolde and Kundry. She is by nature Northern +and heroic, and her physique is suited to the goddesses and heroines of +the Norse myths (it is a significant fact that she has never attempted +to sing Eva or Senta). Occasionally, as in Salome, she has been able to +exploit successfully another side of her talent, but in the rendering of +the grand, the noble, and the heroic, she has no equal on our stage. Yet +her Tosca always lacked nobility. There was something in the music which +never brought the quality out. + +In such a part as Selika she seemed lost (wasted, too, it may be added), +although the entrance of the proud African girl was made with some +effect, and the death scene was carried through with beauty of purpose. +But has any one ever characterized Selika? Her Santuzza, one of the two +rôles which she has sung in Paris, must be considered a failure when +judged by the side of such a performance as that given by Emma +Calvé--and who would judge Olive Fremstad by any but the highest +standards? The Swedish singer's Santuzza was as elemental, in its way, +as that of the Frenchwoman, but its implications were too tragic, too +massive in their noble beauty, for the correct interpretation of a +sordid melodrama. It was as though some one had engaged the Victory of +Samothrace to enact the part. Munich adored the Fremstad Carmen (was it +not her characterization of the Bizet heroine which caused Heinrich +Conried to engage her for America?) and Franz von Stuck painted her +twice in the rôle. Even in New York she was appreciated in the part. The +critics awarded her fervent adulation, but she never stirred the public +pulse. The principal fault of this very Northern Carmen was her lack of +humour, a quality the singer herself is deficient in. For a season or +two in America Mme. Fremstad appeared in the rôle, singing it, indeed, +in San Francisco the night of the memorable earthquake, and then it +disappeared from her répertoire. Maria Gay was the next Metropolitan +Carmen, but it was Geraldine Farrar who made the opera again as popular +as it had been in Emma Calvé's day. + +Mme. Fremstad is one of those rare singers on the lyric stage who is +able to suggest the meaning of the dramatic situation through the colour +of her voice. This tone-colour she achieves stroke by stroke, devoting +many days to the study of important phrases. To go over in detail the +instances in which she has developed effects through the use of +tone-colour would make it necessary to review, note by note, the operas +in which she has appeared. I have no such intention. It may be +sufficient to recall to the reader--who, in remembering, may recapture +the thrill--the effect she produces with the poignant lines beginning +_Amour, puissant amour_ at the close of the third act of _Armide_, the +dull, spent quality of the voice emitted over the words _Ich habe deinen +Mund geküsst_ from the final scene of _Salome_, and the subtle, dreamy +rapture of the _Liebestod_ in _Tristan und Isolde_. Has any one else +achieved this effect? She once told me that Titian's Assumption of the +Virgin was her inspiration for her conception of this scene. + +Luscious in quality, Mme. Fremstad's voice is not altogether a tractable +organ, but she has forced it to do her bidding. A critic long ago +pointed out that another singer would not be likely to emerge with +credit through the use of Mme. Fremstad's vocal method. It is full of +expediences. Oftener than most singers, too, she has been in "bad +voice." And her difficulties have been increased by her determination to +become a soprano, difficulties she has surmounted brilliantly. In other +periods we learn that singers did not limit their ranges by the quality +of their voices. In our day singers have specialized in high or low +rôles. Many contraltos, however, have chafed under the restrictions +which composers have compelled them to accept. Almost all of them have +attempted now and again to sing soprano rôles. Only in the case of Edyth +Walker, however, do we find an analogy to the case of Olive Fremstad. +Both of these singers have attained high artistic ideals in both ranges. +Magnificent as Brangaene, Amneris, and Ortrud, the Swedish singer later +presented unrivalled characterizations of Isolde, Armide, and +Brünnhilde. + +The high tessitura of the music allotted to the _Siegfried_ Brünnhilde +is a strain for most singers. Mme. Nordica once declared that this +Brünnhilde was the most difficult of the three. Without having sung a +note in the early evening, she must awake in the third act, about +ten-thirty or eleven, to begin almost immediately the melismatic duet +which concludes the music drama. Mme. Fremstad, by the use of many +expediences, such as pronouncing Siegfried as if it were spelled +Seigfried when the first syllable fell on a high note, was able to get +through with this part without projecting a sense of effort, unless it +was on the high C at the conclusion, a note of which she frequently +allowed the tenor to remain in undisputed possession. But the fierce joy +and spirited abandon she put into the acting of the rôle, the passion +with which she infused her singing, carried her victoriously past the +dangerous places, often more victoriously than some other singer, who +could produce high notes more easily, but whose stage resources were +more limited. + +I do not think Mme. Fremstad has trained her voice to any high degree of +agility. She can sing the drinking song from _Lucrezia Borgia_ and +Delibes's _Les Filles de Cadix_ with irresistible effect, a good part of +which, however, is produced by her personality and manner, qualities +which carry her far on the concert stage, although for some esoteric +reason they have never inveigled the general public into an enthusiastic +surrender to her charm. I have often heard her sing Swedish songs in her +native tongue (sometimes to her own accompaniment) so enchantingly, with +such appeal in her manner, and such velvet tones in her voice, that +those who heard her with me not only burst into applause but also into +exclamations of surprise and delight. Nevertheless, in her concerts, or +in opera, although her admirers are perhaps stronger in their loyalty +than those of any other singer, she has never possessed the greatest +drawing power. This is one of the secrets of the stage; it cannot be +solved. It would seem that the art of Mme. Fremstad was more homely, +more human in song, grander and more noble in opera, than that of Mme. +Tetrazzini, but the public as a whole prefers to hear the latter, +just as it has gone in larger numbers to see the acting of Miss Garden +or Mme. Farrar. Why this is so I cannot pretend to explain. + +[Illustration: OLIVE FREMSTAD AS ELSA + +_from a photograph by Mishkin (1913)_] + +Mme. Fremstad has appeared in pretty nearly all of the important, and +many of the lesser, Wagner rôles. She has never sung Senta, and she once +told me that she had no desire to do so, nor has she been heard as Freia +or Eva. But she has sung Ortrud and Elsa, Venus and Elisabeth, Adriano +in _Rienzi_, Kundry, Isolde and Brangaene, Fricka, Erda, Waltraute, +Sieglinde, one of the Rhine maidens (perhaps two), and all three +Brünnhildes. In most of these characterizations she has succeeded in +making a deep impression. I have never seen her Ortrud, but I have been +informed that it was a truly remarkable impersonation. Her Elsa was the +finest I have ever seen. To Ternina's poetic interpretation she added +her own greater grace and charm, and a lovelier quality of voice. If, on +occasion, the music of the second act proved too high for her, who could +sing the music of the dream with such poetic expression?--or the love +music in the last act?--as beautiful an impersonation, and of the same +kind, as Mary Garden's Mélisande. + +Her Venus was another story. She yearned for years to sing Elisabeth, +and when she had satisfied this ambition, she could be persuaded only +with difficulty to appear as the goddess. She told me once that she +would like to sing both rôles in a single evening--a possible feat, as +the two characters never appear together; Rita Fornia, I believe, +accomplished the dual impersonation on one occasion at the behest of +Colonel Savage. She had in mind a heroine with a dual nature, sacred and +profane love so to speak, and Tannhäuser at the mercy of this +gemini-born wight. She never was permitted to try this experiment at the +Metropolitan, but during her last season there she appeared as +Elisabeth. Montreal, and perhaps Brooklyn, had seen this impersonation +before it was vouchsafed New York. Mme. Fremstad never succeeded in +being very convincing in this rôle. I do not exactly understand why, as +its possibilities seem to lie within her limitations. Nor did she sing +the music well. On the other hand, her abundantly beautiful and +voluptuous Venus, a splendid, towering, blonde figure, shimmering in +flesh-coloured garments, was one of her astoundingly accurate +characterizations. At the opposite pole to her Sieglinde it was equally +a masterpiece of interpretative art, like Duse's Camille "positively +enthralling as an exhibition of the gymnastics of perfect suppleness +and grace." In both these instances she was inspired perhaps to realize +something a little more wonderful than the composer himself had dreamed +of. The depth and subtlety and refinement of intense passion were in +this Venus--there was no suggestion here of what Sidney Homer once +referred to as Mme. Homer's platonic Venus! + +[Illustration: OLIVE FREMSTAD AS SIEGLINDE + +_from a photograph by Aimé Dupont_] + +Her Sieglinde is firmly intrenched in many of our memories, the best +loved of her Wagnerian women and enchantresses. Will there rise another +singing actress in our generation to make us forget it? I do not think +so. Her melting womanliness in the first act, ending with her complete +surrender to Siegmund, her pathetic fatigue in the second act (do you +not still see the harassed, shuddering figure stumbling into view and +falling voiceless to sleep at the knees of her brother-lover?) remain in +the memory like pictures in the great galleries. And how easily in the +last act, in her single phrase, by her passionate suggestion of the +realization of motherhood, did she wrest the scene from her +fellow-artists, no matter who they might be, making such an effect +before she fled into the forest depths, that what followed often seemed +but anticlimax. + +Mme. Fremstad never sang the three Brünnhildes in sequence at the +Metropolitan Opera House (of late years no soprano has done so), but she +was called upon at various times to sing them all separately. +Undoubtedly it was as the Brünnhilde in _Götterdämmerung_ that she made +the most lasting impression. The scene of the oath on the spear she +carried into the realms of Greek tragedy. Did Rachel touch greater +heights? Was the French Jewess more electric? The whole performance +displayed magnificent proportions, attaining a superb stature in the +immolation scene. In scenes of this nature, scenes hovering between life +and death, the eloquent grandeur of Mme. Fremstad's style might be +observed in its complete flowering. Isolde over the body of Tristan, +Brünnhilde over the body of Siegfried, exhibited no mincing pathos; the +mood established was one of lofty calm. Great artists realize that this +is the true expression of overwhelming emotion. In this connection it +seems pertinent and interesting to recall a notable passage in a letter +from Ivan Turgeniev to Pauline Viardot:-- + +"You speak to me also about _Romeo_, the third act; you have the +goodness to ask me for some remarks on Romeo. What could I tell you that +you have not already known and felt in advance? The more I reflect on +the scene of the third act the more it seems to me that there is only +one manner of interpreting it--yours. One can imagine nothing more +horrible than finding oneself before the corpse of all that one loves; +but the despair that seizes you then ought to be so terrible that, if it +is not held and _frozen_ by the resolution of suicide, or by another +_grand_ sentiment, art can no longer render it. Broken cries, sobs, +fainting fits, these are nature, but they are not art. The spectator +himself will not be moved by that poignant and profound emotion which +you stir so easily. Whereas by the manner in which you wish to do Romeo +(as I understand what you have written me) you will produce on your +auditor an ineffaceable effect. I remember the fine and just observation +that you once made on the agitated and restrained little gestures that +Rachel made, at the same time maintaining an attitude of calm nobility; +with her, perhaps, that was only technique; but in general it is the +calm _arising from a strong conviction or from a profound emotion_, that +is to say the calm which envelopes the desperate transports of passion +from all sides, which communicates to them that purity of line, that +ideal and real beauty, the true, the only beauty of art. And, what +proves the truth of this remark, is that life itself--on rare +occasions, it is true, at those times when it disengages itself from all +that is accidental or commonplace--raises itself to the same kind of +beauty. The greatest griefs, as you have said in your letter, are the +calmest; and, one could add, the calmest are the most beautiful. But it +is necessary to know how to unite the two extremes, unless one would +appear cold. It is easier not to attain perfection, easier to rest in +the middle of one's journey, the more so because the greater number of +spectators demand nothing else, or rather are not accustomed to anything +else, but you are what you are only because of this noble ambition to do +your best...." + +In the complex rôle of Kundry Mme. Fremstad has had no rival. The wild +witch of the first act, the enchantress of the second, the repentant +Magdalene of the third, all were imaginatively impersonated by this +wonderful woman. Certain actors drop their characterizations as soon as +the dialogue passes on to another; such as these fail in _Parsifal_, for +Kundry, on the stage for the entire third act, has only one word to +sing; in the first act she has but few more. Colossally alluring in the +second act, in which she symbolized the essence of the "eternal +feminine," Mme. Fremstad projected the first and third act Kundry +into the minds and hearts of her audience. + +[Illustration: OLIVE FREMSTAD AS KUNDRY, ACT I + +_from a photograph by Mishkin (1913)_] + +Well-trained in Bayreuth tradition, this singer was no believer in it; +she saw no reason for clinging to outworn ideals simply because they +prevailed at the Master's own theatre. However, she did not see how an +individual could break with tradition in these works without destroying +their effect. The break must come from the stage director. + +"If Wagner were alive to-day," she once said to me, "I don't believe +that he would sanction a lot of the silly 'business' that is insisted +upon everywhere because it is the law at Bayreuth. Wagner was constantly +changing everything. When he produced his music dramas they were so +entirely new in conception and in staging that they demanded +experimentation in many directions. Doubtless certain traditions were +founded on the interpretations of certain singers--who probably could +not have followed other lines of action, which Wagner might have +preferred, so successfully. + +"The two scenes which I have particularly in mind are those of the first +act of _Tannhäuser_ and the second act of _Parsifal_. Both of these +scenes, it seems to me, should be arranged with the most undreamed of +beauty in colour and effect. Venus should not pose for a long time in a +stiff attitude on an uncomfortable couch. I don't object to the couch, +but it should be made more alluring. + +"The same objection holds in the second act of _Parsifal_, where Kundry +is required to fascinate Parsifal, although she is not given an +opportunity of moving from one position for nearly twenty minutes. When +Klingsor calls Kundry from below in the first scene of that act, she +comes against her will, and I think she should arise gasping and +shuddering. I try to give that effect in my voice when I sing the music, +but, following Bayreuth, I am standing, motionless, with a veil over my +head, so that my face cannot be seen for some time before I sing. + +"One singer can do nothing against the mass of tradition. If I changed +and the others did not, the effect would be inartistic. But if some +stage manager would have the daring to break away, to strive for +something better in these matters, how I would love to work with that +man!" + +Departing from the Wagnerian répertoire, Mme. Fremstad has made notable +successes in two rôles, Salome and Armide. That she should be able to do +justice to the latter is more astonishing than that she should emerge +triumphant from the Wilde-Strauss collaboration. _Armide_, almost the +oldest opera to hold the stage to-day, is still the French classic +model, and it demands in performance adherence to the French grand +style, a style implying devotion to the highest artistic ideals. Mme. +Fremstad's artistic ideals are perhaps on a higher plane than those of +the Paris Conservatoire or the Comédie Française, but it does not follow +that she would succeed in moulding them to fit a school of opera with +which, to this point, she had been totally unfamiliar. So far as I know, +the only other opera Mme. Fremstad had ever sung in French was _Carmen_, +an experience which could not be considered as the training for a +suitable delineation of the heroine of Gluck's beautiful lyric drama. +Still Mme. Fremstad compassed the breach. How, I cannot pretend to say. +No less an authority than Victor Maurel pronounced it a triumph of the +French classic style. + +The moods of Quinault's heroine, of course, suit this singing actress, +and she brought to them all her most effectual enchantments, including a +series of truly seducing costumes. The imperious unrest of the first +act, the triumph of love over hate in the second, the invocation to La +Haine in the third, and the final scene of despair in the fifth, all +were depicted with poignant and moving power, and always with fidelity +to the style of the piece. She set her own pace in the finale of the +first act. The wounded warrior returns to tell how a single combatant +has delivered all his prisoners. Armide's half-spoken guess, _O ciel! +c'est Renaud!_ which she would like to have denied, was uttered in a +tone which definitely stimulated the spectator to prepare for the +conflict which followed, the conflict in Armide's own breast, between +her love for Renaud as a man, and her hatred of him as an enemy. I do +not remember to have seen anything on the stage more profound in its +implied psychology than her acting of the scene beginning _Enfin il est +en ma puissance_, in which she stays her hand with dagger uplifted to +kill the enemy-hero, and finally completely conquered by the darts of +Love, transports him with her through the air to her own fair gardens. + +The singer told me that she went to work on this opera with fear in her +heart. "I don't know how I dared do it. I suppose it is because I had +the simplicity to believe, with the Germans, that Kundry is the top of +everything, and I had sung Kundry. As a matter of fact my leaning toward +the classic school dates very far back. My father was a strange man, of +evangelical tendencies. He wrote a hymn-book, which is still in use in +Scandinavia, and he had a beautiful natural voice. People often came for +miles--simple country people, understand--to hear him sing. My father +knew the classic composers and he taught me their songs. + +"This training came back to me when I took up the study of _Armide_. It +was in May that Mr. Gatti-Casazza asked me if I would sing the work, +which, till then, I had never heard. I took the book with me to the +mountains and studied--not a note of the music at first, for music is +very easy for me anyway; I can always learn that in a short time--but +the text. For six weeks I read and re-read the text, always the +difficult part for me in learning a new opera, without looking at the +music. I found the text of _Armide_ particularly difficult because it +was in old French, and because it was in verse. + +"I worked over it for six weeks, as I tell you, until I had mastered its +beauties as well as I could, and then I opened the music score. Here I +encountered a dreadful obstacle. Accustomed to Wagner's harmonies, I was +puzzled by the French style. I did not see how the music could be sung +to the text with dramatic effect. I attended several performances of the +work at the Paris Opéra, but the interpretation there did not assist me +in solving the problem. I tried every phrase in fifty different ways in +an attempt to arrive at my end, and suddenly, and unexpectedly, I found +myself in complete understanding; the exquisite refinement and nobility +of the music, the repression, the classic line, all suggested to me the +superb, eternal beauty of a Greek temple. Surely this is music that will +outlive Wagner! + +"Once I understood, it was easy to put my conception on the stage. There +is no such thing as genius in singing; at least one cannot depend on +genius alone to carry one through an opera. I must know exactly how I am +going to sing each phrase before I go upon the stage. Nothing must be +left to chance. In studying _Armide_ I had sketches sent to me of every +scene, and with these I worked until I knew every movement I should +make, where I should stand, and when I should walk. Look at my score--at +all these minute diagrams and directions...." + +_Armide_ was not a popular success in New York, and after one or two +performances in its second season at the Metropolitan Opera House it was +withdrawn. With the reasons for the failure of this opera to interest +the general public Mme. Fremstad, it may well be imagined, had nothing +to do. Her part in it, on the contrary, contributed to what success the +work had. New York opera-goers have never manifested any particular +regard for classic opera in any tongue; _Fidelio_ or _Don Giovanni_ have +never been popular here. Then, although Caruso sang the music of Renaud +with a style and beauty of phrasing unusual even for him, his appearance +in the part was unfortunate. It was impossible to visualize the +chevalier of the romantic story. The second tenor rôle, which is very +important, was intrusted to an incompetent singer, and the charming rôle +of the Naiad was very inadequately rendered; but the principal fault of +the interpretation was due to a misconception regarding the relative +importance of the ballet. There are dances in every act of _Armide_; +there is no lovelier music of its kind extant than that which Gluck has +devoted to his dancers in this opera. Appreciating this fact, Mr. +Toscanini refused to part with a note of it, and his delivery of the +delightful tunes would have made up a pleasant half-hour in a +concert-room. Unfortunately the management did not supplement his +efforts by providing a suitable group of dancers. This failure was all +but incomprehensible considering the fact that Anna Pavlowa was a member +of the Metropolitan company that season. Had she appeared in _Armide_, +its fate in New York, where it was performed for the first time one +hundred and thirty-three years after its original production in Paris, +might have been far different. It may have been impossible for Mr. +Gatti-Casazza to obtain the co-operation of the dancer. Times change. In +1833 Taglioni, then at the height of her powers, danced in London the +comparatively insignificant parts of the Swiss peasant in _Guillaume +Tell_ and the ghostly abbess in _Robert le Diable_. This was the season +in which she introduced _La Sylphide_ to English theatre-goers. + +The history of Richard Strauss's _Salome_ in New York has been told so +often that it seems quite unnecessary to repeat it here. There must be +few indeed of those who will read these lines who do not know how the +music drama received only one public performance at the Metropolitan +Opera House before it was withdrawn at the request of certain directors. +At that one performance Olive Fremstad sang the rôle of Salome. She was +also heard at the private dress rehearsal--before an auditorium +completely filled with invited guests--and she has sung the part three +times in Paris. The singer threw herself into its preparation with her +usual energy, and developed an extraordinary characterization. There +was but one flaw, the substitution of a professional dancer for the +Dance of the Seven Veils. At this time it had occurred to nobody that +the singer who impersonated Salome could dance. How could any one sing +the music of the tremendous finale after getting thoroughly out of +breath in the terpsichorean exhibition before Herod? The expedient of a +substitute was resorted to at the original performance in Dresden, and +Olive Fremstad did not disturb this tradition. She allowed Bianca +Froehlich to take off the seven veils, a feat which was accomplished +much more delicately at the performance than it had been at the dress +rehearsal. In Paris a farce resulted from the custom when Mme. +Trouhanova not only insisted on wearing a different costume from the +Salome whose image she was supposed to be, but also took curtain calls. +I think it was Gemma Belincioni, the Italian, who first conceived the +idea of Salome dancing her own dance. She was followed by Mary Garden, +who discovered what every one should have noticed in the beginning, that +the composer has given the singer a long rest after the pantomimic +episode. + +Aside from this disturbance to the symmetry of the performance, Olive +Fremstad was magnificent. Her entrance was that of a splendid leopard, +standing poised on velvet paws on the terrace, and then creeping slowly +down the staircase. Her scene with Jochanaan was in truth like the +storming of a fortress, and the scene with the Tetrarch was clearly +realized. But it was in the closing scene of the drama that Mme. +Fremstad, like the poet and the composer, achieved her most effective +results. I cannot yet recall her as she crept from side to side of the +well in which Jochanaan was confined, waiting for the slave to ascend +with the severed head, without that shudder of fascination caused by the +glimmering eyes of a monster serpent, or the sleek terribleness of a +Bengal tiger. And at the end she suggested, as perhaps it has never +before been suggested on the stage, the dregs of love, the refuse of +gorged passion. + +Singers who "create" parts in great lyric dramas have a great advantage +over those who succeed them. Mary Shaw once pointed out to me the +probability that Janet Achurch and Elizabeth Robins only won +enthusiastic commendation from Bernard Shaw because they were appearing +in the Ibsen plays which he was seeing for the first time. He attributed +a good part of his pleasure to the interpretations of these ladies. +However, he was never satisfied with their performances in plays with +which he was more familiar and he never again found anyone entirely to +suit him in the Ibsen dramas. Albert Niemann was one of the first tenors +to sing Wagner rôles and there are those alive who will tell you that he +was one of the great artists, but it is perhaps because they heard him +_first_ in lyric dramas of such vitality that they confused singer and +rôle. Beatty-Kingston, who heard him in 1866, said (in "Music and +Manners") that he had torn his voice "to tatters by persistent shoutings +at the top of its upper register, and undermined it by excessive worship +at the shrines of Bacchus and the Paphian goddess.... His 'production' +was characterized by a huskiness and scratchiness infinitely distressing +to listen to...." No allowances of this sort need be made for the deep +impression made by Olive Fremstad. At the Metropolitan Opera House she +followed a line of well-beloved and regal interpreters of the Wagner +rôles. Both Lilli Lehmann and Milka Ternina had honoured this stage and +Lillian Nordica preceded Mme. Fremstad as Kundry there. In her career at +the Metropolitan, indeed, Mme. Fremstad sang only three operas at their +first performances there, _Salome_, _Les Contes d'Hoffmann_, and +_Armide_. In her other rôles she was forced to stand comparison with a +number of great artists. That she won admiration in them under the +circumstances is the more fine an achievement. + +I like to think, sometimes, that Olive Fremstad is the reincarnation of +Guiditta Pasta, that celebrated Italian singer of the early nineteenth +century, who paced triumphantly through the humbler tragedies of _Norma_ +and _Semiramide_. She too worked hard to gain her ends, and she gained +them for a time magnificently. Henry Fothergill Chorley celebrates her +art with an enthusiasm that is rare in his pages, and I like to think +that he would write similar lines of eulogy about Olive Fremstad could +he be called from the grave to do so. There is something of the mystic +in all great singers, something incomprehensible, inexplicable, but in +the truly great, the Mme. Pastas and the Mme. Fremstads, this quality +outstrips all others. It is predominant. And just in proportion as this +mysticism triumphs, so too their art becomes triumphant, and flames on +the ramparts, a living witness before mankind to the power of the +unseen. + +_August 17, 1916._ + + + + +Geraldine Farrar + +[Illustration: Mme. Farrar's insigne.] + + +The autobiography of Geraldine Farrar is a most disappointing document; +it explains nothing, it offers the reader no new insights. Given the +brains of the writer and the inexhaustibility of the subject, the result +is unaccountable. Any opera-goer who has followed the career of this +singer with even indifferent attention will find it difficult to +discover any revelation of personality or artistry in the book. +Geraldine Farrar has always been a self-willed young woman with a +plangent ambition and a belief in her own future which has been proved +justifiable by the chronological unfolding of her stage career. These +qualities are displayed over and over again in the book, together with a +certain number of facts about her early life, teachers, and so on. Of +that part of her personal experience which would really interest the +public she gives a singularly glossed account. Very little attention is +paid to composers; none at all to operas, if one may except such meagre +descriptions as that accorded to _Julien_, "a hodge-podge of operatic +efforts that brought little satisfaction to anybody concerned in it." +There are few illuminating anecdotes; no space is devoted to an account +of how Mme. Farrar composes her rôles. She likes this one; she is +indifferent to that; she detests a third; but reasons for these +prejudices are rarely given. There is little manifestation of that +analytic mind with which Mme. Farrar credits herself. There are sketchy +references to other singers, usually highly eulogistic, but where did +Mme. Farrar hear that remarkable performance of _Carmen_ in which both +Saleza and Jean de Reszke appeared? For my part, the most interesting +lines in the book are those which close the thirteenth chapter: "I +cannot say that I am much in sympathy with the vague outlines of the +modern French lyric heroines; Mélisande and Ariane, I think, can be +better intrusted to artists of a less positive type." + +Notwithstanding the fact that she has written a rather dull book, +Geraldine Farrar is one of the few really vivid personalities of the +contemporary lyric stage. To a great slice of the public she is an idol +in the sense that Rachel and Jenny Lind were idols. She has frequently +extracted warm praise even from the cold-water taps of discriminating +and ordinarily unsympathetic critics. Acting in opera she considers of +greater importance than singing. She once told me that she ruthlessly +sacrificed tone whenever it seemed to interfere with dramatic effect. +As an actress she has suffered from an excess of zeal, and an impatience +of discipline. She composes her parts with some care, but frequently +overlays her original conception with extravagant detail, added +spontaneously at a performance, if her feelings so dictate. + +[Illustration: GERALDINE FARRAR AS ELISABETH + +_from a photograph by Reutlinger_] + +This lawlessness sometimes leads her astray. It is an unsafe method to +follow. Actors who feel the most themselves, unless the feeling is +expressed in support of carefully thought-out effects, often leave their +auditors cold. It is interesting to recall that Mme. Malibran, who may +have excelled Mme. Farrar as a singer, had a similar passion for +impromptu stage "business." She refused to give her fellow-artists any +idea of how she would carry a part through, and as she allowed her +feelings full sway in the matter misunderstandings frequently arose. In +acting Desdemona to the Otello of the tenor, Donzelli, for example, she +would not determine beforehand the exact point at which he was to seize +her. Frequently she gave him a long chase and on one occasion in his +pursuit he stumbled and cut himself on his unsheathed dagger. Often it +has seemed that Mme. Farrar deliberately chose certain stage "business" +with an eye to astounding, and not with any particular care for the +general roundness of her operatic performance. It must also be taken +into consideration that no two of Mme. Farrar's impersonations of any +one rôle are exactly similar, and that he who may have seen her give a +magnificent performance is not too safe in recommending his meticulous +neighbour to go to the next. Sometimes she is "modern" and "American" in +the deprecatory sense of these words; in some of her parts she exudes no +atmospheric suggestion. There are no overtones. The spectator sees +exactly what is before his eyes on these occasions; there is no +stimulation for the imagination to proceed further. At other times, as +in her characterization of the Goosegirl in _Königskinder_, it would +seem that she had extracted the last poetic meaning out of the words and +music, and had succeeded in making her audience feel, not merely +everything that the composer and librettist intended, but a great deal +more. + +At times she is a very good singer. Curiously enough, it is classic +music that she usually sings best. I have heard her sing Zerlina in _Don +Giovanni_ in a manner almost worthy of her teacher, Lilli Lehmann. There +is no mention of this rôle in her book; nor of another in which she was +equally successful, Rosaura in _Le Donne Curiose_, beautifully sung +from beginning to end. Mme. Farrar is musical (some singers are not; +Mme. Nordica was not, for example), and I have witnessed two +manifestations of this quality. On one occasion she played for me on the +piano a good portion of the first act of _Ariane et Barbe-Bleue_, and +played it brilliantly, no mean achievement. Another time I stood talking +with her and her good friend, Josephine Jacoby, in the wings during the +last act of a performance of _Madama Butterfly_ at the Brooklyn Academy +of Music. There was no air of preoccupation on her part, no sense on +ours that she was following the orchestra. I became so interested in our +conversation, for Mme. Farrar invariably talks well, that I did not even +hear the orchestra. But her mind was quite capable of taking care of two +things at once. She interrupted a sentence to sing her phrase off stage, +and then smilingly continued the conversation. I shall never forget this +moment. To me it signified in an instant what Mme. Farrar has taken the +pains to explain in pages of her autobiography and which is all summed +up in her own comment, written at the time on the programme of the +concert of her Boston début, May 26, 1896: "This is what I made my début +in, very calm and sedate, not the least nervous." + +But Mme. Farrar's vocal method is not God-given, although her voice and +her assurance may be, and she sometimes has trouble in producing her +upper tones. Instead of opening like a fan, her high voice is frequently +pinched, and she has difficulty in singing above the staff. I have never +heard her sing Butterfly's entrance with correct intonation, although I +have heard her in the part many times. Her Carmen, on the whole, is a +most successful performance vocally, and so is (or was) her Elisabeth, +especially in the second act. The tessitura of Butterfly is very high, +and the rôle is a strain for her. She has frequently said that she finds +it easier to sing any two other rôles in her répertoire, and refuses to +appear for two days before or after a performance of this Puccini opera. + +Mme. Farrar is a fine linguist. She speaks and sings French like a +Frenchwoman (I have expert testimony on this point), German like a +German, and Italian like an Italian; her enunciation of English is also +very clear (she has never sung in opera in English, but has often sung +English songs in concert). Her enunciation of Maeterlinck's text in +_Ariane et Barbe-Bleue_ was a joy, about the only one she contributed to +this performance. And in _Königskinder_ and _Le Donne Curiose_ she was +equally distinct. In fact there is never any difficulty about following +the text of an opera when Geraldine Farrar is singing. + +The rôles in which Mme. Farrar achieves her best results, according to +my taste, are Manon, the Goosegirl, Margherita (in _Mefistofele_), +Elisabeth, Rosaura, Suzanna, and Violetta. Cio-Cio-San, of course, is +her most popular creation, and it deserves to some extent the applause +of the populace, although I do not think it should be put in the above +list. It is certainly not to be considered on the same plane vocally. +Other rôles in which she is partially successful are Juliette and +Marguerite (in Gounod's _Faust_). I think her Ariane is commonly +adjudged a failure. In _Madame Sans-Gêne_ she is often comic, but she +does not suggest a _bourgeoise_ Frenchwoman; in the court scenes she is +more like a graceful woman trying to be awkward than an awkward woman +trying to be graceful. Her Tosca is lacking in dignity; it is too +petulant a performance, too small in conception. In failing to find +adequate pleasure in her Carmen I am not echoing popular opinion. + +I do not think Mme. Farrar has appeared in _La Traviata_ more than two +or three times at the Metropolitan Opera House, although she has +probably sung Violetta often in Berlin. On the occasion of Mme. +Sembrich's farewell to the American opera stage she appeared as Flora +Bervoise as a compliment to the older singer. In her biography she says +that Sarah Bernhardt gave her the inspiration for the composition of the +heroine of Verdi's opera. It would be interesting to have more details +on this point; they are not forthcoming. Of course there have been many +Violettas who have sung the music of the first act more brilliantly than +Mme. Farrar; in the later acts she often sang beautifully, and her +acting was highly expressive and unconventional. She considered the rôle +from the point of view of make-up. Has any one else done this? Violetta +was a popular _cocotte_; consequently, she must have been beautiful. But +she was a consumptive; consequently, she must have been pale. In the +third act Mme. Farrar achieved a very fine dramatic effect with her +costume and make-up. Her face was painted a ghastly white, a fact +emphasized by her carmined lips and her black hair. She wore pale yellow +and carried an enormous black fan, behind which she pathetically hid her +face to cough. She introduced novelty into the part at the very +beginning of the opera. Unlike most Violettas, she did not make an +entrance, but sat with her back to the audience, receiving her +guests, when the curtain rose. + +[Illustration: GERALDINE FARRAR AS VIOLETTA + +_from a photograph by Aimé Dupont (1907)_] + +It has seemed strange to me that the professional reviewers should have +attributed the added notes of realism in Mme. Farrar's second edition of +Carmen to her appearances in the moving-picture drama. The tendencies +displayed in her second year in the part were in no wise, to my mind, a +result of her cinema experiences. In fact, the New York critics should +have remembered that when Mme. Farrar made her début at the Metropolitan +Opera House in the rôle of Juliette, they had rebuked her for these very +qualities. She had indulged in a little extra realism in the bedroom and +balcony scenes of Gounod's opera, of the sort with which Miss Nethersole +created ten-minute furores in her performances of Carmen and Sapho. +Again, as Marguerite in _Faust_ (her Margherita in _Mefistofele_ was a +particularly repressed and dreamy representation of the German maiden, +one instinct with the highest dramatic and vocal values in the prison +scene), she devised "business" calculated to startle, dancing the jewel +song, and singing the first stanza of the _Roi de Thulé_ air from the +cottage, whither she had repaired to fetch her spindle of flax--this +last detail seemed to me a very good one. In early representations of +_Madama Butterfly_ and _La Bohème_ her death scenes were fraught with an +intense realism which fitted ill with the spirit of the music. I +remember one occasion on which Cio-Cio-San knocked over the +rocking-chair in her death struggles, which often embraced the range of +the Metropolitan stage. + +These points have all been urged against her at the proper times, and +there seemed small occasion for attributing her extra activities in the +first act of Bizet's opera, in which the cigarette girl engaged in a +prolonged scuffle with her rival in the factory, or her more recent +whistling of the seguidilla, to her moving-picture experiences. No, Mme. +Farrar is overzealous with her public. She once told me that at every +performance she cut herself open with a knife and gave herself to the +audience. This intensity, taken together with her obviously unusual +talent and her personal attractiveness, is what has made her a more than +ordinary success on our stage. It is at once her greatest virtue and her +greatest fault, artistically speaking. Properly manacled, this quality +would make her one of the finest, instead of merely one of the most +popular, artists now before the public. But I cannot see how the cinema +can be blamed. + +When I first saw the Carmen of Mme. Farrar, her second or third +appearance in the part, I was perplexed to find an excuse for its almost +unanimous acclamation, and I sought in my mind for extraneous reasons. +There was, for example, the conducting of the score by Mr. Toscanini, +but that, like Mme. Farrar's interpretation of the Spanish gypsy, never +found exceptional favour in my ears. Mr. Caruso's appearance in the +opera could not be taken into consideration, because he had frequently +sung in it before at the Metropolitan Opera House without awakening any +great amount of enthusiasm. In fact, except as Des Grieux, this Italian +tenor has never been popularly accepted in French opera in New York. But +_Carmen_ had long been out of the répertoire, and _Carmen_ is an opera +people like to hear. The magic of the names of Caruso, Farrar, and +Toscanini may have lured auditors and critics into imagining they had +heard a more effective performance than was vouchsafed them. Personally +I could not compare the revival favourably with the wonderful Manhattan +Opera House _Carmen_, which at its best enlisted the services of Mme. +Bressler-Gianoli, the best Carmen save one that I have ever heard, +Charles Dalmores, Maurice Renaud, Pauline Donalda, Charles Gilibert, +Emma Trentini, and Daddi; Cleofonte Campanini conducting. + +At first, to be sure, there was no offensive over-laying of detail in +Mme. Farrar's interpretation. It was not cautiously traditional, but +there was no evidence that the singer was striving to stray from the +sure paths. The music lies well in Mme. Farrar's voice, better than that +of any other part I have heard her sing, unless it be Charlotte in +_Werther_, and the music, all of it, went well, including the habanera, +the seguidilla, the quintet, and the marvellous _Oui, je t'aime, +Escamillo_ of the last act. Her well-planned, lively dance after the +gypsy song at the beginning of the second act drew a burst of applause +for music usually permitted to go unrewarded. Her exit in the first act +was effective, and her scene with Jose in the second act was excellently +carried through. The card scene, as she acted it, meant very little. No +strain was put upon the nerves. There was little suggestion here. The +entrance of Escamillo and Carmen in an old victoria in the last act was +a stroke of genius on somebody's part. I wonder if this was Mme. +Farrar's idea. + +But somehow, during this performance, one didn't feel there. It was no +more the banks of the Guadalquivir than it was the banks of the Hudson. +_Carmen_ as transcribed by Bizet and Meilhac and Halévy becomes +indisputably French in certain particulars; to say that the heroine +should be Spanish is not to understand the truth; Maria Gay's +interpretation has taught us that, if nothing else has. But atmosphere +is demanded, and that Mme. Farrar did not give us, at least she did not +give it to me. In the beginning the interpretation made on me the effect +of routine,--the sort of performance one can see in any first-rate +European opera house,--and later, when the realistic bits were added, +the distortion offended me, for French opera always demands a certain +elegance of its interpreters; a quality which Mme. Farrar has exposed to +us in two other French rôles. + +Her Manon is really an adorable creature. I have never seen Mary Garden +in this part, but I have seen many French singers, and to me Mme. Farrar +transcends them all. A very beautiful and moving performance she gives, +quite in keeping with the atmosphere of the opera. Her adieu to the +little table and her farewell to Des Grieux in the desert always start a +lump in my throat. + +Her Charlotte (a rôle, I believe, cordially detested by Mme. Farrar, and +one which she refuses to sing) is to me an even more moving conception. +This sentimental opera of Massenet's has never been appreciated in +America at its true value, although it is one of the most frequently +represented works at the Paris Opéra-Comique. When it was first +introduced here by Emma Eames and Jean de Rezske, it found little +favour, and later Mme. Farrar and Edmond Clément were unable to arouse +interest in it (it was in _Werther_, at the New Theatre, that Alma Gluck +made her operatic début, in the rôle of Sophie). But Geraldine Farrar as +the hesitating heroine of the tragic and sentimental romance made the +part very real, as real in its way as Henry James's "Portrait of a +Lady," and as moving. The whole third act she carried through in an +amazingly pathetic key, and she always sang _Les Larmes_ as if her heart +were really breaking. + +What a charming figure she was in Wolf-Ferrari's pretty operas, _Le +Donne Curiose_ and _Suzannen's Geheimness_! And she sang the lovely +measures with the Mozartean purity which at her best she had learned +from Lilli Lehmann. Her Zerlina and her Cherubino were delightful +impersonations, invested with vast roguery, although in both parts she +was a trifle self-conscious, especially in her assumption of +awkwardness. Her Elisabeth, sung in New York but seldom, though she +has recently appeared in this rôle with the Chicago Opera Company, was +noble in conception and execution, and her Goosegirl one of the most +fascinating pictures in the operatic gallery of our generation. Her +Mignon was successful in a measure, perhaps not an entirely credible +figure. Her Nedda was very good. + +[Illustration: GERALDINE FARRAR AS LOUISE IN _JULIEN_ + +_from a photograph by White (1914)_] + +Her Louise in _Julien_ was so fine dramatically, especially in the +Montmartre episode, as to make one wish that she could sing the real +Louise in the opera of that name. Once, however, at a performance of +Charpentier's earlier work at the Manhattan Opera House, she told me +that she would never, never do so. She has been known to change her +mind. Her Ariane, I think, was her most complete failure. It is a part +which requires plasticity and nobility of gesture and interpretation of +a kind with which her style is utterly at variance. And yet I doubt if +Mme. Farrar had ever sung a part to which she had given more +consideration. It was for this opera, in fact, that she worked out a +special method of vocal speech, half-sung, half-spoken, which enabled +her to deliver the text more clearly. + +Whether Mme. Farrar will undergo further artistic development I very +much doubt. She tells us in her autobiography that she can study +nothing in any systematic way, and it is only through very sincere study +and submission to well-intended restraint that she might develop still +further into the artist who might conceivably leave a more considerable +imprint on the music drama of her time. It is to be doubted if Mme. +Farrar cares for these supreme laurels; her success with her +public--which is pretty much all the public--is so complete in its way +that she may be entirely satisfied with that by no means to be despised +triumph. Once (in 1910) she gave an indication to me that this might be +so, in the following words: + +"Emma Calvé was frequently harshly criticized, but when she sang the +opera house was crowded. It was because she gave her personality to the +public. Very frequently there are singers who give most excellent +interpretations, who are highly praised, and whom nobody goes to see. +Now in the last analysis there are two things which I do. I try to be +true to myself and my own conception of the dramatic fitness of things +on the stage, and I try to please my audiences. To do that you must +mercilessly reveal your personality. There is no other way. In my humble +way I am an actress who happens to be appearing in opera. I sacrifice +tonal beauty to dramatic fitness every time I think it is necessary for +an effect, and I shall continue to do it. I leave mere singing to the +warblers. I am more interested in acting myself." + +There is much that is sound sense in these remarks, but it is a pity +that Mme. Farrar carries her theories out literally. To me, and to many +another, there is something a little sad in the acceptance of easily won +victory. If she would, Mme. Farrar might improve her singing and acting +in certain rôles in which she has already appeared, and she might +enlarge her répertoire to include more of the rôles which have a deeper +significance in operatic and musical history. At present her activity is +too consistent to allow time for much reflection. It would afford me the +greatest pleasure to learn that this singer had decided to retire for a +few months to devote herself to study and introspection, so that she +might return to the stage with a new and brighter fire and a more +lasting message. + +_Farrar fara--forse._ + +_July 14, 1916._ + + + + +Mary Garden + +"_Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose._" + +Gertrude Stein. + + +The influence of Ibsen on our stage has been most subtle. The dramas of +the sly Norwegian are infrequently performed, but almost all the plays +of the epoch bear his mark. And he has done away with the actor, for +nowadays emotions are considered rude on the stage. Our best playwrights +have striven for an intellectual monotone. So it happens that for the +Henry Irvings, the Sarah Bernhardts, and the Edwin Booths of a younger +generation we must turn to the operatic stage, and there we find them: +Maurice Renaud, Olive Fremstad--and Mary Garden. + +There is nothing casual about the art of Mary Garden. Her achievements +on the lyric stage are not the result of happy accident. Each detail of +her impersonations, indeed, is a carefully studied and selected effect, +chosen after a review of possible alternatives. Occasionally, after a +trial, Miss Garden even rejects the instinctive. This does not mean that +there is no feeling behind her performances. The deep burning flame of +poetic imagination illuminates and warms into life the conception +wrought in the study chamber. Nothing is left to chance, and it is +seldom, and always for some good reason, that this artist permits +herself to alter particulars of a characterization during the course of +a representation. + +I have watched her many times in the same rôle without detecting any +great variance in the arrangement of details, and almost as many times I +have been blinded by the force of her magnetic imaginative power, +without which no interpreter can hope to become an artist. This, it +seems to me, is the highest form of stage art; certainly it is the form +which on the whole is the most successful in exposing the intention of +author and composer, although occasionally a Geraldine Farrar or a +Salvini will make it apparent that the inspiration of the moment also +has its value. However, I cannot believe that the true artist often +experiments in public. He conceives in seclusion and exposes his +conception, completely realized, breathed into, so to speak, on the +stage. When he first studies a character it is his duty to feel the +emotions of that character, and later he must project these across the +footlights into the hearts of his audience; but he cannot be expected to +feel these emotions every night. He must _remember_ how he felt them +before. And sometimes even this ideal interpreter makes mistakes. +Neither instinct nor intelligence--not even genius--can compass every +range. + +Miss Garden's career has been closely identified with the French lyric +stage and, in at least two operas, she has been the principal +interpreter--and a material factor in their success--of works which have +left their mark on the epoch, stepping-stones in the musical brook. The +rôles in which she has most nearly approached the ideal are perhaps +Mélisande, Jean (_Le Jongleur de Notre Dame_), Sapho, Thais, Louise, +Marguerite (in Gounod's _Faust_), Chrysis (in _Aphrodite_), and Monna +Vanna. I cannot speak personally of her Tosca, her Orlanda, her Manon, +her Violetta, or her Chérubin (in Massenet's opera of the same name). I +do not care for her Carmen as a whole, and to my mind her interpretation +of Salome lacks the inevitable quality which stamped Olive Fremstad's +performance. In certain respects she realizes the characters and sings +the music of Juliet and Ophélie, but this is _vieux jeu_ for her, and I +do not think she has effaced the memory of Emma Eames in the one and +Emma Calvé in the other of these rôles. She was somewhat vague and not +altogether satisfactory (this may be ascribed to the paltriness of the +parts) as Prince Charmant in _Cendrillon, la belle_ Dulcinée in _Don +Quichotte_, and Grisélidis. On the other hand, in _Natoma_--her only +appearance thus far in opera in English--she made a much more important +contribution to the lyric stage than either author or composer. + +Mary Garden was born in Scotland, but her family came to this country +when she was very young, and she grew up in the vicinity of Chicago. She +may therefore be adjudged at least as much an American singer as Olive +Fremstad. She studied in France, however, and this fortuitous +circumstance accounts for the fact that all her great rôles are French, +and for the most part modern French. Her two Italian rôles, Violetta and +Tosca, she sings in French, although I believe she has made attempts to +sing Puccini's opera in the original tongue. Her other ventures afield +have included Salome, sung in French, and Natoma, sung in English. Her +pronunciation of French on the stage has always aroused comment, some of +it jocular. Her accent is strongly American, a matter which her very +clear enunciation does not leave in doubt. However, it is a question in +my mind if Miss Garden did not weigh well the charm of this accent and +its probable effect on French auditors. You will remember that Helena +Modjeska spoke English with a decided accent, as do Fritzi Scheff, Alia +Nazimova, and Mitzi Hajos in our own day; you may also realize that to +the public, which includes yourself, this is no inconsiderable part of +their charm. Parisians do not take pleasure in hearing their language +spoken by a German, but they have never had any objection--quite the +contrary--to an English or American accent on their stage, although I do +not believe this general preference has ever been allowed to affect +performances at the Comédie Française, except when _l'Anglais tel qu'on +le parle_ is on the _affiches_. At least it is certain that Miss Garden +speaks French quite as easily as--perhaps more easily than--she does +English, and many of the eccentricities of her stage speech are not +noticeable in private life. + +Many of the great artists of the theatre have owed their first +opportunity to an accident; it was so with Mary Garden. She once told me +the story herself and I may be allowed to repeat it in her own words, as +I put them down shortly after: + +"I became friends with Sybil Sanderson, who was singing in Paris then, +and one day when I was at her house Albert Carré, the director of the +Opéra-Comique, came to call. I was sitting by the window as he entered, +and he said to Sybil, 'That woman has a profile; she would make a +charming Louise.' Charpentier's opera, I should explain, had not yet +been produced. 'She has a voice, too,' Sybil added. Well, M. Carré took +me to the theatre and listened while I sang airs from _Traviata_ and +_Manon_. Then he gave me the partition of _Louise_ and told me to go +home and study it. I had the rôle in my head in fifteen days. This was +in March, and M. Carré engaged me to sing at his theatre beginning in +October.... One spring day, however, when I was feeling particularly +depressed over the death of a dog that had been run over by an omnibus, +M. Carré came to me in great excitement; Mme. Rioton, the singer cast +for the part, was ill, and he asked me if I thought I could sing Louise. +I said 'Certainly,' in the same tone with which I would have accepted an +invitation to dinner. It was only bluff; I had never rehearsed the part +with orchestra, but it was my chance, and I was determined to take +advantage of it. Besides, I had studied the music so carefully that I +could have sung it note for note if the orchestra had played _The +Star-Spangled Banner_ simultaneously. + +"Evening came and found me in the theatre. Mme. Rioton had recovered +sufficiently to sing; she appeared during the first two acts, and then +succumbed immediately before the air, _Depuis le Jour_, which opens the +third act. I was in my dressing-room when M. Carré sent for me. He told +me that an announcement had been made before the curtain that I would +be substituted for Mme. Rioton. I learned afterwards that André +Messager, who was directing the orchestra, had strongly advised against +taking this step; he thought the experiment was too dangerous, and urged +that the people in the house should be given their money back. The +audience, you may be sure, was none too pleased at the prospect of +having to listen to a Mlle. Garden of whom they had never heard. Will +you believe me when I tell you that I was never less nervous?... I must +have succeeded, for I sang Louise over two hundred times at the +Opéra-Comique after that. The year was 1900, and I had made my début on +Friday, April 13!" + +I have no contemporary criticisms of this event at hand, but one of my +most valued souvenirs is a photograph of the charming interpreter as she +appeared in the rôle of Louise at the beginning of her career. However, +in one of Gauthier-Villars's compilations of his musical criticisms, +which he signed "L'Ouvreuse" ("La Ronde des Blanches"), I discovered the +following, dated February 21, 1901, a detail of a review of Gabriel +Pierné's opera, _La Fille de Tabarin_: "Mlle. Garden a une aimable +figure, une voix aimable, et un petit reste d'accent exotique, aimable +aussi." + +Of the composer of _Louise_ Miss Garden had many interesting things to +say in after years: "The opera is an expression of Charpentier's own +life," she told me one day. "It is the opera of Montmartre, and he was +the King of Montmartre, a real bohemian, to whom money and fame meant +nothing. He was satisfied if he had enough to pay _consommations_ for +himself and his friends at the Rat Mort. He had won the _Prix de Rome_ +before _Louise_ was produced, but he remained poor. He lived in a dirty +little garret up on the _butte_, and while he was writing this realistic +picture of his own life he was slowly starving to death. André Messager +knew him and tried to give him money, but he wouldn't accept it. He was +very proud. Messager was obliged to carry up milk in bottles, with a +loaf of bread, and say that he wanted to lunch with him, in order to get +Charpentier to take nourishment. + +"Meanwhile, little by little, _Louise_ was being slowly written.... Part +of it he wrote in the Rat Mort, part in his own little room, and part of +it in the Moulin de la Galette, one of the gayest of the Montmartre +dance halls. High up on the _butte_ the gaunt windmill sign waves its +arms; from the garden you can see all Paris. It is the view that you get +in the third act of _Louise_.... The production of his opera brought +Charpentier nearly half a million francs, but he spent it all on the +working-girls of Montmartre. He even established a conservatory, so that +those with talent might study without paying. And his mother, whom he +adored, had everything she wanted until she died.... He always wore the +artist costume, corduroy trousers, blouse, and flowing tie, even when he +came to the Opéra-Comique in the evening. Money did not change his +habits. His kingdom extended over all Paris after the production of +_Louise_, but he still preferred his old friends in Montmartre to the +new ones his success had made for him, and he dissipated his strength +and talent. He was an adorable man; he would give his last sou to any +one who asked for it! + +"To celebrate the fiftieth performance of _Louise_, M. Carré gave a +dinner in July, 1900. Most appropriately he did not choose the Café +Anglais or the Café de Paris for this occasion, but Charpentier's own +beloved Moulin de la Galette. It was at this dinner that the composer +gave the first sign of his physical decline. He had scarcely seated +himself at the table, surrounded by the great men and women of Paris, +before he fainted...." + +The subsequent history of this composer of the lower world we all know +too well; how he journeyed south and lived in obscurity for years, +years which were embellished with sundry rumours relating to future +works, rumours which were finally crowned by the production of _Julien_ +at the Opéra-Comique--and subsequently at the Metropolitan Opera House +in New York. The failure of this opera was abysmal. + +Louise is a rôle which Miss Garden has sung very frequently in America, +and, as she may be said to have contributed to Charpentier's fame and +popularity in Paris, she did as much for him here. This was the second +part in which she appeared in New York. The dynamics of the rôle are +finely wrought out, deeply felt; the characterization is extraordinarily +keen, although after the first act it never touches the heart. The +singing-actress conceives the character of the sewing-girl as hard and +brittle, and she does not play it for sympathy. She acts the final scene +with the father with the brilliant polish of a diamond cut in Amsterdam, +and with heartless brutality. Stroke after stroke she devotes to a +ruthless exposure of what she evidently considers to be the nature of +this futile drab. It is the scene in the play which evidently interests +her most, and it is the scene to which she has given her most careful +attention. In the first act, to be sure, she is _gamine_ and adorable +in her scenes with her father, and touchingly poignant in the despairing +cry which closes the act, _Paris_! In the next two acts she wisely +submerges herself in the general effect. She allows the sewing-girls to +make the most of their scene, and, after she has sung _Depuis le Jour_, +she gives the third act wholly into the keeping of the ballet, and the +interpreters of Julien and the mother. + +There are other ways of singing and acting this rôle. Others have sung +and acted it, others will sing and act it, effectively. The abandoned +(almost aggressive) perversity of Miss Garden's performance has perhaps +not been equalled, but this rôle does not belong to her as completely as +do Thais and Mélisande; no other interpreters will satisfy any one who +has seen her in these two parts. + +Miss Garden made her American début in Massenet's opera, _Thais_, +written, by the way, for Sybil Sanderson. The date was November 25, +1907. Previous to this time Miss Garden had never sung this opera in +Paris, but she had appeared in it during a summer season at one of the +French watering places. Since that night, nearly ten years ago, however, +it has become the most stable feature of her répertoire. She has sung it +frequently in Paris, and during the long tours undertaken by the +Chicago Opera Company this sentimental tale of the Alexandrian courtesan +and the hermit of the desert has startled the inhabitants of hamlets in +Iowa and California. It is a very brilliant scenic show, and is utterly +successful as a vehicle for the exploitation of the charms of a fragrant +personality. Miss Garden has found the part grateful; her very lovely +figure is particularly well suited to the allurements of Grecian +drapery, and the unwinding of her charms at the close of the first act +is an event calculated to stir the sluggish blood of a hardened +theatre-goer, let alone that of a Nebraska farmer. The play becomes the +more vivid as it is obvious that the retiary meshes with which she +ensnares Athanaël are strong enough to entangle any of us. +Thais-become-nun--Evelyn Innes should have sung this character before +she became Sister Teresa--is in violent contrast to these opening +scenes, but the acts in the desert, as the Alexandrian strumpet wilts +before the aroused passion of the monk, are carried through with equal +skill by this artist who is an adept in her means of expression and +expressiveness. + +The opera is sentimental, theatrical, and over its falsely constructed +drama--a perversion of Anatole France's psychological tale--Massenet +has overlaid as banal a coverlet of music as could well be devised by +an eminent composer. "The bad fairies have given him [Massenet] only one +gift," writes Pierre Lalo, "...the desire to please." It cannot be said +that Miss Garden allows the music to affect her interpretation. She +sings some of it, particularly her part in the duet in the desert, with +considerable charm and warmth of tone. I have never cared very much for +her singing of the mirror air, although she is dramatically admirable at +this point; on the other hand, I have found her rendering of the +farewell to Eros most pathetic in its tenderness. At times she has +attacked the high notes, which fall in unison with the exposure of her +attractions, with brilliancy; at other times she has avoided them +altogether (it must be remembered that Miss Sanderson, for whom this +opera was written, had a voice like the Tour Eiffel; she sang to G above +the staff). But the general tone of her interpretation has not been +weakened by the weakness of the music or by her inability to sing a good +deal of it. Quite the contrary. I am sure she sings the part with more +steadiness of tone than Milka Ternina ever commanded for Tosca, and her +performance is equally unforgettable. + +After the production of _Louise_, Miss Garden's name became almost +legendary in Paris, and many are the histories of her subsequent career +there. Parisians and foreign visitors alike flocked to the Opéra-Comique +to see her in the series of delightful rôles which she assumed--Orlanda, +Manon, Chrysis, Violetta ... and Mélisande. It was during the summer of +1907 that I first heard her there in two of the parts most closely +identified with her name, Chrysis and Mélisande. + +Camille Erlanger's _Aphrodite_, considered as a work of art, is fairly +meretricious. As a theatrical entertainment it offers many elements of +enjoyment. Based on the very popular novel of Pierre Louÿs--at one time +forbidden circulation in America by Anthony Comstock--it winds its +pernicious way through a tale of prostitution, murder, theft, sexual +inversion, drunkenness, sacrilege, and crucifixion, and concludes, quite +simply, in a cemetery. The music is appallingly banal, and has never +succeeded in doing anything else but annoy me when I have thought of it +at all. It never assists in creating an atmosphere; it bears no relation +to stage picture, characters, or situation. Both gesture and colour are +more important factors in the consideration of the pleasurable elements +of this piece than the weak trickle of its sickly melodic flow. + +[Illustration: MARY GARDEN AS CHRYSIS (1906)] + +For the most part, at a performance, one does not listen to the music. +Nevertheless, _Aphrodite_ calls one again and again. Its success in +Paris was simply phenomenal, and the opera is still in the répertoire of +the Opéra-Comique. This success was due in a measure to the undoubted +"punch" of the story, in a measure to the orgy which M. Carré had +contrived to embellish the third act, culminating in the really +imaginative dancing of the beautiful Regina Badet and the horrible scene +of the crucifixion of the negro slave; but, more than anything else, it +was due to the rarely compelling performance of Mary Garden as the +courtesan who consented to exchange her body for the privilege of seeing +her lover commit theft, sacrilege, and murder. In her bold entrance, +flaunting her long lemon scarf, wound round her body like a Nautch +girl's säri, which illy concealed her fine movements, she at once gave +the picture, not alone of the _cocotte_ of the period but of a whole +life, a whole atmosphere, and this she maintained throughout the +disclosure of the tableaux. In the prison scene she attained heights of +tragic acting which I do not think even she has surpassed elsewhere. The +pathos of her farewell to her two little Lesbian friends, and the +gesture with which she drained the poison cup, linger in the memory, +refusing to give up their places to less potent details. + +I first heard Debussy's lyric drama, _Pelléas et Mélisande_, at the +Opéra-Comique, with Miss Garden as the principal interpreter. It is +generally considered the greatest achievement of her mimic art. Somehow +by those means at the command of a fine artist, she subdued her very +definite personality and moulded it into the vague and subtle personage +created by Maurice Maeterlinck. Even great artists grasp at straws for +assistance, and it is interesting to know that to Miss Garden a wig is +the all important thing. "Once I have donned the wig of a character, I +am that character," she told me once. "It would be difficult for me to +go on the stage in my own hair." Nevertheless, I believe she has +occasionally inconsistently done so as Louise. + +In Miss Garden's score of _Pelléas_ Debussy has written, "In the future, +others may sing Mélisande, but you alone will remain the woman and the +artist I had hardly dared hope for." It must be remembered, however, +that composers are notoriously fickle; that they prefer having their +operas given in any form rather than not at all; that ink is cheap and +musicians prolific in sentiments. In how many _Manon_ scores did +Massenet write his tender eternal finalities? Perhaps little Maggie +Teyte, who imitated Mary Garden's Mélisande as Elsie Janis imitates +Sarah Bernhardt, cherishes a dedicated score now. Memory tells me I have +seen such a score, but memory is sometimes a false jade. + +In her faded mediæval gowns, with her long plaits of golden hair,--in +the first scene she wore it loose,--Mary Garden became at once in the +spectator's mind the princess of enchanted castles, the cymophanous +heroine of a _féerie_, the dream of a poet's tale. In gesture and in +musical speech, in tone-colour, she was faithful to the first wonderful +impression of the eye. There has been in our day no more perfect example +of characterization offered on the lyric stage than Mary Garden's lovely +Mélisande.... _Ne me touchez pas!_ became the cry of a terrified child, +a real protestation of innocence. _Je ne suis pas heureuse ici_, was +uttered with a pathos of expression which drove its helplessness into +our hearts. The scene at the fountain with Pelléas, in which Mélisande +loses her ring, was played with such delicate shading, such poetic +imagination, that one could almost crown the interpreter as the creator, +and the death scene was permeated with a fragile, simple beauty as +compelling as that which Carpaccio put into his picture of _Santa +Ursula_, a picture indeed which Miss Garden's performance brought to +mind more than once. If she sought inspiration from the art of the +painter for her delineation, it was not to Rossetti and Burne-Jones that +she went. Rather did she gather some of the soft bloom from the +paintings of Bellini, Carpaccio, Giotto, Cimabue ... especially +Botticelli; had not the spirit and the mood of the two frescos from the +Villa Lemmi in the Louvre come to life in this gentle representation? + +Before she appeared as Mélisande in New York, Miss Garden was a little +doubtful of the probable reception of the play here. She was surprised +and delighted with the result, for the drama was presented in the late +season of 1907-08 at the Manhattan Opera House no less than seven times +to very large audiences. The singer talked to me before the event: "It +took us four years to establish _Pelléas et Mélisande_ in the répertoire +of the Opéra-Comique. At first the public listened with disfavour or +indecision, and performances could only be given once in two weeks. As a +contrast I might mention the immediate success of _Aphrodite_, which I +sang three or four times a week until fifty representations had been +achieved, without appearing in another rôle. _Pelléas_ was a different +matter. The mystic beauty of the poet's mood and the revolutionary +procedures of the musician were not calculated to touch the great public +at once. Indeed, we had to teach our audiences to enjoy it. Americans +who, I am told, are fond of Maeterlinck, may appreciate its very +manifest beauty at first hearing, but they didn't in Paris. At the early +representations, individuals whistled and made cat-calls. One night +three young men in the first row of the orchestra whistled through an +entire scene. I don't believe those young men will ever forget the way I +looked at them.... But after each performance it was the same: the +applause drowned out the hisses. The balconies and galleries were the +first to catch the spirit of the piece, and gradually it grew in public +favour, and became a success, that is, comparatively speaking. _Pelléas +et Mélisande_, like many another work of true beauty, appeals to a +special public and, consequently, the number of performances has always +been limited, and perhaps always will be. I do not anticipate that it +will crowd from popular favour such operas as _Werther_, _La Vie de +Bohème_ and _Carmen_, each of which is included in practically every +week's répertoire at the Opéra-Comique. + +[Illustration: MARY GARDEN AS MÉLISANDE + +_from a photograph by Davis and Eickemeyer (1908)_] + +"We interpreters of Debussy's lyric drama were naturally very proud, +because we felt that we were assisting in the making of musical +history. Maeterlinck, by the way, has never seen the opera. He wished +his wife, Georgette Leblanc, to 'create' the rôle of Mélisande, but +Debussy and Carré had chosen me, and the poet did not have his way. He +wrote an open letter to the newspapers of Paris in which he frankly +expressed his hope that the work would fail. Later, when composers +approached him in regard to setting his dramas to music, he made it a +condition that his wife should sing them. She did appear as Ariane, you +will remember, but Lucienne Bréval first sang Monna Vanna, and +Maeterlinck's wrath again vented itself in pronunciamentos." + +Miss Garden spoke of the settings. "The _décor_ should be dark and +sombre. Mrs. Campbell set the play in the Renaissance period, an epoch +flooded with light and charm. I think she was wrong. Absolute latitude +is permitted the stage director, as Maeterlinck has made no restrictions +in the book. The director of the Opéra at Brussels followed Mrs. +Campbell's example, and when I appeared in the work there I felt that I +was singing a different drama." + +One afternoon in the autumn of 1908, when I was Paris correspondent of +the "New York Times," I received the following telegram from Miss +Garden: "Venez ce soir à 5-1/2 chez Mlle. Chasles 112 Boulevard +Malesherbes me voir en Salome." It was late in the day when the message +came to me, and I had made other plans, but you may be sure I put them +all aside. A _petit-bleu_ or two disposed of my engagements, and I took +a fiacre in the blue twilight of the Paris afternoon for the _salle de +danse_ of Mlle. Chasles. On my way I recollected how some time +previously Miss Garden had informed me of her intention of interpreting +the Dance of the Seven Veils herself, and how she had attempted to gain +the co-operation of Maraquita, the ballet mistress of the Opéra-Comique, +a plan which she was forced to abandon, owing to some rapidly revolving +wheels of operatic intrigue. So the new Salome went to Mlle. Chasles, +who sixteen years ago was delighting the patrons of the Opéra-Comique +with her charming dancing. She it was who, materially assisted by Miss +Garden herself, arranged the dance, dramatically significant in gesture +and step, which the singer performed at the climax of Richard Strauss's +music drama. + +Mlle. Chasles's _salle de danse_ I discovered to be a large square room; +the floor had a rake like that of the Opéra stage in Paris. There were +footlights, and seats in front of them for spectators. The walls were +hung with curious old prints and engravings of famous dancers, Mlle. +Sallé, La Camargo, Taglioni, Carlotta Grisi, and Cerito. + +This final rehearsal--before the rehearsals in New York which preceded +her first appearance in the part anywhere at the Manhattan Opera +House--was witnessed by André Messager, who intended to mount _Salome_ +at the Paris Opéra the following season, Mlle. Chasles, an accompanist, +a maid, a hair-dresser, and myself. I noted that Miss Garden's costume +differed in a marked degree from those her predecessors had worn. For +the entrance of Salome she had provided a mantle of bright orange +shimmering stuff, embroidered with startling azure and emerald flowers +and sparkling with spangles. Under this she wore a close-fitting garment +of netted gold, with designs in rubies and rhinestones, which fell from +somewhere above the waistline to her ankles. This garment was also +removed for the dance, and Miss Garden emerged in a narrow strip of +flesh-coloured tulle. Her arms, shoulders, and legs were bare. She wore +a red wig, the hair falling nearly to her waist (later she changed this +detail and wore the cropped wig which became identified with her +impersonation of the part). Two jewels, an emerald on one little finger, +a ruby on the other, completed her decoration. The seven veils were of +soft, clinging tulle. + +Swathed in these veils, she began the dance at the back of the small +stage. Only her eyes were visible. Terrible, slow ... she undulated +forward, swaying gracefully, and dropped the first veil. What followed +was supposed to be the undoing of the jaded Herod. I was moved by this +spectacle at the time, and subsequently this pantomimic dance was +generally referred to as the culminating moment in her impersonation of +Salome. On this occasion, I remember, she proved to us that the exertion +had not fatigued her, by singing the final scene of the music drama, +while André Messager played the accompaniment on the piano. + +I did not see Mary Garden's impetuous and highly curious interpretation +of the strange eastern princess until a full year later, as I remained +in Paris during the extent of the New York opera season. The following +autumn, however, I heard _Salome_ in its second season at the Manhattan +Opera House--and I was disappointed. Nervous curiosity seemed to be the +consistent note of this hectic interpretation. The singer was never +still; her use of gesture was untiring. To any one who had not seen her +in other parts, the actress must have seemed utterly lacking in repose. +This was simply her means, however, of suggesting the intense nervous +perversity of Salome. Mary Garden could not have seen Nijinsky in +_Scheherazade_ at this period, and yet the performances were +astonishingly similar in intention. But the Strauss music and the Wilde +drama demand a more voluptuous and sensual treatment, it would seem to +me, than the suggestion of monkey-love which absolutely suited +Nijinsky's part. However, the general opinion (as often happens) ran +counter to mine, and, aside from the reservation that Miss Garden's +voice was unable to cope with the music, the critics, on the whole, gave +her credit for an interesting performance. Indeed, in this music drama +she made one of the great popular successes of her career, a career +which has been singularly full of appreciated achievements. + +Chicago saw Mary Garden in _Salome_ a year later, and Chicago gasped, as +New York had gasped when the drama was performed at the Metropolitan +Opera House. The police--no less an authority--put a ban on future +performances at the Auditorium. Miss Garden was not pleased, and she +expressed her displeasure in the frankest terms. I received at that time +a series of characteristic telegrams. One of them read: "My art is +going through the torture of slow death. Oh Paris, splendeur de mes +desirs!" + +It was with the (then) Philadelphia-Chicago Opera Company that Miss +Garden made her first experiment with opera in English, earning thereby +the everlasting gratitude and admiration--which she already possessed in +no small measure--of Charles Henry Meltzer. She was not sanguine before +the event. In January, 1911, she said to me: "No, malgré Tito Ricordi, +NO! I don't believe in opera in English, I never have believed in it, +and I don't think I ever shall believe in it. Of course I'm willing to +be convinced. You see, in the first place, I think all music dramas +should be sung in the languages in which they are written; well, that +makes it impossible to sing anything in the current répertoire in +English, doesn't it? The only hope for opera in English, so far as I can +see it, lies in America or England producing a race of composers, and +they haven't it in them. It isn't in the blood. Composition needs Latin +blood, or something akin to it; the Anglo-Saxon or the American can't +write music, great music, at least not yet.... I doubt if any of us +alive to-day will live to hear a great work written to a libretto in our +own language. + +"Now I am going to sing Victor Herbert's _Natoma_, in spite of what I +have just told you, because I don't want to have it said that I have +done anything to hinder what is now generally known as 'the cause.' For +the first time a work by a composer who may be regarded as American is +to be given a chance with the best singers, with a great orchestra, and +a great conductor, in the leading opera house in America--perhaps the +leading opera house anywhere. It seems to me that every one who can +should put his shoulder to this kind of wheel and set it moving. I shall +be better pleased than anybody else if _Natoma_ proves a success and +paves the way for the successful production of other American lyric +dramas. Of course _Natoma_ cannot be regarded as 'grand opera.' It is +not music, like _Tristan_, for instance. It is more in the style of the +lighter operas which are given in Paris, but it possesses much melodic +charm and it may please the public. I shall sing it and I shall try to +do it just as well as I have tried to do Salome and Thais and +Mélisande." + +She kept her word, and out of the hodge-podge of an opera book which +stands unrivalled for its stiltedness of speech, she succeeded in +creating one of her most notable characters. She threw vanity aside in +making up for the rôle, painting her face and body a dark brown; she +wore two long straight braids of hair, depending on either side from the +part in the middle of her forehead. Her garment was of buckskin, and +moccasins covered her feet. She crept rather than walked. The story, as +might be imagined, was one of love and self-sacrifice, touching here and +there on the preserves of _L'Africaine_ and _Lakmé_, the whole +concluding with the voluntary immersion of Natoma in a convent. +Fortunately, the writer of the book remembered that Miss Garden had +danced in _Salome_ and he introduced a similar pantomimic episode in +_Natoma_, a dagger dance, which was one of the interesting points in the +action. The music suited her voice; she delivered a good deal of it +almost _parlando_, and the vapid speeches of Mr. Redding tripped so +audibly off her tongue that their banality became painfully apparent. + +The story has often been related how Massenet, piqued by the frequently +repeated assertion that his muse was only at his command when he +depicted female frailty, determined to write an opera in which only one +woman was to appear, and she was to be both mute and a virgin! _Le +Jongleur de Notre Dame_, perhaps the most poetically conceived of +Massenet's lyric dramas, was the result of this decision. Until Mr. +Hammerstein made up his mind to produce the opera, the rôle of Jean had +invariably been sung by a man. Mr. Hammerstein thought that Americans +would prefer a woman in the part. He easily enlisted the interest of +Miss Garden in this scheme, and Massenet, it is said, consented to make +certain changes in the score. The taste of the experiment was doubtful, +but it was one for which there had been much precedent. Nor is it +necessary to linger on Sarah Bernhardt's assumption of the rôles of +Hamlet, Shylock, and the Duc de Reichstadt. In the "golden period of +song," Orfeo was not the only man's part sung by a woman. Mme. Pasta +frequently appeared as Romeo in Zingarelli's opera and as Tancredi, and +she also sang Otello on one occasion when Henrietta Sontag was the +Desdemona. The rôle of Orfeo, I believe, was written originally for a +_castrato_, and later, when the work was refurbished for production at +what was then the Paris Opéra, Gluck allotted the rôle to a tenor. Now +it is sung by a woman as invariably as are Stephano in _Roméo et +Juliette_ and Siebel in _Faust_. There is really more excuse for the +masquerade of sex in Massenet's opera. The timid, pathetic little +juggler, ridiculous in his inefficiency, is a part for which tenors, as +they exist to-day, seem manifestly unsuited. And certainly no tenor +could hope to make the appeal in the part that Mary Garden did. In the +second act she found it difficult to entirely conceal the suggestion of +her sex under the monk's robe, but the sad little figure of the first +act and the adorable juggler of the last, performing his imbecile tricks +before Our Lady's altar, were triumphant details of an artistic +impersonation; on the whole, one of Miss Garden's most moving +performances. + +Miss Garden has sung _Faust_ many times. Are there many sopranos who +have not, whatever the general nature of their répertoires? She is very +lovely in the rôle of Marguerite. I have indicated elsewhere her skill +in endowing the part with poetry and imaginative force without making +ducks and drakes of the traditions. In the garden scene she gave an +exhibition of her power to paint a fanciful fresco on a wall already +surcharged with colour, a charming, wistful picture. I have never seen +any one else so effective in the church and prison scenes; no one else, +it seems to me, has so tenderly conceived the plight of the simple +German girl. The opera of _Roméo et Juliette_ does not admit of such +serious dramatic treatment, and Thomas's _Hamlet_, as a play, is +absolutely ridiculous. After the mad scene, for example, the stage +directions read that the ballet "waltzes sadly away." I saw Mary Garden +play Ophélie once at the Paris Opéra, and I must admit that I was +amused; I think she was amused too! I was equally amused some years +later when I heard Titta Ruffo sing the opera. I am afraid I cannot take +_Hamlet_ as a lyric drama seriously. + +In Paris, Violetta is one of Miss Garden's popular rôles. When she came +to America she fancied she might sing the part here. "Did you ever see a +thin Violetta?" she asked the reporters. But so far she has not appeared +in _La Traviata_ on this side of the Atlantic, although Robert Hichens +wrote me that he had recently heard her in this opera at the Paris +Opéra-Comique. He added that her impersonation was most interesting. + +To me one of the most truly fascinating of Miss Garden's +characterizations was her Fanny Legrand in Daudet's play, made into an +opera by Massenet. _Sapho_, as a lyric drama, did not have a success in +New York. I think only three performances were given at the Manhattan +Opera House. The professional writers, with one exception, found nothing +to praise in Miss Garden's remarkable impersonation of Fanny. And yet, +as I have said, it seemed to me one of the most moving of her +interpretations. In the opening scenes she was the trollop, no less, +that Fanny was. The pregnant line of the first act: _Artiste?.... +Non.... Tant mieux. J'ai contre tout artiste une haine implacable!_ was +spoken in a manner which bared the woman's heart to the sophisticated. +The scene in which she sang the song of the _Magali_ (the Provençal +melody which Mistral immortalized in a poem, which Gounod introduced +into _Mireille_, and which found its way, inexplicably, into the ballet +of Berlioz's _Les Troyens à Carthage_), playing her own accompaniment, +to Jean, was really too wonderful a caricature of the harlot. Abel +Faivre and Paul Guillaume have done no better. The scene in which Fanny +reviles her former associates for telling Jean the truth about her past +life was revolting in its realism. + +If Miss Garden spared no details in making us acquainted with Fanny's +vulgarity, she was equally fair to her in other respects. She seemed to +be continually guiding the spectator with comment something like this: +"See how this woman can suffer, and she is a woman, like any other +woman." How small the means, the effect considered, by which she +produced the pathos of the last scene. At the one performance I saw half +the people in the audience were in tears. There was a dismaying display +of handkerchiefs. Sapho sat in the window, smoking a cigarette, +surveying the room in which she had been happy with Jean, and preparing +to say good-by. In the earlier scenes her cigarette had aided her in +making vulgar gestures. Now she relied on it to tell the pitiful tale of +the woman's loneliness. How she clung to that cigarette, how she sipped +comfort from it, and how tiny it was! Mary Garden's Sapho, which may +never be seen on the stage again (Massenet's music is perhaps his +weakest effort), was an extraordinary piece of stage art. That alone +would have proclaimed her an interpreter of genius. + +[Illustration: MARY GARDEN AS FANNY LEGRAND + +_from a photograph by Mishkin (1909)_] + +George Moore, somewhere, evolves a fantastic theory that a writer's name +may have determined his talent: "Dickens--a mean name, a name without +atmosphere, a black out-of-elbows, back-stairs name, a name good enough +for loud comedy and louder pathos. John Milton--a splendid name for a +Puritan poet. Algernon Charles Swinburne--only a name for a reed through +which every wind blows music.... Now it is a fact that we find no fine +names among novelists. We find only colourless names, dry-as-dust names, +or vulgar names, round names like pot-hats, those names like +mackintoshes, names that are squashy as goloshes. We have charged Scott +with a lack of personal passion, but could personal passion dwell in +such a jog-trot name--a round-faced name, a snub-nosed, spectacled, +pot-bellied name, a placid, beneficent, worthy old bachelor name, a name +that evokes all conventional ideas and formulas, a Grub Street name, a +nerveless name, an arm-chair name, an old oak and Abbotsford name? And +Thackeray's name is a poor one--the syllables clatter like plates. 'We +shall want the carriage at half-past two, Thackeray.' Dickens is surely +a name for a page boy. George Eliot's real name, Marian Evans, is a +chaw-bacon, thick-loined name." So far as I know Mr. Moore has not +expanded his theory to include a discussion of acrobats, revivalists, +necromancers, free versifiers, camel drivers, paying tellers, painters, +pugilists, architects, and opera singers. Many of the latter have taken +no chances with their own names. Both Pauline and Maria Garcia adopted +the names of their husbands. Garcia possibly suggests a warrior, but do +Malibran and Viardot make us think of music? Nellie Melba's name evokes +an image of a cold marble slab but if she had retained her original name +of Mitchell it would have been no better ... Marcella Sembrich, a name +made famous by the genius and indefatigable labour of its bearer, surely +not a good name for an operatic soprano. Her own name, Kochanska, +sounds Polish and patriotic ... Luisa Tetrazzini, a silly, fussy name +... Emma Calvé.... Since _Madame Bovary_ the name Emma suggests a solid +_bourgeois_ foundation, a country family.... Emma Eames, a chilly name +... a wind from the East! Was it Philip Hale who remarked that she sang +_Who is Sylvia?_ as if the woman were not on her calling list?... +Lillian Nordica, an evasion. Lillian Norton is a sturdy work-a-day name, +suggesting a premonition of a thousand piano rehearsals for Isolde ... +Johanna Gadski, a coughing raucous name ... Geraldine Farrar, tomboyish +and impertinent, Melrose with a French sauce ... Edyth Walker, a +militant suffragette name.... Surely Lucrezia Bori and Maria Barrientos +are ill-made names for singers ... Adelina Patti--a patty-cake, +patty-cake, baker's man, sort of a name ... Alboni, strong-hearted ... +Scalchi ... ugh! Further evidence could be brought forward to prove that +singers succeed in spite of their names rather than because of them ... +until we reach the name of Mary Garden.... The subtle fragrance of this +name has found its way into many hearts. Since Nell Gwyn no such scented +cognomen, redolent of cuckoo's boots, London pride, blood-red poppies, +purple fox-gloves, lemon stocks, and vermillion zinnias, has blown its +delicate odour across our scene.... Delightful and adorable Mary Garden, +the fragile Thais, pathetic Jean ... unforgettable Mélisande.... + +_October 10, 1916._ + + + + +Feodor Chaliapine + + + "_Do I contradict myself?_ + _Very well, then, I contradict myself;_" + + Walt Whitman. + + +Feodor Chaliapine, the Russian bass singer, appeared in New York at the +Metropolitan Opera House, then under the direction of Heinrich Conried, +during the season of 1907-08. He made his American début on Wednesday +evening, November 20, 1907, when he impersonated the title part of +Boito's opera, _Mefistofele_. He was heard here altogether seven times +in this rôle; six times as Basilio in _Il Barbiere di Siviglia_; three +times as Méphistophélès in Gounod's _Faust_; three times as Leporello in +_Don Giovanni_; and at several Sunday night concerts. He also appeared +with the Metropolitan Opera Company in Philadelphia, and possibly +elsewhere. + +I first met this remarkable artist in the dining-room of the Hotel Savoy +on a rainy Sunday afternoon, soon after his arrival in America. His +personality made a profound impression on me, as may be gathered from +some lines from an article I wrote which appeared the next morning in +the "New York Times": "The newest operatic acquisition to arrive in New +York is neither a prima donna soprano, nor an Italian tenor with a high +C, but a big, broad-shouldered boy, with a kindly smile and a deep bass +voice, ... thirty-four years old.... 'I spik English,' were his first +words. 'How do you do? et puis good-by, et puis I drrrink, you drrink, +he drrrrinks, et puis I love you!' ... Mr. Chaliapine looked like a +great big boy, a sophomore in college, who played football." (Pitts +Sanborn soon afterwards felicitously referred to him as _ce doux géant_, +a name often applied to Turgeniev.) + +I have given the extent of the Russian's English vocabulary at this +time, and I soon discovered that it was not accident which had caused +him first to learn to conjugate the verb "to drink"; another English +verb he learned very quickly was "to eat." Some time later, after his +New York début, I sought him out again to urge him to give a synopsis of +his original conception for a performance of Gounod's _Faust_. The +interview which ensued was the longest I have ever had with any one. It +began at eleven o'clock in the morning and lasted until a like hour in +the evening,--it might have lasted much longer,--and during this whole +time we sat at table in Mr. Chaliapine's own chamber at the Brevoort, +whither he had repaired to escape steam heat, while he consumed vast +quantities of food and drink. I remember a detail of six plates of onion +soup. I have never seen any one else eat so much or so continuously, or +with so little lethargic effect. Indeed, intemperance seemed only to +make him more light-hearted, ebullient, and Brobdingnagian. Late in the +afternoon he placed his own record of the _Marseillaise_ in the +victrola, and then amused himself (and me) by singing the song in unison +with the record, in an attempt to drown out the mechanical sound. He +succeeded. The effect in this moderately small hotel room can only be +faintly conceived. + +Exuberant is the word which best describes Chaliapine off the stage. I +remember another occasion a year later when I met him, just returned +from South America, on the Boulevard in Paris. He grasped my hand warmly +and begged me to come to see his zoo. He had, in fact, transformed the +_salle de bain_ in his suite at the Grand Hotel into a menagerie. There +were two monkeys, a cockatoo, and many other birds of brilliant plumage, +while two large alligators dozed in the tub. + +My second interview with this singer took place a day or so before he +returned to Europe. He had been roughly handled by the New York critics, +treatment, it is said, which met with the approval of Heinrich Conried, +who had no desire to retain in his company a bass who demanded sixteen +hundred dollars a night, a high salary for a soprano or a tenor. Stung +by this defeat--entirely imaginary, by the way, as his audiences here +were as large and enthusiastic as they are anywhere--the only one, in +fact, which he has suffered in his career up to date, Chaliapine was +extremely frank in his attitude. My interview, published on the first +page of the "New York Times," created a small sensation in operatic +circles. The meat of it follows. Chaliapine is speaking: + +"Criticism in New York is not profound. It is the most difficult thing +in the world to be a good critical writer. I am a singer, but the critic +has no right to regard me merely as a singer. He must observe my acting, +my make-up, everything. And he must understand and know about these +things. + +"Opera is not a fixed art. It is not like music, poetry, sculpture, +painting, or architecture, but a combination of all of these. And the +critic who goes to the opera should have studied all these arts. While a +study of these arts is essential, there is something else that the +critic cannot get by study, and that is the soul to understand. That he +must be born with. + +"I am not a professional critic, but I could be. I have associated with +musicians, painters, and writers, and I know something of all these +arts. As a consequence when I read a criticism, I see immediately what +is true and what is false. Very often I think a man's tongue is his +worst enemy. However, sometimes a man keeps quiet to conceal his mental +weakness. We have a Russian proverb which says, 'Keep quiet; don't tease +the geese.' You can't judge of a man's intelligence until he begins to +talk or write. + +"I have been sometimes adversely criticized during the course of my +artistic life. The most profound of these criticisms have taught me to +correct my faults. But I have learned nothing from the criticisms I have +received in New York. After searching my inner consciousness, I find +they are not based on a true understanding of my artistic purposes. For +instance, the critics found my Don Basilio a dirty, repulsive creature. +One man even said that I was offensive to another singer on the stage! +Don Basilio is a Spanish priest; it is a type I know well. He is not +like the modern American priest, clean and well-groomed; he is dirty and +unkempt; he is a beast, and that is what I make him, a comic beast, but +the critics would prefer a softer version.... It is unfair, indeed, to +judge me at all on the parts I have sung here, outside of Mefistofele, +for most of my best rôles are in Russian operas, which are not in the +répertoire of the Metropolitan Opera House. + +"The contemporary direction of this theatre believes in tradition. It is +afraid of anything new. There is no movement. It has not the courage to +produce novelties, and the artists are prevented from giving original +conceptions of old rôles. + +"New York is a vast seething inferno of business. Nothing but business! +The men are so tired when they get through work that they want +recreation and sleep. They don't want to study. They don't want to be +thrilled or aroused. They are content to listen forever to _Faust_ and +_Lucia_. + +"In Europe it is different. There you will find the desire for novelty +in the theatre. There is a keen interest in the production of a new +work. It is all right to enjoy the old things, but one should see life. +The audience at the Metropolitan Opera House reminds me of a family that +lives in the country and won't travel. It is satisfied with the same +view of the same garden forever...." + +Feodor Ivanovich Chaliapine was born February 13 (February 1, old +style), 1873, in Kazan; he is of peasant descent. It is said that he is +almost entirely self-educated, both musically and intellectually. He +worked for a time in a shoemaker's shop, sang in the archbishop's choir +and, at the age of seventeen, joined a local operetta company. He seems +to have had difficulty in collecting a salary from this latter +organization, and often worked as a railway porter in order to keep +alive. Later he joined a travelling theatrical troupe, which visited the +Caucasus. In 1892, Oussatov, a singer, heard Chaliapine in Tiflis, gave +him some lessons, and got him an engagement. + +He made his début in opera in Glinka's _A Life for the Czar_ (according +to Mrs. Newmarch; my notes tell me that it was Gounod's _Faust_). He +sang at the Summer and Panaevsky theatres in Petrograd in 1894; and the +following year he was engaged at the Maryinsky Theatre, but the +directors did not seem to realize that they had captured one of the +great figures of the contemporary lyric stage, and he was not permitted +to sing very often. In 1896, Mamantov, lawyer and millionaire, paid the +fine which released the bass from the Imperial Opera House, and invited +him to join the Private Opera Company in Moscow, where Chaliapine +immediately proved his worth. He became the idol of the public, and it +was not unusual for those who admired striking impersonations on the +stage to journey from Petrograd to see and hear him. In 1899 he was +engaged to sing at the Imperial Opera in Moscow at sixty thousand +roubles a year. Since then he has appeared in various European capitals, +and in North and South America. He has sung in Milan, Paris, London, +Monte Carlo, and Buenos Aires. During a visit to Milan he married, and +at the time of his New York engagement his family included five +children. The number may have increased. + +Chaliapine's répertoire is extensive but, on the whole, it is a strange +répertoire to western Europe and America, consisting, as it does, almost +entirely of Russian operas. In Milan, New York, and Monte Carlo, where +he has appeared with Italian and French companies, his most famous rôle +is Mefistofele. Leporello he sang for the first time in New York. +Basilio and Méphistophélès in _Faust_ he has probably enacted as often +in Russia as elsewhere. He "created" the title part of Massenet's _Don +Quichotte_ at Monte Carlo (Vanni Marcoux sang the rôle later in Paris). +With the Russian Opera Company, organized in connection with the Russian +Ballet by Serge de Diaghilew, Chaliapine has sung in London, Paris, and +other European capitals in Moussorgsky's _Boris Godunow_ and +_Khovanchina_, Rimsky-Korsakow's _Ivan the Terrible_ (originally called +_The Maid of Pskov_), and Borodine's _Prince Igor_, in which he appeared +both as Prince Galitzky and as the Tartar Chieftain. His répertoire +further includes Rubinstein's _Demon_, Rimsky-Korsakow's _Mozart and +Salieri_ (the rôle of Salieri), Glinka's _A Life for the Czar_, +Dargomijsky's _The Roussalka_, Rachmaninow's _Aleko_, and Gretchaninow's +_Dobrynia Nikitich_. This list is by no means complete. + +I first saw Chaliapine on the stage in New York, where his original +ideas and tremendously vital personality ran counter to every tradition +of the Metropolitan Opera House. The professional writers about the +opera, as a whole, would have none of him. Even his magnificently +pictorial Mefistofele was condemned, and I think Pitts Sanborn was the +only man in a critic's chair--I was a reporter at this period and had no +opportunity for expressing my opinions in print--who appreciated his +Basilio at its true value, and _Il Barbiere_ is Sanborn's favourite +opera. His account of the proceedings makes good reading at this date. I +quote from the "New York Globe," December 13, 1907: + +"The performance that was in open defiance of traditions, that was +glaringly and recklessly unorthodox, that set at naught the accepted +canons of good taste, but which justified itself by its overwhelming and +all-conquering good humour, was the Basilio of Mr. Chaliapine. With his +great natural stature increased by art to Brobdingnagian proportions, a +face that had gazed on the vodka at its blackest, and a cassock that may +be seen but not described, he presented a figure that might have been +imagined by the English Swift or the French Rabelais. It was no voice or +singing that made the audience re-demand the 'Calumny Song.' It was the +compelling drollery of those comedy hands. You may be assured, +persuaded, convinced that you want your Rossini straight or not at all. +But when you see the Chaliapine Basilio you'll do as the rest do--roar. +It is as sensational in its way as the Chaliapine Mephisto." + +It was hard to reconcile Chaliapine's conception of Méphistophélès with +the Gounod music, and I do not think the Russian himself had any +illusions about his performance of _Leporello_. It was not his type of +part, and he was as good in it, probably, as Olive Fremstad would be as +Nedda. Even great artists have their limitations, perhaps more of them +than the lesser people. But his Mefistofele, to my way of +thinking,--and the anxious reader who has not seen this impersonation +may be assured that I am far from being alone in it,--was and is a +masterpiece of stage-craft. However, opinions differ. Under the alluring +title, "Devils Polite and Rude," W. J. Henderson, in the "New York Sun," +Sunday, November 24, 1907, after Chaliapine's first appearance here in +Boito's opera, took his fling at the Russian bass (was it Mr. Henderson +or another who later referred to Chaliapine as "a cossack with a +cold"?): "He makes of the fiend a demoniac personage, a seething +cauldron of rabid passions. He is continually snarling and barking. He +poses in writhing attitudes of agonized impotence. He strides and +gestures, grimaces and roars. All this appears to superficial observers +to be tremendously dramatic. And it is, as noted, not without its +significance. Perhaps it may be only a personal fancy, yet the present +writer much prefers a devil who is a gentleman.... But one thing more +remains to be said about the first display of Mr. Chaliapine's powers. +How long did he study the art of singing? Surely not many years. Such an +uneven and uncertain emission of tone is seldom heard even on the +Metropolitan Opera House stage, where there is a wondrous quantity of +poorly grounded singing. The splendid song, _Son lo Spirito Che Nega_, +was not sung at all in the strict interpretation of the word. It was +delivered, to be sure, but in a rough and barbaric style. Some of the +tones disappeared somewhere in the rear spaces of the basso's capacious +throat, while others were projected into the auditorium like stones from +a catapult. There was much strenuosity and little art in the +performance. And it was much the same with the rest of the singing of +the rôle." + +Chaliapine calls himself "the enemy of tradition." When he was singing +at the Opera in Petrograd in 1896 he found that every detail of every +characterization was prescribed. He was directed to make his entrances +in a certain way; he was ordered to stand in a certain place on the +stage. Whenever he attempted an innovation the stage director said, +"Don't do that." Young singer though he was, he rebelled and asked, "Why +not?" And the reply always came, "You must follow the tradition of the +part. Monsieur Chose and Signor Cosi have always done thus and so, and +you must do likewise." "But I feel differently about the rôle," +protested the bass. However, it was not until he went to Moscow that he +was permitted to break with tradition. From that time on he began to +elaborate his characterizations, assisted, he admits, by Russian +painters who gave him his first ideas about costumes and make-up. He +once told me that his interpretation of a part was never twice the same. +He does not study his rôles in solitude, poring over a score, as many +artists do. Rather, ideas come to him when he eats or drinks, or even +when he is on the stage. He depends to an unsafe degree--unsafe for +other singers who may be misled by his success--on inspiration to carry +him through, once he begins to sing. "When I sing a character I am that +character; I am no longer Chaliapine. So whatever I do must be in +keeping with what the character would do." This is true to so great an +extent that you may take it for granted, when you see Chaliapine in a +new rôle, that he will envelop the character with atmosphere from his +first entrance, perhaps even without the aid of a single gesture. His +entrance on horseback in _Ivan the Terrible_ is a case in point. Before +he has sung a note he has projected the personality of the cruel czar +into the auditorium. + +"As an actor," writes Mrs. Newmarch in "The Russian Opera," "his +greatest quality appears to me to be his extraordinary gift of +identification with the character he is representing. Shaliapin (so +does Mrs. Newmarch phonetically transpose his name into Roman letters) +does not merely throw himself into the part, to use a phrase commonly +applied to the histrionic art. He seems to disappear, to empty himself +of all personality, that Boris Godunov or Ivan the Terrible may be +reincarnated for us. While working out his own conception of a part, +unmoved by convention or opinion, Shaliapin neglects no accessory study +that can heighten the realism of his interpretation. It is impossible to +see him as Ivan the Terrible, or Boris, without realizing that he is +steeped in the history of those periods, which live again at his will. +In the same way he has studied the masterpieces of Russian art to good +purpose, as all must agree who have compared the scene of Ivan's +frenzied grief over the corpse of Olga, in the last scene of +Rimsky-Korsakow's opera, with Repin's terrible picture of the Tsar, +clasping in his arms the body of the son whom he has just killed in a +fit of insane anger. The agonizing remorse and piteous senile grief have +been transformed from Repin's canvas to Shaliapin's living picture, +without the revolting suggestion of the shambles which mars the +painter's work. Sometimes, too, Shaliapin will take a hint from the +living model. His dignified make-up as the Old Believer Dositheus, in +Moussorgsky's _Khovanstchina_, owes not a little to the personality of +Vladimir Stassov." + +Chaliapine, it seems to me, has realized more completely than any other +contemporary singer the opportunities afforded for the presentation of +character on the lyric stage. In costume, make-up, gesture, the +simulation of emotion, he is a consummate and painstaking artist. As I +have suggested, he has limitations. Who, indeed, has not? Grandeur, +nobility, impressiveness, and, by inversion, sordidness, bestiality, and +awkward ugliness fall easily within his ken. The murder-haunted Boris +Godunow is perhaps his most overpowering creation. From first to last it +is a masterpiece of scenic art; those who have seen him in this part +will not be satisfied with substitutes. His Ivan is almost equally +great. His Dositheus, head of the Old Believers in _Khovanchina_, is a +sincere and effective characterization along entirely different lines. +Although this character, in a sense, dominates Moussorgsky's great +opera, there is little opportunity for the display of histrionism which +Boris presents to the singing actor. By almost insignificant details of +make-up and gesture the bass creates before your eyes a living, +breathing man, a man of fire and faith. No one would recognize in this +kind old creature, terrible, to be sure, in his stern piety, the nude +Mefistofele surveying the pranks of the motley rabble in the Brocken +scene of Boito's opera, a flamboyant exposure of personality to be +compared with Mary Garden's Thais, Act I. + +As the Tartar chieftain in _Prince Igor_, he has but few lines to sing, +but his gestures during the performance of the ballet, which he has +arranged for his guest, in fact his actions throughout the single act in +which this character appears, are stamped on the memory as definitely as +a figure in a Persian miniature. And the noble scorn with which, as +Prince Galitzky, he bows to the stirrup of Prince Igor at the close of +the prologue to this opera, still remains a fixed picture in my mind. +There is also the pathetic Don Quichotte of Massenet's poorest opera. +All great portraits these, to which I must add the funny, dirty, +expectorating Spanish priest of _Il Barbiere_. + +[Illustration: FEODOR CHALIAPINE AS MEFISTOFELE] + +Chaliapine is the possessor of a noble voice which sometimes he uses by +main strength. He has never learned to sing, in the conventional meaning +of the phrase. He must have been singing for some time before he studied +at all, and at Tiflis he does not seem to have spent many months on his +voice. In the circumstances it is an extremely tractable organ, at +least always capable of doing his bidding, dramatically speaking. +Indeed, there are many who consider him a great artist in his +manipulation of it. Mrs. Newmarch quotes Herbert Heyner on this point: + +"His diction floats on a beautiful cantilena, particularly in his +_mezzo-voce_ singing, which--though one would hardly expect it from a +singer endowed with such a noble bass voice--is one of the most telling +features of his performance. There is never any striving after vocal +effects, and his voice is always subservient to the words.... The +atmosphere and tone-colour which Shaliapin imparts to his singing are of +such remarkable quality that one feels his interpretation of Schubert's +_Doppelgänger_ must of necessity be a thing of genius, unapproachable by +other contemporary singers ... his method is based upon a thoroughly +sound breath control, which produces such splendid _cantabile_ results. +Every student should listen to this great singer, and profit by his +art." + +My intention in placing before the eyes of my readers such contradictory +accounts as may be found in this article has not been altogether +ingenuous. The fact of the matter is that opinions differ on every +matter of art, and on no point are they so various as on that which +refers to interpretation. It may further be urged that the personality +of Chaliapine is so marked and his method so direct that the variations +of opinion are naturally expressed in somewhat violent language. + +For those, accustomed to the occidental operatic répertoire, who find it +hard to understand how a bass could acquire such prominence, it may be +explained that deep voices are both common and very popular in Russia. +They may be heard in any Greek church, sustaining organ points a full +octave below the notes to which our basses descend with trepidation. As +a consequence, many of the Russian operas contain bass rôles of the +first importance. In both of Moussorgsky's familiar operas, for example, +the leading part is destined for a bass voice. + +_July 18, 1916._ + + + + +Mariette Mazarin + + +Sometimes the cause of an intense impression in the theatre apparently +disappears, leaving "not a rack behind," beyond the trenchant memory of +a few precious moments, inclining one to the belief that the whole +adventure has been a dream, a particularly vivid dream, and that the +characters therein have returned to such places in space as are assigned +to dream personages by the makers of men. This reflection comes to me +as, sitting before my typewriter, I attempt to recapture the spirit of +the performances of Richard Strauss's music drama _Elektra_ at Oscar +Hammerstein's Manhattan Opera House in New York. The work remains, if +not in the répertoire of any opera house in my vicinity, at least deeply +imbedded in my eardrum and, if need be, at any time I can pore again +over the score, which is always near at hand. But of the whereabouts of +Mariette Mazarin, the remarkable artist who contributed her genius to +the interpretation of the crazed Greek princess, I know nothing. As she +came to us unheralded, so she went away, after we who had seen her had +enshrined her, tardily to be sure, in that small, slow-growing circle of +those who have achieved eminence on the lyric stage. + +Before the beginning of the opera season of 1909-10, Marietta Mazarin +was not even a name in New York. Even during a good part of that season +she was recognized only as an able routine singer. She made her début +here in _Aida_ and she sang Carmen and Louise without creating a furore, +almost, indeed, without arousing attention of any kind, good or bad +criticism. Had there been no production of _Elektra_ she would have +passed into that long list of forgotten singers who appear here in +leading rôles for a few months or a few years and who, when their time +is up, vanish, never to be regretted, extolled, or recalled in the +memory again. For the disclosure of Mme. Mazarin's true powers an +unusual vehicle was required. _Elektra_ gave her her opportunity, and +proved her one of the exceptional artists of the stage. + +I do not know many of the facts of Mariette Mazarin's career. She +studied at the Paris Conservatoire; Leloir, of the Comédie Française, +was her professor of acting. She made her début at the Paris Opéra as +Aida; later she sang Louise and Carmen at the Opéra-Comique. After that +she seems to have been a leading figure at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in +Brussels, where she appeared in _Alceste_, _Armide_, _Iphigénie en +Tauride_ and _Iphigénie en Aulide_, even _Orphée_, the great Gluck +répertoire. She has also sung Salome, the three Brünnhildes, Elsa in +_Lohengrin_, Elisabeth in _Tannhäuser_, in Berlioz's _Prise de Troie_, +_La Damnation de Faust_, _Les Huguenots_, _Grisélidis_, _Thais_, _Il +Trovatore_, _Tosca_, _Manon Lescaut_, _Cavalleria Rusticana_, +_Hérodiade_, _Le Cid_, and _Salammbô_. She has been heard at Nice, and +probably on many another provincial French stage. At one time she was +the wife of Léon Rothier, the French bass, who has been a member of the +Metropolitan Opera Company for several seasons. + +Away from the theatre I remember her as a tall woman, rather awkward, +but quick in gesture. Her hair was dark, and her eyes were dark and +piercing. Her face was all angles; her features were sharp, and when +conversing with her one could not but be struck with a certain eerie +quality which seemed to give mystic colour to her expression. She was +badly dressed, both from an æsthetic and a fashionable point of view. In +a group of women you would pick her out to be a doctor, a lawyer, an +_intellectuelle_. When I talked with her, impression followed +impression--always I felt her intelligence, the play of her intellect +upon the surfaces of her art, but always, too, I felt how narrow a +chance had cast her lot upon the stage, how she easily might have been +something else than a singing actress, how magnificently accidental her +career was! + +She was, it would seem, an unusually gifted musician--at least for a +singer,--with a physique and a nervous energy which enabled her to +perform miracles. For instance, on one occasion she astonished even +Oscar Hammerstein by replacing Lina Cavalieri as Salomé in _Hérodiade_, +a rôle she had not previously sung for five years, at an hour's notice +on the evening of an afternoon on which she had appeared as Elektra. On +another occasion, when Mary Garden was ill she sang Louise with only a +short forewarning. She told me that she had learned the music of Elektra +between January 1, 1910, and the night of the first performance, January +31. She also told me that without any special effort on her part she had +assimilated the music of the other two important feminine rôles in the +opera, Chrysothemis and Klytæmnestra, and was quite prepared to sing +them. Mme. Mazarin's vocal organ, it must be admitted, was not of a very +pleasant quality at all times, although she employed it with variety and +usually with taste. There was a good deal of subtle charm in her middle +voice, but her upper voice was shrill and sometimes, when emitted +forcefully, became in effect a shriek. Faulty intonation often played +havoc with her musical interpretation, but do we not read that the great +Mme. Pasta seldom sang an opera through without many similar slips from +the pitch? _Aida_, of course, displayed the worst side of her talents. +Her Carmen, it seemed to me, was in some ways a very remarkable +performance; she appeared, in this rôle, to be possessed by a certain +_diablerie_, a power of evil, which distinguished her from other +Carmens, but this characterization created little comment or interest in +New York. In _Louise_, especially in the third act, she betrayed an +enmity for the pitch, but in the last act she was magnificent as an +actress. In Santuzza she exploited her capacity for unreined intensity +of expression. I have never seen her as Salome (in Richard Strauss's +opera; her Massenetic Salomé was disclosed to us in New York), but I +have a photograph of her in the rôle which might serve as an +illustration for the "Méphistophéla" of Catulle Mendès. I can imagine no +more sinister and depraved an expression, combined with such potent +sexual attraction. It is a remarkable photograph, evoking as it does a +succession of lustful ladies, and it is quite unpublishable. If she +carried these qualities into her performance of the work, and there is +every reason to believe that she did, the evenings on which she sang +Salome must have been very terrible for her auditors, hours in which the +Aristotle theory of Katharsis must have been amply proven. + +_Elektra_ was well advertised in New York. Oscar Hammerstein is as able +a showman as the late P. T. Barnum, and he has devoted his talents to +higher aims. Without his co-operation, I think it is likely that America +would now be a trifle above Australia in its operatic experience. It is +from Oscar Hammerstein that New York learned that all the great singers +of the world were not singing at the Metropolitan Opera House, a matter +which had been considered axiomatic before the redoubtable Oscar +introduced us to Alessandro Bonci, Maurice Renaud, Charles Dalmores, +Mary Garden, Luisa Tetrazzini, and others. With his productions of +_Pelléas et Mélisande_, _Louise_, _Thais_, and other works new to us, he +spurred the rival house to an activity which has been maintained ever +since to a greater or less degree. New operas are now the order of the +day--even with the Chicago and the Boston companies--rather than the +exception. And without this impresario's courage and determination I do +not think New York would have heard _Elektra_, at least not before its +uncorked essence had quite disappeared. Lover of opera that he +indubitably is, Oscar Hammerstein is by nature a showman, and he +understands the psychology of the mob. Looking about for a sensation to +stir the slow pulse of the New York opera-goer, he saw nothing on the +horizon more likely to effect his purpose than _Elektra_. _Salome_, +spurned by the Metropolitan Opera Company, had been taken to his heart +the year before and, with Mary Garden's valuable assistance, he had +found the biblical jade extremely efficacious in drawing shekels to his +doors. He hoped to accomplish similar results with _Elektra_.... + +One of the penalties an inventor of harmonies pays is that his +inventions become shopworn. A certain terrible atmosphere, a suggestion +of vague dread, of horror, of rank incest, of vile murder, of sordid +shame, was conveyed in _Elektra_ by Richard Strauss through the adroit +use of what we call discords, for want of a better name. Discord at one +time was defined as a combination of sounds that would eternally affront +the musical ear. We know better now. Discord is simply the word to +describe a never-before or seldom-used chord. Such a juxtaposition of +notes naturally startles when it is first heard, but it is a mistake to +presume that the effect is unpleasant, even in the beginning. + +Now it was by the use of sounds cunningly contrived to displease the ear +that Strauss built up his atmosphere of ugliness in _Elektra_. When it +was first performed, the scenes in which the half-mad Greek girl stalked +the palace courtyard, and the queen with the blood-stained hands related +her dreams, literally reeked with musical frightfulness. I have never +seen or heard another music drama which so completely bowled over its +first audiences, whether they were street-car conductors or musical +pedants. These scenes even inspired a famous passage in +"Jean-Christophe" (I quote from the translation of Gilbert Cannon): +"Agamemnon was neurasthenic and Achilles impotent; they lamented their +condition at length and, naturally, their outcries produced no change. +The energy of the drama was concentrated in the rôle of Iphigenia--a +nervous, hysterical, and pedantic Iphigenia, who lectured the hero, +declaimed furiously, laid bare for the audience her Nietzschian +pessimism and, glutted with death, cut her throat, shrieking with +laughter." + +But will _Elektra_ have the same effect on future audiences? I do not +think so. Its terror has, in a measure, been dissipated. Schoenberg, +Strawinsky, and Ornstein have employed its discords--and many newer +ones--for pleasanter purposes, and our ears are becoming accustomed to +these assaults on the casual harmony of our forefathers. _Elektra_ will +retain its place as a forerunner, and inevitably it will eventually be +considered the most important of Strauss's operatic works, but it can +never be listened to again in that same spirit of horror and repentance, +with that feeling of utter repugnance, which it found easy to awaken in +1910. Perhaps all of us were a little better for the experience. + +An attendant at the opening ceremonies in New York can scarcely forget +them. Cast under the spell by the early entrance of Elektra, wild-eyed +and menacing, across the terrace of the courtyard of Agamemnon's palace, +he must have remained with staring eyes and wide-flung ears, straining +for the remainder of the evening to catch the message of this tale of +triumphant and utterly holy revenge. The key of von Hofmannsthal's fine +play was lost to some reviewers, as it was to Romain Rolland in the +passage quoted above, who only saw in the drama a perversion of the +Greek idea of Nemesis. That there was something very much finer in the +theme, it was left for Bernard Shaw to discover. To him _Elektra_ +expressed the regeneration of a race, the destruction of vice, +ignorance, and poverty. The play was replete in his mind with +sociological and political implications, and, as his views in the matter +exactly coincide with my own, I cannot do better than to quote a few +lines from them, including, as they do, his interesting prophecies +regarding the possibility of war between England and Germany, +unfortunately unfulfilled. Strauss could not quite prevent the war with +his _Elektra_. Here is the passage: + +"What Hofmannsthal and Strauss have done is to take Klytæmnestra and +Ægisthus, and by identifying them with everything evil and cruel, with +all that needs must hate the highest when it sees it, with hideous +domination and coercion of the higher by the baser, with the murderous +rage in which the lust for a lifetime of orgiastic pleasure turns on its +slaves in the torture of its disappointment, and the sleepless horror +and misery of its neurasthenia, to so rouse in us an overwhelming flood +of wrath against it and a ruthless resolution to destroy it that +Elektra's vengeance becomes holy to us, and we come to understand how +even the gentlest of us could wield the ax of Orestes or twist our firm +fingers in the black hair of Klytæmnestra to drag back her head and +leave her throat open to the stroke. + +"This was a task hardly possible to an ancient Greek, and not easy even +for us, who are face to face with the America of the Thaw case and the +European plutocracy of which that case was only a trifling symptom, and +that is the task that Hofmannsthal and Strauss have achieved. Not even +in the third scene of _Das Rheingold_ or in the Klingsor scene in +_Parsifal_ is there such an atmosphere of malignant, cancerous evil as +we get here and that the power with which it is done is not the power of +the evil itself, but of the passion that detests and must and finally +can destroy that evil is what makes the work great and makes us rejoice +in its horror. + +"Whoever understands this, however vaguely, will understand Strauss's +music. I have often said, when asked to state the case against the fools +and the money changers who are trying to drive us into a war with +Germany, that the case consists of the single word 'Beethoven.' To-day I +should say with equal confidence 'Strauss.' In this music drama Strauss +has done for us with utterly satisfying force what all the noblest +powers of life within us are clamouring to have said in protest against +and defiance of the omnipresent villainies of our civilization, and this +is the highest achievement of the highest art." + +Mme. Mazarin was the torch-bearer in New York of this magnificent +creation. She is, indeed, the only singer who has ever appeared in the +rôle in America, and I have never heard _Elektra_ in Europe. However, +those who have seen other interpreters of the rôle assure me that Mme. +Mazarin so far outdistanced them as to make comparison impossible. This, +in spite of the fact that _Elektra_ in French necessarily lost something +of its crude force, and through its mild-mannered conductor at the +Manhattan Opera House, who seemed afraid to make a noise, a great deal +more. I did not make any notes about this performance at the time, but +now, seven years later, it is very vivid to me, an unforgettable +impression. Of how many nights in the theatre can I say as much? + +Diabolical ecstasy was the keynote of Mme. Mazarin's interpretation, +gradually developing into utter frenzy. She afterwards assured me that a +visit to a madhouse had given her the inspiration for the gestures and +steps of Elektra in the terrible dance in which she celebrates Orestes's +bloody but righteous deed. The plane of hysteria upon which this singer +carried her heroine by her pure nervous force, indeed reduced many of us +in the audience to a similar state. The conventional operatic mode was +abandoned; even the grand manner of the theatre was flung aside; with a +wide sweep of the imagination, the singer cast the memory of all such +baggage from her, and proceeded along vividly direct lines to make her +impression. + +[Illustration: MARIETTE MAZARIN AS ELEKTRA + +_From a photograph by Mishkin (1910)_] + +The first glimpse of the half-mad princess, creeping dirty and ragged, +to the accompaniment of cracking whips, across the terraced courtyard of +the palace, was indeed not calculated to stir tears in the eyes. The +picture was vile and repugnant; so perhaps was the appeal to the sister +whose only wish was to bear a child, but Mme. Mazarin had her design; +her measurements were well taken. In the wild cry to Agamemnon, the +dignity and pathos of the character were established, and these +qualities were later emphasized in the scene of her meeting with +Orestes, beautiful pages in von Hofmannsthal's play and Strauss's score. +And in the dance of the poor demented creature at the close the full +beauty and power and meaning of the drama were disclosed in a few +incisive strokes. Elektra's mind had indeed given way under the strain +of her sufferings, brought about by her long waiting for vengeance, but +it had given way under the light of holy triumph. Such indeed were the +fundamentals of this tremendously moving characterization, a +characterization which one must place, perforce, in that great memory +gallery where hang the Mélisande of Mary Garden, the Isolde of Olive +Fremstad, and the Boris Godunow of Feodor Chaliapine. + +It was not alone in her acting that Mme. Mazarin walked on the heights. +I know of no other singer with the force or vocal equipment for this +difficult rôle. At the time this music drama was produced its intervals +were considered in the guise of unrelated notes. It was the cry that the +voice parts were written without reference to the orchestral score, and +that these wandered up and down without regard for the limitations of a +singer. Since _Elektra_ was first performed we have travelled far, and +now that we have heard _The Nightingale_ of Strawinsky, for instance, +perusal of Strauss's score shows us a perfectly ordered and +understandable series of notes. Even now, however, there are few of our +singers who could cope with the music of _Elektra_ without devoting a +good many months to its study, and more time to the physical exercise +needful to equip one with the force necessary to carry through the +undertaking. Mme. Mazarin never faltered. She sang the notes with +astonishing accuracy; nay, more, with potent vocal colour. Never did the +orchestral flood o'er-top her flow of sound. With consummate skill she +realized the composer's intentions as completely as she had those of the +poet. + +Those who were present at the first American performance of this work +will long bear the occasion in mind. The outburst of applause which +followed the close of the play was almost hysterical in quality, and +after a number of recalls Mme. Mazarin fainted before the curtain. Many +in the audience remained long enough to receive the reassuring news that +she had recovered. As a reporter of musical doings on the "New York +Times," I sought information as to her condition at the dressing-room of +the artist. Somewhere between the auditorium and the stage, in a +passageway, I encountered Mrs. Patrick Campbell, who, a short time +before, had appeared at the Garden Theatre in Arthur Symons's +translation of von Hofmannsthal's drama. Although we had never met +before, in the excitement of the moment we became engaged in +conversation, and I volunteered to escort her to Mme. Mazarin's room, +where she attempted to express her enthusiasm. Then I asked her if she +would like to meet Mr. Hammerstein, and she replied that it was her +great desire at this moment to meet the impresario and to thank him for +the indelible impression this evening in the theatre had given her. I +led her to the corner of the stage where he sat, in his high hat, +smoking his cigar, and I presented her to him. "But Mrs. Campbell was +introduced to me only three minutes ago," he said. She stammered her +acknowledgment of the fact. "It's true," she said. "I have been so +completely carried out of myself that I had forgotten!" + +_August 22, 1916._ + + + + +Yvette Guilbert + + "_She sings of life, and mirth and all that moves_ + _Man's fancy in the carnival of loves;_ + _And a chill shiver takes me as she sings_ + _The pity of unpitied human things._" + + Arthur Symons. + + +The natural evolution of Gordon Craig's theory of the stage finally +brought him to the point where he would dispense altogether with the +play and the actor. The artist-producer would stand alone. Yvette +Guilbert has accomplished this very feat, and accomplished it without +the aid of super-marionettes. She still uses songs as her medium, but +she has very largely discarded the authors and composers of these songs, +recreating them with her own charm and wit and personality and brain. A +song as Yvette Guilbert sings it exists only for a brief moment. It does +not exist on paper, as you will discover if you seek out the printed +version, and it certainly does not exist in the performance of any one +else. Not that most of her songs are not worthy material, chosen as they +are from the store-houses of a nation's treasures, but that her +interpretations are so individual, so charged with deep personal +feeling, so emended, so added to, so embellished with grunts, shrieks, +squeaks, trills, spoken words, extra bars, or even added lines to the +text; so performed that their performance itself constitutes a veritable +(and, unfortunately, an extremely perishable) work of art. Sometimes, +indeed, it has seemed to me that the genius of this remarkable +Frenchwoman could express itself directly, without depending upon songs. + +She could have given no more complete demonstration of the inimitability +of this genius than by her recent determination to lecture on the art of +interpreting songs. Never has Yvette been more fascinating, never more +authoritative than during those three afternoons at Maxine Elliott's +Theatre, devoted ostensibly to the dissection of her method, but before +she had unpacked a single instrument it must have been perfectly obvious +to every auditor in the hall that she was taking great pains to explain +just how impossible it would be for any one to follow in her footsteps, +for any one to imitate her astonishing career. With evident candour and +a multiplicity of detail she told the story of how she had built up her +art. She told how she studied the words of her songs, how she planned +them, what a large part the plasticity of her body played in their +interpretation, and when she was done all she had said only went to +prove that there is but one Yvette Guilbert. + +She stripped all pretence from her vocal method, explained how she sang +now in her throat, now falsetto. "When I wish to make a certain sound +for a certain effect I practise by myself until I succeed in making it. +That is my vocal method. I never had a teacher. I would not trust my +voice to a teacher!" Her method of learning to breathe was a practical +one. She took the refrain of a little French song to work upon. She made +herself learn to sing the separate phrases of this song without +breathing; then two phrases together, etc., until she could sing the +refrain straight through without taking a breath. Ratan Devi has told me +that Indian singers, who never study vocalization in the sense that we +do, are adepts in the art of breathing. "They breathe naturally and with +no difficulty because it never occurs to them to distort a phrase by +interrupting it for breath. They have respect for the phrase and sing it +through. When you study with an occidental music teacher you will find +that he will mark little Vs on the page indicating where the pupil may +take breath until he can capture the length of the phrase. This method +would be incomprehensible to a Hindu or to any other oriental." The +wonderful breath control of Hebrew cantors who sing long and florid +phrases without interruption is another case of the same kind. + +Mme. Guilbert finds her effects everywhere, in nature, in art, in +literature. When she was composing her interpretation of _La Soularde_ +she searched in vain for the cry of the thoughtless children as they +stone the poor drunken hag, until she discovered it, quite by accident +one evening at the Comédie Française, in the shriek of Mounet-Sully in +_Oedipe-Roi_. In studying the _Voyage à Bethléem_, one of the most +popular songs of her répertoire, she felt the need of breaking the +monotony of the stanzas. It was her own idea to interpolate the +watchman's cry of the hours, and to add the jubilant coda, _Il est né, +le divin enfant_, extracted from another song of the same period. With +Guilbert nothing is left to chance. Do you remember one of her most +celebrated chansons, _Notre Petite Compagne_ of Jules Laforgue, which +she sings so strikingly to a Waldteufel waltz, + + _Je suis la femme,_ + _On me connaît._ + +Her interpretation belies the lines. She has contrived to put all the +mystery of the sphinx into her rendering of them. How has she done this? +By means of the cigarette which she smokes throughout the song. She has +confessed as much. Always on the lookout for material which will assist +her in perfecting her art she has observed that when a woman smokes a +cigarette her expression becomes inscrutable. Her effects are +cumulative, built up out of an inexhaustible fund of detail. In those +songs in which she professes to do the least she is really doing the +most. Have you heard her sing _Le Lien Serré_ and witnessed the +impression she produces by sewing, a piece of action not indicated in +the text of the song? Have you heard her sing _L'Hotel Numero 3_, one of +the répertoire of the _gants noirs_ and the old days of the Divan +Japonais? In this song she does not move her body; she scarcely makes a +gesture, and yet her crisp manner of utterance, her subtle emphasis, her +angular pose, are all that are needed to expose the humour of the ditty. +Much the same comment could be made in regard to her interpretation of +_Le Jeune Homme Triste_. The _apache_ songs, on the contrary, are +replete with gesture. Do you remember the splendid _apache_ saluting his +head before he goes to the guillotine? Again Yvette has given away her +secret: "Naturally I have deep feelings. To be an artist one must feel +intensely, but I find that it is sometimes well to give these feelings a +spur. In this instance I have sewn weights into the lining of the cap of +the _apache_. When I drop the cap it falls with a thud and I am reminded +instinctively of the fall of the knife of the guillotine. This trick +always furnishes me with the thrill I need and I can never sing the +last lines without tears in my eyes and voice." + +It seems ungracious to speak of Yvette Guilbert as a great artist. She +is so much less than that and so much more. She has dedicated her +autobiography to God and it is certain that she believes her genius to +be a holy thing. No one else on the stage to-day has worked so +faithfully, or so long, no one else has so completely fulfilled her +obligations to her art, and certainly no one else is so nearly human. +She compasses the chasm between the artist and the public with ease. She +is even able to do this in America, speaking a foreign tongue, for it +has only been recently that she has learned to speak English freely and +she rarely sings in our language. Her versatility, it seems to me, is +limitless; she expresses the whole world in terms of her own +personality. She never lacks for a method of expression for the effect +she desires to give, and she gives all, heart and brains alike. Now she +is raucous, now tender; have you ever seen so sweet a smile; have you +ever observed so coarse a mien? She can run the gamut from a sleek +priest to a child (as in _C'est le Mai_), from a jealous husband to a +guilty wife (_Le Jaloux et la Menteuse_), from an apache (_Ma Tête_) to +a charming old lady (_Lisette_). + +[Illustration: YVETTE GUILBERT + +_from a photograph by Alice Boughton_] + +It is easy to liken the art of this marvellous woman to something +concrete, to the drawings of Toulouse-Lautrec or Steinlen, the posters +of Chéret ... and there is indeed a suggestion of these men in the work +of Yvette Guilbert. The same broad lines are there, the same ample +style, the same complete effect, but there is more. In certain phases of +her talent, the _gamine_, the _apache_, the _gavroche_, she reflects the +spirit of the inspiration which kindled these painters into creation, +but in other phases, of which _Lisette_, _Les Cloches de Nantes_, _La +Passion_, or _Le Cycle du Vin_ are the expression, you may more readily +compare her style with that of Watteau, Eugene Carrière, Félicien Rops, +or Boucher.... She takes us by the hand through the centuries, offering +us the results of a vast amount of study, a vast amount of erudition, +and a vast amount of work. In so many fine strokes she evokes an epoch. +She has studied the distinction between a curtsey which precedes the +recital of a fable of La Fontaine and a poem of Francis Jammes. She has +closely scrutinized pictures in neglected corridors of the Louvre to +learn the manner in which a cavalier lifts his hat in various periods. +There are those who complain that she emphasizes the dramatic side of +the old French songs, which possibly survive more clearly under more +naïve treatment. Her justification in this instance is the complete +success of her method. The songs serve her purpose, even supposing she +does not serve theirs. But a more valid cause for grievance can be urged +against her. Unfortunately and ill-advisedly she has occasionally +carried something of the scientific into an otherwise delightful +matinée, importing a lecturer, like Jean Beck of Bryn Mawr, to analyze +and describe the music of the middle ages, or even becoming pedantic and +professorial herself; sometimes Yvette preaches or, still worse, permits +some one else, dancer, violinist, or singer to usurp her place on the +platform. These interruptions are sorry moments indeed but such lapses +are forgiven with an almost divine graciousness when Yvette interprets +another song. Then the dull or scholarly interpolations are forgotten. + +I cannot, indeed, know where to begin to praise her or where to stop. My +feelings for her performances (which I have seen and heard whenever I +have been able during the past twelve years in Chicago, New York, +London, and Paris) are unequivocal. There are moments when I am certain +that her rendering of _La Passion_ is her supreme achievement and there +are moments when I prefer to see her as the unrestrained purveyor of the +art of the _chansonniers_ of Montmartre--unrestrained, I say, and yet +it is evident to me that she has refined her interpretations of these +songs, revived twenty-five years after she first sang them, bestowed on +them a spirit which originally she could not give them. From the +beginning _Ma Tête_, _La Soularde_, _La Glu_, _La Pierreuse_, and the +others were drawn as graphically as the pictures of Steinlen, but age +has softened her interpretation of them. What formerly was striking has +now become beautiful, what was always astonishing has become a +masterpiece of artistic expression. Once, indeed, these pictures were +sharply etched, but latterly they have been lithographed, drawn softly +on stone.... I have said that I do not know in what song, in what mood, +I prefer Yvette Guilbert. I can never be certain but if I were asked to +choose a programme I think I should include in it _C'est le Mai_, _La +Légende de St. Nicolas_, _Le Roi a Fait Battre Tambour_, _Les Cloches de +Nantes_, _Le Cycle du Vin_, _Le Lien Serré_, _La Glu_, _Lisette_, _La +Femme_, _Que l'Amour Cause de Peine_, and Oh, how many others! + +All art must be beautiful, says Mme. Guilbert, and she has realized the +meaning of what might have been merely a phrase; no matter how sordid or +trivial her subject she has contrived to make of it something beautiful. +She is not, therefore, a realist in any literal signification of the +word (although I doubt if any actress on the stage can evoke more sense +of character than she) because she always smiles and laughs and weeps +with the women she represents; she sympathizes with them, she humanizes +them, where another interpreter would coldly present them for an +audience to take or to leave, exposing them to cruel inspection. Even in +her interpretation of heartless women it is always to our sense of +humour that she appeals, while in her rendering of _Ma Tête_ and _La +Pierreuse_ she strikes directly at our hearts. Zola once told Mme. +Guilbert that the _apaches_ were the logical descendants of the old +chevaliers of France. "They are the only men we have now who will fight +over a woman!" he said. When you hear Mme. Guilbert call "_Pi-ouit!_" +you will readily perceive that she understands what Zola meant. + +Wonderful Yvette, who has embodied so many pleasant images in the +theatre, who has expressed to the world so much of the soul of France, +so much of the soul of art itself, but, above all, so much of the soul +of humanity. It is not alone General Booth who has made friends of +"drabs from the alley-ways and drug fiends pale--Minds still +passion-ridden, soul-powers frail! Vermin-eaten saints with mouldy +breath, unwashed legions with the ways of death": these are all friends +of Yvette Guilbert too. And when Balzac wrote the concluding paragraph +of "Massimila Doni" he may have foreseen the later application of the +lines.... Surely "the peris, nymphs, fairies, sylphs of the olden time, +the muses of Greece, the marble Virgins of the Certosa of Pavia, the Day +and Night of Michael Angelo, the little angels that Bellini first drew +at the foot of church paintings, and to whom Raphael gave such divine +form at the foot of the Vierge au donataire, and of the Madonna freezing +at Dresden; Orcagna's captivating maidens in the Church of Or San +Michele at Florence, the heavenly choirs on the tombs of St. Sebald at +Nuremberg, several Virgins in the Duomo at Milan, the hordes of a +hundred Gothic cathedrals, the whole nation of figures who break their +forms to come to you, O all-embracing artists--" surely, surely, all +these hover over Yvette Guilbert. + +_April 16, 1917._ + + + + +Waslav Nijinsky + + +"_A thing of beauty is a boy forever._" + +Allen Norton. + + +Serge de Diaghilew brought the dregs of the Russian Ballet to New York +and, after a first greedy gulp, inspired by curiosity to get a taste of +this highly advertised beverage, the public drank none too greedily. The +scenery and the costumes, designed by Bakst, Roerich, Benois, and +Larionow, and the music of Rimsky-Korsakow, Tcherepnine, Schumann, +Borodine, Balakirew, and Strawinsky--especially Strawinsky--arrived. It +was to be deplored, however, that Bakst had seen fit to replace the +original _décor_ of _Scheherazade_ by a new setting in rawer colours, in +which the flaming orange fairly burned into the ultramarine and green +(readers of "A Rebours" will remember that des Esseintes designed a room +something like this). A few of the dancers came, but of the best not a +single one. Nor was Fokine, the dancer-producer, who devised the +choregraphy for _The Firebird_, _Cléopâtre_, and _Petrouchka_, among the +number, although his presence had been announced and expected. To those +enthusiasts, and they included practically every one who had seen the +Ballet in its greater glory, who had prepared their friends for an +overwhelmingly brilliant spectacle, over-using the phrase, "a perfect +union of the arts," the early performances in January, 1916, at the +Century Theatre were a great disappointment. Often had we urged that the +individual played but a small part in this new and gorgeous +entertainment, but now we were forced to admit that the ultimate glamour +was lacking in the ensemble, which was obviously no longer the glad, gay +entity it once had been. + +The picture was still there, the music (not always too well played) but +the interpretation was mediocre. The agile Miassine could scarcely be +called either a great dancer or a great mime. He had been chosen by +Diaghilew for the rôle of Joseph in Richard Strauss's version of the +Potiphar legend but, during the course of a London season carried +through without the co-operation of Nijinsky, this was the only part +allotted to him. In New York he interpreted, not without humour and with +some technical skill, the incidental divertissement from +Rimsky-Korsakow's opera, _The Snow-Maiden_, against a vivid background +by Larionow. The uninspired choregraphy of this ballet was also ascribed +to Miassine by the programme, although probably in no comminatory +spirit. In the small rôle of Eusebius in _Carneval_ and in the +negligible part of the Prince in _The Firebird_ he was entirely +satisfactory, but it was impertinent of the direction to assume that he +would prove an adequate substitute for Nijinsky in rôles to which that +dancer had formerly applied his extremely finished art. + +Adolf Bolm contributed his portraits of the Moor in _Petrouchka_, of +Pierrot in _Carneval_, and of the Chief Warrior in the dances from +_Prince Igor_. These three rôles completely express the possibilities of +Bolm as a dancer or an actor, and sharply define his limitations. His +other parts, Dakon in _Daphnis et Chloë_--Sadko, the Prince in _Thamar_, +Amoun in _Cléopâtre_, the Slave in _Scheherazade_, and Pierrot in +_Papillons_, are only variations on the three afore-mentioned themes. +His friends often confuse his vitality and abundant energy with a sense +of characterization and a skill as a dancer which he does not possess. +For the most part he is content to express himself by stamping his heels +and gnashing his teeth, and when, as in _Cléopâtre_, he attempts to +convey a more subtle meaning to his general gesture, he is not very +successful. Bolm is an interesting and useful member of the +organization, but he could not make or unmake a season; nor could +Gavrilow, who is really a fine dancer in his limited way, although he +is unfortunately lacking in magnetism and any power of characterization. + +But it was on the distaff side of the cast that the Ballet seemed +pitifully undistinguished, even to those who did not remember the early +Paris seasons when the roster included the names of Anna Pavlowa, Tamara +Karsavina, Caterina Gheltzer, and Ida Rubinstein. The leading feminine +dancer of the troupe when it gave its first exhibitions in New York was +Xenia Maclezova, who had not, so far as my memory serves, danced in any +London or Paris season of the Ballet (except for one gala performance at +the Paris Opéra which preceded the American tour), unless in some very +menial capacity. This dancer, like so many others, had the technique of +her art at her toes' ends. Sarah Bernhardt once told a reporter that the +acquirement of technique never did any harm to an artist, and if one +were not an artist it was not a bad thing to have. I have forgotten how +many times Mlle. Maclezova could pirouette without touching the toe in +the air to the floor, but it was some prodigious number. She was +past-mistress of the _entrechat_ and other mysteries of the ballet +academy. Here, however, her knowledge of her art seemed to end, in the +subjugation of its very mechanism. She was very nearly lacking in those +qualities of grace, poetry, and imagination with which great artists are +freely endowed, and although she could not actually have been a woman of +more than average weight, she often conveyed to the spectator an +impression of heaviness. In such a work as _The Firebird_ she really +offended the eye. Far from interpreting the ballet, she gave you an idea +of how it should not be done. + +Her season with the Russians was terminated in very short order, and +Lydia Lopoukova, who happened to be in America, and who, indeed, had +already been engaged for certain rôles, was rushed into her vacant +slippers. Now Mme. Lopoukova had charm as a dancer, whatever her +deficiencies in technique. In certain parts, notably as Colombine in +_Carneval,_ she assumed a roguish demeanor which was very fetching. As +La Ballerine in _Petrouchka,_ too, she met all the requirements of the +action. But in _Le Spectre de la Rose_, _Les Sylphides_, _The Firebird_, +and _La Princesse Enchantée_, she floundered hopelessly out of her +element. + +Tchernicheva, one of the lesser but more steadfast luminaries of the +Ballet, in the rôles for which she was cast, the principal Nymph in +_L'Après-midi d'un Faune_, Echo in _Narcisse_, and the Princess in _The +Firebird_, more than fulfilled her obligations to the ensemble, but her +opportunities in these mimic plays were not of sufficient importance to +enable her to carry the brunt of the performances on her lovely +shoulders. Flore Revalles was drafted, I understand, from a French opera +company. I have been told that she sings--Tosca is one of her rôles--as +well as she dances. That may very well be. To impressionable spectators +she seemed a real _femme fatale_. Her Cléopâtre suggested to me a +Parisian _cocotte_ much more than an Egyptian queen. It would be +blasphemy to compare her with Ida Rubinstein in this rôle--Ida +Rubinstein, who was true Aubrey Beardsley! In Thamar and Zobeide, both +to a great extent dancing rôles, Mlle. Revalles, both as dancer and +actress, was but a frail substitute for Karsavina. + +The remainder of the company was adequate, but not large, and the +ensemble was by no means as brilliant as those who had seen the Ballet +in London or Paris might have expected. Nor in the absence of Fokine, +that master of detail, were performances sufficiently rehearsed. There +was, of course, explanation in plenty for this disintegration. +Gradually, indeed, the Ballet as it had existed in Europe had suffered a +change. Only a miracle and a fortune combined would have sufficed to +hold the original company intact. It was not held intact, and the war +made further inroads on its integrity. Then, for the trip to America +many of the dancers probably were inclined to demand double pay. +Undoubtedly, Serge de Diaghilew had many more troubles than those which +were celebrated in the public prints, and it must be admitted that, even +with his weaker company, he gave us finer exhibitions of stage art than +had previously been even the exception here. + +In the circumstances, however, certain pieces, which were originally +produced when the company was in the flush of its first glory, should +never have been presented here at all. It was not the part of reason, +for example, to pitchfork on the Century stage an indifferent +performance of _Le Pavilion d'Armide_, in which Nijinsky once disported +himself as the favourite slave, and which, as a matter of fact, requires +a company of _virtuosi_ to make it a passable diversion. _Cléopâtre_, in +its original form with Nijinsky, Fokine, Pavlowa, Ida Rubinstein, and +others, hit all who saw it square between the eyes. The absurdly +expurgated edition, with its inadequate cast, offered to New York, was +but the palest shadow of the sensuous entertainment that had aroused all +Paris, from the Batignolles to the Bastille. The music, the setting, the +costumes--what else was left to celebrate? The altered choregraphy, the +deplorable interpretation, drew tears of rage from at least one pair of +eyes. It was quite incomprehensible also why _The Firebird_, which +depends on the grace and poetical imagination of the filmiest and most +fairy-like actress-dancer, should have found a place in the répertoire. +It is the dancing equivalent of a coloratura soprano rôle in opera. +Thankful, however, for the great joy of having re-heard Strawinsky's +wonderful score, I am willing to overlook this tactical error. + +All things considered, it is small wonder that a large slice of the +paying population of New York tired of the Ballet in short order. One +reason for this cessation of interest was the constant repetition of +ballets. In London and Paris the seasons as a rule have been shorter, +and on certain evenings of the week opera has taken the place of the +dance. It has been rare indeed that a single work has been repeated more +than three or four times during an engagement. I have not found it +stupid to listen to and look at perhaps fifteen performances of varying +degrees of merit of _Petrouchka_, _Scheherazade_, _Carneval_, and the +dances from _Prince Igor_; I would rather see the Russian Ballet +repeatedly, even as it existed in America, than four thousand five +hundred and six Broadway plays or seventy-three operas at the +Metropolitan once, but I dare say I may look upon myself as an +exception. + +At any rate, when the company entered upon a four weeks' engagement at +the Metropolitan Opera House, included in the regular subscription +season of opera, the subscribers groaned; many of them groaned aloud, +and wrote letters to the management and to the newspapers. To be sure, +during the tour which had followed the engagement at the Century the +répertoire had been increased, but the company remained the same--until +the coming of Waslav Nijinsky. + +When America was first notified of the impending visit of the Russian +Ballet it was also promised that Waslav Nijinsky and Tamara Karsavina +would head the organization. It was no fault of the American direction +or of Serge de Diaghilew that they did not do so. Various excuses were +advanced for the failure of Karsavina to forsake her family in Russia +and to undertake the journey to the United States but, whatever the +cause, there seems to remain no doubt that she refused to come. As for +Nijinsky, he, with his wife, had been a prisoner in an Austrian +detention camp since the beginning of the war. Wheels were set grinding +but wheels grind slowly in an epoch of international bloodshed, and it +was not until March, 1916, that the Austrian ambassador at Washington +was able to announce that Nijinsky had been set free. + +I do not believe the coming to this country of any other celebrated +person had been more widely advertised, although P. T. Barnum may have +gone further in describing the charitable and vocal qualities of Jenny +Lind. Nijinsky had been extravagantly praised, not only by the official +press representatives but also by eminent critics and private persons, +in adjectives which seemed to preclude any possibility of his living up +to them. I myself had been among the pæan singers. I had thrust +"half-man, half-god" into print. "A flame!" cried some one. Another, "A +jet of water from a fountain!" Such men in the street as had taken the +trouble to consider the subject at all very likely expected the arrival +of some stupendous and immortal monstrosity, a gravity-defying being +with sixteen feet (at least), who bounded like a rubber ball, never +touching the solid stage except at the beginning and end of the +evening's performance. + +Nijinsky arrived in April. Almost immediately he gave vent to one of +those expressions of temperament often associated with interpretative +genius, the kind of thing I have described at some length in "Music and +Bad Manners." He was not at all pleased with the Ballet as he found it. +Interviewed, he expressed his displeasure in the newspapers. The +managers of the organization wisely remained silent, and a controversy +was avoided, but the public had received a suggestion of petulance which +could not contribute to the popularity of the new dancer. + +Nijinsky danced for the first time in New York on the afternoon of April +12, at the Metropolitan Opera House. The pieces in which he appeared on +that day were _Le Spectre de la Rose_ and _Petrouchka_. Some of us +feared that eighteen months in a detention camp would have stamped their +mark on the dancer. As a matter of fact his connection with the Russian +Ballet had been severed in 1913, a year before the war began. I can say +for myself that I was probably a good deal more nervous than Nijinsky on +the occasion of his first appearance in America. It would have been a +cruel disappointment to me to have discovered that his art had perished +during the intervening three years since I had last seen him. My fears +were soon dissipated. A few seconds after he as the Rose Ghost had +bounded through the window, it was evident that he was in possession of +all his powers; nay, more, that he had added to the refinement and +polish of his style. I had called Nijinsky's dancing perfection in years +gone by, because it so far surpassed that of his nearest rival; now he +had surpassed himself. True artists, indeed, have a habit of +accomplishing this feat. I may call to your attention the careers of +Olive Fremstad, Yvette Guilbert, and Marie Tempest. Later I learned that +this first impression might be relied on. Nijinsky, in sooth, has now no +rivals upon the stage. One can only compare him with himself! + +The Weber-Gautier dance-poem, from the very beginning until the end, +when he leaps out of the window of the girl's chamber into the night, +affords this great actor-dancer one of his most grateful opportunities. +It is in this very part, perhaps, which requires almost unceasing +exertion for nearly twelve minutes, that Nijinsky's powers of +co-ordination, mental, imaginative, muscular, are best displayed. His +dancing is accomplished in that flowing line, without a break between +poses and gestures, which is the despair of all novices and almost all +other _virtuosi_. After a particularly difficult leap or toss of the +legs or arms, it is a marvel to observe how, without an instant's pause +to regain his poise, he rhythmically glides into the succeeding +gesture. His dancing has the unbroken quality of music, the balance of +great painting, the meaning of fine literature, and the emotion inherent +in all these arts. There is something of transmutation in his +performances; he becomes an alembic, transforming movement into a finely +wrought and beautiful work of art. The dancing of Nijinsky is first an +imaginative triumph, and the spectator, perhaps, should not be +interested in further dissection of it, but a more intimate observer +must realize that behind this the effect produced depends on his supreme +command of his muscles. It is not alone the final informing and +magnetized imaginative quality that most other dancers lack; it is also +just this muscular co-ordination. Observe Gavrilow in the piece under +discussion, in which he gives a good imitation of Nijinsky's general +style, and you will see that he is unable to maintain this rhythmic +continuity. + +Nijinsky's achievements become all the more remarkable when one +remembers that he is working with an imperfect physical medium. Away +from the scene he is an insignificant figure, short and ineffective in +appearance. Aside from the pert expression of his eyes, he is like a +dozen other young Russians. Put him unintroduced into a drawing-room +with Jacques Copeau, Orchidée, Doris Keane, Bill Haywood, Edna Kenton, +the Baroness de Meyer, Paulet Thevenaz, the Marchesa Casati, Marcel +Duchamp, Cathleen Nesbitt, H. G. Wells, Anna Pavlowa, Rudyard +Chennevière, Vladimir Rebikow, Henrie Waste, and Isadora Duncan, and he +probably would pass entirely unnoticed. On the stage it may be observed +that the muscles of his legs are overdeveloped and his ankles are too +large; that is, if you are in the mood for picking flaws, which most of +us are not in the presence of Nijinsky in action. Here, however, +stricture halts confounded; his head is set on his shoulders in a manner +to give satisfaction to a great sculptor, and his torso, with its +slender waist line, is quite beautiful. On the stage, Nijinsky makes of +himself what he will. He can look tall or short, magnificent or ugly, +fascinating or repulsive. Like so many interpretative artists, he +remoulds himself for his public appearances. It is under the electric +light in front of the painted canvas that he becomes a personality, and +that personality is governed only by the scenario of the ballet he is +representing. + +From the day of Nijinsky's arrival, the ensemble of the Ballet improved; +somewhat of the spontaneity of the European performances was regained; +a good deal of the glamour was recaptured; the loose lines were gathered +taut, and the choregraphy of Fokine (Nijinsky is a director as well as a +dancer) was restored to some of its former power. He has appeared in +nine rôles in New York during the two short seasons in which he has been +seen with the Russian Ballet here: the Slave in _Scheherazade_, +Petrouchka, the Rose Ghost, the Faun, the Harlequin in _Carneval_, +Narcisse, Till Eulenspiegel, and the principal male rôles of _La +Princesse Enchantée_ and _Les Sylphides_. To enjoy the art of Nijinsky +completely, to fully appreciate his genius, it is necessary not only to +see him in a variety of parts, but also to see him in the same rôle many +times. + +Study the detail of his performance in _Scheherazade_, for example. Its +precision alone is noteworthy. Indeed, precision is a quality we see +exposed so seldom in the theatre that when we find it we are almost +inclined to hail it as genius. The rôle of the Slave in this ballet is +perhaps Nijinsky's scenic masterpiece--exotic eroticism expressed in so +high a key that its very existence seems incredible on our puritanic +stage, and yet with such great art (the artist always expresses himself +with beauty) that the intention is softened by the execution. Before +the arrival of this dancer, _Scheherazade_ had become a police court +scandal. There had been talk of a "Jim Crow" performance in which the +blacks were to be separated from the whites in the harem, and I am told +that our provincial police magistrates even wanted to replace the +"mattresses"--so were the divans of the sultanas described in court--by +rocking chairs! But to the considerably more vivid _Scheherazade_ of +Nijinsky no exception was taken. This strange, curious, head-wagging, +simian creature, scarce human, wriggled through the play, leaving a long +streak of lust and terror in his wake. Never did Nijinsky as the Negro +Slave touch the Sultana, but his subtle and sensuous fingers fluttered +close to her flesh, clinging once or twice questioningly to a depending +tassel. Pierced by the javelins of the Sultan's men, the Slave's death +struggle might have been revolting and gruesome. Instead, Nijinsky +carried the eye rapidly upward with his tapering feet as they balanced +for the briefest part of a second straight high in the air, only to fall +inert with so brilliantly quick a movement that the æsthetic effect +grappled successfully with the feeling of disgust which might have been +aroused. This was acting, this was characterization, so completely +merged in rhythm that the result became a perfect whole, and not a +combination of several intentions, as so often results from the work of +an actor-dancer. + +The heart-breaking Petrouchka, the roguish Harlequin, the Chopiniac of +_Les Sylphides_,--all were offered to our view; and _Narcisse_, in which +Nijinsky not only did some very beautiful dancing, but posed (as the +Greek youth admired himself in the mirror of the pool) with such utter +and arresting grace that even here he awakened a definite thrill. In _La +Princesse Enchantée_ he merely danced, but how he danced! Do you who saw +him still remember those flickering fingers and toes? "He winketh with +his eyes, he speaketh with his feet, he teacheth with his fingers," is +written in the Book of Proverbs, and the writer might have had in mind +Nijinsky in _La Princesse Enchantée_. All these parts were +differentiated, all completely realized, in the threefold intricacy of +this baffling art, which perhaps is not an art at all until it is so +realized, when its plastic, rhythmic, and histrionic elements become an +entity. + +After a summer in Spain and Switzerland, without Nijinsky, the Russian +Ballet returned to America for a second season, opening at the Manhattan +Opera House October 16, 1916. It is always a delight to hear and see +performances in this theatre, and it was found that the brilliance of +the Ballet was much enhanced by its new frame. The season, however, +opened with a disappointment. It had been announced that Nijinsky would +dance on the first night his choregraphic version of Richard Strauss's +tone-poem, _Till Eulenspiegel_. It is not the first time that a press +agent has made a false prophecy. While rehearsing the new work, Nijinsky +twisted his ankle, and during the first week of the engagement he did +not appear at all. This was doubly unfortunate, because the company was +weaker than it had been the previous season, lacking both Miassine and +Tchernicheva. The only novelty (for America) produced during the first +week was an arrangement of the divertissement from Rimsky-Korsakow's +opera, _Sadko_, which had already been given a few times in Paris and +London by the Ballet, never with conspicuous success. The second week of +the season, Nijinsky returned to appear in three rôles, the Faun, Till +Eulenspiegel, and the Slave in _Scheherazade_. Of his performance to +Debussy's lovely music I have written elsewhere; nor did this new vision +cause me to revise my opinions. + +_Till Eulenspiegel_ is the only new ballet the Russians have produced in +America. (_Soleil de Nuit_ was prepared in Europe, and performed once at +the Paris Opéra before it was seen in New York. Besides, it was an +arrangement of dances from an opera which is frequently given in Russia +and which has been presented at the Opéra-Comique in Paris.) The _chef +d'orchestre_, Pierre Monteux, refused to direct performances of this +work, on the ground that the composer was not only a German, but a very +much alive and active German patriot. On the occasions, therefore, that +_Till_ was performed in New York, the orchestra struggled along under +the baton of Dr. Anselm Goetzl. In selecting this work and in his +arrangement of the action Nijinsky was moved, no doubt, by consideration +for the limitations of the company as it existed,--from which he was +able to secure the effects he desired. The scenery and costumes by +Robert E. Jones, of New York, were decidedly diverting--the best work +this talented young man has done, I think. Over a deep, spreading +background of ultramarine, the crazy turrets of mediæval castles leaned +dizzily to and fro. The costumes were exaggerations of the exaggerated +fashions of the Middle Ages. Mr. Jones added feet of stature to the +already elongated peaked headdresses of the period. The trains of the +velvet robes, which might have extended three yards, were allowed to +trail the full depth of the Manhattan Opera House stage. The colours +were oranges, reds, greens, and blues, those indeed of Bakst's +_Scheherazade_, but so differently disposed that they made an entirely +dissimilar impression. The effect reminded one spectator of a Spanish +omelet. + +In arranging the scenario, Nijinsky followed in almost every detail +Wilhelm Klatte's description of the meaning of the music, which is +printed in programme books whenever the tone-poem is performed, without +Strauss's authority, but sometimes with his sanction. Nijinsky was quite +justified in altering the end of the work, which hangs the rogue-hero, +into another practical joke. His version of this episode fits the music +and, in the original _Till Eulenspiegel_ stories, Till is not hanged, +but dies in bed. The keynote of Nijinsky's interpretation was gaiety. He +was as utterly picaresque as the work itself; he reincarnated the spirit +of Gil Blas; indeed, a new quality crept into stage expression through +this characterization. Margaret Wycherly, one of the most active +admirers of the dancer, told me after the first performance that she +felt that he had for the first time leaped into the hearts of the great +American public, whose appreciation of his subtler art as expressed in +_Narcisse_, _Petrouchka_, and even _Scheherazade_, had been more +moderate. There were those who protested that this was not the Till of +the German legends, but any actor who attempts to give form to a folk +or historical character, or even a character derived from fiction, is +forced to run counter to many an observer's preconceived ideas. + +[Illustration: WASLAV NIJINSKY IN DEBUSSY'S _JEUX_ (1913)] + +"It is an error to believe that pantomime is merely a way of doing +without words," writes Arthur Symons," that it is merely the equivalent +of words. Pantomime is thinking overheard. It begins and ends before +words have formed themselves, in a deeper consciousness than that of +speech. And it addresses itself, by the artful limitations of its craft, +to universal human experience, knowing that the moment it departs from +those broad lines it will become unintelligible. It risks existence on +its own perfection, as the rope-dancer does, to whom a false step means +a down-fall. And it appeals democratically to people of all nations.... +And pantomime has that mystery which is one of the requirements of true +art. To watch it is like dreaming. How silently, in dreams, one gathers +the unheard sounds of words from the lips that do but make pretence of +saying them! And does not every one know that terrifying impossibility +of speaking which fastens one to the ground for the eternity of a +second, in what is the new, perhaps truer, computation of time in +dreams? Something like that sense of suspense seems to hang over the +silent actors in pantomime, giving them a nervous exaltation, which has +its subtle, immediate effect upon us, in tragic and comic situation. The +silence becomes an atmosphere, and with a very curious power of giving +distinction to form and motion. I do not see why people should ever +break silence on the stage except to speak poetry. Here, in pantomime, +you have a gracious, expressive silence, beauty of gesture, a perfectly +discreet appeal to the emotions, a transposition of the world into an +elegant accepted convention." + +Arthur Symons wrote these words before he had seen the Russian Ballet, +before the Russian Ballet, as we know it, existed, indeed, before +Nijinsky had begun to dance in public, and he felt that the addition of +poetry and music to pantomime--the Wagner music-drama in other +words--brought about a perfect combination of the arts. Nevertheless, +there is an obvious application of his remarks to the present instance. +There is, indeed, the quality of a dream about the characters Nijinsky +presents to us. I remember once, at a performance of the Russian Ballet, +I sat in a box next to a most intelligent man, a writer himself; I was +meeting him for the first time, and he was seeing the Ballet for the +first time. Before the curtain rose he had told me that dancing and +pantomime were very pretty to look at, but that he found no stimulation +in watching them, no mental and spiritual exaltation, such as might +follow a performance of _Hamlet_. Having seen Nijinsky, I could not +agree with him--and this indifferent observer became that evening +himself a fervent disciple of the Ballet. For Nijinsky gave him, he +found, just what his ideal performance of Shakespeare's play might have +given him, a basis for dreams, for thinking, for poetry. The ennobling +effect of all great and perfect art, after the primary emotion, seems to +be to set our minds wandering in a thousand channels, to suggest new +outlets. Pater's experience before the _Monna Lisa_ is only unique in +its intense and direct expression. + +No writer, no musician, no painter, can feel deep emotion before a work +of art without expressing it in some way, although the expression may be +a thousand leagues removed from the inspiration. And how few of us can +view the art of Nijinsky without emotion! To the painter he gives a new +sense of proportion, to the musician a new sense of rhythm, while to the +writer he must perforce immediately suggest new words; better still, new +meanings for old words. Dance, pantomime, acting, harmony, all these +divest themselves of their worn-out accoutrements and appear, as if +clothed by magic, in garments of unheard-of novelty; hue, texture, cut, +and workmanship are all a surprise to us. We look enraptured, we go away +enthralled, and perhaps even unconsciously a new quality creeps into our +own work. It is the same glamour cast over us by contemplation of the +Campo Santo at Pisa, or the Roman Theatre at Orange, or the Cathedral at +Chartres,--the inspiration for one of the most word-jewelled books in +any language--or the New York sky line at twilight as one sails away +into the harbour, or a great iron crane which lifts tons of alien matter +in its gaping jaw. Great music can give us this feeling, the symphonies +of Beethoven, Mozart's _Don Giovanni_, Schubert's _C Major Symphony_, or +César Franck's _D Minor_, _The Sacrifice to the Spring_ of Strawinsky, +_L'Après-midi d'un Faune_ of Debussy, Chabrier's Rhapsody, _España_; +great interpretative musicians can give it to us, Ysaye at his best, +Paderewski, Marcella Sembrich in song recital; but how few artists on +the stage suggest even as much as the often paltry lines of the author, +the often banal music of the composer! There is an _au delà_ to all +great interpretative art, something that remains after story, words, +picture, and gesture have faded vaguely into that storeroom in our +memories where are concealed these lovely ghosts of ephemeral beauty, +and the artist who is able to give us this is blessed even beyond his +knowledge, for to him has been vouchsafed the sacred kiss of the gods. +This quality cannot be acquired, it cannot even be described, but it can +be felt. With its beneficent aid the interpreter not only contributes to +our pleasure, he broadens our horizon, adds to our knowledge and +capacity for feeling. + +As I read over these notes I realize that I have not been able to +discover flaws in the art of this young man. It seems to me that in his +chosen medium he approaches perfection. What he attempts to do, he +always does perfectly. Can one say as much for any other interpreter? +But it is a difficult matter to give the spirit of Nijinsky, to describe +his art on paper, to capture the abundant grace, the measureless poetry, +the infinite illusion of his captivating motion in ink. Who can hope to +do it? Future generations must take our word for his greatness. We can +do little more than call it that. I shall have served my purpose if I +have succeeded in this humble article in bringing back to those who have +seen him a flashing glimpse of the imaginative actuality. + +_January 16, 1917._ + + + + +Epilogue + +_as a substitute for a preface to the new edition_. + + +I + +It was formerly the custom, in England at any rate, to publish one book +in two or three volumes. Judge, therefore, of my dismay and delight on +discovering, shortly after the first appearance of "Interpreters and +Interpretations," in 1917, that I, abetted by my always delightfully +agreeable publisher, had issued two books in one volume! Even the title +itself fell apart. This practical detail has made it a comparatively +simple matter to exhibit these twins separately in the future, and such +is my intention. This volume, then, contains the first half of the +longer book. + +I have been asked occasionally why I devote so much attention in my +writing to interpreters. The answer is, of course, that I devote very +little attention to them, not enough, I sometimes think. This book, +indeed, says nearly all that I have said up to date on the subject. But +I am not at all in sympathy with those critics of music and the drama +who lay stress on the relative unimportance of interpreters. Sometimes I +am inclined to believe that interpreters, who mould their own +personalities rather than clay or words, are greater than creators. I +think we might have a more ideal theatre if interpreters could be their +own creators, like the mediæval troubadours or the gipsies of Spain. For +there are many disadvantages about creative art. One of them is its +persistence. Beethoven and Dante wrote notes and letters down on paper +and there they remain, apparently forever. It is very annoying. Legends +hover round the names of these artists, and for centuries after their +deaths all the stupid creators in the world try to do something similar +to the work these men have done, and all the really inspired artists +have to pass a period of probation during which they strive to forget +the work these men have done. "You will find," remarks sagaciously one +Henry C. Lunn, "that people will often praise a bad fugue because Bach +has produced so many good ones." It would be much better for everybody +if a law were passed consigning all creative work to the flames ten +years after it saw the light. Then we would have novelty. If Beethoven +recurred again, at least nobody would know it. Any knowledge about books +or pictures or music of the past would have to be carried in the memory +and in a few decades all memory of anything that was not essential would +have disappeared. It must have been a thrilling experience to have +lived in Alexandria at the time the library was burned. Just think, +twenty years after that event, philosophers and professors probably +could be found in Alexandria who did not go round with long faces +telling you what had been done and what should be done. No references to +the early Assyrians and the Greeks until the papyruses were replaced. +The Renaissance and the Revival of Learning, on the other hand, +doubtless pleasant enough at the time, smeared a terrible blot on the +future of art. + +Now interpretative art is different. It depends upon the contemporary +individual, and some of its most thrilling effects may be entirely +accidental. Any traditions which persist in interpretative art must be +carried in the memory. In exceptional cases, of course, a singer, a +dancer, or an actor is able to so stamp his or her personal achievement +into the flowing rhythm of artistic space that a _style_ does persist. +We have a very good example before us in the case of Isadora Duncan, who +has been followed by a long train of animated Grecian urns. The +deleterious effect of this persistence of an interpretative tradition +must be apparent to any one. For the imitator of an interpreter is a +thousand times more futile than the imitator of a creator. Fortunately, +on the whole, styles in acting, in singing, and in dancing frequently +change. The Catalani-Jenny Lind-Patti tradition, which God knows has +hung on long enough, is nearly exhausted. We live in the age of the Mary +Garden tradition. + +There is another and even better reason why I find it pleasant to write +about interpreters. In looking over the books on music written in the +past I find that the books about singers are infinitely more fascinating +than the books about composers. I am enthralled by what H. F. Chorley +has to say about Pauline Viardot and Henrietta Sontag; I am delighted +with the Goncourt's books about Guimard, Clairon, and Sophie Arnould. +Auguste Ehrhard's "Fanny Elssler" is an extraordinary document and one +cannot afford to miss P. T. Barnum on Jenny Lind and Mapleson on Patti. +But I find that the old scribes on Mozart and Mendelssohn, Beethoven and +Schubert, quite bore me, and it is impossible to say anything new about +these men. Books about Beethoven are still appearing but I advise nobody +to read them. The authors have arrived at that fine point where they can +only compare authorities and quibble about details. Was Beethoven in a +cold sweat when he composed the _Ninth Symphony_ or was he merely angry? +The ink on the manuscript of such and such a work being blotted on a +certain page, interest naturally arises as to whether the fifth note in +the sixteenth bar is F sharp or G flat. Did Haydn or Prince H---- conduct +the first performance of the _Symphony in X major_? Did Weber arrive in +England on Thursday or Friday? And so on. It is all very tiresome. + +Sometimes I believe that it is the whole duty of a critic to write about +interpreters, about the interpretative arts. Less is understood about +acting, singing, and dancing than about anything else in the field of +æsthetic discussion, the more that is written about them, therefore, the +better. Besides creative artists speak for themselves. Anybody can read +a book; anybody can see a picture, or a reproduction of it. As for +posterity it rejects all contemporary criticism of creative work; it has +no use for it. It goes back to the work itself. So the critic of +creative work entirely disappears in the course of a few years. After +his short day nobody will read him any more. + +Now an actor, a singer, or a dancer, can appear in comparatively few +places for a comparatively short time. The number of people who can see +or hear these interpreters is relatively small; consequently they like +to read about them. As for posterity it is absolutely dependent upon +books for its knowledge of the interpreters of a bygone day. That is the +only way it can see the actors of the past. For that reason I am +perfectly sure in my own mind that of such of my books as are devoted to +criticism this is the one most likely to please posterity. + +All criticism may not be creative writing, but certainly all good +criticism is. For all good writing should be self-expression and the +subject treated and the form into which it is cast are mere matters of +convenience. There is no essential difference between poetry, fiction, +drama, and essay. An essay may be as creative as a work of fiction, +often it is more so. You will find criticism elsewhere than in the work +of acknowledged critics. Dostoevsky's "The House of the Dead" is +certainly a critical work, but the author chooses to criticize the +conditions under which human beings are compelled to live rather than +the works of Pushkin. Turgeniev once wrote to Flaubert, "There is no +longer any artist of the present time who is not also a critic." He +might have added that while all artists are assuredly critics, all +critics are not artists. On the other hand Walter Pater's famous passage +about the _Monna Lisa_ is certainly creative; it might almost be held +responsible for the vogue of the picture. Before the war, nearly any day +you might find frail American ladies from the Middle West standing in +front of Leonardo's canvas and repeating the lines like so much +doggerel. All artists express themselves as they may but they are not +artists unless they express _themselves_. Only thus may they establish a +current between themselves and their readers; only thus may they arouse +emotion. And if they succeed in arousing emotion we may disregard the +form in which their work is cast and bathe in the essence of spirit and +idea. + +Whether you agree with this theory or not you must be compelled to admit +that criticism of interpreters, if it is anything at all, is bound to be +creative. For the art of the interpreter exists in time and space only +for the moment in an arbitrary place. Therefore he who writes about an +interpreter is using him to express certain ideas as a painter uses his +model. + +It is a well-established fact that singers and actors in general only +approve of the critics who praise them, but it will readily be apparent +that there is a good instinctive reason back of this peculiarity. Their +work only lives as it exists in criticism and people who dwell in places +where these actors are not to be seen or in times after they are dead +must perforce depend upon the critic for their impressions of these +interpreters. The case of creative work is entirely different. The +creator of genius should never be disturbed by a bad criticism. If his +work is good it will far outlast the criticism. Indeed a bad notice +helps a fine book to find its public sooner than a good notice, because +it attracts attention and stimulates discussion. I think it is likely, +for instance, that the striking collection of bad notices of his +previous books, which James Branch Cabell inserted in the end pages of +"The Cream of the Jest," did as much to advertise that author as the +subsequent publication of "Jurgen." + + +II + +Somewhere in Agnes G. Murphy's vivid but somewhat hysterical account of +the life and adventures of Madame Melba, the diva's Boswell declares +that the singer never permitted herself the pleasure of meeting +newspaper critics lest, it is to be assumed, they should be prejudiced +in her favour through the acquaintanceship. I can assure Madame Melba +that this decision, if strictly adhered to, has cost her many pleasant +hours, for I number certain music critics among my most diverting +friends. I can further assure these colleagues of mine that they have +missed knowing a very amusing woman, for once, not being considered at +the time anything so formidable as a critic, I was permitted to sit next +to the Australian canary while she toyed with her grapefruit and tasted +her _oeuf bénédictine_. + +Madame Melba's point of view is not held exclusively by her. There are +many singers who believe that a series of dinner invitations will buy a +critic's pen; a few do not hesitate to offer emerald stick-pins and even +substantial cheques. These methods are often entirely successful. On the +other hand there are critics who will rush across the street, though the +mud be ankle deep, to avoid an introduction to an artist. I have been +frequently asked where I stood in the matter, as if it were necessary to +take a stand and defend it. + +I may say that if my profession kept me from knowing anybody I really +wanted to know I should relinquish that profession without hesitation. +It is absurd to feel that you cannot dine with a singer without praising +her performances. Many days in each month I dine with authors whose +works I abhor. I find their companionship delightful. Should I be +deprived of their society because I happen to be a critic? I suppose I +have a price--almost everybody has--but I should like to state right +here and now that it is not a dinner, or a series of dinners, or even an +emerald scarf-pin. I should be inclined, however, I admit frankly, to +say at least gentle things about a lady who made me a present of a +blooded silver cat. + +But the crux of the matter lies deeper than this. No mere music critic +can hope to write about singing, violin playing, or piano playing +without knowing singers, violinists, and pianists. He can learn much +from books, from the reviews of other critics, from hearing +performances, but the great critics are those who study from the lips of +the interpreters themselves. The valuable hints, suggestions, and +inspiration that a critic with an open mind can gather from an +interpreter are priceless, and not to be found elsewhere. Not that an +interpreter will always tell the truth, not that he always knows what +the truth is in his particular case. Nevertheless any _virtuoso_ will +always have something of interest to say. It stands to reason that any +man or woman who has devoted his life to his profession will know more +about its difficulties, limitations, and tricks, than a mere critic can +hope to learn in any way except through social intercourse with the +interpreter. A young critic may learn much through reading Chorley, +Burney, Schumann, Ernest Newman, and James Huneker. He can further +prepare himself for his trade by listening with open ears to concerts +and operas (although, in passing, it may be stated categorically that no +critic learns immediately the value of opening his ears, so steeped is +he in the false tradition of his craft), by burying his nose in the +scores of the masters, and by reading all that the composers themselves +may have said about the performances of their works. But he can learn +more in a five-minute conversation with a great orchestral conductor, a +great singer, or a great instrumentalist than he can in all the other +ways combined. + +Arturo Toscanini, Mary Garden, Ysaye, Marcella Sembrich, Yvette +Guilbert, Pablo Casals, Fritz Kreisler, Waslav Nijinsky, Marguerite +d'Alvarez, or Leo Ornstein can give any reviewer, young or old, +invaluable lessons. Such as these are their own severest critics and +they teach the writer-critic to be severe--and just. One piece of +advice, however, I would give to prospective critics. Become acquainted +with artist-interpreters by all means, but other things being equal, it +is perhaps better to meet good artists than bad ones! + + +III + +Chaliapine, Nijinsky, Mazarin, and Fremstad[A] have not appeared on the +New York stage since I painted their portraits; nor have I seen them +elsewhere. Consequently any revision I might make in these pictures +would be revision of what I felt then in terms of what I feel now. +Nothing could be more ridiculous. So I let them stand as they are. + +With Yvette Guilbert the case is somewhat different. She has been before +the American public almost consistently since the original publication +of this book. Her work at her own recitals is still the fine thing it +was and probably will remain so for a great many years to come. Madame +Guilbert, however, has seen fit to appear in a play at the Neighbourhood +Playhouse in New York, a fourteenth century French miracle play called +_Guibour_. + +It is often said of an actress that she is too great to fail even when a +part does not suit her. But this is an utterly fallacious theory. Only +_great_ actresses _can_ fail. A really bad actress always fails and +consequently cannot be considered at all. A mediocre or conventional +actress is neither very good nor very bad in any rôle, but a great +actress, when she fails, fails magnificently, because she plays with +such precision and authority that she is worse than a lesser person +possibly could be. + +Certainly Yvette Guilbert failed magnificently in _Guibour_. I have been +told that her infrequent performances in comedy in Paris have been +equally unsuccessful. When Guilbert sings a song she is forced by the +very nature of her method to make much of little; without setting, +frequently without costume, without the aid of other actors, she is +obliged in a period of three or four minutes to give her public an +atmosphere, several characters, and a miniature drama. Now, taking into +consideration the average low rate of intelligence and the almost entire +lack of imagination of the ordinary theatre audience, she is compelled +to chuck in as much detail as the thing will hold. The result is +generally admirable. In a play, however, this method becomes monotonous, +tiresome, picayune, fussy, overelaborate. One does not want the lift of +an eyelash, a gesture with every line; one does not want emphasis on +every word. The great actors employ broader methods. It was here that +Madame Guilbert failed, by applying the extremely efficacious technique +of her own perfect craft to another craft which calls for another +technique. + +[Illustration: GERALDINE FARRAR AS ZAZA + +_from a photograph by Geisler and Andrews (1920)_] + +Geraldine Farrar has been seen and heard in a number of impersonations +at the Metropolitan Opera House (she has also enlarged her cinema +répertoire), since I wrote my paper about her, Orlanda in _La Reine +Fiamette_, Lodoletta, Thais, Suor Angelica, and Zaza, but I can add very +little to what I have said. Orlanda, Lodoletta, and, naturally enough, +Thais, she has permanently dropped, I think, after a short period of +experimentation. In Zaza, however, it seems possible, although it is too +early to predict with certainty, as I am writing these lines a month +after her assumption of the part, that she has found a rôle in which she +will meet popular satisfaction for some years to come. On the whole, +however, I must leave the case as I pleaded it originally, withal it is +probably a trifle rosier than I would plead it now. Nevertheless I must +state in fairness that Madame Farrar has probably never sung so well +before as she is singing this winter (1919-20) and that she retains the +admiration of opera-goers in general. It seems apparent to me now that +in exploiting herself as a "character" actress she has perhaps made a +mistake. Her best work has not been done in operas like _Thais_, +_Carmen_, and _Zaza_, but as Elisabeth in _Tannhäuser_, as the Goosegirl +in _Königskinder_, and as Rosaura in _Le Donne Curiose_. Usually, +indeed, she is charming in what are called "ingenue" rôles. It may +therefore be considered unfortunate that these are the rôles in her +repertoire to which she is most indifferent. However it must be admitted +that it seems impertinent and even stupid to storm and fret about a +career which has been so evenly successful. The public must admire +Madame Farrar or it would not go to see her, and at the Metropolitan +Opera House it is a recognized fact that she is one of two singers in +the company who is always sure of drawing a full house. + + +IV + +We come to Mary Garden. I never can resist the temptation to write about +Mary Garden. I never even try to. Other subjects intrigue me for a time, +but I usually pass them by in the end and go on to something new, new to +me, at least. But I always feel that I have left something unsaid about +this singing actress. It is probable that I always will feel this way +for Miss Garden in her performances constantly suggests some new idea or +awakens some dormant emotion. As a result, although I may write about +coleoptera, the influence of cobalt on the human mind, or a history of +Persian miniatures, I shall probably always find occasion to insert a +few remarks about this incomparable artist. + +The paper devoted to her in this book seems to me at present pitifully +weak, absurdly inadequate. I have gone farther in "The New Art of the +Singer," which you will find in "The Merry-Go-Round" (1918), and in my +study of _Carmen_ in "The Music of Spain" (1918). This seems a good +place to state, however, that Miss Garden's Carmen was only seen to its +best advantage when she appeared with Muratore. The nature of her +interpretation of this rôle is such that it depends to a great extent on +satisfactory assistance from her fellow singers. Her Carmen is a study +of a cold, brutal, mysterious gipsy, who does not seek lovers, they come +to her. When, as at some recent performances, the tenors and baritones +do not come (it is obvious that some of them might take lessons to +advantage in crossing the stage) her interpretation loses a good deal of +its intention. I offer this explanation to any one who feels that my +enthusiasm for her in this rôle is exaggerated. To fully understand the +greatness of Miss Garden's Carmen one must have observed it in fitting +surroundings. I hope this environment may soon be provided again. + +On the whole I feel that the most enthusiastic of Miss Garden's admirers +have so far done the woman scant justice. Most of us are beginning to +realize that she is the greatest of living lyric artists, that she has +done more to revive the original intention of the Florentines in +inventing the opera to recapture the theatre of the Greeks, than any +one else. She has made opera, indeed, sublimated speech. And she is +certainly the contemporary queen of lyric sigaldry. + +It is said by some who do not stop to think, or who do not know what +singing is, that Mary Garden is a great actress but that she cannot +sing.[B] These misguided bigots, who try to make it their business to +misunderstand anything that approaches perfection, remind me of the +incident of Lady Astor and the American sailor. She met the youth just +outside the Houses of Parliament and asked him if he would like to go +in. "I _would_ not," were the words he flung into her astonished face. +"My mother told me to avoid women like you." Some day a few of the most +intelligent of these sacculi may realize that Mary Garden is probably +the greatest living singer. It is, indeed, with her voice, and with her +_singing_ voice that she does her most consummate acting. Indeed her +capacity for colouring her voice to suit the emergencies not only of a +phrase but of an entire rôle, might give a hint to future interpreters, +were there any capable of taking advantage of such a valuable hint. +But, good God, in such matters as phrasing, _portamento_, _messa di +voce_, and other paraphernalia of the singing teacher's laboratory, she +is past-mistress, and if any one has any complaints to make about the +quality and quantity of tone she used in the second act of _l'Amore dei +Tre Re_ I feel that he did not listen with unprejudiced ears. + +There is, perhaps, nothing that need be added at present to what I have +already said of her Sapho, Marguerite, Mélisande,[C] Chrysis, Jean, +Louise, and Thais, except that such of these impersonations as still +remain in her répertoire are as clean-cut, as finely chiselled as ever; +probably each is a little improved on each subsequent occasion on which +it is performed. Some day I shall have more to say about her marvellous +Monna Vanna. I am sure I would understand her Salome better now. When I +first saw her in Richard Strauss's music drama I was still under the +spell of Olive Fremstad's impersonation, and was astonished, and perhaps +a little indignant at Miss Garden's divagations. But now I know what I +did not know so well then, that an interpreter must mould a part to suit +his own personality. It is probable that if Mary Garden should vouchsafe +us another view of her nervous, unleashed tiger-woman I would be +completely bowled over. + +It seems necessary to speak of the portraits she has added to her +gallery since the fall of 1917. Since then she has been seen in +Février's _Gismonda_, Massenet's _Cléopâtre_, and Montemezzi's _l'Amore +dei Tre Re_. The first of these is a very bad opera; it is not even one +of Sardou's best plays. The part afforded Miss Garden an opportunity for +the display of pride, dignity, and authority. Her gowns were very +beautiful--I remember particularly the lovely Grecian drapery of the +convent scene, which she has since developed into a first-act costume +for Fiora; she made a handsome figure of the woman, but the thing itself +was pasteboard and will soon be forgotten. The posthumous _Cléopâtre_ +was nearly as bad, but in the scene in which the queen, disguised as a +boy, visits an Egyptian brothel and makes love to another boy, Mary was +very startling, and the death scene, in which, after burying the asp in +her bosom, she tosses it away with a shudder, sinks to the ground, +then crawls to Antony's side and expires below his couch, one arm waving +futilely in the air in an attempt to touch her lover, was one of her +most touching and finest bits of acting. Her pale face, her green +eyelids combined to create a sinister make-up. But, on the whole, a dull +opera, and not likely to be heard again. + +[Illustration: MARY GARDEN AS CLÉOPÂTRE + +_from a photograph by Moffett (1919)_] + +But Fiora! What a triumph! What a volcano! I have never been able to +find any pleasure in listening to the music of Montemezzi's _l'Amore dei +Tre Re_, although it has a certain pulse, a rhythmic beat, especially in +the second act, which gives it a factitious air of being better than it +really is. The play, however, is interesting, and subtle enough to +furnish material for quibble and discussion not only among critics, but +among interpreters themselves. Miss Bori, who originally sang Fiora in +New York, was a pathetic flower, torn and twisted by the winds of fate, +blown hither and thither without effort or resistance on her part. It +was probably a possible interpretation, and it found admirers. Miss +Muzio, the next local incumbent of the rôle, fortified with a letter +from Sem Benelli, or at least his spoken wishes, found it convenient to +alter this impersonation in most particulars, but she was not, is not, +very convincing. Her intentions are undoubtedly good but she is no +instrument for the mystic gods to play upon. + +But Miss Garden's Fiora burned through the play like a flame. She +visualized a strong-minded mediæval woman, torn by the conflicting +emotions of pity and love, but once she had abandoned herself to her +passion she became a living altar consecrated to the worship of +Aphrodite and Eros. Such a hurricane of fiery, tempestuous love has +seldom if ever before swept the stage. Miss Garden herself has never +equalled this performance, save in Mélisande and Monna Vanna, which +would lead one to the conclusion that she is at her best in parts of the +middle ages, until one reflects that in early Greek courtesans, in +French cocottes of several periods, in American Indians, and Spanish +gipsies she is equally atmospheric. Other Fioras have been content to +allow the hand of death to smite them without a struggle. Not this one. +When Archibaldo attempts to strangle her she tries to escape; her +efforts are horrible and pathetic because they are fruitless. And the +final clutch of the fingers behind his back leave the most horrible +blood-stains of tragic beauty in the memory. + + +V + +What is to become of Mary Garden? What can she do now? What is there +left for her to do? Those who complain of some of the dross in her +répertoire can scarcely have considered the material available to her. +In _Pelléas et Mélisande_, _Louise_, and _Salome_ she has given much to +the best the contemporary lyric stage has to offer. On other occasions +she has succeeded in transfiguring indifferent material with her genius. +_Monna Vanna_ is not a great opera, but she makes it seem so. But where +is there anything better? Can she turn to Puccini, whose later operas +seem bereft of merit, to Mascagni, to Strauss, to any other of the +living opera composers? + +Ravel's one opera is not particularly suited to her, but why, I might +ask, does not Ravel write something for her? Why not Strawinsky? Why not +Leo Ornstein? Why not John Carpenter? The talented composer of _The +Birthday of the Infanta_ might very well write an opera, in which her +genius for vocal experimentation might have still further play. + +In the meantime I can make one or two suggestions. I have already begged +for Isolde and Isolde I think we shall get in time. But has it occurred +to any one that the Queen in _The Golden Cockerel_ is a part absolutely +suited to the Garden genius? Not, of course, _The Golden Cockerel_ as at +present performed, with a double cast of singers and pantomimists but as +an opera, in the form in which Rimsky-Korsakow conceived it. And I hope +some day that she will attempt Gluck's _Armide_, perhaps one of the +Iphigénies, and Donna Anna. Why not? Of all living singers Miss Garden +is the only one who could give us the complete fulfilment of Mozart's +tragic heroine. Oscar Hammerstein, whose vision was acute, once +considered a performance of _Don Giovanni_ with Maurice Renaud in the +title part, Luisa Tetrazzini as Zerlina, Lina Cavalieri as Elvira, and +Mary Garden as Anna. It was never given. But I hope at the next revival +of the work at the Opéra-Comique Miss Garden will undertake the part, +and I see no reason why the opera should not be added to the already +extensive répertoire of the Chicago Opera Company. + +Her stride, her lithe carriage, her plastic use of her arms and her +body, give Mary Garden a considerable advantage over a sculptor, who can +in the course of a lifetime only capture perhaps ten perfect examples +of arrested motion, while in any one performance she makes her body a +hundred different works of art. Of course, some of us, fascinated by the +mere beauty of the Garden line, more slender now than it was even in her +most youthful past, delighted with her irreproachable taste in dress, +would rest content to watch her walk across the scene or form exquisite +pictures in any part, in any opera. But unless one of the best of the +moderns writes a great rôle for her, it would be a great satisfaction to +see her in one of the noble classic parts of the past, and that +satisfaction, I hope, will be vouchsafed us. + +_March 18, 1920._ + +_New York._ + + +On the following pages you will find descriptions of two other +interesting books by Mr. Van Vechten. + + +THE MERRY-GO-ROUND + +(12mo., 343 pages, $2.00 _net._) + +CONTENTS: In defence of bad taste; Music and supermusic; Edgar Saltus; +The new art of the singer; Au bal musette; Music and cooking; An +interrupted conversation; The authoritative work on American music; Old +days and new; Two young American playwrights; De senectute cantorum; The +Land of Joy; The new Isadora; Margaret Anglin produces As You Like It; +The modern composers at a glance. + +"Carl Van Vechten has the jauntiest pen that ever graced the ear of a +literary gentleman. He uses it as D'Artagnan used his sword, with sheer +joy in the wielding of it, a sharp accuracy of aim, and a fine +musketeering courage back of it. His pen is a pen of the world, a +cosmopolitan pen which is at home in the marts of Irving Berlin, as well +as in the rarefied heights of Igor Strawinsky. It knows how to turn a +phrase or a reputation. In The Merry-Go-Round his pen has the time of +its life. So will you when you flip a ride on the whirligig."--Fanny +Butcher in _The Chicago Tribune_. + +ALFRED A. KNOPF, PUBLISHER, NEW YORK + + +IN THE GARRET + +(12mo., 347 pages, $2.00 _net._) + +CONTENTS: Variations on a theme by Havelock Ellis; A note on Philip +Thicknesse; The folk-songs of Iowa; Isaac Albeniz; The holy jumpers; On +the relative difficulties of depicting heaven and hell in music; Sir +Arthur Sullivan; On the rewriting of masterpieces; Oscar Hammerstein; La +Tigresse; Mimi Aguglia as Salome; Farfariello; The Negro Theatre; The +Yiddish Theatre; The Spanish Theatre. + +"When he surveys the American scene we go all the way with Mr. Van +Vechten. He celebrates his attachment to New York as ecstatically as +Charles Lamb's his to London, in a chapter called La Tigresse. This is +the best thing in the book. And Mr. Thomas Burke, in England, alone has +caught this peculiar gusto."--_The London Times._ + +ALFRED A. KNOPF, PUBLISHER, NEW YORK + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[A] Madame Fremstad has appeared in concert in New York but not in +opera. + +[B] The fault is really typical of that school of criticism which is +always comparing, instead of searching out an artist's intention and +judging whether or not he has realized it. + +[C] Maurice Maeterlinck broke a promise to Georgette Leblanc of +seventeen years' standing to witness a performance of Debussy's lyric +drama on January 27, 1920, when, with the new Madame Maeterlinck, he sat +in a box, remaining till the final curtain, at the Lexington Theatre in +New York. After the fourth act, responding to Miss Garden's urge and the +applause of the audience, he rose to bow. + + +Typographical error note of transcriber of this etext: + +choregraphy has not been corrected + +overwhemingly=>overwhelmingly + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Interpreters, by Carl Van Vechten + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INTERPRETERS *** + +***** This file should be named 32979-8.txt or 32979-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/9/7/32979/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images at The Internet Archive.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Interpreters + +Author: Carl Van Vechten + +Release Date: June 26, 2010 [EBook #32979] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INTERPRETERS *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images at The Internet Archive.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<hr class="full" /> + +<h1>INTERPRETERS</h1> + +<p class="c">by</p> + +<h2>CARL<br /> +VAN VECHTEN</h2> + +<p><a name="page_001" id="page_001"></a></p> + +<div class="box"> + +<ul class="sml"> +<li><i>BOOKS BY CARL VAN VECHTEN</i></li> +<li>INTERPRETERS</li> +<li>IN THE GARRET</li> +<li>THE MUSIC OF SPAIN</li> +<li>THE MERRY-GO-ROUND</li> +<li>MUSIC AND BAD MANNERS</li> +<li>THE TIGER IN THE HOUSE</li> +<li>MUSIC AFTER THE GREAT WAR</li> +</ul> + +</div> + +<p><a name="page_002" id="page_002"></a><a name="frontispiece" id="frontispiece"></a></p> + +<div class="centeredimage" style="width: 500px;"> +<a href="images/ill_mary_garden_cherubin.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_mary_garden_cherubin_sml.jpg" width="204" height="350" alt="MARY GARDEN AS CHÉRUBIN (1905)" title="MARY GARDEN AS CHÉRUBIN (1905)" /></a><br /> +<span class="caption">MARY GARDEN AS CHÉRUBIN (1905)</span> +</div> + +<p><a name="page_003" id="page_003"></a></p> + +<div class="box3"> +<div class="box4"> +<h1>Interpreters</h1> + +<hr /> + +<h2><i>Carl Van Vechten</i></h2> + +<p class="c top15"><i>A new edition, revised, with sixteen<br />illustrations and an epilogue</i></p> + +<div class="centeredimage" style="margin-top:20%;"> +<img src="images/ill_logo_knopf.png" alt="Knopf logo" title="Knopf logo" width="100" height="62" /> +</div> + +<p class="c">New York Alfred A Knopf<br /> +MCMXX</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p><a name="page_004" id="page_004"></a></p> + +<p class="c sml"> +COPYRIGHT, 1917, 1920, BY<br /> +ALFRED A. KNOPF, <span class="smcap">Inc.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p class="c sml">PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA<a name="page_005" id="page_005"></a></p> + +<div class="dedication"> +<p class="c"> +<i>To<br /> +the unforgettable interpreter of Ariel,<br /> +Zelima, Louka, Wendla,<br /> +and Columbine,<br /> +Fania Marinoff, my wife</i></p> +</div> + +<p><a name="page_007" id="page_007"></a></p> + +<h3 class="reg">CONTENTS</h3> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="contents"> +<tr><td><a href="#Olive_Fremstad">Olive Fremstad</a></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_011">11</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#Geraldine_Farrar">Geraldine Farrar</a></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_039">39</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#Mary_Garden">Mary Garden</a></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_059">59</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#Feodor_Chaliapine">Feodor Chaliapine</a></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_097">97</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#Mariette_Mazarin">Mariette Mazarin<span style="margin-left: 10em;"> </span></a></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_117">117</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#Yvette_Guilbert">Yvette Guilbert</a></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_135">135</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#Waslav_Nijinsky">Waslav Nijinsky</a></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_149">149</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#Epilogue">Epilogue</a></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_177">177</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<p><a name="page_008" id="page_008"></a></p> + +<h3 class="reg">ILLUSTRATIONS</h3> + +<p class="centr sml">Click on the images to view them full-sized.<br />(note of ebook transcriber.)</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="illustrations"> +<tr><td>Mary Garden as Chérubin</td><td align="left"><a href="#frontispiece"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td align="right" class="sml">FACING<br />PAGE</td></tr> +<tr><td>Olive Fremstad as Elsa</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_018">18</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Olive Fremstad as Sieglinde</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_020">20</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Olive Fremstad as Kundry</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_024">24</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Geraldine Farrar as Elisabeth</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_040">40</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Geraldine Farrar as Violetta</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_046">46</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Geraldine Farrar as Louise in <i>Julien</i><span style="margin-left: 10em;"> </span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_052">52</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Mary Garden as Chrysis</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_072">72</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Mary Garden as Mélisande</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_076">76</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Mary Garden as Fanny Legrand</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_090">90</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Feodor Chaliapine as Mefistofele</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_112">112</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Mariette Mazarin as Elektra</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_128">128</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Yvette Guilbert</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_140">140</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Waslav Nijinsky in Debussy's <i>Jeux</i></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_168">168</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Geraldine Farrar as Zaza</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_190">190</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Mary Garden as Cléopâtre</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_196">196</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<p><a name="page_009" id="page_009"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="Olive_Fremstad" id="Olive_Fremstad"></a>Olive Fremstad</h3> + +<div class="blockq"> +<p><i>"C'est que le Beau est la seule chose qui soit immortelle, et qu'aussi +longtemps qu'il reste un vestige de sa manifestation matérielle, son +immortalité subsiste. Le Beau est répandu partout, il s'étend même +jusque sur la mort. Mais il ne rayonne nulle part avec autant +d'intensité que dans l'individualité humaine; c'est là qu'il parle le +plus à l'intelligence, et c'est pour cela que, pour ma part, je +préférerai toujours une grande puissance musicale servie par une voix +défectueuse, à une voix belle et bête, une voix dont la beauté n'est que +matérielle.</i>"<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 12em;">Ivan Turgeniev to Mme. Viardot.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><a name="page_010" id="page_010"></a></p> + +<p><a name="page_011" id="page_011"></a></p> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE career of Olive Fremstad has entailed continuous struggle: a +struggle in the beginning with poverty, a struggle with a refractory +voice, and a struggle with her own overpowering and dominating +temperament. Ambition has steered her course. After she had made a +notable name for herself through her interpretations of contralto rôles, +she determined to sing soprano parts, and did so, largely by an effort +of will. She is always dissatisfied with her characterizations; she is +always studying ways and means of improving them. It is not easy for her +to mould a figure; it is, on the contrary, very difficult. One would +suppose that her magnetism and force would carry her through an opera +without any great amount of preparation. Such is not the case. There is +no other singer before the public so little at her ease in any impromptu +performance. Recently, when she returned to the New York stage with an +itinerant opera company to sing in an ill-rehearsed performance of +<i>Tosca</i>, she all but lost her grip. She was not herself and she did not +convince. New costumes, which hindered her movements, and a Scarpia with +whom she was unfamiliar, were responsible in a measure<a name="page_012" id="page_012"></a> for her failure +to assume her customary authority.</p> + +<p>If you have seen and heard Olive Fremstad in the scene of the spear in +<i>Götterdämmerung</i>, you will find it difficult to believe that what I say +is true, that work and not plenary inspiration is responsible for the +effect. To be sure, the inspiration has its place in the final result. +Once she is certain of her ground, words, music, tone-colour, gesture, +and action, she inflames the whole magnificently with her magnetism. +This magnetism is instinctive, a part of herself; the rest is not. She +brings about the detail with diligent drudgery, and without that her +performances would go for nought. The singer pays for this intense +concentration. In "Tower of Ivory" Mrs. Atherton says that all Wagnerian +singers must pay heavily. Probably all good ones must. Charles Henry +Melzer has related somewhere that he first saw Mme. Fremstad on the +stage at Covent Garden, where between her scenes in some Wagner music +drama, lost in her rôle, utterly oblivious of stage hands or +fellow-artists, she paced up and down in the wings. At the moment he +decided that she was a great interpretative artist, and he had never +heard her sing. When she is singing a rôle she will not allow herself to +be interrupted; she holds no receptions between scenes.<a name="page_013" id="page_013"></a> "Come back +after the opera," she says to her friends, and frequently then she is +too tired to see any one. She often drives home alone, a prey to +quivering nerves which keep her eyeballs rolling in ceaseless +torture—sleepless.</p> + +<p>Nothing about the preparation of an opera is easy for Olive Fremstad; +the thought, the idea, does not register immediately in her brain. But +once she has achieved complete understanding of a rôle and thoroughly +mastered its music, the fire of her personality enables her easily to +set a standard. Is there another singer who can stand on the same +heights with Mme. Fremstad as Isolde, Venus, Elsa, Sieglinde, Kundry, +Armide, Brünnhilde in <i>Götterdämmerung</i>, or Salome? And are not these +the most difficult and trying rôles in the répertoire of the lyric stage +to-day?</p> + +<p>In one of her impatient moods—and they occur frequently—the singer +once complained of this fact. "How easy it is," she said, "for those who +make their successes as Marguerite and Mimi.... I should like to sing +those rôles...." But the remark was made under a misconception of her +own personality. Mme. Fremstad would find Mimi and Marguerite much more +difficult to compass than Isolde and Kundry. She is by nature Northern +and heroic, and her physique is suited<a name="page_014" id="page_014"></a> to the goddesses and heroines of +the Norse myths (it is a significant fact that she has never attempted +to sing Eva or Senta). Occasionally, as in Salome, she has been able to +exploit successfully another side of her talent, but in the rendering of +the grand, the noble, and the heroic, she has no equal on our stage. Yet +her Tosca always lacked nobility. There was something in the music which +never brought the quality out.</p> + +<p>In such a part as Selika she seemed lost (wasted, too, it may be added), +although the entrance of the proud African girl was made with some +effect, and the death scene was carried through with beauty of purpose. +But has any one ever characterized Selika? Her Santuzza, one of the two +rôles which she has sung in Paris, must be considered a failure when +judged by the side of such a performance as that given by Emma +Calvé—and who would judge Olive Fremstad by any but the highest +standards? The Swedish singer's Santuzza was as elemental, in its way, +as that of the Frenchwoman, but its implications were too tragic, too +massive in their noble beauty, for the correct interpretation of a +sordid melodrama. It was as though some one had engaged the Victory of +Samothrace to enact the part. Munich adored the Fremstad Carmen (was it +not<a name="page_015" id="page_015"></a> her characterization of the Bizet heroine which caused Heinrich +Conried to engage her for America?) and Franz von Stuck painted her +twice in the rôle. Even in New York she was appreciated in the part. The +critics awarded her fervent adulation, but she never stirred the public +pulse. The principal fault of this very Northern Carmen was her lack of +humour, a quality the singer herself is deficient in. For a season or +two in America Mme. Fremstad appeared in the rôle, singing it, indeed, +in San Francisco the night of the memorable earthquake, and then it +disappeared from her répertoire. Maria Gay was the next Metropolitan +Carmen, but it was Geraldine Farrar who made the opera again as popular +as it had been in Emma Calvé's day.</p> + +<p>Mme. Fremstad is one of those rare singers on the lyric stage who is +able to suggest the meaning of the dramatic situation through the colour +of her voice. This tone-colour she achieves stroke by stroke, devoting +many days to the study of important phrases. To go over in detail the +instances in which she has developed effects through the use of +tone-colour would make it necessary to review, note by note, the operas +in which she has appeared. I have no such intention. It may be +sufficient to recall to the reader—who,<a name="page_016" id="page_016"></a> in remembering, may recapture +the thrill—the effect she produces with the poignant lines beginning +<i>Amour, puissant amour</i> at the close of the third act of <i>Armide</i>, the +dull, spent quality of the voice emitted over the words <i>Ich habe deinen +Mund geküsst</i> from the final scene of <i>Salome</i>, and the subtle, dreamy +rapture of the <i>Liebestod</i> in <i>Tristan und Isolde</i>. Has any one else +achieved this effect? She once told me that Titian's Assumption of the +Virgin was her inspiration for her conception of this scene.</p> + +<p>Luscious in quality, Mme. Fremstad's voice is not altogether a tractable +organ, but she has forced it to do her bidding. A critic long ago +pointed out that another singer would not be likely to emerge with +credit through the use of Mme. Fremstad's vocal method. It is full of +expediences. Oftener than most singers, too, she has been in "bad +voice." And her difficulties have been increased by her determination to +become a soprano, difficulties she has surmounted brilliantly. In other +periods we learn that singers did not limit their ranges by the quality +of their voices. In our day singers have specialized in high or low +rôles. Many contraltos, however, have chafed under the restrictions +which composers have compelled them to accept. Almost<a name="page_017" id="page_017"></a> all of them have +attempted now and again to sing soprano rôles. Only in the case of Edyth +Walker, however, do we find an analogy to the case of Olive Fremstad. +Both of these singers have attained high artistic ideals in both ranges. +Magnificent as Brangaene, Amneris, and Ortrud, the Swedish singer later +presented unrivalled characterizations of Isolde, Armide, and +Brünnhilde.</p> + +<p>The high tessitura of the music allotted to the <i>Siegfried</i> Brünnhilde +is a strain for most singers. Mme. Nordica once declared that this +Brünnhilde was the most difficult of the three. Without having sung a +note in the early evening, she must awake in the third act, about +ten-thirty or eleven, to begin almost immediately the melismatic duet +which concludes the music drama. Mme. Fremstad, by the use of many +expediences, such as pronouncing Siegfried as if it were spelled +Seigfried when the first syllable fell on a high note, was able to get +through with this part without projecting a sense of effort, unless it +was on the high C at the conclusion, a note of which she frequently +allowed the tenor to remain in undisputed possession. But the fierce joy +and spirited abandon she put into the acting of the rôle, the passion +with which she infused her singing, carried her victoriously past the +dangerous places, often more<a name="page_018" id="page_018"></a> victoriously than some other singer, who +could produce high notes more easily, but whose stage resources were +more limited.</p> + +<div class="centeredimage" style="width: 500px;"> +<a href="images/ill_olive_fremstad_elsa.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_olive_fremstad_elsa_sml.jpg" width="222" height="350" alt="OLIVE FREMSTAD AS ELSA from a photograph by Mishkin (1913)" title="OLIVE FREMSTAD AS ELSA from a photograph by Mishkin (1913)" /></a><br /> +<span class="caption">OLIVE FREMSTAD AS ELSA<br /> +from a photograph by Mishkin (1913)</span> +</div> + +<p>I do not think Mme. Fremstad has trained her voice to any high degree of +agility. She can sing the drinking song from <i>Lucrezia Borgia</i> and +Delibes's <i>Les Filles de Cadix</i> with irresistible effect, a good part of +which, however, is produced by her personality and manner, qualities +which carry her far on the concert stage, although for some esoteric +reason they have never inveigled the general public into an enthusiastic +surrender to her charm. I have often heard her sing Swedish songs in her +native tongue (sometimes to her own accompaniment) so enchantingly, with +such appeal in her manner, and such velvet tones in her voice, that +those who heard her with me not only burst into applause but also into +exclamations of surprise and delight. Nevertheless, in her concerts, or +in opera, although her admirers are perhaps stronger in their loyalty +than those of any other singer, she has never possessed the greatest +drawing power. This is one of the secrets of the stage; it cannot be +solved. It would seem that the art of Mme. Fremstad was more homely, +more human in song, grander and more noble in opera, than that of Mme. +Tetrazzini, but the public as a<a name="page_019" id="page_019"></a> whole prefers to hear the latter, +just as it has gone in larger numbers to see the acting of Miss Garden +or Mme. Farrar. Why this is so I cannot pretend to explain.</p> + +<p>Mme. Fremstad has appeared in pretty nearly all of the important, and +many of the lesser, Wagner rôles. She has never sung Senta, and she once +told me that she had no desire to do so, nor has she been heard as Freia +or Eva. But she has sung Ortrud and Elsa, Venus and Elisabeth, Adriano +in <i>Rienzi</i>, Kundry, Isolde and Brangaene, Fricka, Erda, Waltraute, +Sieglinde, one of the Rhine maidens (perhaps two), and all three +Brünnhildes. In most of these characterizations she has succeeded in +making a deep impression. I have never seen her Ortrud, but I have been +informed that it was a truly remarkable impersonation. Her Elsa was the +finest I have ever seen. To Ternina's poetic interpretation she added +her own greater grace and charm, and a lovelier quality of voice. If, on +occasion, the music of the second act proved too high for her, who could +sing the music of the dream with such poetic expression?—or the love +music in the last act?—as beautiful an impersonation, and of the same +kind, as Mary Garden's Mélisande.</p> + +<p>Her Venus was another story. She yearned<a name="page_020" id="page_020"></a> for years to sing Elisabeth, +and when she had satisfied this ambition, she could be persuaded only +with difficulty to appear as the goddess. She told me once that she +would like to sing both rôles in a single evening—a possible feat, as +the two characters never appear together; Rita Fornia, I believe, +accomplished the dual impersonation on one occasion at the behest of +Colonel Savage. She had in mind a heroine with a dual nature, sacred and +profane love so to speak, and Tannhäuser at the mercy of this +gemini-born wight. She never was permitted to try this experiment at the +Metropolitan, but during her last season there she appeared as +Elisabeth. Montreal, and perhaps Brooklyn, had seen this impersonation +before it was vouchsafed New York. Mme. Fremstad never succeeded in +being very convincing in this rôle. I do not exactly understand why, as +its possibilities seem to lie within her limitations. Nor did she sing +the music well. On the other hand, her abundantly beautiful and +voluptuous Venus, a splendid, towering, blonde figure, shimmering in +flesh-coloured garments, was one of her astoundingly accurate +characterizations. At the opposite pole to her Sieglinde it was equally +a masterpiece of interpretative art, like Duse's Camille "positively +enthralling as an exhibition of<a name="page_021" id="page_021"></a> the gymnastics of perfect suppleness +and grace." In both these instances she was inspired perhaps to realize +something a little more wonderful than the composer himself had dreamed +of. The depth and subtlety and refinement of intense passion were in +this Venus—there was no suggestion here of what Sidney Homer once +referred to as Mme. Homer's platonic Venus!</p> + +<div class="centeredimage" style="width: 500px;"> +<a href="images/ill_olive_fremstad_sieglinde.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_olive_fremstad_sieglinde_sml.jpg" width="225" height="350" alt="OLIVE FREMSTAD AS SIEGLINDE from a photograph by Aimé Dupont" title="OLIVE FREMSTAD AS SIEGLINDE from a photograph by Aimé Dupont" /></a><br /> +<span class="caption">OLIVE FREMSTAD AS SIEGLINDE<br /> +from a photograph by Aimé Dupont</span> +</div> + +<p>Her Sieglinde is firmly intrenched in many of our memories, the best +loved of her Wagnerian women and enchantresses. Will there rise another +singing actress in our generation to make us forget it? I do not think +so. Her melting womanliness in the first act, ending with her complete +surrender to Siegmund, her pathetic fatigue in the second act (do you +not still see the harassed, shuddering figure stumbling into view and +falling voiceless to sleep at the knees of her brother-lover?) remain in +the memory like pictures in the great galleries. And how easily in the +last act, in her single phrase, by her passionate suggestion of the +realization of motherhood, did she wrest the scene from her +fellow-artists, no matter who they might be, making such an effect +before she fled into the forest depths, that what followed often seemed +but anticlimax.</p> + +<p>Mme. Fremstad never sang the three Brünnhildes<a name="page_022" id="page_022"></a> in sequence at the +Metropolitan Opera House (of late years no soprano has done so), but she +was called upon at various times to sing them all separately. +Undoubtedly it was as the Brünnhilde in <i>Götterdämmerung</i> that she made +the most lasting impression. The scene of the oath on the spear she +carried into the realms of Greek tragedy. Did Rachel touch greater +heights? Was the French Jewess more electric? The whole performance +displayed magnificent proportions, attaining a superb stature in the +immolation scene. In scenes of this nature, scenes hovering between life +and death, the eloquent grandeur of Mme. Fremstad's style might be +observed in its complete flowering. Isolde over the body of Tristan, +Brünnhilde over the body of Siegfried, exhibited no mincing pathos; the +mood established was one of lofty calm. Great artists realize that this +is the true expression of overwhelming emotion. In this connection it +seems pertinent and interesting to recall a notable passage in a letter +from Ivan Turgeniev to Pauline Viardot:—</p> + +<p>"You speak to me also about <i>Romeo</i>, the third act; you have the +goodness to ask me for some remarks on Romeo. What could I tell you that +you have not already known and felt in advance?<a name="page_023" id="page_023"></a> The more I reflect on +the scene of the third act the more it seems to me that there is only +one manner of interpreting it—yours. One can imagine nothing more +horrible than finding oneself before the corpse of all that one loves; +but the despair that seizes you then ought to be so terrible that, if it +is not held and <i>frozen</i> by the resolution of suicide, or by another +<i>grand</i> sentiment, art can no longer render it. Broken cries, sobs, +fainting fits, these are nature, but they are not art. The spectator +himself will not be moved by that poignant and profound emotion which +you stir so easily. Whereas by the manner in which you wish to do Romeo +(as I understand what you have written me) you will produce on your +auditor an ineffaceable effect. I remember the fine and just observation +that you once made on the agitated and restrained little gestures that +Rachel made, at the same time maintaining an attitude of calm nobility; +with her, perhaps, that was only technique; but in general it is the +calm <i>arising from a strong conviction or from a profound emotion</i>, that +is to say the calm which envelopes the desperate transports of passion +from all sides, which communicates to them that purity of line, that +ideal and real beauty, the true, the only beauty of art. And, what +proves<a name="page_024" id="page_024"></a> the truth of this remark, is that life itself—on rare +occasions, it is true, at those times when it disengages itself from all +that is accidental or commonplace—raises itself to the same kind of +beauty. The greatest griefs, as you have said in your letter, are the +calmest; and, one could add, the calmest are the most beautiful. But it +is necessary to know how to unite the two extremes, unless one would +appear cold. It is easier not to attain perfection, easier to rest in +the middle of one's journey, the more so because the greater number of +spectators demand nothing else, or rather are not accustomed to anything +else, but you are what you are only because of this noble ambition to do +your best...."</p> + +<p>In the complex rôle of Kundry Mme. Fremstad has had no rival. The wild +witch of the first act, the enchantress of the second, the repentant +Magdalene of the third, all were imaginatively impersonated by this +wonderful woman. Certain actors drop their characterizations as soon as +the dialogue passes on to another; such as these fail in <i>Parsifal</i>, for +Kundry, on the stage for the entire third act, has only one word to +sing; in the first act she has but few more. Colossally alluring in the +second act, in which she symbolized the essence of the "eternal +feminine," Mme. Fremstad<a name="page_025" id="page_025"></a> projected the first and third act Kundry +into the minds and hearts of her audience.</p> + +<div class="centeredimage" style="width: 500px;"> +<a href="images/ill_olive_fremstad_kundry.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_olive_fremstad_kundry_sml.jpg" width="350" height="313" alt="OLIVE FREMSTAD AS KUNDRY, ACT I from a photograph by Mishkin (1913)" title="OLIVE FREMSTAD AS KUNDRY, ACT I from a photograph by Mishkin (1913)" /></a><br /> +<span class="caption">OLIVE FREMSTAD AS KUNDRY, ACT I<br /> +from a photograph by Mishkin (1913)</span> +</div> + +<p>Well-trained in Bayreuth tradition, this singer was no believer in it; +she saw no reason for clinging to outworn ideals simply because they +prevailed at the Master's own theatre. However, she did not see how an +individual could break with tradition in these works without destroying +their effect. The break must come from the stage director.</p> + +<p>"If Wagner were alive to-day," she once said to me, "I don't believe +that he would sanction a lot of the silly 'business' that is insisted +upon everywhere because it is the law at Bayreuth. Wagner was constantly +changing everything. When he produced his music dramas they were so +entirely new in conception and in staging that they demanded +experimentation in many directions. Doubtless certain traditions were +founded on the interpretations of certain singers—who probably could +not have followed other lines of action, which Wagner might have +preferred, so successfully.</p> + +<p>"The two scenes which I have particularly in mind are those of the first +act of <i>Tannhäuser</i> and the second act of <i>Parsifal</i>. Both of these +scenes, it seems to me, should be arranged with the most<a name="page_026" id="page_026"></a> undreamed of +beauty in colour and effect. Venus should not pose for a long time in a +stiff attitude on an uncomfortable couch. I don't object to the couch, +but it should be made more alluring.</p> + +<p>"The same objection holds in the second act of <i>Parsifal</i>, where Kundry +is required to fascinate Parsifal, although she is not given an +opportunity of moving from one position for nearly twenty minutes. When +Klingsor calls Kundry from below in the first scene of that act, she +comes against her will, and I think she should arise gasping and +shuddering. I try to give that effect in my voice when I sing the music, +but, following Bayreuth, I am standing, motionless, with a veil over my +head, so that my face cannot be seen for some time before I sing.</p> + +<p>"One singer can do nothing against the mass of tradition. If I changed +and the others did not, the effect would be inartistic. But if some +stage manager would have the daring to break away, to strive for +something better in these matters, how I would love to work with that +man!"</p> + +<p>Departing from the Wagnerian répertoire, Mme. Fremstad has made notable +successes in two rôles, Salome and Armide. That she should be able to do +justice to the latter is more astonishing than that she should emerge +triumphant from<a name="page_027" id="page_027"></a> the Wilde-Strauss collaboration. <i>Armide</i>, almost the +oldest opera to hold the stage to-day, is still the French classic +model, and it demands in performance adherence to the French grand +style, a style implying devotion to the highest artistic ideals. Mme. +Fremstad's artistic ideals are perhaps on a higher plane than those of +the Paris Conservatoire or the Comédie Française, but it does not follow +that she would succeed in moulding them to fit a school of opera with +which, to this point, she had been totally unfamiliar. So far as I know, +the only other opera Mme. Fremstad had ever sung in French was <i>Carmen</i>, +an experience which could not be considered as the training for a +suitable delineation of the heroine of Gluck's beautiful lyric drama. +Still Mme. Fremstad compassed the breach. How, I cannot pretend to say. +No less an authority than Victor Maurel pronounced it a triumph of the +French classic style.</p> + +<p>The moods of Quinault's heroine, of course, suit this singing actress, +and she brought to them all her most effectual enchantments, including a +series of truly seducing costumes. The imperious unrest of the first +act, the triumph of love over hate in the second, the invocation to La +Haine in the third, and the final scene of despair in the fifth, all<a name="page_028" id="page_028"></a> +were depicted with poignant and moving power, and always with fidelity +to the style of the piece. She set her own pace in the finale of the +first act. The wounded warrior returns to tell how a single combatant +has delivered all his prisoners. Armide's half-spoken guess, <i>O ciel! +c'est Renaud!</i> which she would like to have denied, was uttered in a +tone which definitely stimulated the spectator to prepare for the +conflict which followed, the conflict in Armide's own breast, between +her love for Renaud as a man, and her hatred of him as an enemy. I do +not remember to have seen anything on the stage more profound in its +implied psychology than her acting of the scene beginning <i>Enfin il est +en ma puissance</i>, in which she stays her hand with dagger uplifted to +kill the enemy-hero, and finally completely conquered by the darts of +Love, transports him with her through the air to her own fair gardens.</p> + +<p>The singer told me that she went to work on this opera with fear in her +heart. "I don't know how I dared do it. I suppose it is because I had +the simplicity to believe, with the Germans, that Kundry is the top of +everything, and I had sung Kundry. As a matter of fact my leaning toward +the classic school dates very far back. My father was a strange man, of +evangelical tendencies. He<a name="page_029" id="page_029"></a> wrote a hymn-book, which is still in use in +Scandinavia, and he had a beautiful natural voice. People often came for +miles—simple country people, understand—to hear him sing. My father +knew the classic composers and he taught me their songs.</p> + +<p>"This training came back to me when I took up the study of <i>Armide</i>. It +was in May that Mr. Gatti-Casazza asked me if I would sing the work, +which, till then, I had never heard. I took the book with me to the +mountains and studied—not a note of the music at first, for music is +very easy for me anyway; I can always learn that in a short time—but +the text. For six weeks I read and re-read the text, always the +difficult part for me in learning a new opera, without looking at the +music. I found the text of <i>Armide</i> particularly difficult because it +was in old French, and because it was in verse.</p> + +<p>"I worked over it for six weeks, as I tell you, until I had mastered its +beauties as well as I could, and then I opened the music score. Here I +encountered a dreadful obstacle. Accustomed to Wagner's harmonies, I was +puzzled by the French style. I did not see how the music could be sung +to the text with dramatic effect. I attended several performances of the +work at the Paris Opéra,<a name="page_030" id="page_030"></a> but the interpretation there did not assist me +in solving the problem. I tried every phrase in fifty different ways in +an attempt to arrive at my end, and suddenly, and unexpectedly, I found +myself in complete understanding; the exquisite refinement and nobility +of the music, the repression, the classic line, all suggested to me the +superb, eternal beauty of a Greek temple. Surely this is music that will +outlive Wagner!</p> + +<p>"Once I understood, it was easy to put my conception on the stage. There +is no such thing as genius in singing; at least one cannot depend on +genius alone to carry one through an opera. I must know exactly how I am +going to sing each phrase before I go upon the stage. Nothing must be +left to chance. In studying <i>Armide</i> I had sketches sent to me of every +scene, and with these I worked until I knew every movement I should +make, where I should stand, and when I should walk. Look at my score—at +all these minute diagrams and directions...."</p> + +<p><i>Armide</i> was not a popular success in New York, and after one or two +performances in its second season at the Metropolitan Opera House it was +withdrawn. With the reasons for the failure of this opera to interest +the general public Mme. Fremstad, it may well be imagined, had nothing +to<a name="page_031" id="page_031"></a> do. Her part in it, on the contrary, contributed to what success the +work had. New York opera-goers have never manifested any particular +regard for classic opera in any tongue; <i>Fidelio</i> or <i>Don Giovanni</i> have +never been popular here. Then, although Caruso sang the music of Renaud +with a style and beauty of phrasing unusual even for him, his appearance +in the part was unfortunate. It was impossible to visualize the +chevalier of the romantic story. The second tenor rôle, which is very +important, was intrusted to an incompetent singer, and the charming rôle +of the Naiad was very inadequately rendered; but the principal fault of +the interpretation was due to a misconception regarding the relative +importance of the ballet. There are dances in every act of <i>Armide</i>; +there is no lovelier music of its kind extant than that which Gluck has +devoted to his dancers in this opera. Appreciating this fact, Mr. +Toscanini refused to part with a note of it, and his delivery of the +delightful tunes would have made up a pleasant half-hour in a +concert-room. Unfortunately the management did not supplement his +efforts by providing a suitable group of dancers. This failure was all +but incomprehensible considering the fact that Anna Pavlowa was a member +of the Metropolitan company that season.<a name="page_032" id="page_032"></a> Had she appeared in <i>Armide</i>, +its fate in New York, where it was performed for the first time one +hundred and thirty-three years after its original production in Paris, +might have been far different. It may have been impossible for Mr. +Gatti-Casazza to obtain the co-operation of the dancer. Times change. In +1833 Taglioni, then at the height of her powers, danced in London the +comparatively insignificant parts of the Swiss peasant in <i>Guillaume +Tell</i> and the ghostly abbess in <i>Robert le Diable</i>. This was the season +in which she introduced <i>La Sylphide</i> to English theatre-goers.</p> + +<p>The history of Richard Strauss's <i>Salome</i> in New York has been told so +often that it seems quite unnecessary to repeat it here. There must be +few indeed of those who will read these lines who do not know how the +music drama received only one public performance at the Metropolitan +Opera House before it was withdrawn at the request of certain directors. +At that one performance Olive Fremstad sang the rôle of Salome. She was +also heard at the private dress rehearsal—before an auditorium +completely filled with invited guests—and she has sung the part three +times in Paris. The singer threw herself into its preparation with her +usual energy, and developed<a name="page_033" id="page_033"></a> an extraordinary characterization. There +was but one flaw, the substitution of a professional dancer for the +Dance of the Seven Veils. At this time it had occurred to nobody that +the singer who impersonated Salome could dance. How could any one sing +the music of the tremendous finale after getting thoroughly out of +breath in the terpsichorean exhibition before Herod? The expedient of a +substitute was resorted to at the original performance in Dresden, and +Olive Fremstad did not disturb this tradition. She allowed Bianca +Froehlich to take off the seven veils, a feat which was accomplished +much more delicately at the performance than it had been at the dress +rehearsal. In Paris a farce resulted from the custom when Mme. +Trouhanova not only insisted on wearing a different costume from the +Salome whose image she was supposed to be, but also took curtain calls. +I think it was Gemma Belincioni, the Italian, who first conceived the +idea of Salome dancing her own dance. She was followed by Mary Garden, +who discovered what every one should have noticed in the beginning, that +the composer has given the singer a long rest after the pantomimic +episode.</p> + +<p>Aside from this disturbance to the symmetry of the performance, Olive +Fremstad was magnificent.<a name="page_034" id="page_034"></a> Her entrance was that of a splendid leopard, +standing poised on velvet paws on the terrace, and then creeping slowly +down the staircase. Her scene with Jochanaan was in truth like the +storming of a fortress, and the scene with the Tetrarch was clearly +realized. But it was in the closing scene of the drama that Mme. +Fremstad, like the poet and the composer, achieved her most effective +results. I cannot yet recall her as she crept from side to side of the +well in which Jochanaan was confined, waiting for the slave to ascend +with the severed head, without that shudder of fascination caused by the +glimmering eyes of a monster serpent, or the sleek terribleness of a +Bengal tiger. And at the end she suggested, as perhaps it has never +before been suggested on the stage, the dregs of love, the refuse of +gorged passion.</p> + +<p>Singers who "create" parts in great lyric dramas have a great advantage +over those who succeed them. Mary Shaw once pointed out to me the +probability that Janet Achurch and Elizabeth Robins only won +enthusiastic commendation from Bernard Shaw because they were appearing +in the Ibsen plays which he was seeing for the first time. He attributed +a good part of his pleasure to the interpretations of these ladies. +However, he was never satisfied with their performances<a name="page_035" id="page_035"></a> in plays with +which he was more familiar and he never again found anyone entirely to +suit him in the Ibsen dramas. Albert Niemann was one of the first tenors +to sing Wagner rôles and there are those alive who will tell you that he +was one of the great artists, but it is perhaps because they heard him +<i>first</i> in lyric dramas of such vitality that they confused singer and +rôle. Beatty-Kingston, who heard him in 1866, said (in "Music and +Manners") that he had torn his voice "to tatters by persistent shoutings +at the top of its upper register, and undermined it by excessive worship +at the shrines of Bacchus and the Paphian goddess.... His 'production' +was characterized by a huskiness and scratchiness infinitely distressing +to listen to...." No allowances of this sort need be made for the deep +impression made by Olive Fremstad. At the Metropolitan Opera House she +followed a line of well-beloved and regal interpreters of the Wagner +rôles. Both Lilli Lehmann and Milka Ternina had honoured this stage and +Lillian Nordica preceded Mme. Fremstad as Kundry there. In her career at +the Metropolitan, indeed, Mme. Fremstad sang only three operas at their +first performances there, <i>Salome</i>, <i>Les Contes d'Hoffmann</i>, and +<i>Armide</i>. In her other rôles she was forced to<a name="page_036" id="page_036"></a> stand comparison with a +number of great artists. That she won admiration in them under the +circumstances is the more fine an achievement.</p> + +<p>I like to think, sometimes, that Olive Fremstad is the reincarnation of +Guiditta Pasta, that celebrated Italian singer of the early nineteenth +century, who paced triumphantly through the humbler tragedies of <i>Norma</i> +and <i>Semiramide</i>. She too worked hard to gain her ends, and she gained +them for a time magnificently. Henry Fothergill Chorley celebrates her +art with an enthusiasm that is rare in his pages, and I like to think +that he would write similar lines of eulogy about Olive Fremstad could +he be called from the grave to do so. There is something of the mystic +in all great singers, something incomprehensible, inexplicable, but in +the truly great, the Mme. Pastas and the Mme. Fremstads, this quality +outstrips all others. It is predominant. And just in proportion as this +mysticism triumphs, so too their art becomes triumphant, and flames on +the ramparts, a living witness before mankind to the power of the +unseen.</p> + +<p> +<i>August 17, 1916.</i><br /> +</p> + +<h3><a name="Geraldine_Farrar" id="Geraldine_Farrar"></a>Geraldine Farrar</h3> + +<div class="centeredimage" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/ill_logo_farrar.png" width="120" height="223" alt="Mme. Farrar's insigne." title="Mme. Farrar's insigne." /><br /> +<span class="caption">Mme. Farrar's insigne.</span> +</div> + +<p><a name="page_038" id="page_038"></a></p> + +<p><a name="page_039" id="page_039"></a></p> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE autobiography of Geraldine Farrar is a most disappointing document; +it explains nothing, it offers the reader no new insights. Given the +brains of the writer and the inexhaustibility of the subject, the result +is unaccountable. Any opera-goer who has followed the career of this +singer with even indifferent attention will find it difficult to +discover any revelation of personality or artistry in the book. +Geraldine Farrar has always been a self-willed young woman with a +plangent ambition and a belief in her own future which has been proved +justifiable by the chronological unfolding of her stage career. These +qualities are displayed over and over again in the book, together with a +certain number of facts about her early life, teachers, and so on. Of +that part of her personal experience which would really interest the +public she gives a singularly glossed account. Very little attention is +paid to composers; none at all to operas, if one may except such meagre +descriptions as that accorded to <i>Julien</i>, "a hodge-podge of operatic +efforts that brought little satisfaction to anybody concerned in it." +There are few illuminating anecdotes; no space is devoted to an account +of<a name="page_040" id="page_040"></a> how Mme. Farrar composes her rôles. She likes this one; she is +indifferent to that; she detests a third; but reasons for these +prejudices are rarely given. There is little manifestation of that +analytic mind with which Mme. Farrar credits herself. There are sketchy +references to other singers, usually highly eulogistic, but where did +Mme. Farrar hear that remarkable performance of <i>Carmen</i> in which both +Saleza and Jean de Reszke appeared? For my part, the most interesting +lines in the book are those which close the thirteenth chapter: "I +cannot say that I am much in sympathy with the vague outlines of the +modern French lyric heroines; Mélisande and Ariane, I think, can be +better intrusted to artists of a less positive type."</p> + +<p>Notwithstanding the fact that she has written a rather dull book, +Geraldine Farrar is one of the few really vivid personalities of the +contemporary lyric stage. To a great slice of the public she is an idol +in the sense that Rachel and Jenny Lind were idols. She has frequently +extracted warm praise even from the cold-water taps of discriminating +and ordinarily unsympathetic critics. Acting in opera she considers of +greater importance than singing. She once told me that she ruthlessly +sacrificed tone whenever it seemed to<a name="page_041" id="page_041"></a> interfere with dramatic effect. +As an actress she has suffered from an excess of zeal, and an impatience +of discipline. She composes her parts with some care, but frequently +overlays her original conception with extravagant detail, added +spontaneously at a performance, if her feelings so dictate.</p> + +<div class="centeredimage" style="width: 500px;"> +<a href="images/ill_farrar_elizabeth.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_farrar_elizabeth_sml.jpg" width="225" height="350" alt="GERALDINE FARRAR AS ELISABETH from a photograph by Reutlinger" title="GERALDINE FARRAR AS ELISABETH from a photograph by Reutlinger" /></a><br /> +<span class="caption">GERALDINE FARRAR AS ELISABETH<br /> +from a photograph by Reutlinger</span> +</div> + +<p>This lawlessness sometimes leads her astray. It is an unsafe method to +follow. Actors who feel the most themselves, unless the feeling is +expressed in support of carefully thought-out effects, often leave their +auditors cold. It is interesting to recall that Mme. Malibran, who may +have excelled Mme. Farrar as a singer, had a similar passion for +impromptu stage "business." She refused to give her fellow-artists any +idea of how she would carry a part through, and as she allowed her +feelings full sway in the matter misunderstandings frequently arose. In +acting Desdemona to the Otello of the tenor, Donzelli, for example, she +would not determine beforehand the exact point at which he was to seize +her. Frequently she gave him a long chase and on one occasion in his +pursuit he stumbled and cut himself on his unsheathed dagger. Often it +has seemed that Mme. Farrar deliberately chose certain stage "business" +with an eye to astounding, and not<a name="page_042" id="page_042"></a> with any particular care for the +general roundness of her operatic performance. It must also be taken +into consideration that no two of Mme. Farrar's impersonations of any +one rôle are exactly similar, and that he who may have seen her give a +magnificent performance is not too safe in recommending his meticulous +neighbour to go to the next. Sometimes she is "modern" and "American" in +the deprecatory sense of these words; in some of her parts she exudes no +atmospheric suggestion. There are no overtones. The spectator sees +exactly what is before his eyes on these occasions; there is no +stimulation for the imagination to proceed further. At other times, as +in her characterization of the Goosegirl in <i>Königskinder</i>, it would +seem that she had extracted the last poetic meaning out of the words and +music, and had succeeded in making her audience feel, not merely +everything that the composer and librettist intended, but a great deal +more.</p> + +<p>At times she is a very good singer. Curiously enough, it is classic +music that she usually sings best. I have heard her sing Zerlina in <i>Don +Giovanni</i> in a manner almost worthy of her teacher, Lilli Lehmann. There +is no mention of this rôle in her book; nor of another in which she was +equally successful, Rosaura in <i>Le Donne<a name="page_043" id="page_043"></a> Curiose</i>, beautifully sung +from beginning to end. Mme. Farrar is musical (some singers are not; +Mme. Nordica was not, for example), and I have witnessed two +manifestations of this quality. On one occasion she played for me on the +piano a good portion of the first act of <i>Ariane et Barbe-Bleue</i>, and +played it brilliantly, no mean achievement. Another time I stood talking +with her and her good friend, Josephine Jacoby, in the wings during the +last act of a performance of <i>Madama Butterfly</i> at the Brooklyn Academy +of Music. There was no air of preoccupation on her part, no sense on +ours that she was following the orchestra. I became so interested in our +conversation, for Mme. Farrar invariably talks well, that I did not even +hear the orchestra. But her mind was quite capable of taking care of two +things at once. She interrupted a sentence to sing her phrase off stage, +and then smilingly continued the conversation. I shall never forget this +moment. To me it signified in an instant what Mme. Farrar has taken the +pains to explain in pages of her autobiography and which is all summed +up in her own comment, written at the time on the programme of the +concert of her Boston début, May 26, 1896: "This is what I made my début +in, very calm and sedate, not the least nervous."<a name="page_044" id="page_044"></a></p> + +<p>But Mme. Farrar's vocal method is not God-given, although her voice and +her assurance may be, and she sometimes has trouble in producing her +upper tones. Instead of opening like a fan, her high voice is frequently +pinched, and she has difficulty in singing above the staff. I have never +heard her sing Butterfly's entrance with correct intonation, although I +have heard her in the part many times. Her Carmen, on the whole, is a +most successful performance vocally, and so is (or was) her Elisabeth, +especially in the second act. The tessitura of Butterfly is very high, +and the rôle is a strain for her. She has frequently said that she finds +it easier to sing any two other rôles in her répertoire, and refuses to +appear for two days before or after a performance of this Puccini opera.</p> + +<p>Mme. Farrar is a fine linguist. She speaks and sings French like a +Frenchwoman (I have expert testimony on this point), German like a +German, and Italian like an Italian; her enunciation of English is also +very clear (she has never sung in opera in English, but has often sung +English songs in concert). Her enunciation of Maeterlinck's text in +<i>Ariane et Barbe-Bleue</i> was a joy, about the only one she contributed to +this performance. And in <i>Königskinder</i> and <i>Le Donne<a name="page_045" id="page_045"></a> Curiose</i> she was +equally distinct. In fact there is never any difficulty about following +the text of an opera when Geraldine Farrar is singing.</p> + +<p>The rôles in which Mme. Farrar achieves her best results, according to +my taste, are Manon, the Goosegirl, Margherita (in <i>Mefistofele</i>), +Elisabeth, Rosaura, Suzanna, and Violetta. Cio-Cio-San, of course, is +her most popular creation, and it deserves to some extent the applause +of the populace, although I do not think it should be put in the above +list. It is certainly not to be considered on the same plane vocally. +Other rôles in which she is partially successful are Juliette and +Marguerite (in Gounod's <i>Faust</i>). I think her Ariane is commonly +adjudged a failure. In <i>Madame Sans-Gêne</i> she is often comic, but she +does not suggest a <i>bourgeoise</i> Frenchwoman; in the court scenes she is +more like a graceful woman trying to be awkward than an awkward woman +trying to be graceful. Her Tosca is lacking in dignity; it is too +petulant a performance, too small in conception. In failing to find +adequate pleasure in her Carmen I am not echoing popular opinion.</p> + +<p>I do not think Mme. Farrar has appeared in <i>La Traviata</i> more than two +or three times at the Metropolitan Opera House, although she has<a name="page_046" id="page_046"></a> +probably sung Violetta often in Berlin. On the occasion of Mme. +Sembrich's farewell to the American opera stage she appeared as Flora +Bervoise as a compliment to the older singer. In her biography she says +that Sarah Bernhardt gave her the inspiration for the composition of the +heroine of Verdi's opera. It would be interesting to have more details +on this point; they are not forthcoming. Of course there have been many +Violettas who have sung the music of the first act more brilliantly than +Mme. Farrar; in the later acts she often sang beautifully, and her +acting was highly expressive and unconventional. She considered the rôle +from the point of view of make-up. Has any one else done this? Violetta +was a popular <i>cocotte</i>; consequently, she must have been beautiful. But +she was a consumptive; consequently, she must have been pale. In the +third act Mme. Farrar achieved a very fine dramatic effect with her +costume and make-up. Her face was painted a ghastly white, a fact +emphasized by her carmined lips and her black hair. She wore pale yellow +and carried an enormous black fan, behind which she pathetically hid her +face to cough. She introduced novelty into the part at the very +beginning of the opera. Unlike most Violettas, she did not make an +entrance,<a name="page_047" id="page_047"></a> but sat with her back to the audience, receiving her +guests, when the curtain rose.</p> + +<div class="centeredimage" style="width: 500px;"> +<a href="images/ill_farrar_violetta.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_farrar_violetta_sml.jpg" width="225" height="350" alt="GERALDINE FARRAR AS VIOLETTA from a photograph by Aimé Dupont (1907)" title="GERALDINE FARRAR AS VIOLETTA from a photograph by Aimé Dupont (1907)" /></a><br /> +<span class="caption">GERALDINE FARRAR AS VIOLETTA<br /> +from a photograph by Aimé Dupont (1907)</span> +</div> + +<p>It has seemed strange to me that the professional reviewers should have +attributed the added notes of realism in Mme. Farrar's second edition of +Carmen to her appearances in the moving-picture drama. The tendencies +displayed in her second year in the part were in no wise, to my mind, a +result of her cinema experiences. In fact, the New York critics should +have remembered that when Mme. Farrar made her début at the Metropolitan +Opera House in the rôle of Juliette, they had rebuked her for these very +qualities. She had indulged in a little extra realism in the bedroom and +balcony scenes of Gounod's opera, of the sort with which Miss Nethersole +created ten-minute furores in her performances of Carmen and Sapho. +Again, as Marguerite in <i>Faust</i> (her Margherita in <i>Mefistofele</i> was a +particularly repressed and dreamy representation of the German maiden, +one instinct with the highest dramatic and vocal values in the prison +scene), she devised "business" calculated to startle, dancing the jewel +song, and singing the first stanza of the <i>Roi de Thulé</i> air from the +cottage, whither she had repaired to fetch her spindle of flax—this +last detail seemed to me a very good one. In<a name="page_048" id="page_048"></a> early representations of +<i>Madama Butterfly</i> and <i>La Bohème</i> her death scenes were fraught with an +intense realism which fitted ill with the spirit of the music. I +remember one occasion on which Cio-Cio-San knocked over the +rocking-chair in her death struggles, which often embraced the range of +the Metropolitan stage.</p> + +<p>These points have all been urged against her at the proper times, and +there seemed small occasion for attributing her extra activities in the +first act of Bizet's opera, in which the cigarette girl engaged in a +prolonged scuffle with her rival in the factory, or her more recent +whistling of the seguidilla, to her moving-picture experiences. No, Mme. +Farrar is overzealous with her public. She once told me that at every +performance she cut herself open with a knife and gave herself to the +audience. This intensity, taken together with her obviously unusual +talent and her personal attractiveness, is what has made her a more than +ordinary success on our stage. It is at once her greatest virtue and her +greatest fault, artistically speaking. Properly manacled, this quality +would make her one of the finest, instead of merely one of the most +popular, artists now before the public. But I cannot see how the cinema +can be blamed.<a name="page_049" id="page_049"></a></p> + +<p>When I first saw the Carmen of Mme. Farrar, her second or third +appearance in the part, I was perplexed to find an excuse for its almost +unanimous acclamation, and I sought in my mind for extraneous reasons. +There was, for example, the conducting of the score by Mr. Toscanini, +but that, like Mme. Farrar's interpretation of the Spanish gypsy, never +found exceptional favour in my ears. Mr. Caruso's appearance in the +opera could not be taken into consideration, because he had frequently +sung in it before at the Metropolitan Opera House without awakening any +great amount of enthusiasm. In fact, except as Des Grieux, this Italian +tenor has never been popularly accepted in French opera in New York. But +<i>Carmen</i> had long been out of the répertoire, and <i>Carmen</i> is an opera +people like to hear. The magic of the names of Caruso, Farrar, and +Toscanini may have lured auditors and critics into imagining they had +heard a more effective performance than was vouchsafed them. Personally +I could not compare the revival favourably with the wonderful Manhattan +Opera House <i>Carmen</i>, which at its best enlisted the services of Mme. +Bressler-Gianoli, the best Carmen save one that I have ever heard, +Charles Dalmores, Maurice Renaud, Pauline Donalda, Charles Gilibert,<a name="page_050" id="page_050"></a> +Emma Trentini, and Daddi; Cleofonte Campanini conducting.</p> + +<p>At first, to be sure, there was no offensive over-laying of detail in +Mme. Farrar's interpretation. It was not cautiously traditional, but +there was no evidence that the singer was striving to stray from the +sure paths. The music lies well in Mme. Farrar's voice, better than that +of any other part I have heard her sing, unless it be Charlotte in +<i>Werther</i>, and the music, all of it, went well, including the habanera, +the seguidilla, the quintet, and the marvellous <i>Oui, je t'aime, +Escamillo</i> of the last act. Her well-planned, lively dance after the +gypsy song at the beginning of the second act drew a burst of applause +for music usually permitted to go unrewarded. Her exit in the first act +was effective, and her scene with Jose in the second act was excellently +carried through. The card scene, as she acted it, meant very little. No +strain was put upon the nerves. There was little suggestion here. The +entrance of Escamillo and Carmen in an old victoria in the last act was +a stroke of genius on somebody's part. I wonder if this was Mme. +Farrar's idea.</p> + +<p>But somehow, during this performance, one didn't feel there. It was no +more the banks of the Guadalquivir than it was the banks of the<a name="page_051" id="page_051"></a> Hudson. +<i>Carmen</i> as transcribed by Bizet and Meilhac and Halévy becomes +indisputably French in certain particulars; to say that the heroine +should be Spanish is not to understand the truth; Maria Gay's +interpretation has taught us that, if nothing else has. But atmosphere +is demanded, and that Mme. Farrar did not give us, at least she did not +give it to me. In the beginning the interpretation made on me the effect +of routine,—the sort of performance one can see in any first-rate +European opera house,—and later, when the realistic bits were added, +the distortion offended me, for French opera always demands a certain +elegance of its interpreters; a quality which Mme. Farrar has exposed to +us in two other French rôles.</p> + +<p>Her Manon is really an adorable creature. I have never seen Mary Garden +in this part, but I have seen many French singers, and to me Mme. Farrar +transcends them all. A very beautiful and moving performance she gives, +quite in keeping with the atmosphere of the opera. Her adieu to the +little table and her farewell to Des Grieux in the desert always start a +lump in my throat.</p> + +<p>Her Charlotte (a rôle, I believe, cordially detested by Mme. Farrar, and +one which she refuses to sing) is to me an even more moving conception.<a name="page_052" id="page_052"></a> +This sentimental opera of Massenet's has never been appreciated in +America at its true value, although it is one of the most frequently +represented works at the Paris Opéra-Comique. When it was first +introduced here by Emma Eames and Jean de Rezske, it found little +favour, and later Mme. Farrar and Edmond Clément were unable to arouse +interest in it (it was in <i>Werther</i>, at the New Theatre, that Alma Gluck +made her operatic début, in the rôle of Sophie). But Geraldine Farrar as +the hesitating heroine of the tragic and sentimental romance made the +part very real, as real in its way as Henry James's "Portrait of a +Lady," and as moving. The whole third act she carried through in an +amazingly pathetic key, and she always sang <i>Les Larmes</i> as if her heart +were really breaking.</p> + +<p>What a charming figure she was in Wolf-Ferrari's pretty operas, <i>Le +Donne Curiose</i> and <i>Suzannen's Geheimness</i>! And she sang the lovely +measures with the Mozartean purity which at her best she had learned +from Lilli Lehmann. Her Zerlina and her Cherubino were delightful +impersonations, invested with vast roguery, although in both parts she +was a trifle self-conscious, especially in her assumption of +awkwardness. Her Elisabeth, sung in New York but seldom,<a name="page_053" id="page_053"></a> though she +has recently appeared in this rôle with the Chicago Opera Company, was +noble in conception and execution, and her Goosegirl one of the most +fascinating pictures in the operatic gallery of our generation. Her +Mignon was successful in a measure, perhaps not an entirely credible +figure. Her Nedda was very good.</p> + +<div class="centeredimage" style="width: 500px;"> +<a href="images/ill_farrar_louise.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_farrar_louise_sml.jpg" width="262" height="350" alt="GERALDINE FARRAR AS LOUISE IN JULIEN from a photograph by White (1914)" title="GERALDINE FARRAR AS LOUISE IN JULIEN from a photograph by White (1914)" /></a><br /> +<span class="caption">GERALDINE FARRAR AS LOUISE IN JULIEN<br />from a photograph by White (1914)</span> +</div> + +<p>Her Louise in <i>Julien</i> was so fine dramatically, especially in the +Montmartre episode, as to make one wish that she could sing the real +Louise in the opera of that name. Once, however, at a performance of +Charpentier's earlier work at the Manhattan Opera House, she told me +that she would never, never do so. She has been known to change her +mind. Her Ariane, I think, was her most complete failure. It is a part +which requires plasticity and nobility of gesture and interpretation of +a kind with which her style is utterly at variance. And yet I doubt if +Mme. Farrar had ever sung a part to which she had given more +consideration. It was for this opera, in fact, that she worked out a +special method of vocal speech, half-sung, half-spoken, which enabled +her to deliver the text more clearly.</p> + +<p>Whether Mme. Farrar will undergo further artistic development I very +much doubt. She tells us in her autobiography that she can study<a name="page_054" id="page_054"></a> +nothing in any systematic way, and it is only through very sincere study +and submission to well-intended restraint that she might develop still +further into the artist who might conceivably leave a more considerable +imprint on the music drama of her time. It is to be doubted if Mme. +Farrar cares for these supreme laurels; her success with her +public—which is pretty much all the public—is so complete in its way +that she may be entirely satisfied with that by no means to be despised +triumph. Once (in 1910) she gave an indication to me that this might be +so, in the following words:</p> + +<p>"Emma Calvé was frequently harshly criticized, but when she sang the +opera house was crowded. It was because she gave her personality to the +public. Very frequently there are singers who give most excellent +interpretations, who are highly praised, and whom nobody goes to see. +Now in the last analysis there are two things which I do. I try to be +true to myself and my own conception of the dramatic fitness of things +on the stage, and I try to please my audiences. To do that you must +mercilessly reveal your personality. There is no other way. In my humble +way I am an actress who happens to be appearing in opera. I sacrifice +tonal beauty to dramatic fitness every<a name="page_055" id="page_055"></a> time I think it is necessary for +an effect, and I shall continue to do it. I leave mere singing to the +warblers. I am more interested in acting myself."</p> + +<p>There is much that is sound sense in these remarks, but it is a pity +that Mme. Farrar carries her theories out literally. To me, and to many +another, there is something a little sad in the acceptance of easily won +victory. If she would, Mme. Farrar might improve her singing and acting +in certain rôles in which she has already appeared, and she might +enlarge her répertoire to include more of the rôles which have a deeper +significance in operatic and musical history. At present her activity is +too consistent to allow time for much reflection. It would afford me the +greatest pleasure to learn that this singer had decided to retire for a +few months to devote herself to study and introspection, so that she +might return to the stage with a new and brighter fire and a more +lasting message.</p> + +<p><i>Farrar fara—forse.</i></p> + +<p><i>July 14, 1916.</i><a name="page_056" id="page_056"></a> +<a name="page_057" id="page_057"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="Mary_Garden" id="Mary_Garden"></a>Mary Garden</h3> + +<table border="0" style="margin:8% auto 8% auto;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="quotation"> +<tr><td align="left">"<i>Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.</i>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">Gertrude Stein.</td></tr> +</table> + +<p><a name="page_059" id="page_059"></a></p> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE influence of Ibsen on our stage has been most subtle. The dramas of +the sly Norwegian are infrequently performed, but almost all the plays +of the epoch bear his mark. And he has done away with the actor, for +nowadays emotions are considered rude on the stage. Our best playwrights +have striven for an intellectual monotone. So it happens that for the +Henry Irvings, the Sarah Bernhardts, and the Edwin Booths of a younger +generation we must turn to the operatic stage, and there we find them: +Maurice Renaud, Olive Fremstad—and Mary Garden.</p> + +<p>There is nothing casual about the art of Mary Garden. Her achievements +on the lyric stage are not the result of happy accident. Each detail of +her impersonations, indeed, is a carefully studied and selected effect, +chosen after a review of possible alternatives. Occasionally, after a +trial, Miss Garden even rejects the instinctive. This does not mean that +there is no feeling behind her performances. The deep burning flame of +poetic imagination illuminates and warms into life the conception +wrought in the study chamber. Nothing is left to chance, and it is +seldom, and always for some good reason, that this artist permits<a name="page_060" id="page_060"></a> +herself to alter particulars of a characterization during the course of +a representation.</p> + +<p>I have watched her many times in the same rôle without detecting any +great variance in the arrangement of details, and almost as many times I +have been blinded by the force of her magnetic imaginative power, +without which no interpreter can hope to become an artist. This, it +seems to me, is the highest form of stage art; certainly it is the form +which on the whole is the most successful in exposing the intention of +author and composer, although occasionally a Geraldine Farrar or a +Salvini will make it apparent that the inspiration of the moment also +has its value. However, I cannot believe that the true artist often +experiments in public. He conceives in seclusion and exposes his +conception, completely realized, breathed into, so to speak, on the +stage. When he first studies a character it is his duty to feel the +emotions of that character, and later he must project these across the +footlights into the hearts of his audience; but he cannot be expected to +feel these emotions every night. He must <i>remember</i> how he felt them +before. And sometimes even this ideal interpreter makes mistakes. +Neither instinct nor intelligence—not even genius—can compass every +range.<a name="page_061" id="page_061"></a></p> + +<p>Miss Garden's career has been closely identified with the French lyric +stage and, in at least two operas, she has been the principal +interpreter—and a material factor in their success—of works which have +left their mark on the epoch, stepping-stones in the musical brook. The +rôles in which she has most nearly approached the ideal are perhaps +Mélisande, Jean (<i>Le Jongleur de Notre Dame</i>), Sapho, Thais, Louise, +Marguerite (in Gounod's <i>Faust</i>), Chrysis (in <i>Aphrodite</i>), and Monna +Vanna. I cannot speak personally of her Tosca, her Orlanda, her Manon, +her Violetta, or her Chérubin (in Massenet's opera of the same name). I +do not care for her Carmen as a whole, and to my mind her interpretation +of Salome lacks the inevitable quality which stamped Olive Fremstad's +performance. In certain respects she realizes the characters and sings +the music of Juliet and Ophélie, but this is <i>vieux jeu</i> for her, and I +do not think she has effaced the memory of Emma Eames in the one and +Emma Calvé in the other of these rôles. She was somewhat vague and not +altogether satisfactory (this may be ascribed to the paltriness of the +parts) as Prince Charmant in <i>Cendrillon, la belle</i> Dulcinée in <i>Don +Quichotte</i>, and Grisélidis. On the other hand, in <i>Natoma</i>—her only +appearance thus far in<a name="page_062" id="page_062"></a> opera in English—she made a much more important +contribution to the lyric stage than either author or composer.</p> + +<p>Mary Garden was born in Scotland, but her family came to this country +when she was very young, and she grew up in the vicinity of Chicago. She +may therefore be adjudged at least as much an American singer as Olive +Fremstad. She studied in France, however, and this fortuitous +circumstance accounts for the fact that all her great rôles are French, +and for the most part modern French. Her two Italian rôles, Violetta and +Tosca, she sings in French, although I believe she has made attempts to +sing Puccini's opera in the original tongue. Her other ventures afield +have included Salome, sung in French, and Natoma, sung in English. Her +pronunciation of French on the stage has always aroused comment, some of +it jocular. Her accent is strongly American, a matter which her very +clear enunciation does not leave in doubt. However, it is a question in +my mind if Miss Garden did not weigh well the charm of this accent and +its probable effect on French auditors. You will remember that Helena +Modjeska spoke English with a decided accent, as do Fritzi Scheff, Alia +Nazimova, and Mitzi Hajos in our own day; you may also realize that to +the public,<a name="page_063" id="page_063"></a> which includes yourself, this is no inconsiderable part of +their charm. Parisians do not take pleasure in hearing their language +spoken by a German, but they have never had any objection—quite the +contrary—to an English or American accent on their stage, although I do +not believe this general preference has ever been allowed to affect +performances at the Comédie Française, except when <i>l'Anglais tel qu'on +le parle</i> is on the <i>affiches</i>. At least it is certain that Miss Garden +speaks French quite as easily as—perhaps more easily than—she does +English, and many of the eccentricities of her stage speech are not +noticeable in private life.</p> + +<p>Many of the great artists of the theatre have owed their first +opportunity to an accident; it was so with Mary Garden. She once told me +the story herself and I may be allowed to repeat it in her own words, as +I put them down shortly after:</p> + +<p>"I became friends with Sybil Sanderson, who was singing in Paris then, +and one day when I was at her house Albert Carré, the director of the +Opéra-Comique, came to call. I was sitting by the window as he entered, +and he said to Sybil, 'That woman has a profile; she would make a +charming Louise.' Charpentier's opera, I should explain, had not yet +been produced. 'She has a<a name="page_064" id="page_064"></a> voice, too,' Sybil added. Well, M. Carré took +me to the theatre and listened while I sang airs from <i>Traviata</i> and +<i>Manon</i>. Then he gave me the partition of <i>Louise</i> and told me to go +home and study it. I had the rôle in my head in fifteen days. This was +in March, and M. Carré engaged me to sing at his theatre beginning in +October.... One spring day, however, when I was feeling particularly +depressed over the death of a dog that had been run over by an omnibus, +M. Carré came to me in great excitement; Mme. Rioton, the singer cast +for the part, was ill, and he asked me if I thought I could sing Louise. +I said 'Certainly,' in the same tone with which I would have accepted an +invitation to dinner. It was only bluff; I had never rehearsed the part +with orchestra, but it was my chance, and I was determined to take +advantage of it. Besides, I had studied the music so carefully that I +could have sung it note for note if the orchestra had played <i>The +Star-Spangled Banner</i> simultaneously.</p> + +<p>"Evening came and found me in the theatre. Mme. Rioton had recovered +sufficiently to sing; she appeared during the first two acts, and then +succumbed immediately before the air, <i>Depuis le Jour</i>, which opens the +third act. I was in my dressing-room when M. Carré sent for me. He told +me that<a name="page_065" id="page_065"></a> an announcement had been made before the curtain that I would +be substituted for Mme. Rioton. I learned afterwards that André +Messager, who was directing the orchestra, had strongly advised against +taking this step; he thought the experiment was too dangerous, and urged +that the people in the house should be given their money back. The +audience, you may be sure, was none too pleased at the prospect of +having to listen to a Mlle. Garden of whom they had never heard. Will +you believe me when I tell you that I was never less nervous?... I must +have succeeded, for I sang Louise over two hundred times at the +Opéra-Comique after that. The year was 1900, and I had made my début on +Friday, April 13!"</p> + +<p>I have no contemporary criticisms of this event at hand, but one of my +most valued souvenirs is a photograph of the charming interpreter as she +appeared in the rôle of Louise at the beginning of her career. However, +in one of Gauthier-Villars's compilations of his musical criticisms, +which he signed "L'Ouvreuse" ("La Ronde des Blanches"), I discovered the +following, dated February 21, 1901, a detail of a review of Gabriel +Pierné's opera, <i>La Fille de Tabarin</i>: "Mlle. Garden a une aimable +figure, une voix aimable, et un petit reste d'accent exotique, aimable +aussi."<a name="page_066" id="page_066"></a></p> + +<p>Of the composer of <i>Louise</i> Miss Garden had many interesting things to +say in after years: "The opera is an expression of Charpentier's own +life," she told me one day. "It is the opera of Montmartre, and he was +the King of Montmartre, a real bohemian, to whom money and fame meant +nothing. He was satisfied if he had enough to pay <i>consommations</i> for +himself and his friends at the Rat Mort. He had won the <i>Prix de Rome</i> +before <i>Louise</i> was produced, but he remained poor. He lived in a dirty +little garret up on the <i>butte</i>, and while he was writing this realistic +picture of his own life he was slowly starving to death. André Messager +knew him and tried to give him money, but he wouldn't accept it. He was +very proud. Messager was obliged to carry up milk in bottles, with a +loaf of bread, and say that he wanted to lunch with him, in order to get +Charpentier to take nourishment.</p> + +<p>"Meanwhile, little by little, <i>Louise</i> was being slowly written.... Part +of it he wrote in the Rat Mort, part in his own little room, and part of +it in the Moulin de la Galette, one of the gayest of the Montmartre +dance halls. High up on the <i>butte</i> the gaunt windmill sign waves its +arms; from the garden you can see all Paris. It is the view that you get +in the third act of <i>Louise</i>....<a name="page_067" id="page_067"></a> The production of his opera brought +Charpentier nearly half a million francs, but he spent it all on the +working-girls of Montmartre. He even established a conservatory, so that +those with talent might study without paying. And his mother, whom he +adored, had everything she wanted until she died.... He always wore the +artist costume, corduroy trousers, blouse, and flowing tie, even when he +came to the Opéra-Comique in the evening. Money did not change his +habits. His kingdom extended over all Paris after the production of +<i>Louise</i>, but he still preferred his old friends in Montmartre to the +new ones his success had made for him, and he dissipated his strength +and talent. He was an adorable man; he would give his last sou to any +one who asked for it!</p> + +<p>"To celebrate the fiftieth performance of <i>Louise</i>, M. Carré gave a +dinner in July, 1900. Most appropriately he did not choose the Café +Anglais or the Café de Paris for this occasion, but Charpentier's own +beloved Moulin de la Galette. It was at this dinner that the composer +gave the first sign of his physical decline. He had scarcely seated +himself at the table, surrounded by the great men and women of Paris, +before he fainted...."</p> + +<p>The subsequent history of this composer of the lower world we all know +too well; how he journeyed<a name="page_068" id="page_068"></a> south and lived in obscurity for years, +years which were embellished with sundry rumours relating to future +works, rumours which were finally crowned by the production of <i>Julien</i> +at the Opéra-Comique—and subsequently at the Metropolitan Opera House +in New York. The failure of this opera was abysmal.</p> + +<p>Louise is a rôle which Miss Garden has sung very frequently in America, +and, as she may be said to have contributed to Charpentier's fame and +popularity in Paris, she did as much for him here. This was the second +part in which she appeared in New York. The dynamics of the rôle are +finely wrought out, deeply felt; the characterization is extraordinarily +keen, although after the first act it never touches the heart. The +singing-actress conceives the character of the sewing-girl as hard and +brittle, and she does not play it for sympathy. She acts the final scene +with the father with the brilliant polish of a diamond cut in Amsterdam, +and with heartless brutality. Stroke after stroke she devotes to a +ruthless exposure of what she evidently considers to be the nature of +this futile drab. It is the scene in the play which evidently interests +her most, and it is the scene to which she has given her most careful +attention. In the first act, to be sure, she is <i>gamine</i> and adorable<a name="page_069" id="page_069"></a> +in her scenes with her father, and touchingly poignant in the despairing +cry which closes the act, <i>Paris</i>! In the next two acts she wisely +submerges herself in the general effect. She allows the sewing-girls to +make the most of their scene, and, after she has sung <i>Depuis le Jour</i>, +she gives the third act wholly into the keeping of the ballet, and the +interpreters of Julien and the mother.</p> + +<p>There are other ways of singing and acting this rôle. Others have sung +and acted it, others will sing and act it, effectively. The abandoned +(almost aggressive) perversity of Miss Garden's performance has perhaps +not been equalled, but this rôle does not belong to her as completely as +do Thais and Mélisande; no other interpreters will satisfy any one who +has seen her in these two parts.</p> + +<p>Miss Garden made her American début in Massenet's opera, <i>Thais</i>, +written, by the way, for Sybil Sanderson. The date was November 25, +1907. Previous to this time Miss Garden had never sung this opera in +Paris, but she had appeared in it during a summer season at one of the +French watering places. Since that night, nearly ten years ago, however, +it has become the most stable feature of her répertoire. She has sung it +frequently in Paris, and during the long tours undertaken<a name="page_070" id="page_070"></a> by the +Chicago Opera Company this sentimental tale of the Alexandrian courtesan +and the hermit of the desert has startled the inhabitants of hamlets in +Iowa and California. It is a very brilliant scenic show, and is utterly +successful as a vehicle for the exploitation of the charms of a fragrant +personality. Miss Garden has found the part grateful; her very lovely +figure is particularly well suited to the allurements of Grecian +drapery, and the unwinding of her charms at the close of the first act +is an event calculated to stir the sluggish blood of a hardened +theatre-goer, let alone that of a Nebraska farmer. The play becomes the +more vivid as it is obvious that the retiary meshes with which she +ensnares Athanaël are strong enough to entangle any of us. +Thais-become-nun—Evelyn Innes should have sung this character before +she became Sister Teresa—is in violent contrast to these opening +scenes, but the acts in the desert, as the Alexandrian strumpet wilts +before the aroused passion of the monk, are carried through with equal +skill by this artist who is an adept in her means of expression and +expressiveness.</p> + +<p>The opera is sentimental, theatrical, and over its falsely constructed +drama—a perversion of Anatole France's psychological tale—Massenet +has<a name="page_071" id="page_071"></a> overlaid as banal a coverlet of music as could well be devised by +an eminent composer. "The bad fairies have given him [Massenet] only one +gift," writes Pierre Lalo, "...the desire to please." It cannot be said +that Miss Garden allows the music to affect her interpretation. She +sings some of it, particularly her part in the duet in the desert, with +considerable charm and warmth of tone. I have never cared very much for +her singing of the mirror air, although she is dramatically admirable at +this point; on the other hand, I have found her rendering of the +farewell to Eros most pathetic in its tenderness. At times she has +attacked the high notes, which fall in unison with the exposure of her +attractions, with brilliancy; at other times she has avoided them +altogether (it must be remembered that Miss Sanderson, for whom this +opera was written, had a voice like the Tour Eiffel; she sang to G above +the staff). But the general tone of her interpretation has not been +weakened by the weakness of the music or by her inability to sing a good +deal of it. Quite the contrary. I am sure she sings the part with more +steadiness of tone than Milka Ternina ever commanded for Tosca, and her +performance is equally unforgettable.</p> + +<p>After the production of <i>Louise</i>, Miss Garden's<a name="page_072" id="page_072"></a> name became almost +legendary in Paris, and many are the histories of her subsequent career +there. Parisians and foreign visitors alike flocked to the Opéra-Comique +to see her in the series of delightful rôles which she assumed—Orlanda, +Manon, Chrysis, Violetta ... and Mélisande. It was during the summer of +1907 that I first heard her there in two of the parts most closely +identified with her name, Chrysis and Mélisande.</p> + +<p>Camille Erlanger's <i>Aphrodite</i>, considered as a work of art, is fairly +meretricious. As a theatrical entertainment it offers many elements of +enjoyment. Based on the very popular novel of Pierre Louÿs—at one time +forbidden circulation in America by Anthony Comstock—it winds its +pernicious way through a tale of prostitution, murder, theft, sexual +inversion, drunkenness, sacrilege, and crucifixion, and concludes, quite +simply, in a cemetery. The music is appallingly banal, and has never +succeeded in doing anything else but annoy me when I have thought of it +at all. It never assists in creating an atmosphere; it bears no relation +to stage picture, characters, or situation. Both gesture and colour are +more important factors in the consideration of the pleasurable elements +of this piece than the weak trickle of its sickly melodic flow.<a name="page_073" id="page_073"></a></p> + +<div class="centeredimage" style="width: 500px;"> +<a href="images/ill_mary_garden_chrysis.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_mary_garden_chrysis_sml.jpg" width="209" height="350" alt="MARY GARDEN AS CHRYSIS (1906)" title="MARY GARDEN AS CHRYSIS (1906)" /></a><br /> +<span class="caption">MARY GARDEN AS CHRYSIS (1906)</span> +</div> + +<p>For the most part, at a performance, one does not listen to the music. +Nevertheless, <i>Aphrodite</i> calls one again and again. Its success in +Paris was simply phenomenal, and the opera is still in the répertoire of +the Opéra-Comique. This success was due in a measure to the undoubted +"punch" of the story, in a measure to the orgy which M. Carré had +contrived to embellish the third act, culminating in the really +imaginative dancing of the beautiful Regina Badet and the horrible scene +of the crucifixion of the negro slave; but, more than anything else, it +was due to the rarely compelling performance of Mary Garden as the +courtesan who consented to exchange her body for the privilege of seeing +her lover commit theft, sacrilege, and murder. In her bold entrance, +flaunting her long lemon scarf, wound round her body like a Nautch +girl's säri, which illy concealed her fine movements, she at once gave +the picture, not alone of the <i>cocotte</i> of the period but of a whole +life, a whole atmosphere, and this she maintained throughout the +disclosure of the tableaux. In the prison scene she attained heights of +tragic acting which I do not think even she has surpassed elsewhere. The +pathos of her farewell to her two little Lesbian friends, and the +gesture with which she drained the poison cup, linger in the memory,<a name="page_074" id="page_074"></a> +refusing to give up their places to less potent details.</p> + +<p>I first heard Debussy's lyric drama, <i>Pelléas et Mélisande</i>, at the +Opéra-Comique, with Miss Garden as the principal interpreter. It is +generally considered the greatest achievement of her mimic art. Somehow +by those means at the command of a fine artist, she subdued her very +definite personality and moulded it into the vague and subtle personage +created by Maurice Maeterlinck. Even great artists grasp at straws for +assistance, and it is interesting to know that to Miss Garden a wig is +the all important thing. "Once I have donned the wig of a character, I +am that character," she told me once. "It would be difficult for me to +go on the stage in my own hair." Nevertheless, I believe she has +occasionally inconsistently done so as Louise.</p> + +<p>In Miss Garden's score of <i>Pelléas</i> Debussy has written, "In the future, +others may sing Mélisande, but you alone will remain the woman and the +artist I had hardly dared hope for." It must be remembered, however, +that composers are notoriously fickle; that they prefer having their +operas given in any form rather than not at all; that ink is cheap and +musicians prolific in sentiments. In how many <i>Manon</i> scores did +Massenet write his tender eternal finalities? Perhaps little Maggie<a name="page_075" id="page_075"></a> +Teyte, who imitated Mary Garden's Mélisande as Elsie Janis imitates +Sarah Bernhardt, cherishes a dedicated score now. Memory tells me I have +seen such a score, but memory is sometimes a false jade.</p> + +<p>In her faded mediæval gowns, with her long plaits of golden hair,—in +the first scene she wore it loose,—Mary Garden became at once in the +spectator's mind the princess of enchanted castles, the cymophanous +heroine of a <i>féerie</i>, the dream of a poet's tale. In gesture and in +musical speech, in tone-colour, she was faithful to the first wonderful +impression of the eye. There has been in our day no more perfect example +of characterization offered on the lyric stage than Mary Garden's lovely +Mélisande.... <i>Ne me touchez pas!</i> became the cry of a terrified child, +a real protestation of innocence. <i>Je ne suis pas heureuse ici</i>, was +uttered with a pathos of expression which drove its helplessness into +our hearts. The scene at the fountain with Pelléas, in which Mélisande +loses her ring, was played with such delicate shading, such poetic +imagination, that one could almost crown the interpreter as the creator, +and the death scene was permeated with a fragile, simple beauty as +compelling as that which Carpaccio put into his picture of <i>Santa +Ursula</i>, a picture indeed which<a name="page_076" id="page_076"></a> Miss Garden's performance brought to +mind more than once. If she sought inspiration from the art of the +painter for her delineation, it was not to Rossetti and Burne-Jones that +she went. Rather did she gather some of the soft bloom from the +paintings of Bellini, Carpaccio, Giotto, Cimabue ... especially +Botticelli; had not the spirit and the mood of the two frescos from the +Villa Lemmi in the Louvre come to life in this gentle representation?</p> + +<p>Before she appeared as Mélisande in New York, Miss Garden was a little +doubtful of the probable reception of the play here. She was surprised +and delighted with the result, for the drama was presented in the late +season of 1907-08 at the Manhattan Opera House no less than seven times +to very large audiences. The singer talked to me before the event: "It +took us four years to establish <i>Pelléas et Mélisande</i> in the répertoire +of the Opéra-Comique. At first the public listened with disfavour or +indecision, and performances could only be given once in two weeks. As a +contrast I might mention the immediate success of <i>Aphrodite</i>, which I +sang three or four times a week until fifty representations had been +achieved, without appearing in another rôle. <i>Pelléas</i> was a different +matter. The mystic beauty of the poet's mood and the revolutionary<a name="page_077" id="page_077"></a> +procedures of the musician were not calculated to touch the great public +at once. Indeed, we had to teach our audiences to enjoy it. Americans +who, I am told, are fond of Maeterlinck, may appreciate its very +manifest beauty at first hearing, but they didn't in Paris. At the early +representations, individuals whistled and made cat-calls. One night +three young men in the first row of the orchestra whistled through an +entire scene. I don't believe those young men will ever forget the way I +looked at them.... But after each performance it was the same: the +applause drowned out the hisses. The balconies and galleries were the +first to catch the spirit of the piece, and gradually it grew in public +favour, and became a success, that is, comparatively speaking. <i>Pelléas +et Mélisande</i>, like many another work of true beauty, appeals to a +special public and, consequently, the number of performances has always +been limited, and perhaps always will be. I do not anticipate that it +will crowd from popular favour such operas as <i>Werther</i>, <i>La Vie de +Bohème</i> and <i>Carmen</i>, each of which is included in practically every +week's répertoire at the Opéra-Comique.</p> + +<div class="centeredimage" style="width: 500px;"> +<a href="images/ill_mary_garden_melisande.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_mary_garden_melisande_sml.jpg" width="288" height="350" alt="MARY GARDEN AS MÉLISANDE from a photograph by Davis and Eickemeyer (1908)" title="MARY GARDEN AS MÉLISANDE from a photograph by Davis and Eickemeyer (1908)" /></a><br /> +<span class="caption">MARY GARDEN AS MÉLISANDE<br />from a photograph by Davis and Eickemeyer (1908)</span> +</div> + +<p>"We interpreters of Debussy's lyric drama were naturally very proud, +because we felt that we were<a name="page_078" id="page_078"></a> assisting in the making of musical +history. Maeterlinck, by the way, has never seen the opera. He wished +his wife, Georgette Leblanc, to 'create' the rôle of Mélisande, but +Debussy and Carré had chosen me, and the poet did not have his way. He +wrote an open letter to the newspapers of Paris in which he frankly +expressed his hope that the work would fail. Later, when composers +approached him in regard to setting his dramas to music, he made it a +condition that his wife should sing them. She did appear as Ariane, you +will remember, but Lucienne Bréval first sang Monna Vanna, and +Maeterlinck's wrath again vented itself in pronunciamentos."</p> + +<p>Miss Garden spoke of the settings. "The <i>décor</i> should be dark and +sombre. Mrs. Campbell set the play in the Renaissance period, an epoch +flooded with light and charm. I think she was wrong. Absolute latitude +is permitted the stage director, as Maeterlinck has made no restrictions +in the book. The director of the Opéra at Brussels followed Mrs. +Campbell's example, and when I appeared in the work there I felt that I +was singing a different drama."</p> + +<p>One afternoon in the autumn of 1908, when I was Paris correspondent of +the "New York Times," I received the following telegram from<a name="page_079" id="page_079"></a> Miss +Garden: "Venez ce soir à 5½ chez Mlle. Chasles 112 Boulevard +Malesherbes me voir en Salome." It was late in the day when the message +came to me, and I had made other plans, but you may be sure I put them +all aside. A <i>petit-bleu</i> or two disposed of my engagements, and I took +a fiacre in the blue twilight of the Paris afternoon for the <i>salle de +danse</i> of Mlle. Chasles. On my way I recollected how some time +previously Miss Garden had informed me of her intention of interpreting +the Dance of the Seven Veils herself, and how she had attempted to gain +the co-operation of Maraquita, the ballet mistress of the Opéra-Comique, +a plan which she was forced to abandon, owing to some rapidly revolving +wheels of operatic intrigue. So the new Salome went to Mlle. Chasles, +who sixteen years ago was delighting the patrons of the Opéra-Comique +with her charming dancing. She it was who, materially assisted by Miss +Garden herself, arranged the dance, dramatically significant in gesture +and step, which the singer performed at the climax of Richard Strauss's +music drama.</p> + +<p>Mlle. Chasles's <i>salle de danse</i> I discovered to be a large square room; +the floor had a rake like that of the Opéra stage in Paris. There were +footlights, and seats in front of them for spectators.<a name="page_080" id="page_080"></a> The walls were +hung with curious old prints and engravings of famous dancers, Mlle. +Sallé, La Camargo, Taglioni, Carlotta Grisi, and Cerito.</p> + +<p>This final rehearsal—before the rehearsals in New York which preceded +her first appearance in the part anywhere at the Manhattan Opera +House—was witnessed by André Messager, who intended to mount <i>Salome</i> +at the Paris Opéra the following season, Mlle. Chasles, an accompanist, +a maid, a hair-dresser, and myself. I noted that Miss Garden's costume +differed in a marked degree from those her predecessors had worn. For +the entrance of Salome she had provided a mantle of bright orange +shimmering stuff, embroidered with startling azure and emerald flowers +and sparkling with spangles. Under this she wore a close-fitting garment +of netted gold, with designs in rubies and rhinestones, which fell from +somewhere above the waistline to her ankles. This garment was also +removed for the dance, and Miss Garden emerged in a narrow strip of +flesh-coloured tulle. Her arms, shoulders, and legs were bare. She wore +a red wig, the hair falling nearly to her waist (later she changed this +detail and wore the cropped wig which became identified with her +impersonation of the part). Two jewels, an emerald on one little finger, +a ruby on the other, completed<a name="page_081" id="page_081"></a> her decoration. The seven veils were of +soft, clinging tulle.</p> + +<p>Swathed in these veils, she began the dance at the back of the small +stage. Only her eyes were visible. Terrible, slow ... she undulated +forward, swaying gracefully, and dropped the first veil. What followed +was supposed to be the undoing of the jaded Herod. I was moved by this +spectacle at the time, and subsequently this pantomimic dance was +generally referred to as the culminating moment in her impersonation of +Salome. On this occasion, I remember, she proved to us that the exertion +had not fatigued her, by singing the final scene of the music drama, +while André Messager played the accompaniment on the piano.</p> + +<p>I did not see Mary Garden's impetuous and highly curious interpretation +of the strange eastern princess until a full year later, as I remained +in Paris during the extent of the New York opera season. The following +autumn, however, I heard <i>Salome</i> in its second season at the Manhattan +Opera House—and I was disappointed. Nervous curiosity seemed to be the +consistent note of this hectic interpretation. The singer was never +still; her use of gesture was untiring. To any one who had not seen her +in other parts, the actress must have seemed utterly lacking in repose. +This<a name="page_082" id="page_082"></a> was simply her means, however, of suggesting the intense nervous +perversity of Salome. Mary Garden could not have seen Nijinsky in +<i>Scheherazade</i> at this period, and yet the performances were +astonishingly similar in intention. But the Strauss music and the Wilde +drama demand a more voluptuous and sensual treatment, it would seem to +me, than the suggestion of monkey-love which absolutely suited +Nijinsky's part. However, the general opinion (as often happens) ran +counter to mine, and, aside from the reservation that Miss Garden's +voice was unable to cope with the music, the critics, on the whole, gave +her credit for an interesting performance. Indeed, in this music drama +she made one of the great popular successes of her career, a career +which has been singularly full of appreciated achievements.</p> + +<p>Chicago saw Mary Garden in <i>Salome</i> a year later, and Chicago gasped, as +New York had gasped when the drama was performed at the Metropolitan +Opera House. The police—no less an authority—put a ban on future +performances at the Auditorium. Miss Garden was not pleased, and she +expressed her displeasure in the frankest terms. I received at that time +a series of characteristic telegrams. One of them read: "My<a name="page_083" id="page_083"></a> art is +going through the torture of slow death. Oh Paris, splendeur de mes +desirs!"</p> + +<p>It was with the (then) Philadelphia-Chicago Opera Company that Miss +Garden made her first experiment with opera in English, earning thereby +the everlasting gratitude and admiration—which she already possessed in +no small measure—of Charles Henry Meltzer. She was not sanguine before +the event. In January, 1911, she said to me: "No, malgré Tito Ricordi, +NO! I don't believe in opera in English, I never have believed in it, +and I don't think I ever shall believe in it. Of course I'm willing to +be convinced. You see, in the first place, I think all music dramas +should be sung in the languages in which they are written; well, that +makes it impossible to sing anything in the current répertoire in +English, doesn't it? The only hope for opera in English, so far as I can +see it, lies in America or England producing a race of composers, and +they haven't it in them. It isn't in the blood. Composition needs Latin +blood, or something akin to it; the Anglo-Saxon or the American can't +write music, great music, at least not yet.... I doubt if any of us +alive to-day will live to hear a great work written to a libretto in our +own language.</p> + +<p>"Now I am going to sing Victor Herbert's<a name="page_084" id="page_084"></a> <i>Natoma</i>, in spite of what I +have just told you, because I don't want to have it said that I have +done anything to hinder what is now generally known as 'the cause.' For +the first time a work by a composer who may be regarded as American is +to be given a chance with the best singers, with a great orchestra, and +a great conductor, in the leading opera house in America—perhaps the +leading opera house anywhere. It seems to me that every one who can +should put his shoulder to this kind of wheel and set it moving. I shall +be better pleased than anybody else if <i>Natoma</i> proves a success and +paves the way for the successful production of other American lyric +dramas. Of course <i>Natoma</i> cannot be regarded as 'grand opera.' It is +not music, like <i>Tristan</i>, for instance. It is more in the style of the +lighter operas which are given in Paris, but it possesses much melodic +charm and it may please the public. I shall sing it and I shall try to +do it just as well as I have tried to do Salome and Thais and +Mélisande."</p> + +<p>She kept her word, and out of the hodge-podge of an opera book which +stands unrivalled for its stiltedness of speech, she succeeded in +creating one of her most notable characters. She threw vanity aside in +making up for the rôle, painting<a name="page_085" id="page_085"></a> her face and body a dark brown; she +wore two long straight braids of hair, depending on either side from the +part in the middle of her forehead. Her garment was of buckskin, and +moccasins covered her feet. She crept rather than walked. The story, as +might be imagined, was one of love and self-sacrifice, touching here and +there on the preserves of <i>L'Africaine</i> and <i>Lakmé</i>, the whole +concluding with the voluntary immersion of Natoma in a convent. +Fortunately, the writer of the book remembered that Miss Garden had +danced in <i>Salome</i> and he introduced a similar pantomimic episode in +<i>Natoma</i>, a dagger dance, which was one of the interesting points in the +action. The music suited her voice; she delivered a good deal of it +almost <i>parlando</i>, and the vapid speeches of Mr. Redding tripped so +audibly off her tongue that their banality became painfully apparent.</p> + +<p>The story has often been related how Massenet, piqued by the frequently +repeated assertion that his muse was only at his command when he +depicted female frailty, determined to write an opera in which only one +woman was to appear, and she was to be both mute and a virgin! <i>Le +Jongleur de Notre Dame</i>, perhaps the most poetically conceived of +Massenet's lyric dramas, was the result of this decision. Until Mr. +Hammerstein made<a name="page_086" id="page_086"></a> up his mind to produce the opera, the rôle of Jean had +invariably been sung by a man. Mr. Hammerstein thought that Americans +would prefer a woman in the part. He easily enlisted the interest of +Miss Garden in this scheme, and Massenet, it is said, consented to make +certain changes in the score. The taste of the experiment was doubtful, +but it was one for which there had been much precedent. Nor is it +necessary to linger on Sarah Bernhardt's assumption of the rôles of +Hamlet, Shylock, and the Duc de Reichstadt. In the "golden period of +song," Orfeo was not the only man's part sung by a woman. Mme. Pasta +frequently appeared as Romeo in Zingarelli's opera and as Tancredi, and +she also sang Otello on one occasion when Henrietta Sontag was the +Desdemona. The rôle of Orfeo, I believe, was written originally for a +<i>castrato</i>, and later, when the work was refurbished for production at +what was then the Paris Opéra, Gluck allotted the rôle to a tenor. Now +it is sung by a woman as invariably as are Stephano in <i>Roméo et +Juliette</i> and Siebel in <i>Faust</i>. There is really more excuse for the +masquerade of sex in Massenet's opera. The timid, pathetic little +juggler, ridiculous in his inefficiency, is a part for which tenors, as +they exist to-day, seem <a name="page_087" id="page_087"></a>manifestly unsuited. And certainly no tenor +could hope to make the appeal in the part that Mary Garden did. In the +second act she found it difficult to entirely conceal the suggestion of +her sex under the monk's robe, but the sad little figure of the first +act and the adorable juggler of the last, performing his imbecile tricks +before Our Lady's altar, were triumphant details of an artistic +impersonation; on the whole, one of Miss Garden's most moving +performances.</p> + +<p>Miss Garden has sung <i>Faust</i> many times. Are there many sopranos who +have not, whatever the general nature of their répertoires? She is very +lovely in the rôle of Marguerite. I have indicated elsewhere her skill +in endowing the part with poetry and imaginative force without making +ducks and drakes of the traditions. In the garden scene she gave an +exhibition of her power to paint a fanciful fresco on a wall already +surcharged with colour, a charming, wistful picture. I have never seen +any one else so effective in the church and prison scenes; no one else, +it seems to me, has so tenderly conceived the plight of the simple +German girl. The opera of <i>Roméo et Juliette</i> does not admit of such +serious dramatic treatment, and Thomas's <i>Hamlet</i>, as a play, is +absolutely ridiculous. After the mad scene, for example, the stage +directions read that the ballet "waltzes<a name="page_088" id="page_088"></a> sadly away." I saw Mary Garden +play Ophélie once at the Paris Opéra, and I must admit that I was +amused; I think she was amused too! I was equally amused some years +later when I heard Titta Ruffo sing the opera. I am afraid I cannot take +<i>Hamlet</i> as a lyric drama seriously.</p> + +<p>In Paris, Violetta is one of Miss Garden's popular rôles. When she came +to America she fancied she might sing the part here. "Did you ever see a +thin Violetta?" she asked the reporters. But so far she has not appeared +in <i>La Traviata</i> on this side of the Atlantic, although Robert Hichens +wrote me that he had recently heard her in this opera at the Paris +Opéra-Comique. He added that her impersonation was most interesting.</p> + +<p>To me one of the most truly fascinating of Miss Garden's +characterizations was her Fanny Legrand in Daudet's play, made into an +opera by Massenet. <i>Sapho</i>, as a lyric drama, did not have a success in +New York. I think only three performances were given at the Manhattan +Opera House. The professional writers, with one exception, found nothing +to praise in Miss Garden's remarkable impersonation of Fanny. And yet, +as I have said, it seemed to me one of the most moving of her +interpretations. In the opening scenes she<a name="page_089" id="page_089"></a> was the trollop, no less, +that Fanny was. The pregnant line of the first act: <i>Artiste?.... Non +... Tant mieux. J'ai contre tout artiste une haine implacable!</i> was +spoken in a manner which bared the woman's heart to the sophisticated. +The scene in which she sang the song of the <i>Magali</i> (the Provençal +melody which Mistral immortalized in a poem, which Gounod introduced +into <i>Mireille</i>, and which found its way, inexplicably, into the ballet +of Berlioz's <i>Les Troyens à Carthage</i>), playing her own accompaniment, +to Jean, was really too wonderful a caricature of the harlot. Abel +Faivre and Paul Guillaume have done no better. The scene in which Fanny +reviles her former associates for telling Jean the truth about her past +life was revolting in its realism.</p> + +<p>If Miss Garden spared no details in making us acquainted with Fanny's +vulgarity, she was equally fair to her in other respects. She seemed to +be continually guiding the spectator with comment something like this: +"See how this woman can suffer, and she is a woman, like any other +woman." How small the means, the effect considered, by which she +produced the pathos of the last scene. At the one performance I saw half +the people in the audience were in tears. There was<a name="page_090" id="page_090"></a> a dismaying display +of handkerchiefs. Sapho sat in the window, smoking a cigarette, +surveying the room in which she had been happy with Jean, and preparing +to say good-by. In the earlier scenes her cigarette had aided her in +making vulgar gestures. Now she relied on it to tell the pitiful tale of +the woman's loneliness. How she clung to that cigarette, how she sipped +comfort from it, and how tiny it was! Mary Garden's Sapho, which may +never be seen on the stage again (Massenet's music is perhaps his +weakest effort), was an extraordinary piece of stage art. That alone +would have proclaimed her an interpreter of genius.</p> + +<div class="centeredimage" style="width: 500px;"> +<a href="images/ill_mary_garden_fanny.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_mary_garden_fanny_sml.jpg" width="285" height="350" alt="MARY GARDEN AS FANNY LEGRAND from a photograph by Mishkin (1909)" title="MARY GARDEN AS FANNY LEGRAND from a photograph by Mishkin (1909)" /></a><br /> +<span class="caption">MARY GARDEN AS FANNY LEGRAND<br />from a photograph by Mishkin (1909)</span> +</div> + +<p>George Moore, somewhere, evolves a fantastic theory that a writer's name +may have determined his talent: "Dickens—a mean name, a name without +atmosphere, a black out-of-elbows, back-stairs name, a name good enough +for loud comedy and louder pathos. John Milton—a splendid name for a +Puritan poet. Algernon Charles Swinburne—only a name for a reed through +which every wind blows music.... Now it is a fact that we find no fine +names among novelists. We find only colourless names, dry-as-dust names, +or vulgar names, round names like pot-hats, those names like +mackintoshes, names that are squashy as goloshes. We have charged Scott +with a lack<a name="page_091" id="page_091"></a> of personal passion, but could personal passion dwell in +such a jog-trot name—a round-faced name, a snub-nosed, spectacled, +pot-bellied name, a placid, beneficent, worthy old bachelor name, a name +that evokes all conventional ideas and formulas, a Grub Street name, a +nerveless name, an arm-chair name, an old oak and Abbotsford name? And +Thackeray's name is a poor one—the syllables clatter like plates. 'We +shall want the carriage at half-past two, Thackeray.' Dickens is surely +a name for a page boy. George Eliot's real name, Marian Evans, is a +chaw-bacon, thick-loined name." So far as I know Mr. Moore has not +expanded his theory to include a discussion of acrobats, revivalists, +necromancers, free versifiers, camel drivers, paying tellers, painters, +pugilists, architects, and opera singers. Many of the latter have taken +no chances with their own names. Both Pauline and Maria Garcia adopted +the names of their husbands. Garcia possibly suggests a warrior, but do +Malibran and Viardot make us think of music? Nellie Melba's name evokes +an image of a cold marble slab but if she had retained her original name +of Mitchell it would have been no better ... Marcella Sembrich, a name +made famous by the genius and indefatigable labour of its bearer, surely +not a good<a name="page_092" id="page_092"></a> name for an operatic soprano. Her own name, Kochanska, +sounds Polish and patriotic ... Luisa Tetrazzini, a silly, fussy name +... Emma Calvé.... Since <i>Madame Bovary</i> the name Emma suggests a solid +<i>bourgeois</i> foundation, a country family.... Emma Eames, a chilly name +... a wind from the East! Was it Philip Hale who remarked that she sang +<i>Who is Sylvia?</i> as if the woman were not on her calling list?... +Lillian Nordica, an evasion. Lillian Norton is a sturdy work-a-day name, +suggesting a premonition of a thousand piano rehearsals for Isolde ... +Johanna Gadski, a coughing raucous name ... Geraldine Farrar, tomboyish +and impertinent, Melrose with a French sauce ... Edyth Walker, a +militant suffragette name.... Surely Lucrezia Bori and Maria Barrientos +are ill-made names for singers ... Adelina Patti—a patty-cake, +patty-cake, baker's man, sort of a name ... Alboni, strong-hearted ... +Scalchi ... ugh! Further evidence could be brought forward to prove that +singers succeed in spite of their names rather than because of them ... +until we reach the name of Mary Garden.... The subtle fragrance of this +name has found its way into many hearts. Since Nell Gwyn no such scented +cognomen, redolent of cuckoo's boots, London pride, blood-red poppies,<a name="page_093" id="page_093"></a> +purple fox-gloves, lemon stocks, and vermillion zinnias, has blown its +delicate odour across our scene.... Delightful and adorable Mary Garden, +the fragile Thais, pathetic Jean ... unforgettable Mélisande....</p> + +<p><i>October 10, 1916.</i> +<a name="page_094" id="page_094"></a></p> + +<p><a name="page_095" id="page_095"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="Feodor_Chaliapine" id="Feodor_Chaliapine"></a>Feodor Chaliapine</h3> + +<table style="margin:8% auto 8% auto;" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td>"<i>Do I contradict myself?</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: .25em;"><i>Very well, then, I contradict myself;</i>"</span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 10em;">Walt Whitman.</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p><a name="page_097" id="page_097"></a></p> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">F</span>EODOR CHALIAPINE, the Russian bass singer, appeared in New York at the +Metropolitan Opera House, then under the direction of Heinrich Conried, +during the season of 1907-08. He made his American début on Wednesday +evening, November 20, 1907, when he impersonated the title part of +Boito's opera, <i>Mefistofele</i>. He was heard here altogether seven times +in this rôle; six times as Basilio in <i>Il Barbiere di Siviglia</i>; three +times as Méphistophélès in Gounod's <i>Faust</i>; three times as Leporello in +<i>Don Giovanni</i>; and at several Sunday night concerts. He also appeared +with the Metropolitan Opera Company in Philadelphia, and possibly +elsewhere.</p> + +<p>I first met this remarkable artist in the dining-room of the Hotel Savoy +on a rainy Sunday afternoon, soon after his arrival in America. His +personality made a profound impression on me, as may be gathered from +some lines from an article I wrote which appeared the next morning in +the "New York Times": "The newest operatic acquisition to arrive in New +York is neither a prima donna soprano, nor an Italian tenor with a high +C, but a big, broad-shouldered boy, with a kindly smile and a deep bass +voice, ... thirty-four<a name="page_098" id="page_098"></a> years old.... 'I spik English,' were his first +words. 'How do you do? et puis good-by, et puis I drrrink, you drrink, +he drrrrinks, et puis I love you!' ... Mr. Chaliapine looked like a +great big boy, a sophomore in college, who played football." (Pitts +Sanborn soon afterwards felicitously referred to him as <i>ce doux géant</i>, +a name often applied to Turgeniev.)</p> + +<p>I have given the extent of the Russian's English vocabulary at this +time, and I soon discovered that it was not accident which had caused +him first to learn to conjugate the verb "to drink"; another English +verb he learned very quickly was "to eat." Some time later, after his +New York début, I sought him out again to urge him to give a synopsis of +his original conception for a performance of Gounod's <i>Faust</i>. The +interview which ensued was the longest I have ever had with any one. It +began at eleven o'clock in the morning and lasted until a like hour in +the evening,—it might have lasted much longer,—and during this whole +time we sat at table in Mr. Chaliapine's own chamber at the Brevoort, +whither he had repaired to escape steam heat, while he consumed vast +quantities of food and drink. I remember a detail of six plates of onion +soup. I have never seen any one else eat so much or so<a name="page_099" id="page_099"></a> continuously, or +with so little lethargic effect. Indeed, intemperance seemed only to +make him more light-hearted, ebullient, and Brobdingnagian. Late in the +afternoon he placed his own record of the <i>Marseillaise</i> in the +victrola, and then amused himself (and me) by singing the song in unison +with the record, in an attempt to drown out the mechanical sound. He +succeeded. The effect in this moderately small hotel room can only be +faintly conceived.</p> + +<p>Exuberant is the word which best describes Chaliapine off the stage. I +remember another occasion a year later when I met him, just returned +from South America, on the Boulevard in Paris. He grasped my hand warmly +and begged me to come to see his zoo. He had, in fact, transformed the +<i>salle de bain</i> in his suite at the Grand Hotel into a menagerie. There +were two monkeys, a cockatoo, and many other birds of brilliant plumage, +while two large alligators dozed in the tub.</p> + +<p>My second interview with this singer took place a day or so before he +returned to Europe. He had been roughly handled by the New York critics, +treatment, it is said, which met with the approval of Heinrich Conried, +who had no desire to retain in his company a bass who demanded sixteen<a name="page_100" id="page_100"></a> +hundred dollars a night, a high salary for a soprano or a tenor. Stung +by this defeat—entirely imaginary, by the way, as his audiences here +were as large and enthusiastic as they are anywhere—the only one, in +fact, which he has suffered in his career up to date, Chaliapine was +extremely frank in his attitude. My interview, published on the first +page of the "New York Times," created a small sensation in operatic +circles. The meat of it follows. Chaliapine is speaking:</p> + +<p>"Criticism in New York is not profound. It is the most difficult thing +in the world to be a good critical writer. I am a singer, but the critic +has no right to regard me merely as a singer. He must observe my acting, +my make-up, everything. And he must understand and know about these +things.</p> + +<p>"Opera is not a fixed art. It is not like music, poetry, sculpture, +painting, or architecture, but a combination of all of these. And the +critic who goes to the opera should have studied all these arts. While a +study of these arts is essential, there is something else that the +critic cannot get by study, and that is the soul to understand. That he +must be born with.</p> + +<p>"I am not a professional critic, but I could be.<a name="page_101" id="page_101"></a> I have associated with +musicians, painters, and writers, and I know something of all these +arts. As a consequence when I read a criticism, I see immediately what +is true and what is false. Very often I think a man's tongue is his +worst enemy. However, sometimes a man keeps quiet to conceal his mental +weakness. We have a Russian proverb which says, 'Keep quiet; don't tease +the geese.' You can't judge of a man's intelligence until he begins to +talk or write.</p> + +<p>"I have been sometimes adversely criticized during the course of my +artistic life. The most profound of these criticisms have taught me to +correct my faults. But I have learned nothing from the criticisms I have +received in New York. After searching my inner consciousness, I find +they are not based on a true understanding of my artistic purposes. For +instance, the critics found my Don Basilio a dirty, repulsive creature. +One man even said that I was offensive to another singer on the stage! +Don Basilio is a Spanish priest; it is a type I know well. He is not +like the modern American priest, clean and well-groomed; he is dirty and +unkempt; he is a beast, and that is what I make him, a comic beast, but +the critics would prefer a softer version.... It is unfair, indeed, to +judge me at all on the parts I<a name="page_102" id="page_102"></a> have sung here, outside of Mefistofele, +for most of my best rôles are in Russian operas, which are not in the +répertoire of the Metropolitan Opera House.</p> + +<p>"The contemporary direction of this theatre believes in tradition. It is +afraid of anything new. There is no movement. It has not the courage to +produce novelties, and the artists are prevented from giving original +conceptions of old rôles.</p> + +<p>"New York is a vast seething inferno of business. Nothing but business! +The men are so tired when they get through work that they want +recreation and sleep. They don't want to study. They don't want to be +thrilled or aroused. They are content to listen forever to <i>Faust</i> and +<i>Lucia</i>.</p> + +<p>"In Europe it is different. There you will find the desire for novelty +in the theatre. There is a keen interest in the production of a new +work. It is all right to enjoy the old things, but one should see life. +The audience at the Metropolitan Opera House reminds me of a family that +lives in the country and won't travel. It is satisfied with the same +view of the same garden forever...."</p> + +<p>Feodor Ivanovich Chaliapine was born February 13 (February 1, old +style), 1873, in Kazan; he is of peasant descent. It is said that he is +almost<a name="page_103" id="page_103"></a> entirely self-educated, both musically and intellectually. He +worked for a time in a shoemaker's shop, sang in the archbishop's choir +and, at the age of seventeen, joined a local operetta company. He seems +to have had difficulty in collecting a salary from this latter +organization, and often worked as a railway porter in order to keep +alive. Later he joined a travelling theatrical troupe, which visited the +Caucasus. In 1892, Oussatov, a singer, heard Chaliapine in Tiflis, gave +him some lessons, and got him an engagement.</p> + +<p>He made his début in opera in Glinka's <i>A Life for the Czar</i> (according +to Mrs. Newmarch; my notes tell me that it was Gounod's <i>Faust</i>). He +sang at the Summer and Panaevsky theatres in Petrograd in 1894; and the +following year he was engaged at the Maryinsky Theatre, but the +directors did not seem to realize that they had captured one of the +great figures of the contemporary lyric stage, and he was not permitted +to sing very often. In 1896, Mamantov, lawyer and millionaire, paid the +fine which released the bass from the Imperial Opera House, and invited +him to join the Private Opera Company in Moscow, where Chaliapine +immediately proved his worth. He became the idol of the public, and it +was not<a name="page_104" id="page_104"></a> unusual for those who admired striking impersonations on the +stage to journey from Petrograd to see and hear him. In 1899 he was +engaged to sing at the Imperial Opera in Moscow at sixty thousand +roubles a year. Since then he has appeared in various European capitals, +and in North and South America. He has sung in Milan, Paris, London, +Monte Carlo, and Buenos Aires. During a visit to Milan he married, and +at the time of his New York engagement his family included five +children. The number may have increased.</p> + +<p>Chaliapine's répertoire is extensive but, on the whole, it is a strange +répertoire to western Europe and America, consisting, as it does, almost +entirely of Russian operas. In Milan, New York, and Monte Carlo, where +he has appeared with Italian and French companies, his most famous rôle +is Mefistofele. Leporello he sang for the first time in New York. +Basilio and Méphistophélès in <i>Faust</i> he has probably enacted as often +in Russia as elsewhere. He "created" the title part of Massenet's <i>Don +Quichotte</i> at Monte Carlo (Vanni Marcoux sang the rôle later in Paris). +With the Russian Opera Company, organized in connection with the Russian +Ballet by Serge de Diaghilew, Chaliapine has sung in London, Paris, and +other<a name="page_105" id="page_105"></a> European capitals in Moussorgsky's <i>Boris Godunow</i> and +<i>Khovanchina</i>, Rimsky-Korsakow's <i>Ivan the Terrible</i> (originally called +<i>The Maid of Pskov</i>), and Borodine's <i>Prince Igor</i>, in which he appeared +both as Prince Galitzky and as the Tartar Chieftain. His répertoire +further includes Rubinstein's <i>Demon</i>, Rimsky-Korsakow's <i>Mozart and +Salieri</i> (the rôle of Salieri), Glinka's <i>A Life for the Czar</i>, +Dargomijsky's <i>The Roussalka</i>, Rachmaninow's <i>Aleko</i>, and Gretchaninow's +<i>Dobrynia Nikitich</i>. This list is by no means complete.</p> + +<p>I first saw Chaliapine on the stage in New York, where his original +ideas and tremendously vital personality ran counter to every tradition +of the Metropolitan Opera House. The professional writers about the +opera, as a whole, would have none of him. Even his magnificently +pictorial Mefistofele was condemned, and I think Pitts Sanborn was the +only man in a critic's chair—I was a reporter at this period and had no +opportunity for expressing my opinions in print—who appreciated his +Basilio at its true value, and <i>Il Barbiere</i> is Sanborn's favourite +opera. His account of the proceedings makes good reading at this date. I +quote from the "New York Globe," December 13, 1907:</p> + +<p>"The performance that was in open defiance of<a name="page_106" id="page_106"></a> traditions, that was +glaringly and recklessly unorthodox, that set at naught the accepted +canons of good taste, but which justified itself by its overwhelming and +all-conquering good humour, was the Basilio of Mr. Chaliapine. With his +great natural stature increased by art to Brobdingnagian proportions, a +face that had gazed on the vodka at its blackest, and a cassock that may +be seen but not described, he presented a figure that might have been +imagined by the English Swift or the French Rabelais. It was no voice or +singing that made the audience re-demand the 'Calumny Song.' It was the +compelling drollery of those comedy hands. You may be assured, +persuaded, convinced that you want your Rossini straight or not at all. +But when you see the Chaliapine Basilio you'll do as the rest do—roar. +It is as sensational in its way as the Chaliapine Mephisto."</p> + +<p>It was hard to reconcile Chaliapine's conception of Méphistophélès with +the Gounod music, and I do not think the Russian himself had any +illusions about his performance of <i>Leporello</i>. It was not his type of +part, and he was as good in it, probably, as Olive Fremstad would be as +Nedda. Even great artists have their limitations, perhaps more of them +than the lesser people. But his<a name="page_107" id="page_107"></a> Mefistofele, to my way of +thinking,—and the anxious reader who has not seen this impersonation +may be assured that I am far from being alone in it,—was and is a +masterpiece of stage-craft. However, opinions differ. Under the alluring +title, "Devils Polite and Rude," W. J. Henderson, in the "New York Sun," +Sunday, November 24, 1907, after Chaliapine's first appearance here in +Boito's opera, took his fling at the Russian bass (was it Mr. Henderson +or another who later referred to Chaliapine as "a cossack with a +cold"?): "He makes of the fiend a demoniac personage, a seething +cauldron of rabid passions. He is continually snarling and barking. He +poses in writhing attitudes of agonized impotence. He strides and +gestures, grimaces and roars. All this appears to superficial observers +to be tremendously dramatic. And it is, as noted, not without its +significance. Perhaps it may be only a personal fancy, yet the present +writer much prefers a devil who is a gentleman.... But one thing more +remains to be said about the first display of Mr. Chaliapine's powers. +How long did he study the art of singing? Surely not many years. Such an +uneven and uncertain emission of tone is seldom heard even on the +Metropolitan Opera House stage,<a name="page_108" id="page_108"></a> where there is a wondrous quantity of +poorly grounded singing. The splendid song, <i>Son lo Spirito Che Nega</i>, +was not sung at all in the strict interpretation of the word. It was +delivered, to be sure, but in a rough and barbaric style. Some of the +tones disappeared somewhere in the rear spaces of the basso's capacious +throat, while others were projected into the auditorium like stones from +a catapult. There was much strenuosity and little art in the +performance. And it was much the same with the rest of the singing of +the rôle."</p> + +<p>Chaliapine calls himself "the enemy of tradition." When he was singing +at the Opera in Petrograd in 1896 he found that every detail of every +characterization was prescribed. He was directed to make his entrances +in a certain way; he was ordered to stand in a certain place on the +stage. Whenever he attempted an innovation the stage director said, +"Don't do that." Young singer though he was, he rebelled and asked, "Why +not?" And the reply always came, "You must follow the tradition of the +part. Monsieur Chose and Signor Cosi have always done thus and so, and +you must do likewise." "But I feel differently about the rôle," +protested the bass. However, it was not until he went to Moscow that he<a name="page_109" id="page_109"></a> +was permitted to break with tradition. From that time on he began to +elaborate his characterizations, assisted, he admits, by Russian +painters who gave him his first ideas about costumes and make-up. He +once told me that his interpretation of a part was never twice the same. +He does not study his rôles in solitude, poring over a score, as many +artists do. Rather, ideas come to him when he eats or drinks, or even +when he is on the stage. He depends to an unsafe degree—unsafe for +other singers who may be misled by his success—on inspiration to carry +him through, once he begins to sing. "When I sing a character I am that +character; I am no longer Chaliapine. So whatever I do must be in +keeping with what the character would do." This is true to so great an +extent that you may take it for granted, when you see Chaliapine in a +new rôle, that he will envelop the character with atmosphere from his +first entrance, perhaps even without the aid of a single gesture. His +entrance on horseback in <i>Ivan the Terrible</i> is a case in point. Before +he has sung a note he has projected the personality of the cruel czar +into the auditorium.</p> + +<p>"As an actor," writes Mrs. Newmarch in "The Russian Opera," "his +greatest quality appears to me to be his extraordinary gift of +identification<a name="page_110" id="page_110"></a> with the character he is representing. Shaliapin (so +does Mrs. Newmarch phonetically transpose his name into Roman letters) +does not merely throw himself into the part, to use a phrase commonly +applied to the histrionic art. He seems to disappear, to empty himself +of all personality, that Boris Godunov or Ivan the Terrible may be +reincarnated for us. While working out his own conception of a part, +unmoved by convention or opinion, Shaliapin neglects no accessory study +that can heighten the realism of his interpretation. It is impossible to +see him as Ivan the Terrible, or Boris, without realizing that he is +steeped in the history of those periods, which live again at his will. +In the same way he has studied the masterpieces of Russian art to good +purpose, as all must agree who have compared the scene of Ivan's +frenzied grief over the corpse of Olga, in the last scene of +Rimsky-Korsakow's opera, with Repin's terrible picture of the Tsar, +clasping in his arms the body of the son whom he has just killed in a +fit of insane anger. The agonizing remorse and piteous senile grief have +been transformed from Repin's canvas to Shaliapin's living picture, +without the revolting suggestion of the shambles which mars the +painter's work. Sometimes, too, Shaliapin will take a hint from the +living model. His dignified make-up<a name="page_111" id="page_111"></a> as the Old Believer Dositheus, in +Moussorgsky's <i>Khovanstchina</i>, owes not a little to the personality of +Vladimir Stassov."</p> + +<p>Chaliapine, it seems to me, has realized more completely than any other +contemporary singer the opportunities afforded for the presentation of +character on the lyric stage. In costume, make-up, gesture, the +simulation of emotion, he is a consummate and painstaking artist. As I +have suggested, he has limitations. Who, indeed, has not? Grandeur, +nobility, impressiveness, and, by inversion, sordidness, bestiality, and +awkward ugliness fall easily within his ken. The murder-haunted Boris +Godunow is perhaps his most overpowering creation. From first to last it +is a masterpiece of scenic art; those who have seen him in this part +will not be satisfied with substitutes. His Ivan is almost equally +great. His Dositheus, head of the Old Believers in <i>Khovanchina</i>, is a +sincere and effective characterization along entirely different lines. +Although this character, in a sense, dominates Moussorgsky's great +opera, there is little opportunity for the display of histrionism which +Boris presents to the singing actor. By almost insignificant details of +make-up and gesture the bass creates before your eyes a living, +breathing man, a man of fire and faith. No one would<a name="page_112" id="page_112"></a> recognize in this +kind old creature, terrible, to be sure, in his stern piety, the nude +Mefistofele surveying the pranks of the motley rabble in the Brocken +scene of Boito's opera, a flamboyant exposure of personality to be +compared with Mary Garden's Thais, Act I.</p> + +<p>As the Tartar chieftain in <i>Prince Igor</i>, he has but few lines to sing, +but his gestures during the performance of the ballet, which he has +arranged for his guest, in fact his actions throughout the single act in +which this character appears, are stamped on the memory as definitely as +a figure in a Persian miniature. And the noble scorn with which, as +Prince Galitzky, he bows to the stirrup of Prince Igor at the close of +the prologue to this opera, still remains a fixed picture in my mind. +There is also the pathetic Don Quichotte of Massenet's poorest opera. +All great portraits these, to which I must add the funny, dirty, +expectorating Spanish priest of <i>Il Barbiere</i>.</p> + +<div class="centeredimage" style="width: 500px;"> +<a href="images/ill_chaliapine_mefistofele.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_chaliapine_mefistofele_sml.jpg" width="350" height="244" alt="FEODOR CHALIAPINE AS MEFISTOFELE" title="FEODOR CHALIAPINE AS MEFISTOFELE" /></a><br /> +<span class="caption">FEODOR CHALIAPINE AS MEFISTOFELE</span> +</div> + +<p>Chaliapine is the possessor of a noble voice which sometimes he uses by +main strength. He has never learned to sing, in the conventional meaning +of the phrase. He must have been singing for some time before he studied +at all, and at Tiflis he does not seem to have spent many months on his +voice. In the circumstances it is an extremely<a name="page_113" id="page_113"></a> tractable organ, at +least always capable of doing his bidding, dramatically speaking. +Indeed, there are many who consider him a great artist in his +manipulation of it. Mrs. Newmarch quotes Herbert Heyner on this point:</p> + +<p>"His diction floats on a beautiful cantilena, particularly in his +<i>mezzo-voce</i> singing, which—though one would hardly expect it from a +singer endowed with such a noble bass voice—is one of the most telling +features of his performance. There is never any striving after vocal +effects, and his voice is always subservient to the words.... The +atmosphere and tone-colour which Shaliapin imparts to his singing are of +such remarkable quality that one feels his interpretation of Schubert's +<i>Doppelgänger</i> must of necessity be a thing of genius, unapproachable by +other contemporary singers ... his method is based upon a thoroughly +sound breath control, which produces such splendid <i>cantabile</i> results. +Every student should listen to this great singer, and profit by his +art."</p> + +<p>My intention in placing before the eyes of my readers such contradictory +accounts as may be found in this article has not been altogether +ingenuous. The fact of the matter is that opinions differ on every +matter of art, and on no point are<a name="page_114" id="page_114"></a> they so various as on that which +refers to interpretation. It may further be urged that the personality +of Chaliapine is so marked and his method so direct that the variations +of opinion are naturally expressed in somewhat violent language.</p> + +<p>For those, accustomed to the occidental operatic répertoire, who find it +hard to understand how a bass could acquire such prominence, it may be +explained that deep voices are both common and very popular in Russia. +They may be heard in any Greek church, sustaining organ points a full +octave below the notes to which our basses descend with trepidation. As +a consequence, many of the Russian operas contain bass rôles of the +first importance. In both of Moussorgsky's familiar operas, for example, +the leading part is destined for a bass voice.</p> + +<p> +<i>July 18, 1916.</i><br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_116" id="page_116"></a> +<a name="page_117" id="page_117"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="Mariette_Mazarin" id="Mariette_Mazarin"></a>Mariette Mazarin</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">S</span>OMETIMES the cause of an intense impression in the theatre apparently +disappears, leaving "not a rack behind," beyond the trenchant memory of +a few precious moments, inclining one to the belief that the whole +adventure has been a dream, a particularly vivid dream, and that the +characters therein have returned to such places in space as are assigned +to dream personages by the makers of men. This reflection comes to me +as, sitting before my typewriter, I attempt to recapture the spirit of +the performances of Richard Strauss's music drama <i>Elektra</i> at Oscar +Hammerstein's Manhattan Opera House in New York. The work remains, if +not in the répertoire of any opera house in my vicinity, at least deeply +imbedded in my eardrum and, if need be, at any time I can pore again +over the score, which is always near at hand. But of the whereabouts of +Mariette Mazarin, the remarkable artist who contributed her genius to +the interpretation of the crazed Greek princess, I know nothing. As she +came to us unheralded, so she went away, after we who had seen her had +enshrined her, tardily to be sure, in that small, slow-growing circle of +those who have achieved eminence on the lyric stage.<a name="page_118" id="page_118"></a></p> + +<p>Before the beginning of the opera season of 1909-10, Marietta Mazarin +was not even a name in New York. Even during a good part of that season +she was recognized only as an able routine singer. She made her début +here in <i>Aida</i> and she sang Carmen and Louise without creating a furore, +almost, indeed, without arousing attention of any kind, good or bad +criticism. Had there been no production of <i>Elektra</i> she would have +passed into that long list of forgotten singers who appear here in +leading rôles for a few months or a few years and who, when their time +is up, vanish, never to be regretted, extolled, or recalled in the +memory again. For the disclosure of Mme. Mazarin's true powers an +unusual vehicle was required. <i>Elektra</i> gave her her opportunity, and +proved her one of the exceptional artists of the stage.</p> + +<p>I do not know many of the facts of Mariette Mazarin's career. She +studied at the Paris Conservatoire; Leloir, of the Comédie Française, +was her professor of acting. She made her début at the Paris Opéra as +Aida; later she sang Louise and Carmen at the Opéra-Comique. After that +she seems to have been a leading figure at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in +Brussels, where she appeared in <i>Alceste</i>, <i>Armide</i>, <i>Iphigénie en +Tauride</i> and <i>Iphigénie en Aulide</i>, even <i>Orphée</i>, the great<a name="page_119" id="page_119"></a> Gluck +répertoire. She has also sung Salome, the three Brünnhildes, Elsa in +<i>Lohengrin</i>, Elisabeth in <i>Tannhäuser</i>, in Berlioz's <i>Prise de Troie</i>, +<i>La Damnation de Faust</i>, <i>Les Huguenots</i>, <i>Grisélidis</i>, <i>Thais</i>, <i>Il +Trovatore</i>, <i>Tosca</i>, <i>Manon Lescaut</i>, <i>Cavalleria Rusticana</i>, +<i>Hérodiade</i>, <i>Le Cid</i>, and <i>Salammbô</i>. She has been heard at Nice, and +probably on many another provincial French stage. At one time she was +the wife of Léon Rothier, the French bass, who has been a member of the +Metropolitan Opera Company for several seasons.</p> + +<p>Away from the theatre I remember her as a tall woman, rather awkward, +but quick in gesture. Her hair was dark, and her eyes were dark and +piercing. Her face was all angles; her features were sharp, and when +conversing with her one could not but be struck with a certain eerie +quality which seemed to give mystic colour to her expression. She was +badly dressed, both from an æsthetic and a fashionable point of view. In +a group of women you would pick her out to be a doctor, a lawyer, an +<i>intellectuelle</i>. When I talked with her, impression followed +impression—always I felt her intelligence, the play of her intellect +upon the surfaces of her art, but always, too, I felt how narrow a +chance had cast her lot upon the stage, how she easily might have been +something<a name="page_120" id="page_120"></a> else than a singing actress, how magnificently accidental her +career was!</p> + +<p>She was, it would seem, an unusually gifted musician—at least for a +singer,—with a physique and a nervous energy which enabled her to +perform miracles. For instance, on one occasion she astonished even +Oscar Hammerstein by replacing Lina Cavalieri as Salomé in <i>Hérodiade</i>, +a rôle she had not previously sung for five years, at an hour's notice +on the evening of an afternoon on which she had appeared as Elektra. On +another occasion, when Mary Garden was ill she sang Louise with only a +short forewarning. She told me that she had learned the music of Elektra +between January 1, 1910, and the night of the first performance, January +31. She also told me that without any special effort on her part she had +assimilated the music of the other two important feminine rôles in the +opera, Chrysothemis and Klytæmnestra, and was quite prepared to sing +them. Mme. Mazarin's vocal organ, it must be admitted, was not of a very +pleasant quality at all times, although she employed it with variety and +usually with taste. There was a good deal of subtle charm in her middle +voice, but her upper voice was shrill and sometimes, when emitted +forcefully, became in effect a shriek. Faulty intonation often<a name="page_121" id="page_121"></a> played +havoc with her musical interpretation, but do we not read that the great +Mme. Pasta seldom sang an opera through without many similar slips from +the pitch? <i>Aida</i>, of course, displayed the worst side of her talents. +Her Carmen, it seemed to me, was in some ways a very remarkable +performance; she appeared, in this rôle, to be possessed by a certain +<i>diablerie</i>, a power of evil, which distinguished her from other +Carmens, but this characterization created little comment or interest in +New York. In <i>Louise</i>, especially in the third act, she betrayed an +enmity for the pitch, but in the last act she was magnificent as an +actress. In Santuzza she exploited her capacity for unreined intensity +of expression. I have never seen her as Salome (in Richard Strauss's +opera; her Massenetic Salomé was disclosed to us in New York), but I +have a photograph of her in the rôle which might serve as an +illustration for the "Méphistophéla" of Catulle Mendès. I can imagine no +more sinister and depraved an expression, combined with such potent +sexual attraction. It is a remarkable photograph, evoking as it does a +succession of lustful ladies, and it is quite unpublishable. If she +carried these qualities into her performance of the work, and there is +every reason to believe that she did, the evenings<a name="page_122" id="page_122"></a> on which she sang +Salome must have been very terrible for her auditors, hours in which the +Aristotle theory of Katharsis must have been amply proven.</p> + +<p><i>Elektra</i> was well advertised in New York. Oscar Hammerstein is as able +a showman as the late P. T. Barnum, and he has devoted his talents to +higher aims. Without his co-operation, I think it is likely that America +would now be a trifle above Australia in its operatic experience. It is +from Oscar Hammerstein that New York learned that all the great singers +of the world were not singing at the Metropolitan Opera House, a matter +which had been considered axiomatic before the redoubtable Oscar +introduced us to Alessandro Bonci, Maurice Renaud, Charles Dalmores, +Mary Garden, Luisa Tetrazzini, and others. With his productions of +<i>Pelléas et Mélisande</i>, <i>Louise</i>, <i>Thais</i>, and other works new to us, he +spurred the rival house to an activity which has been maintained ever +since to a greater or less degree. New operas are now the order of the +day—even with the Chicago and the Boston companies—rather than the +exception. And without this impresario's courage and determination I do +not think New York would have heard <i>Elektra</i>, at least not before its +uncorked essence had quite disappeared.<a name="page_123" id="page_123"></a> Lover of opera that he +indubitably is, Oscar Hammerstein is by nature a showman, and he +understands the psychology of the mob. Looking about for a sensation to +stir the slow pulse of the New York opera-goer, he saw nothing on the +horizon more likely to effect his purpose than <i>Elektra</i>. <i>Salome</i>, +spurned by the Metropolitan Opera Company, had been taken to his heart +the year before and, with Mary Garden's valuable assistance, he had +found the biblical jade extremely efficacious in drawing shekels to his +doors. He hoped to accomplish similar results with <i>Elektra</i>....</p> + +<p>One of the penalties an inventor of harmonies pays is that his +inventions become shopworn. A certain terrible atmosphere, a suggestion +of vague dread, of horror, of rank incest, of vile murder, of sordid +shame, was conveyed in <i>Elektra</i> by Richard Strauss through the adroit +use of what we call discords, for want of a better name. Discord at one +time was defined as a combination of sounds that would eternally affront +the musical ear. We know better now. Discord is simply the word to +describe a never-before or seldom-used chord. Such a juxtaposition of +notes naturally startles when it is first heard, but it is a mistake to +presume that the effect is unpleasant, even in the beginning.<a name="page_124" id="page_124"></a></p> + +<p>Now it was by the use of sounds cunningly contrived to displease the ear +that Strauss built up his atmosphere of ugliness in <i>Elektra</i>. When it +was first performed, the scenes in which the half-mad Greek girl stalked +the palace courtyard, and the queen with the blood-stained hands related +her dreams, literally reeked with musical frightfulness. I have never +seen or heard another music drama which so completely bowled over its +first audiences, whether they were street-car conductors or musical +pedants. These scenes even inspired a famous passage in +"Jean-Christophe" (I quote from the translation of Gilbert Cannon): +"Agamemnon was neurasthenic and Achilles impotent; they lamented their +condition at length and, naturally, their outcries produced no change. +The energy of the drama was concentrated in the rôle of Iphigenia—a +nervous, hysterical, and pedantic Iphigenia, who lectured the hero, +declaimed furiously, laid bare for the audience her Nietzschian +pessimism and, glutted with death, cut her throat, shrieking with +laughter."</p> + +<p>But will <i>Elektra</i> have the same effect on future audiences? I do not +think so. Its terror has, in a measure, been dissipated. Schoenberg, +Strawinsky, and Ornstein have employed its discords—and many newer +ones—for pleasanter purposes,<a name="page_125" id="page_125"></a> and our ears are becoming accustomed to +these assaults on the casual harmony of our forefathers. <i>Elektra</i> will +retain its place as a forerunner, and inevitably it will eventually be +considered the most important of Strauss's operatic works, but it can +never be listened to again in that same spirit of horror and repentance, +with that feeling of utter repugnance, which it found easy to awaken in +1910. Perhaps all of us were a little better for the experience.</p> + +<p>An attendant at the opening ceremonies in New York can scarcely forget +them. Cast under the spell by the early entrance of Elektra, wild-eyed +and menacing, across the terrace of the courtyard of Agamemnon's palace, +he must have remained with staring eyes and wide-flung ears, straining +for the remainder of the evening to catch the message of this tale of +triumphant and utterly holy revenge. The key of von Hofmannsthal's fine +play was lost to some reviewers, as it was to Romain Rolland in the +passage quoted above, who only saw in the drama a perversion of the +Greek idea of Nemesis. That there was something very much finer in the +theme, it was left for Bernard Shaw to discover. To him <i>Elektra</i> +expressed the regeneration of a race, the destruction of vice, +ignorance, and poverty. The play was replete in<a name="page_126" id="page_126"></a> his mind with +sociological and political implications, and, as his views in the matter +exactly coincide with my own, I cannot do better than to quote a few +lines from them, including, as they do, his interesting prophecies +regarding the possibility of war between England and Germany, +unfortunately unfulfilled. Strauss could not quite prevent the war with +his <i>Elektra</i>. Here is the passage:</p> + +<p>"What Hofmannsthal and Strauss have done is to take Klytæmnestra and +Ægisthus, and by identifying them with everything evil and cruel, with +all that needs must hate the highest when it sees it, with hideous +domination and coercion of the higher by the baser, with the murderous +rage in which the lust for a lifetime of orgiastic pleasure turns on its +slaves in the torture of its disappointment, and the sleepless horror +and misery of its neurasthenia, to so rouse in us an overwhelming flood +of wrath against it and a ruthless resolution to destroy it that +Elektra's vengeance becomes holy to us, and we come to understand how +even the gentlest of us could wield the ax of Orestes or twist our firm +fingers in the black hair of Klytæmnestra to drag back her head and +leave her throat open to the stroke.</p> + +<p>"This was a task hardly possible to an ancient Greek, and not easy even +for us, who are face to<a name="page_127" id="page_127"></a> face with the America of the Thaw case and the +European plutocracy of which that case was only a trifling symptom, and +that is the task that Hofmannsthal and Strauss have achieved. Not even +in the third scene of <i>Das Rheingold</i> or in the Klingsor scene in +<i>Parsifal</i> is there such an atmosphere of malignant, cancerous evil as +we get here and that the power with which it is done is not the power of +the evil itself, but of the passion that detests and must and finally +can destroy that evil is what makes the work great and makes us rejoice +in its horror.</p> + +<p>"Whoever understands this, however vaguely, will understand Strauss's +music. I have often said, when asked to state the case against the fools +and the money changers who are trying to drive us into a war with +Germany, that the case consists of the single word 'Beethoven.' To-day I +should say with equal confidence 'Strauss.' In this music drama Strauss +has done for us with utterly satisfying force what all the noblest +powers of life within us are clamouring to have said in protest against +and defiance of the omnipresent villainies of our civilization, and this +is the highest achievement of the highest art."</p> + +<p>Mme. Mazarin was the torch-bearer in New York of this magnificent +creation. She is, indeed,<a name="page_128" id="page_128"></a> the only singer who has ever appeared in the +rôle in America, and I have never heard <i>Elektra</i> in Europe. However, +those who have seen other interpreters of the rôle assure me that Mme. +Mazarin so far outdistanced them as to make comparison impossible. This, +in spite of the fact that <i>Elektra</i> in French necessarily lost something +of its crude force, and through its mild-mannered conductor at the +Manhattan Opera House, who seemed afraid to make a noise, a great deal +more. I did not make any notes about this performance at the time, but +now, seven years later, it is very vivid to me, an unforgettable +impression. Of how many nights in the theatre can I say as much?</p> + +<p>Diabolical ecstasy was the keynote of Mme. Mazarin's interpretation, +gradually developing into utter frenzy. She afterwards assured me that a +visit to a madhouse had given her the inspiration for the gestures and +steps of Elektra in the terrible dance in which she celebrates Orestes's +bloody but righteous deed. The plane of hysteria upon which this singer +carried her heroine by her pure nervous force, indeed reduced many of us +in the audience to a similar state. The conventional operatic mode was +abandoned; even the grand manner of the theatre was flung aside; with a +wide sweep of the imagination, the singer cast the <a name="page_129" id="page_129"></a>memory of all such +baggage from her, and proceeded along vividly direct lines to make her +impression.</p> + +<div class="centeredimage" style="width: 500px;"> +<a href="images/ill_mazarin_elektra.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_mazarin_elektra_sml.jpg" width="228" height="350" alt="MARIETTE MAZARIN AS ELEKTRA From a photograph by Mishkin (1910)" title="MARIETTE MAZARIN AS ELEKTRA From a photograph by Mishkin (1910)" /></a><br /> +<span class="caption">MARIETTE MAZARIN AS ELEKTRA<br />From a photograph by Mishkin (1910)</span> +</div> + +<p>The first glimpse of the half-mad princess, creeping dirty and ragged, +to the accompaniment of cracking whips, across the terraced courtyard of +the palace, was indeed not calculated to stir tears in the eyes. The +picture was vile and repugnant; so perhaps was the appeal to the sister +whose only wish was to bear a child, but Mme. Mazarin had her design; +her measurements were well taken. In the wild cry to Agamemnon, the +dignity and pathos of the character were established, and these +qualities were later emphasized in the scene of her meeting with +Orestes, beautiful pages in von Hofmannsthal's play and Strauss's score. +And in the dance of the poor demented creature at the close the full +beauty and power and meaning of the drama were disclosed in a few +incisive strokes. Elektra's mind had indeed given way under the strain +of her sufferings, brought about by her long waiting for vengeance, but +it had given way under the light of holy triumph. Such indeed were the +fundamentals of this tremendously moving characterization, a +characterization which one must place, perforce, in that great memory +gallery where hang the Mélisande of<a name="page_130" id="page_130"></a> Mary Garden, the Isolde of Olive +Fremstad, and the Boris Godunow of Feodor Chaliapine.</p> + +<p>It was not alone in her acting that Mme. Mazarin walked on the heights. +I know of no other singer with the force or vocal equipment for this +difficult rôle. At the time this music drama was produced its intervals +were considered in the guise of unrelated notes. It was the cry that the +voice parts were written without reference to the orchestral score, and +that these wandered up and down without regard for the limitations of a +singer. Since <i>Elektra</i> was first performed we have travelled far, and +now that we have heard <i>The Nightingale</i> of Strawinsky, for instance, +perusal of Strauss's score shows us a perfectly ordered and +understandable series of notes. Even now, however, there are few of our +singers who could cope with the music of <i>Elektra</i> without devoting a +good many months to its study, and more time to the physical exercise +needful to equip one with the force necessary to carry through the +undertaking. Mme. Mazarin never faltered. She sang the notes with +astonishing accuracy; nay, more, with potent vocal colour. Never did the +orchestral flood o'er-top her flow of sound. With consummate skill she +realized the composer's intentions as completely as she had those of the +poet.<a name="page_131" id="page_131"></a></p> + +<p>Those who were present at the first American performance of this work +will long bear the occasion in mind. The outburst of applause which +followed the close of the play was almost hysterical in quality, and +after a number of recalls Mme. Mazarin fainted before the curtain. Many +in the audience remained long enough to receive the reassuring news that +she had recovered. As a reporter of musical doings on the "New York +Times," I sought information as to her condition at the dressing-room of +the artist. Somewhere between the auditorium and the stage, in a +passageway, I encountered Mrs. Patrick Campbell, who, a short time +before, had appeared at the Garden Theatre in Arthur Symons's +translation of von Hofmannsthal's drama. Although we had never met +before, in the excitement of the moment we became engaged in +conversation, and I volunteered to escort her to Mme. Mazarin's room, +where she attempted to express her enthusiasm. Then I asked her if she +would like to meet Mr. Hammerstein, and she replied that it was her +great desire at this moment to meet the impresario and to thank him for +the indelible impression this evening in the theatre had given her. I +led her to the corner of the stage where he sat, in his high hat, +smoking his cigar, and I presented her to him.<a name="page_132" id="page_132"></a> "But Mrs. Campbell was +introduced to me only three minutes ago," he said. She stammered her +acknowledgment of the fact. "It's true," she said. "I have been so +completely carried out of myself that I had forgotten!"</p> + +<p> +<i>August 22, 1916.</i><br /> +</p> + +<h3><a name="Yvette_Guilbert" id="Yvette_Guilbert"></a>Yvette Guilbert</h3> + +<table style="margin:8% auto 8% auto;" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td>"<i>She sings of life, and mirth and all that moves</i></td></tr> +<tr><td> <i>Man's fancy in the carnival of loves;</i></td></tr> +<tr><td> <i>And a chill shiver takes me as she sings</i></td></tr> +<tr><td> <i>The pity of unpitied human things.</i>"</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 10em;">Arthur Symons.</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p><a name="page_135" id="page_135"></a></p> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE natural evolution of Gordon Craig's theory of the stage finally +brought him to the point where he would dispense altogether with the +play and the actor. The artist-producer would stand alone. Yvette +Guilbert has accomplished this very feat, and accomplished it without +the aid of super-marionettes. She still uses songs as her medium, but +she has very largely discarded the authors and composers of these songs, +recreating them with her own charm and wit and personality and brain. A +song as Yvette Guilbert sings it exists only for a brief moment. It does +not exist on paper, as you will discover if you seek out the printed +version, and it certainly does not exist in the performance of any one +else. Not that most of her songs are not worthy material, chosen as they +are from the store-houses of a nation's treasures, but that her +interpretations are so individual, so charged with deep personal +feeling, so emended, so added to, so embellished with grunts, shrieks, +squeaks, trills, spoken words, extra bars, or even added lines to the +text; so performed that their performance itself constitutes a veritable +(and, unfortunately, an extremely perishable) work of art. Sometimes, +indeed, it has<a name="page_136" id="page_136"></a> seemed to me that the genius of this remarkable +Frenchwoman could express itself directly, without depending upon songs.</p> + +<p>She could have given no more complete demonstration of the inimitability +of this genius than by her recent determination to lecture on the art of +interpreting songs. Never has Yvette been more fascinating, never more +authoritative than during those three afternoons at Maxine Elliott's +Theatre, devoted ostensibly to the dissection of her method, but before +she had unpacked a single instrument it must have been perfectly obvious +to every auditor in the hall that she was taking great pains to explain +just how impossible it would be for any one to follow in her footsteps, +for any one to imitate her astonishing career. With evident candour and +a multiplicity of detail she told the story of how she had built up her +art. She told how she studied the words of her songs, how she planned +them, what a large part the plasticity of her body played in their +interpretation, and when she was done all she had said only went to +prove that there is but one Yvette Guilbert.</p> + +<p>She stripped all pretence from her vocal method, explained how she sang +now in her throat, now falsetto. "When I wish to make a certain sound +for a certain effect I practise by myself until I<a name="page_137" id="page_137"></a> succeed in making it. +That is my vocal method. I never had a teacher. I would not trust my +voice to a teacher!" Her method of learning to breathe was a practical +one. She took the refrain of a little French song to work upon. She made +herself learn to sing the separate phrases of this song without +breathing; then two phrases together, etc., until she could sing the +refrain straight through without taking a breath. Ratan Devi has told me +that Indian singers, who never study vocalization in the sense that we +do, are adepts in the art of breathing. "They breathe naturally and with +no difficulty because it never occurs to them to distort a phrase by +interrupting it for breath. They have respect for the phrase and sing it +through. When you study with an occidental music teacher you will find +that he will mark little Vs on the page indicating where the pupil may +take breath until he can capture the length of the phrase. This method +would be incomprehensible to a Hindu or to any other oriental." The +wonderful breath control of Hebrew cantors who sing long and florid +phrases without interruption is another case of the same kind.</p> + +<p>Mme. Guilbert finds her effects everywhere, in nature, in art, in +literature. When she was composing her interpretation of <i>La Soularde</i> +she<a name="page_138" id="page_138"></a> searched in vain for the cry of the thoughtless children as they +stone the poor drunken hag, until she discovered it, quite by accident +one evening at the Comédie Française, in the shriek of Mounet-Sully in +<i>Oedipe-Roi</i>. In studying the <i>Voyage à Bethléem</i>, one of the most +popular songs of her répertoire, she felt the need of breaking the +monotony of the stanzas. It was her own idea to interpolate the +watchman's cry of the hours, and to add the jubilant coda, <i>Il est né, +le divin enfant</i>, extracted from another song of the same period. With +Guilbert nothing is left to chance. Do you remember one of her most +celebrated chansons, <i>Notre Petite Compagne</i> of Jules Laforgue, which +she sings so strikingly to a Waldteufel waltz,</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td><i>Je suis la femme,</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>On me connaît.</i></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>Her interpretation belies the lines. She has contrived to put all the +mystery of the sphinx into her rendering of them. How has she done this? +By means of the cigarette which she smokes throughout the song. She has +confessed as much. Always on the lookout for material which will assist +her in perfecting her art she has observed that when a woman smokes a +cigarette her expression becomes inscrutable. Her effects are +cumulative,<a name="page_139" id="page_139"></a> built up out of an inexhaustible fund of detail. In those +songs in which she professes to do the least she is really doing the +most. Have you heard her sing <i>Le Lien Serré</i> and witnessed the +impression she produces by sewing, a piece of action not indicated in +the text of the song? Have you heard her sing <i>L'Hotel Numero 3</i>, one of +the répertoire of the <i>gants noirs</i> and the old days of the Divan +Japonais? In this song she does not move her body; she scarcely makes a +gesture, and yet her crisp manner of utterance, her subtle emphasis, her +angular pose, are all that are needed to expose the humour of the ditty. +Much the same comment could be made in regard to her interpretation of +<i>Le Jeune Homme Triste</i>. The <i>apache</i> songs, on the contrary, are +replete with gesture. Do you remember the splendid <i>apache</i> saluting his +head before he goes to the guillotine? Again Yvette has given away her +secret: "Naturally I have deep feelings. To be an artist one must feel +intensely, but I find that it is sometimes well to give these feelings a +spur. In this instance I have sewn weights into the lining of the cap of +the <i>apache</i>. When I drop the cap it falls with a thud and I am reminded +instinctively of the fall of the knife of the guillotine. This trick +always furnishes me with the thrill I need and I can never sing the<a name="page_140" id="page_140"></a> +last lines without tears in my eyes and voice."</p> + +<p>It seems ungracious to speak of Yvette Guilbert as a great artist. She +is so much less than that and so much more. She has dedicated her +autobiography to God and it is certain that she believes her genius to +be a holy thing. No one else on the stage to-day has worked so +faithfully, or so long, no one else has so completely fulfilled her +obligations to her art, and certainly no one else is so nearly human. +She compasses the chasm between the artist and the public with ease. She +is even able to do this in America, speaking a foreign tongue, for it +has only been recently that she has learned to speak English freely and +she rarely sings in our language. Her versatility, it seems to me, is +limitless; she expresses the whole world in terms of her own +personality. She never lacks for a method of expression for the effect +she desires to give, and she gives all, heart and brains alike. Now she +is raucous, now tender; have you ever seen so sweet a smile; have you +ever observed so coarse a mien? She can run the gamut from a sleek +priest to a child (as in <i>C'est le Mai</i>), from a jealous husband to a +guilty wife (<i>Le Jaloux et la Menteuse</i>), from an apache (<i>Ma Tête</i>) to +a charming old lady (<i>Lisette</i>).</p> + +<div class="centeredimage" style="width: 500px;"> +<a href="images/ill_guilbert.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_guilbert_sml.jpg" width="226" height="350" alt="YVETTE GUILBERT from a photograph by Alice Boughton" title="YVETTE GUILBERT from a photograph by Alice Boughton" /></a><br /> +<span class="caption">YVETTE GUILBERT<br />from a photograph by Alice Boughton</span> +</div> + +<p>It is easy to liken the art of this marvellous<a name="page_141" id="page_141"></a> woman to something +concrete, to the drawings of Toulouse-Lautrec or Steinlen, the posters +of Chéret ... and there is indeed a suggestion of these men in the work +of Yvette Guilbert. The same broad lines are there, the same ample +style, the same complete effect, but there is more. In certain phases of +her talent, the <i>gamine</i>, the <i>apache</i>, the <i>gavroche</i>, she reflects the +spirit of the inspiration which kindled these painters into creation, +but in other phases, of which <i>Lisette</i>, <i>Les Cloches de Nantes</i>, <i>La +Passion</i>, or <i>Le Cycle du Vin</i> are the expression, you may more readily +compare her style with that of Watteau, Eugene Carrière, Félicien Rops, +or Boucher.... She takes us by the hand through the centuries, offering +us the results of a vast amount of study, a vast amount of erudition, +and a vast amount of work. In so many fine strokes she evokes an epoch. +She has studied the distinction between a curtsey which precedes the +recital of a fable of La Fontaine and a poem of Francis Jammes. She has +closely scrutinized pictures in neglected corridors of the Louvre to +learn the manner in which a cavalier lifts his hat in various periods. +There are those who complain that she emphasizes the dramatic side of +the old French songs, which possibly survive more clearly under more +naïve treatment.<a name="page_142" id="page_142"></a> Her justification in this instance is the complete +success of her method. The songs serve her purpose, even supposing she +does not serve theirs. But a more valid cause for grievance can be urged +against her. Unfortunately and ill-advisedly she has occasionally +carried something of the scientific into an otherwise delightful +matinée, importing a lecturer, like Jean Beck of Bryn Mawr, to analyze +and describe the music of the middle ages, or even becoming pedantic and +professorial herself; sometimes Yvette preaches or, still worse, permits +some one else, dancer, violinist, or singer to usurp her place on the +platform. These interruptions are sorry moments indeed but such lapses +are forgiven with an almost divine graciousness when Yvette interprets +another song. Then the dull or scholarly interpolations are forgotten.</p> + +<p>I cannot, indeed, know where to begin to praise her or where to stop. My +feelings for her performances (which I have seen and heard whenever I +have been able during the past twelve years in Chicago, New York, +London, and Paris) are unequivocal. There are moments when I am certain +that her rendering of <i>La Passion</i> is her supreme achievement and there +are moments when I prefer to see her as the unrestrained purveyor of the +art of the <i>chansonniers</i> of Montmartre—unrestrained,<a name="page_143" id="page_143"></a> I say, and yet +it is evident to me that she has refined her interpretations of these +songs, revived twenty-five years after she first sang them, bestowed on +them a spirit which originally she could not give them. From the +beginning <i>Ma Tête</i>, <i>La Soularde</i>, <i>La Glu</i>, <i>La Pierreuse</i>, and the +others were drawn as graphically as the pictures of Steinlen, but age +has softened her interpretation of them. What formerly was striking has +now become beautiful, what was always astonishing has become a +masterpiece of artistic expression. Once, indeed, these pictures were +sharply etched, but latterly they have been lithographed, drawn softly +on stone.... I have said that I do not know in what song, in what mood, +I prefer Yvette Guilbert. I can never be certain but if I were asked to +choose a programme I think I should include in it <i>C'est le Mai</i>, <i>La +Légende de St. Nicolas</i>, <i>Le Roi a Fait Battre Tambour</i>, <i>Les Cloches de +Nantes</i>, <i>Le Cycle du Vin</i>, <i>Le Lien Serré</i>, <i>La Glu</i>, <i>Lisette</i>, <i>La +Femme</i>, <i>Que l'Amour Cause de Peine</i>, and Oh, how many others!</p> + +<p>All art must be beautiful, says Mme. Guilbert, and she has realized the +meaning of what might have been merely a phrase; no matter how sordid or +trivial her subject she has contrived to make of it something beautiful. +She is not, therefore, a<a name="page_144" id="page_144"></a> realist in any literal signification of the +word (although I doubt if any actress on the stage can evoke more sense +of character than she) because she always smiles and laughs and weeps +with the women she represents; she sympathizes with them, she humanizes +them, where another interpreter would coldly present them for an +audience to take or to leave, exposing them to cruel inspection. Even in +her interpretation of heartless women it is always to our sense of +humour that she appeals, while in her rendering of <i>Ma Tête</i> and <i>La +Pierreuse</i> she strikes directly at our hearts. Zola once told Mme. +Guilbert that the <i>apaches</i> were the logical descendants of the old +chevaliers of France. "They are the only men we have now who will fight +over a woman!" he said. When you hear Mme. Guilbert call "<i>Pi-ouit!</i>" +you will readily perceive that she understands what Zola meant.</p> + +<p>Wonderful Yvette, who has embodied so many pleasant images in the +theatre, who has expressed to the world so much of the soul of France, +so much of the soul of art itself, but, above all, so much of the soul +of humanity. It is not alone General Booth who has made friends of +"drabs from the alley-ways and drug fiends pale—Minds still +passion-ridden, soul-powers frail! Vermin-eaten saints with mouldy +breath, unwashed legions<a name="page_145" id="page_145"></a> with the ways of death": these are all friends +of Yvette Guilbert too. And when Balzac wrote the concluding paragraph +of "Massimila Doni" he may have foreseen the later application of the +lines.... Surely "the peris, nymphs, fairies, sylphs of the olden time, +the muses of Greece, the marble Virgins of the Certosa of Pavia, the Day +and Night of Michael Angelo, the little angels that Bellini first drew +at the foot of church paintings, and to whom Raphael gave such divine +form at the foot of the Vierge au donataire, and of the Madonna freezing +at Dresden; Orcagna's captivating maidens in the Church of Or San +Michele at Florence, the heavenly choirs on the tombs of St. Sebald at +Nuremberg, several Virgins in the Duomo at Milan, the hordes of a +hundred Gothic cathedrals, the whole nation of figures who break their +forms to come to you, O all-embracing artists—" surely, surely, all +these hover over Yvette Guilbert.</p> + +<p><i>April 16, 1917.</i><a name="page_146" id="page_146"></a> +<a name="page_147" id="page_147"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="Waslav_Nijinsky" id="Waslav_Nijinsky"></a>Waslav Nijinsky</h3> + +<table border="0" style="margin:8% auto 8% auto;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="quotation"> +<tr><td align="left">"<i>A thing of beauty is a boy forever.</i>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">Allen Norton.</td></tr> +</table> + +<p><a name="page_149" id="page_149"></a></p> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">S</span>ERGE DE DIAGHILEW brought the dregs of the Russian Ballet to New York +and, after a first greedy gulp, inspired by curiosity to get a taste of +this highly advertised beverage, the public drank none too greedily. The +scenery and the costumes, designed by Bakst, Roerich, Benois, and +Larionow, and the music of Rimsky-Korsakow, Tcherepnine, Schumann, +Borodine, Balakirew, and Strawinsky—especially Strawinsky—arrived. It +was to be deplored, however, that Bakst had seen fit to replace the +original <i>décor</i> of <i>Scheherazade</i> by a new setting in rawer colours, in +which the flaming orange fairly burned into the ultramarine and green +(readers of "A Rebours" will remember that des Esseintes designed a room +something like this). A few of the dancers came, but of the best not a +single one. Nor was Fokine, the dancer-producer, who devised the +choregraphy for <i>The Firebird</i>, <i>Cléopâtre</i>, and <i>Petrouchka</i>, among the +number, although his presence had been announced and expected. To those +enthusiasts, and they included practically every one who had seen the +Ballet in its greater glory, who had prepared their friends for an +overwhelmingly brilliant spectacle, over-using<a name="page_150" id="page_150"></a> the phrase, "a perfect +union of the arts," the early performances in January, 1916, at the +Century Theatre were a great disappointment. Often had we urged that the +individual played but a small part in this new and gorgeous +entertainment, but now we were forced to admit that the ultimate glamour +was lacking in the ensemble, which was obviously no longer the glad, gay +entity it once had been.</p> + +<p>The picture was still there, the music (not always too well played) but +the interpretation was mediocre. The agile Miassine could scarcely be +called either a great dancer or a great mime. He had been chosen by +Diaghilew for the rôle of Joseph in Richard Strauss's version of the +Potiphar legend but, during the course of a London season carried +through without the co-operation of Nijinsky, this was the only part +allotted to him. In New York he interpreted, not without humour and with +some technical skill, the incidental divertissement from +Rimsky-Korsakow's opera, <i>The Snow-Maiden</i>, against a vivid background +by Larionow. The uninspired choregraphy of this ballet was also ascribed +to Miassine by the programme, although probably in no comminatory +spirit. In the small rôle of Eusebius in <i>Carneval</i><a name="page_151" id="page_151"></a> and in the +negligible part of the Prince in <i>The Firebird</i> he was entirely +satisfactory, but it was impertinent of the direction to assume that he +would prove an adequate substitute for Nijinsky in rôles to which that +dancer had formerly applied his extremely finished art.</p> + +<p>Adolf Bolm contributed his portraits of the Moor in <i>Petrouchka</i>, of +Pierrot in <i>Carneval</i>, and of the Chief Warrior in the dances from +<i>Prince Igor</i>. These three rôles completely express the possibilities of +Bolm as a dancer or an actor, and sharply define his limitations. His +other parts, Dakon in <i>Daphnis et Chloë</i>—Sadko, the Prince in <i>Thamar</i>, +Amoun in <i>Cléopâtre</i>, the Slave in <i>Scheherazade</i>, and Pierrot in +<i>Papillons</i>, are only variations on the three afore-mentioned themes. +His friends often confuse his vitality and abundant energy with a sense +of characterization and a skill as a dancer which he does not possess. +For the most part he is content to express himself by stamping his heels +and gnashing his teeth, and when, as in <i>Cléopâtre</i>, he attempts to +convey a more subtle meaning to his general gesture, he is not very +successful. Bolm is an interesting and useful member of the +organization, but he could not make or unmake a season; nor could +Gavrilow, who<a name="page_152" id="page_152"></a> is really a fine dancer in his limited way, although he +is unfortunately lacking in magnetism and any power of characterization.</p> + +<p>But it was on the distaff side of the cast that the Ballet seemed +pitifully undistinguished, even to those who did not remember the early +Paris seasons when the roster included the names of Anna Pavlowa, Tamara +Karsavina, Caterina Gheltzer, and Ida Rubinstein. The leading feminine +dancer of the troupe when it gave its first exhibitions in New York was +Xenia Maclezova, who had not, so far as my memory serves, danced in any +London or Paris season of the Ballet (except for one gala performance at +the Paris Opéra which preceded the American tour), unless in some very +menial capacity. This dancer, like so many others, had the technique of +her art at her toes' ends. Sarah Bernhardt once told a reporter that the +acquirement of technique never did any harm to an artist, and if one +were not an artist it was not a bad thing to have. I have forgotten how +many times Mlle. Maclezova could pirouette without touching the toe in +the air to the floor, but it was some prodigious number. She was +past-mistress of the <i>entrechat</i> and other mysteries of the ballet +academy. Here, however, her knowledge of her art seemed to end, in the +subjugation of its very mechanism.<a name="page_153" id="page_153"></a> She was very nearly lacking in those +qualities of grace, poetry, and imagination with which great artists are +freely endowed, and although she could not actually have been a woman of +more than average weight, she often conveyed to the spectator an +impression of heaviness. In such a work as <i>The Firebird</i> she really +offended the eye. Far from interpreting the ballet, she gave you an idea +of how it should not be done.</p> + +<p>Her season with the Russians was terminated in very short order, and +Lydia Lopoukova, who happened to be in America, and who, indeed, had +already been engaged for certain rôles, was rushed into her vacant +slippers. Now Mme. Lopoukova had charm as a dancer, whatever her +deficiencies in technique. In certain parts, notably as Colombine in +<i>Carneval,</i> she assumed a roguish demeanor which was very fetching. As +La Ballerine in <i>Petrouchka,</i> too, she met all the requirements of the +action. But in <i>Le Spectre de la Rose</i>, <i>Les Sylphides</i>, <i>The Firebird</i>, +and <i>La Princesse Enchantée</i>, she floundered hopelessly out of her +element.</p> + +<p>Tchernicheva, one of the lesser but more steadfast luminaries of the +Ballet, in the rôles for which she was cast, the principal Nymph in +<i>L'Après-midi d'un Faune</i>, Echo in <i>Narcisse</i>, and the Princess in <i>The +Firebird</i>, more than fulfilled her obligations to<a name="page_154" id="page_154"></a> the ensemble, but her +opportunities in these mimic plays were not of sufficient importance to +enable her to carry the brunt of the performances on her lovely +shoulders. Flore Revalles was drafted, I understand, from a French opera +company. I have been told that she sings—Tosca is one of her rôles—as +well as she dances. That may very well be. To impressionable spectators +she seemed a real <i>femme fatale</i>. Her Cléopâtre suggested to me a +Parisian <i>cocotte</i> much more than an Egyptian queen. It would be +blasphemy to compare her with Ida Rubinstein in this rôle—Ida +Rubinstein, who was true Aubrey Beardsley! In Thamar and Zobeide, both +to a great extent dancing rôles, Mlle. Revalles, both as dancer and +actress, was but a frail substitute for Karsavina.</p> + +<p>The remainder of the company was adequate, but not large, and the +ensemble was by no means as brilliant as those who had seen the Ballet +in London or Paris might have expected. Nor in the absence of Fokine, +that master of detail, were performances sufficiently rehearsed. There +was, of course, explanation in plenty for this disintegration. +Gradually, indeed, the Ballet as it had existed in Europe had suffered a +change. Only a miracle and a fortune combined would have sufficed to +hold the original company intact. It was<a name="page_155" id="page_155"></a> not held intact, and the war +made further inroads on its integrity. Then, for the trip to America +many of the dancers probably were inclined to demand double pay. +Undoubtedly, Serge de Diaghilew had many more troubles than those which +were celebrated in the public prints, and it must be admitted that, even +with his weaker company, he gave us finer exhibitions of stage art than +had previously been even the exception here.</p> + +<p>In the circumstances, however, certain pieces, which were originally +produced when the company was in the flush of its first glory, should +never have been presented here at all. It was not the part of reason, +for example, to pitchfork on the Century stage an indifferent +performance of <i>Le Pavilion d'Armide</i>, in which Nijinsky once disported +himself as the favourite slave, and which, as a matter of fact, requires +a company of <i>virtuosi</i> to make it a passable diversion. <i>Cléopâtre</i>, in +its original form with Nijinsky, Fokine, Pavlowa, Ida Rubinstein, and +others, hit all who saw it square between the eyes. The absurdly +expurgated edition, with its inadequate cast, offered to New York, was +but the palest shadow of the sensuous entertainment that had aroused all +Paris, from the Batignolles to the Bastille. The music, the setting, the +costumes—what else was left to<a name="page_156" id="page_156"></a> celebrate? The altered choregraphy, the +deplorable interpretation, drew tears of rage from at least one pair of +eyes. It was quite incomprehensible also why <i>The Firebird</i>, which +depends on the grace and poetical imagination of the filmiest and most +fairy-like actress-dancer, should have found a place in the répertoire. +It is the dancing equivalent of a coloratura soprano rôle in opera. +Thankful, however, for the great joy of having re-heard Strawinsky's +wonderful score, I am willing to overlook this tactical error.</p> + +<p>All things considered, it is small wonder that a large slice of the +paying population of New York tired of the Ballet in short order. One +reason for this cessation of interest was the constant repetition of +ballets. In London and Paris the seasons as a rule have been shorter, +and on certain evenings of the week opera has taken the place of the +dance. It has been rare indeed that a single work has been repeated more +than three or four times during an engagement. I have not found it +stupid to listen to and look at perhaps fifteen performances of varying +degrees of merit of <i>Petrouchka</i>, <i>Scheherazade</i>, <i>Carneval</i>, and the +dances from <i>Prince Igor</i>; I would rather see the Russian Ballet +repeatedly, even as it existed in America, than four thousand five +hundred and six Broadway<a name="page_157" id="page_157"></a> plays or seventy-three operas at the +Metropolitan once, but I dare say I may look upon myself as an +exception.</p> + +<p>At any rate, when the company entered upon a four weeks' engagement at +the Metropolitan Opera House, included in the regular subscription +season of opera, the subscribers groaned; many of them groaned aloud, +and wrote letters to the management and to the newspapers. To be sure, +during the tour which had followed the engagement at the Century the +répertoire had been increased, but the company remained the same—until +the coming of Waslav Nijinsky.</p> + +<p>When America was first notified of the impending visit of the Russian +Ballet it was also promised that Waslav Nijinsky and Tamara Karsavina +would head the organization. It was no fault of the American direction +or of Serge de Diaghilew that they did not do so. Various excuses were +advanced for the failure of Karsavina to forsake her family in Russia +and to undertake the journey to the United States but, whatever the +cause, there seems to remain no doubt that she refused to come. As for +Nijinsky, he, with his wife, had been a prisoner in an Austrian +detention camp since the beginning of the war. Wheels were set grinding +but wheels grind slowly in an epoch of international<a name="page_158" id="page_158"></a> bloodshed, and it +was not until March, 1916, that the Austrian ambassador at Washington +was able to announce that Nijinsky had been set free.</p> + +<p>I do not believe the coming to this country of any other celebrated +person had been more widely advertised, although P. T. Barnum may have +gone further in describing the charitable and vocal qualities of Jenny +Lind. Nijinsky had been extravagantly praised, not only by the official +press representatives but also by eminent critics and private persons, +in adjectives which seemed to preclude any possibility of his living up +to them. I myself had been among the pæan singers. I had thrust +"half-man, half-god" into print. "A flame!" cried some one. Another, "A +jet of water from a fountain!" Such men in the street as had taken the +trouble to consider the subject at all very likely expected the arrival +of some stupendous and immortal monstrosity, a gravity-defying being +with sixteen feet (at least), who bounded like a rubber ball, never +touching the solid stage except at the beginning and end of the +evening's performance.</p> + +<p>Nijinsky arrived in April. Almost immediately he gave vent to one of +those expressions of temperament often associated with interpretative +genius,<a name="page_159" id="page_159"></a> the kind of thing I have described at some length in "Music and +Bad Manners." He was not at all pleased with the Ballet as he found it. +Interviewed, he expressed his displeasure in the newspapers. The +managers of the organization wisely remained silent, and a controversy +was avoided, but the public had received a suggestion of petulance which +could not contribute to the popularity of the new dancer.</p> + +<p>Nijinsky danced for the first time in New York on the afternoon of April +12, at the Metropolitan Opera House. The pieces in which he appeared on +that day were <i>Le Spectre de la Rose</i> and <i>Petrouchka</i>. Some of us +feared that eighteen months in a detention camp would have stamped their +mark on the dancer. As a matter of fact his connection with the Russian +Ballet had been severed in 1913, a year before the war began. I can say +for myself that I was probably a good deal more nervous than Nijinsky on +the occasion of his first appearance in America. It would have been a +cruel disappointment to me to have discovered that his art had perished +during the intervening three years since I had last seen him. My fears +were soon dissipated. A few seconds after he as the Rose Ghost had +bounded through the window, it was evident that he was in possession of +all his<a name="page_160" id="page_160"></a> powers; nay, more, that he had added to the refinement and +polish of his style. I had called Nijinsky's dancing perfection in years +gone by, because it so far surpassed that of his nearest rival; now he +had surpassed himself. True artists, indeed, have a habit of +accomplishing this feat. I may call to your attention the careers of +Olive Fremstad, Yvette Guilbert, and Marie Tempest. Later I learned that +this first impression might be relied on. Nijinsky, in sooth, has now no +rivals upon the stage. One can only compare him with himself!</p> + +<p>The Weber-Gautier dance-poem, from the very beginning until the end, +when he leaps out of the window of the girl's chamber into the night, +affords this great actor-dancer one of his most grateful opportunities. +It is in this very part, perhaps, which requires almost unceasing +exertion for nearly twelve minutes, that Nijinsky's powers of +co-ordination, mental, imaginative, muscular, are best displayed. His +dancing is accomplished in that flowing line, without a break between +poses and gestures, which is the despair of all novices and almost all +other <i>virtuosi</i>. After a particularly difficult leap or toss of the +legs or arms, it is a marvel to observe how, without an instant's pause +to regain his poise, he rhythmically glides into the<a name="page_161" id="page_161"></a> succeeding +gesture. His dancing has the unbroken quality of music, the balance of +great painting, the meaning of fine literature, and the emotion inherent +in all these arts. There is something of transmutation in his +performances; he becomes an alembic, transforming movement into a finely +wrought and beautiful work of art. The dancing of Nijinsky is first an +imaginative triumph, and the spectator, perhaps, should not be +interested in further dissection of it, but a more intimate observer +must realize that behind this the effect produced depends on his supreme +command of his muscles. It is not alone the final informing and +magnetized imaginative quality that most other dancers lack; it is also +just this muscular co-ordination. Observe Gavrilow in the piece under +discussion, in which he gives a good imitation of Nijinsky's general +style, and you will see that he is unable to maintain this rhythmic +continuity.</p> + +<p>Nijinsky's achievements become all the more remarkable when one +remembers that he is working with an imperfect physical medium. Away +from the scene he is an insignificant figure, short and ineffective in +appearance. Aside from the pert expression of his eyes, he is like a +dozen other young Russians. Put him unintroduced into a<a name="page_162" id="page_162"></a> drawing-room +with Jacques Copeau, Orchidée, Doris Keane, Bill Haywood, Edna Kenton, +the Baroness de Meyer, Paulet Thevenaz, the Marchesa Casati, Marcel +Duchamp, Cathleen Nesbitt, H. G. Wells, Anna Pavlowa, Rudyard +Chennevière, Vladimir Rebikow, Henrie Waste, and Isadora Duncan, and he +probably would pass entirely unnoticed. On the stage it may be observed +that the muscles of his legs are overdeveloped and his ankles are too +large; that is, if you are in the mood for picking flaws, which most of +us are not in the presence of Nijinsky in action. Here, however, +stricture halts confounded; his head is set on his shoulders in a manner +to give satisfaction to a great sculptor, and his torso, with its +slender waist line, is quite beautiful. On the stage, Nijinsky makes of +himself what he will. He can look tall or short, magnificent or ugly, +fascinating or repulsive. Like so many interpretative artists, he +remoulds himself for his public appearances. It is under the electric +light in front of the painted canvas that he becomes a personality, and +that personality is governed only by the scenario of the ballet he is +representing.</p> + +<p>From the day of Nijinsky's arrival, the ensemble of the Ballet improved; +somewhat of the spontaneity of the European performances was regained;<a name="page_163" id="page_163"></a> +a good deal of the glamour was recaptured; the loose lines were gathered +taut, and the choregraphy of Fokine (Nijinsky is a director as well as a +dancer) was restored to some of its former power. He has appeared in +nine rôles in New York during the two short seasons in which he has been +seen with the Russian Ballet here: the Slave in <i>Scheherazade</i>, +Petrouchka, the Rose Ghost, the Faun, the Harlequin in <i>Carneval</i>, +Narcisse, Till Eulenspiegel, and the principal male rôles of <i>La +Princesse Enchantée</i> and <i>Les Sylphides</i>. To enjoy the art of Nijinsky +completely, to fully appreciate his genius, it is necessary not only to +see him in a variety of parts, but also to see him in the same rôle many +times.</p> + +<p>Study the detail of his performance in <i>Scheherazade</i>, for example. Its +precision alone is noteworthy. Indeed, precision is a quality we see +exposed so seldom in the theatre that when we find it we are almost +inclined to hail it as genius. The rôle of the Slave in this ballet is +perhaps Nijinsky's scenic masterpiece—exotic eroticism expressed in so +high a key that its very existence seems incredible on our puritanic +stage, and yet with such great art (the artist always expresses himself +with beauty) that the intention is softened by the execution. Before +the arrival of this dancer,<a name="page_164" id="page_164"></a> <i>Scheherazade</i> had become a police court +scandal. There had been talk of a "Jim Crow" performance in which the +blacks were to be separated from the whites in the harem, and I am told +that our provincial police magistrates even wanted to replace the +"mattresses"—so were the divans of the sultanas described in court—by +rocking chairs! But to the considerably more vivid <i>Scheherazade</i> of +Nijinsky no exception was taken. This strange, curious, head-wagging, +simian creature, scarce human, wriggled through the play, leaving a long +streak of lust and terror in his wake. Never did Nijinsky as the Negro +Slave touch the Sultana, but his subtle and sensuous fingers fluttered +close to her flesh, clinging once or twice questioningly to a depending +tassel. Pierced by the javelins of the Sultan's men, the Slave's death +struggle might have been revolting and gruesome. Instead, Nijinsky +carried the eye rapidly upward with his tapering feet as they balanced +for the briefest part of a second straight high in the air, only to fall +inert with so brilliantly quick a movement that the æsthetic effect +grappled successfully with the feeling of disgust which might have been +aroused. This was acting, this was characterization, so completely +merged in rhythm that the result became a perfect whole, and not a +combination<a name="page_165" id="page_165"></a> of several intentions, as so often results from the work of +an actor-dancer.</p> + +<p>The heart-breaking Petrouchka, the roguish Harlequin, the Chopiniac of +<i>Les Sylphides</i>,—all were offered to our view; and <i>Narcisse</i>, in which +Nijinsky not only did some very beautiful dancing, but posed (as the +Greek youth admired himself in the mirror of the pool) with such utter +and arresting grace that even here he awakened a definite thrill. In <i>La +Princesse Enchantée</i> he merely danced, but how he danced! Do you who saw +him still remember those flickering fingers and toes? "He winketh with +his eyes, he speaketh with his feet, he teacheth with his fingers," is +written in the Book of Proverbs, and the writer might have had in mind +Nijinsky in <i>La Princesse Enchantée</i>. All these parts were +differentiated, all completely realized, in the threefold intricacy of +this baffling art, which perhaps is not an art at all until it is so +realized, when its plastic, rhythmic, and histrionic elements become an +entity.</p> + +<p>After a summer in Spain and Switzerland, without Nijinsky, the Russian +Ballet returned to America for a second season, opening at the Manhattan +Opera House October 16, 1916. It is always a delight to hear and see +performances in this theatre, and it was found that the brilliance of +the<a name="page_166" id="page_166"></a> Ballet was much enhanced by its new frame. The season, however, +opened with a disappointment. It had been announced that Nijinsky would +dance on the first night his choregraphic version of Richard Strauss's +tone-poem, <i>Till Eulenspiegel</i>. It is not the first time that a press +agent has made a false prophecy. While rehearsing the new work, Nijinsky +twisted his ankle, and during the first week of the engagement he did +not appear at all. This was doubly unfortunate, because the company was +weaker than it had been the previous season, lacking both Miassine and +Tchernicheva. The only novelty (for America) produced during the first +week was an arrangement of the divertissement from Rimsky-Korsakow's +opera, <i>Sadko</i>, which had already been given a few times in Paris and +London by the Ballet, never with conspicuous success. The second week of +the season, Nijinsky returned to appear in three rôles, the Faun, Till +Eulenspiegel, and the Slave in <i>Scheherazade</i>. Of his performance to +Debussy's lovely music I have written elsewhere; nor did this new vision +cause me to revise my opinions.</p> + +<p><i>Till Eulenspiegel</i> is the only new ballet the Russians have produced in +America. (<i>Soleil de Nuit</i> was prepared in Europe, and performed once at +the Paris Opéra before it was seen in New York.<a name="page_167" id="page_167"></a> Besides, it was an +arrangement of dances from an opera which is frequently given in Russia +and which has been presented at the Opéra-Comique in Paris.) The <i>chef +d'orchestre</i>, Pierre Monteux, refused to direct performances of this +work, on the ground that the composer was not only a German, but a very +much alive and active German patriot. On the occasions, therefore, that +<i>Till</i> was performed in New York, the orchestra struggled along under +the baton of Dr. Anselm Goetzl. In selecting this work and in his +arrangement of the action Nijinsky was moved, no doubt, by consideration +for the limitations of the company as it existed,—from which he was +able to secure the effects he desired. The scenery and costumes by +Robert E. Jones, of New York, were decidedly diverting—the best work +this talented young man has done, I think. Over a deep, spreading +background of ultramarine, the crazy turrets of mediæval castles leaned +dizzily to and fro. The costumes were exaggerations of the exaggerated +fashions of the Middle Ages. Mr. Jones added feet of stature to the +already elongated peaked headdresses of the period. The trains of the +velvet robes, which might have extended three yards, were allowed to +trail the full depth of the Manhattan Opera House stage. The colours +were oranges, <a name="page_168" id="page_168"></a>reds, greens, and blues, those indeed of Bakst's +<i>Scheherazade</i>, but so differently disposed that they made an entirely +dissimilar impression. The effect reminded one spectator of a Spanish +omelet.</p> + +<div class="centeredimage" style="width: 500px;"> +<a href="images/ill_nijinsky.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_nijinsky_sml.jpg" width="222" height="350" alt="WASLAV NIJINSKY IN DEBUSSY'S JEUX (1913)" title="WASLAV NIJINSKY IN DEBUSSY'S JEUX (1913)" /></a><br /> +<span class="caption">WASLAV NIJINSKY IN DEBUSSY'S JEUX (1913)</span> +</div> + +<p>In arranging the scenario, Nijinsky followed in almost every detail +Wilhelm Klatte's description of the meaning of the music, which is +printed in programme books whenever the tone-poem is performed, without +Strauss's authority, but sometimes with his sanction. Nijinsky was quite +justified in altering the end of the work, which hangs the rogue-hero, +into another practical joke. His version of this episode fits the music +and, in the original <i>Till Eulenspiegel</i> stories, Till is not hanged, +but dies in bed. The keynote of Nijinsky's interpretation was gaiety. He +was as utterly picaresque as the work itself; he reincarnated the spirit +of Gil Blas; indeed, a new quality crept into stage expression through +this characterization. Margaret Wycherly, one of the most active +admirers of the dancer, told me after the first performance that she +felt that he had for the first time leaped into the hearts of the great +American public, whose appreciation of his subtler art as expressed in +<i>Narcisse</i>, <i>Petrouchka</i>, and even <i>Scheherazade</i>, had been more +moderate. There were those who protested that this was not the Till of +the German<a name="page_169" id="page_169"></a> legends, but any actor who attempts to give form to a folk +or historical character, or even a character derived from fiction, is +forced to run counter to many an observer's preconceived ideas.</p> + +<p>"It is an error to believe that pantomime is merely a way of doing +without words," writes Arthur Symons," that it is merely the equivalent +of words. Pantomime is thinking overheard. It begins and ends before +words have formed themselves, in a deeper consciousness than that of +speech. And it addresses itself, by the artful limitations of its craft, +to universal human experience, knowing that the moment it departs from +those broad lines it will become unintelligible. It risks existence on +its own perfection, as the rope-dancer does, to whom a false step means +a down-fall. And it appeals democratically to people of all nations.... +And pantomime has that mystery which is one of the requirements of true +art. To watch it is like dreaming. How silently, in dreams, one gathers +the unheard sounds of words from the lips that do but make pretence of +saying them! And does not every one know that terrifying impossibility +of speaking which fastens one to the ground for the eternity of a +second, in what is the new, perhaps truer, computation of time in +dreams? Something like that sense of suspense<a name="page_170" id="page_170"></a> seems to hang over the +silent actors in pantomime, giving them a nervous exaltation, which has +its subtle, immediate effect upon us, in tragic and comic situation. The +silence becomes an atmosphere, and with a very curious power of giving +distinction to form and motion. I do not see why people should ever +break silence on the stage except to speak poetry. Here, in pantomime, +you have a gracious, expressive silence, beauty of gesture, a perfectly +discreet appeal to the emotions, a transposition of the world into an +elegant accepted convention."</p> + +<p>Arthur Symons wrote these words before he had seen the Russian Ballet, +before the Russian Ballet, as we know it, existed, indeed, before +Nijinsky had begun to dance in public, and he felt that the addition of +poetry and music to pantomime—the Wagner music-drama in other +words—brought about a perfect combination of the arts. Nevertheless, +there is an obvious application of his remarks to the present instance. +There is, indeed, the quality of a dream about the characters Nijinsky +presents to us. I remember once, at a performance of the Russian Ballet, +I sat in a box next to a most intelligent man, a writer himself; I was +meeting him for the first time, and he was seeing the Ballet for the +first time. Before the<a name="page_171" id="page_171"></a> curtain rose he had told me that dancing and +pantomime were very pretty to look at, but that he found no stimulation +in watching them, no mental and spiritual exaltation, such as might +follow a performance of <i>Hamlet</i>. Having seen Nijinsky, I could not +agree with him—and this indifferent observer became that evening +himself a fervent disciple of the Ballet. For Nijinsky gave him, he +found, just what his ideal performance of Shakespeare's play might have +given him, a basis for dreams, for thinking, for poetry. The ennobling +effect of all great and perfect art, after the primary emotion, seems to +be to set our minds wandering in a thousand channels, to suggest new +outlets. Pater's experience before the <i>Monna Lisa</i> is only unique in +its intense and direct expression.</p> + +<p>No writer, no musician, no painter, can feel deep emotion before a work +of art without expressing it in some way, although the expression may be +a thousand leagues removed from the inspiration. And how few of us can +view the art of Nijinsky without emotion! To the painter he gives a new +sense of proportion, to the musician a new sense of rhythm, while to the +writer he must perforce immediately suggest new words; better still, new +meanings for old words. Dance, pantomime, acting, harmony, all these +divest themselves<a name="page_172" id="page_172"></a> of their worn-out accoutrements and appear, as if +clothed by magic, in garments of unheard-of novelty; hue, texture, cut, +and workmanship are all a surprise to us. We look enraptured, we go away +enthralled, and perhaps even unconsciously a new quality creeps into our +own work. It is the same glamour cast over us by contemplation of the +Campo Santo at Pisa, or the Roman Theatre at Orange, or the Cathedral at +Chartres,—the inspiration for one of the most word-jewelled books in +any language—or the New York sky line at twilight as one sails away +into the harbour, or a great iron crane which lifts tons of alien matter +in its gaping jaw. Great music can give us this feeling, the symphonies +of Beethoven, Mozart's <i>Don Giovanni</i>, Schubert's <i>C Major Symphony</i>, or +César Franck's <i>D Minor</i>, <i>The Sacrifice to the Spring</i> of Strawinsky, +<i>L'Après-midi d'un Faune</i> of Debussy, Chabrier's Rhapsody, <i>España</i>; +great interpretative musicians can give it to us, Ysaye at his best, +Paderewski, Marcella Sembrich in song recital; but how few artists on +the stage suggest even as much as the often paltry lines of the author, +the often banal music of the composer! There is an <i>au delà</i> to all +great interpretative art, something that remains after story, words, +picture, and gesture have faded vaguely into that<a name="page_173" id="page_173"></a> storeroom in our +memories where are concealed these lovely ghosts of ephemeral beauty, +and the artist who is able to give us this is blessed even beyond his +knowledge, for to him has been vouchsafed the sacred kiss of the gods. +This quality cannot be acquired, it cannot even be described, but it can +be felt. With its beneficent aid the interpreter not only contributes to +our pleasure, he broadens our horizon, adds to our knowledge and +capacity for feeling.</p> + +<p>As I read over these notes I realize that I have not been able to +discover flaws in the art of this young man. It seems to me that in his +chosen medium he approaches perfection. What he attempts to do, he +always does perfectly. Can one say as much for any other interpreter? +But it is a difficult matter to give the spirit of Nijinsky, to describe +his art on paper, to capture the abundant grace, the measureless poetry, +the infinite illusion of his captivating motion in ink. Who can hope to +do it? Future generations must take our word for his greatness. We can +do little more than call it that. I shall have served my purpose if I +have succeeded in this humble article in bringing back to those who have +seen him a flashing glimpse of the imaginative actuality.</p> + +<p><i>January 16, 1917.</i><a name="page_175" id="page_175"></a><a name="page_174" id="page_174"></a></p> + +<h3 class="reg spc"><a name="Epilogue" id="Epilogue"></a>Epilogue</h3> + +<p class="c"><i>as a substitute for a preface to the new edition</i>.<a name="page_176" id="page_176"></a> +<a name="page_177" id="page_177"></a></p> + +<p class="c">I</p> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span>T was formerly the custom, in England at any rate, to publish one book +in two or three volumes. Judge, therefore, of my dismay and delight on +discovering, shortly after the first appearance of "Interpreters and +Interpretations," in 1917, that I, abetted by my always delightfully +agreeable publisher, had issued two books in one volume! Even the title +itself fell apart. This practical detail has made it a comparatively +simple matter to exhibit these twins separately in the future, and such +is my intention. This volume, then, contains the first half of the +longer book.</p> + +<p>I have been asked occasionally why I devote so much attention in my +writing to interpreters. The answer is, of course, that I devote very +little attention to them, not enough, I sometimes think. This book, +indeed, says nearly all that I have said up to date on the subject. But +I am not at all in sympathy with those critics of music and the drama +who lay stress on the relative unimportance of interpreters. Sometimes I +am inclined to believe that interpreters, who mould their own +personalities rather than clay or words, are greater<a name="page_178" id="page_178"></a> than creators. I +think we might have a more ideal theatre if interpreters could be their +own creators, like the mediæval troubadours or the gipsies of Spain. For +there are many disadvantages about creative art. One of them is its +persistence. Beethoven and Dante wrote notes and letters down on paper +and there they remain, apparently forever. It is very annoying. Legends +hover round the names of these artists, and for centuries after their +deaths all the stupid creators in the world try to do something similar +to the work these men have done, and all the really inspired artists +have to pass a period of probation during which they strive to forget +the work these men have done. "You will find," remarks sagaciously one +Henry C. Lunn, "that people will often praise a bad fugue because Bach +has produced so many good ones." It would be much better for everybody +if a law were passed consigning all creative work to the flames ten +years after it saw the light. Then we would have novelty. If Beethoven +recurred again, at least nobody would know it. Any knowledge about books +or pictures or music of the past would have to be carried in the memory +and in a few decades all memory of anything that was not essential would +have disappeared. It must have<a name="page_179" id="page_179"></a> been a thrilling experience to have +lived in Alexandria at the time the library was burned. Just think, +twenty years after that event, philosophers and professors probably +could be found in Alexandria who did not go round with long faces +telling you what had been done and what should be done. No references to +the early Assyrians and the Greeks until the papyruses were replaced. +The Renaissance and the Revival of Learning, on the other hand, +doubtless pleasant enough at the time, smeared a terrible blot on the +future of art.</p> + +<p>Now interpretative art is different. It depends upon the contemporary +individual, and some of its most thrilling effects may be entirely +accidental. Any traditions which persist in interpretative art must be +carried in the memory. In exceptional cases, of course, a singer, a +dancer, or an actor is able to so stamp his or her personal achievement +into the flowing rhythm of artistic space that a <i>style</i> does persist. +We have a very good example before us in the case of Isadora Duncan, who +has been followed by a long train of animated Grecian urns. The +deleterious effect of this persistence of an interpretative tradition +must be apparent to any one. For the imitator of an interpreter is a +thousand times more futile<a name="page_180" id="page_180"></a> than the imitator of a creator. Fortunately, +on the whole, styles in acting, in singing, and in dancing frequently +change. The Catalani-Jenny Lind-Patti tradition, which God knows has +hung on long enough, is nearly exhausted. We live in the age of the Mary +Garden tradition.</p> + +<p>There is another and even better reason why I find it pleasant to write +about interpreters. In looking over the books on music written in the +past I find that the books about singers are infinitely more fascinating +than the books about composers. I am enthralled by what H. F. Chorley +has to say about Pauline Viardot and Henrietta Sontag; I am delighted +with the Goncourt's books about Guimard, Clairon, and Sophie Arnould. +Auguste Ehrhard's "Fanny Elssler" is an extraordinary document and one +cannot afford to miss P. T. Barnum on Jenny Lind and Mapleson on Patti. +But I find that the old scribes on Mozart and Mendelssohn, Beethoven and +Schubert, quite bore me, and it is impossible to say anything new about +these men. Books about Beethoven are still appearing but I advise nobody +to read them. The authors have arrived at that fine point where they can +only compare <a name="page_181" id="page_181"></a>authorities and quibble about details. Was Beethoven in a +cold sweat when he composed the <i>Ninth Symphony</i> or was he merely angry? +The ink on the manuscript of such and such a work being blotted on a +certain page, interest naturally arises as to whether the fifth note in +the sixteenth bar is F sharp or G flat. Did Haydn or Prince H—— conduct +the first performance of the <i>Symphony in X major</i>? Did Weber arrive in +England on Thursday or Friday? And so on. It is all very tiresome.</p> + +<p>Sometimes I believe that it is the whole duty of a critic to write about +interpreters, about the interpretative arts. Less is understood about +acting, singing, and dancing than about anything else in the field of +æsthetic discussion, the more that is written about them, therefore, the +better. Besides creative artists speak for themselves. Anybody can read +a book; anybody can see a picture, or a reproduction of it. As for +posterity it rejects all contemporary criticism of creative work; it has +no use for it. It goes back to the work itself. So the critic of +creative work entirely disappears in the course of a few years. After +his short day nobody will read him any more.</p> + +<p>Now an actor, a singer, or a dancer, can appear<a name="page_182" id="page_182"></a> in comparatively few +places for a comparatively short time. The number of people who can see +or hear these interpreters is relatively small; consequently they like +to read about them. As for posterity it is absolutely dependent upon +books for its knowledge of the interpreters of a bygone day. That is the +only way it can see the actors of the past. For that reason I am +perfectly sure in my own mind that of such of my books as are devoted to +criticism this is the one most likely to please posterity.</p> + +<p>All criticism may not be creative writing, but certainly all good +criticism is. For all good writing should be self-expression and the +subject treated and the form into which it is cast are mere matters of +convenience. There is no essential difference between poetry, fiction, +drama, and essay. An essay may be as creative as a work of fiction, +often it is more so. You will find criticism elsewhere than in the work +of acknowledged critics. Dostoevsky's "The House of the Dead" is +certainly a critical work, but the author chooses to criticize the +conditions under which human beings are compelled to live rather than +the works of Pushkin. Turgeniev once wrote to Flaubert, "There is no +longer any artist of the present time<a name="page_183" id="page_183"></a> who is not also a critic." He +might have added that while all artists are assuredly critics, all +critics are not artists. On the other hand Walter Pater's famous passage +about the <i>Monna Lisa</i> is certainly creative; it might almost be held +responsible for the vogue of the picture. Before the war, nearly any day +you might find frail American ladies from the Middle West standing in +front of Leonardo's canvas and repeating the lines like so much +doggerel. All artists express themselves as they may but they are not +artists unless they express <i>themselves</i>. Only thus may they establish a +current between themselves and their readers; only thus may they arouse +emotion. And if they succeed in arousing emotion we may disregard the +form in which their work is cast and bathe in the essence of spirit and +idea.</p> + +<p>Whether you agree with this theory or not you must be compelled to admit +that criticism of interpreters, if it is anything at all, is bound to be +creative. For the art of the interpreter exists in time and space only +for the moment in an arbitrary place. Therefore he who writes about an +interpreter is using him to express certain ideas as a painter uses his +model.</p> + +<p>It is a well-established fact that singers and<a name="page_184" id="page_184"></a> actors in general only +approve of the critics who praise them, but it will readily be apparent +that there is a good instinctive reason back of this peculiarity. Their +work only lives as it exists in criticism and people who dwell in places +where these actors are not to be seen or in times after they are dead +must perforce depend upon the critic for their impressions of these +interpreters. The case of creative work is entirely different. The +creator of genius should never be disturbed by a bad criticism. If his +work is good it will far outlast the criticism. Indeed a bad notice +helps a fine book to find its public sooner than a good notice, because +it attracts attention and stimulates discussion. I think it is likely, +for instance, that the striking collection of bad notices of his +previous books, which James Branch Cabell inserted in the end pages of +"The Cream of the Jest," did as much to advertise that author as the +subsequent publication of "Jurgen."</p> + +<p class="c">II</p> + +<p>Somewhere in Agnes G. Murphy's vivid but somewhat hysterical account of +the life and adventures of Madame Melba, the diva's Boswell declares +that the singer never permitted herself<a name="page_185" id="page_185"></a> the pleasure of meeting +newspaper critics lest, it is to be assumed, they should be prejudiced +in her favour through the acquaintanceship. I can assure Madame Melba +that this decision, if strictly adhered to, has cost her many pleasant +hours, for I number certain music critics among my most diverting +friends. I can further assure these colleagues of mine that they have +missed knowing a very amusing woman, for once, not being considered at +the time anything so formidable as a critic, I was permitted to sit next +to the Australian canary while she toyed with her grapefruit and tasted +her <i>oeuf bénédictine</i>.</p> + +<p>Madame Melba's point of view is not held exclusively by her. There are +many singers who believe that a series of dinner invitations will buy a +critic's pen; a few do not hesitate to offer emerald stick-pins and even +substantial cheques. These methods are often entirely successful. On the +other hand there are critics who will rush across the street, though the +mud be ankle deep, to avoid an introduction to an artist. I have been +frequently asked where I stood in the matter, as if it were necessary to +take a stand and defend it.</p> + +<p>I may say that if my profession kept me from<a name="page_186" id="page_186"></a> knowing anybody I really +wanted to know I should relinquish that profession without hesitation. +It is absurd to feel that you cannot dine with a singer without praising +her performances. Many days in each month I dine with authors whose +works I abhor. I find their companionship delightful. Should I be +deprived of their society because I happen to be a critic? I suppose I +have a price—almost everybody has—but I should like to state right +here and now that it is not a dinner, or a series of dinners, or even an +emerald scarf-pin. I should be inclined, however, I admit frankly, to +say at least gentle things about a lady who made me a present of a +blooded silver cat.</p> + +<p>But the crux of the matter lies deeper than this. No mere music critic +can hope to write about singing, violin playing, or piano playing +without knowing singers, violinists, and pianists. He can learn much +from books, from the reviews of other critics, from hearing +performances, but the great critics are those who study from the lips of +the interpreters themselves. The valuable hints, suggestions, and +inspiration that a critic with an open mind can gather from an +interpreter are priceless, and not to be found elsewhere. Not that an +interpreter will always tell the truth, not<a name="page_187" id="page_187"></a> that he always knows what +the truth is in his particular case. Nevertheless any <i>virtuoso</i> will +always have something of interest to say. It stands to reason that any +man or woman who has devoted his life to his profession will know more +about its difficulties, limitations, and tricks, than a mere critic can +hope to learn in any way except through social intercourse with the +interpreter. A young critic may learn much through reading Chorley, +Burney, Schumann, Ernest Newman, and James Huneker. He can further +prepare himself for his trade by listening with open ears to concerts +and operas (although, in passing, it may be stated categorically that no +critic learns immediately the value of opening his ears, so steeped is +he in the false tradition of his craft), by burying his nose in the +scores of the masters, and by reading all that the composers themselves +may have said about the performances of their works. But he can learn +more in a five-minute conversation with a great orchestral conductor, a +great singer, or a great instrumentalist than he can in all the other +ways combined.</p> + +<p>Arturo Toscanini, Mary Garden, Ysaye, Marcella Sembrich, Yvette +Guilbert, Pablo Casals, Fritz Kreisler, Waslav Nijinsky, Marguerite<a name="page_188" id="page_188"></a> +d'Alvarez, or Leo Ornstein can give any reviewer, young or old, +invaluable lessons. Such as these are their own severest critics and +they teach the writer-critic to be severe—and just. One piece of +advice, however, I would give to prospective critics. Become acquainted +with artist-interpreters by all means, but other things being equal, it +is perhaps better to meet good artists than bad ones!</p> + +<p class="c">III</p> + +<p>Chaliapine, Nijinsky, Mazarin, and Fremstad<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> have not appeared on the +New York stage since I painted their portraits; nor have I seen them +elsewhere. Consequently any revision I might make in these pictures +would be revision of what I felt then in terms of what I feel now. +Nothing could be more ridiculous. So I let them stand as they are.</p> + +<p>With Yvette Guilbert the case is somewhat different. She has been before +the American public almost consistently since the original publication +of this book. Her work at her own recitals is still the fine thing it +was and probably will remain<a name="page_189" id="page_189"></a> so for a great many years to come. Madame +Guilbert, however, has seen fit to appear in a play at the Neighbourhood +Playhouse in New York, a fourteenth century French miracle play called +<i>Guibour</i>.</p> + +<p>It is often said of an actress that she is too great to fail even when a +part does not suit her. But this is an utterly fallacious theory. Only +<i>great</i> actresses <i>can</i> fail. A really bad actress always fails and +consequently cannot be considered at all. A mediocre or conventional +actress is neither very good nor very bad in any rôle, but a great +actress, when she fails, fails magnificently, because she plays with +such precision and authority that she is worse than a lesser person +possibly could be.</p> + +<p>Certainly Yvette Guilbert failed magnificently in <i>Guibour</i>. I have been +told that her infrequent performances in comedy in Paris have been +equally unsuccessful. When Guilbert sings a song she is forced by the +very nature of her method to make much of little; without setting, +frequently without costume, without the aid of other actors, she is +obliged in a period of three or four minutes to give her public an +atmosphere, several characters, <a name="page_190" id="page_190"></a>and a miniature drama. Now, taking into +consideration the average low rate of intelligence and the almost entire +lack of imagination of the ordinary theatre audience, she is compelled +to chuck in as much detail as the thing will hold. The result is +generally admirable. In a play, however, this method becomes monotonous, +tiresome, picayune, fussy, overelaborate. One does not want the lift of +an eyelash, a gesture with every line; one does not want emphasis on +every word. The great actors employ broader methods. It was here that +Madame Guilbert failed, by applying the extremely efficacious technique +of her own perfect craft to another craft which calls for another +technique.</p> + +<div class="centeredimage" style="width: 500px;"> +<a href="images/ill_farrar_zaza.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_farrar_zaza_sml.jpg" width="269" height="350" alt="GERALDINE FARRAR AS ZAZA from a photograph by Geisler and Andrews (1920)" title="GERALDINE FARRAR AS ZAZA from a photograph by Geisler and Andrews (1920)" /></a><br /> +<span class="caption">GERALDINE FARRAR AS ZAZA<br />from a photograph by Geisler and Andrews (1920)</span> +</div> + +<p>Geraldine Farrar has been seen and heard in a number of impersonations +at the Metropolitan Opera House (she has also enlarged her cinema +répertoire), since I wrote my paper about her, Orlanda in <i>La Reine +Fiamette</i>, Lodoletta, Thais, Suor Angelica, and Zaza, but I can add very +little to what I have said. Orlanda, Lodoletta, and, naturally enough, +Thais, she has permanently dropped, I think, after a short period of +experimentation. In Zaza, however, it seems possible, although it is too +early to predict with certainty,<a name="page_191" id="page_191"></a> as I am writing these lines a month +after her assumption of the part, that she has found a rôle in which she +will meet popular satisfaction for some years to come. On the whole, +however, I must leave the case as I pleaded it originally, withal it is +probably a trifle rosier than I would plead it now. Nevertheless I must +state in fairness that Madame Farrar has probably never sung so well +before as she is singing this winter (1919-20) and that she retains the +admiration of opera-goers in general. It seems apparent to me now that +in exploiting herself as a "character" actress she has perhaps made a +mistake. Her best work has not been done in operas like <i>Thais</i>, +<i>Carmen</i>, and <i>Zaza</i>, but as Elisabeth in <i>Tannhäuser</i>, as the Goosegirl +in <i>Königskinder</i>, and as Rosaura in <i>Le Donne Curiose</i>. Usually, +indeed, she is charming in what are called "ingenue" rôles. It may +therefore be considered unfortunate that these are the rôles in her +repertoire to which she is most indifferent. However it must be admitted +that it seems impertinent and even stupid to storm and fret about a +career which has been so evenly successful. The public must admire +Madame Farrar or it would not go to see her, and at the Metropolitan<a name="page_192" id="page_192"></a> +Opera House it is a recognized fact that she is one of two singers in +the company who is always sure of drawing a full house.</p> + +<p class="c">IV</p> + +<p>We come to Mary Garden. I never can resist the temptation to write about +Mary Garden. I never even try to. Other subjects intrigue me for a time, +but I usually pass them by in the end and go on to something new, new to +me, at least. But I always feel that I have left something unsaid about +this singing actress. It is probable that I always will feel this way +for Miss Garden in her performances constantly suggests some new idea or +awakens some dormant emotion. As a result, although I may write about +coleoptera, the influence of cobalt on the human mind, or a history of +Persian miniatures, I shall probably always find occasion to insert a +few remarks about this incomparable artist.</p> + +<p>The paper devoted to her in this book seems to me at present pitifully +weak, absurdly inadequate. I have gone farther in "The New Art of the +Singer," which you will find in "The Merry-Go-Round" (1918), and in my +study of <i>Carmen</i> in <a name="page_193" id="page_193"></a>"The Music of Spain" (1918). This seems a good +place to state, however, that Miss Garden's Carmen was only seen to its +best advantage when she appeared with Muratore. The nature of her +interpretation of this rôle is such that it depends to a great extent on +satisfactory assistance from her fellow singers. Her Carmen is a study +of a cold, brutal, mysterious gipsy, who does not seek lovers, they come +to her. When, as at some recent performances, the tenors and baritones +do not come (it is obvious that some of them might take lessons to +advantage in crossing the stage) her interpretation loses a good deal of +its intention. I offer this explanation to any one who feels that my +enthusiasm for her in this rôle is exaggerated. To fully understand the +greatness of Miss Garden's Carmen one must have observed it in fitting +surroundings. I hope this environment may soon be provided again.</p> + +<p>On the whole I feel that the most enthusiastic of Miss Garden's admirers +have so far done the woman scant justice. Most of us are beginning to +realize that she is the greatest of living lyric artists, that she has +done more to revive the original intention of the Florentines in +inventing the opera to recapture the theatre of the Greeks, <a name="page_194" id="page_194"></a>than any +one else. She has made opera, indeed, sublimated speech. And she is +certainly the contemporary queen of lyric sigaldry.</p> + +<p>It is said by some who do not stop to think, or who do not know what +singing is, that Mary Garden is a great actress but that she cannot +sing.<a name="FNanchor_B_2" id="FNanchor_B_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</a> These misguided bigots, who try to make it their business to +misunderstand anything that approaches perfection, remind me of the +incident of Lady Astor and the American sailor. She met the youth just +outside the Houses of Parliament and asked him if he would like to go +in. "I <i>would</i> not," were the words he flung into her astonished face. +"My mother told me to avoid women like you." Some day a few of the most +intelligent of these sacculi may realize that Mary Garden is probably +the greatest living singer. It is, indeed, with her voice, and with her +<i>singing</i> voice that she does her most consummate acting. Indeed her +capacity for colouring her voice to suit the emergencies not only of a +phrase but of an entire rôle, might give a hint to future interpreters, +were there any capable of taking advantage <a name="page_195" id="page_195"></a>of such a valuable hint. +But, good God, in such matters as phrasing, <i>portamento</i>, <i>messa di +voce</i>, and other paraphernalia of the singing teacher's laboratory, she +is past-mistress, and if any one has any complaints to make about the +quality and quantity of tone she used in the second act of <i>l'Amore dei +Tre Re</i> I feel that he did not listen with unprejudiced ears.</p> + +<p>There is, perhaps, nothing that need be added at present to what I have +already said of her Sapho, Marguerite, Mélisande,<a name="FNanchor_C_3" id="FNanchor_C_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_C_3" class="fnanchor">[C]</a> Chrysis, Jean, +Louise, and Thais, except that such of these impersonations as still +remain in her répertoire are as clean-cut, as finely chiselled as ever; +probably each is a little improved on each subsequent occasion on which +it is performed. Some day I shall have more to say about her marvellous +Monna Vanna. I am sure I would understand her Salome better now. When I +first saw her in Richard Strauss's music drama I was still under the +spell of Olive Fremstad's impersonation, and was astonished, and perhaps +a little indignant at Miss<a name="page_196" id="page_196"></a> Garden's divagations. But now I know what I +did not know so well then, that an interpreter must mould a part to suit +his own personality. It is probable that if Mary Garden should vouchsafe +us another view of her nervous, unleashed tiger-woman I would be +completely bowled over.</p> + +<div class="centeredimage" style="width: 500px;"> +<a href="images/ill_mary_garden_cleopatre.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_mary_garden_cleopatre_sml.jpg" width="266" height="350" alt="MARY GARDEN AS CLÉOPÂTRE from a photograph by Moffett (1919)" title="MARY GARDEN AS CLÉOPÂTRE from a photograph by Moffett (1919)" /></a><br /> +<span class="caption">MARY GARDEN AS CLÉOPÂTRE<br />from a photograph by Moffett (1919)</span> +</div> + +<p>It seems necessary to speak of the portraits she has added to her +gallery since the fall of 1917. Since then she has been seen in +Février's <i>Gismonda</i>, Massenet's <i>Cléopâtre</i>, and Montemezzi's <i>l'Amore +dei Tre Re</i>. The first of these is a very bad opera; it is not even one +of Sardou's best plays. The part afforded Miss Garden an opportunity for +the display of pride, dignity, and authority. Her gowns were very +beautiful—I remember particularly the lovely Grecian drapery of the +convent scene, which she has since developed into a first-act costume +for Fiora; she made a handsome figure of the woman, but the thing itself +was pasteboard and will soon be forgotten. The posthumous <i>Cléopâtre</i> +was nearly as bad, but in the scene in which the queen, disguised as a +boy, visits an Egyptian brothel and makes love to another boy, Mary was +very startling, and the death scene, in which, after burying the asp in +her bosom, she tosses it away with a shudder, sinks to the ground,<a name="page_197" id="page_197"></a> +then crawls to Antony's side and expires below his couch, one arm waving +futilely in the air in an attempt to touch her lover, was one of her +most touching and finest bits of acting. Her pale face, her green +eyelids combined to create a sinister make-up. But, on the whole, a dull +opera, and not likely to be heard again.</p> + +<p>But Fiora! What a triumph! What a volcano! I have never been able to +find any pleasure in listening to the music of Montemezzi's <i>l'Amore dei +Tre Re</i>, although it has a certain pulse, a rhythmic beat, especially in +the second act, which gives it a factitious air of being better than it +really is. The play, however, is interesting, and subtle enough to +furnish material for quibble and discussion not only among critics, but +among interpreters themselves. Miss Bori, who originally sang Fiora in +New York, was a pathetic flower, torn and twisted by the winds of fate, +blown hither and thither without effort or resistance on her part. It +was probably a possible interpretation, and it found admirers. Miss +Muzio, the next local incumbent of the rôle, fortified with a letter +from Sem Benelli, or at least his spoken wishes, found it convenient to +alter this impersonation in most particulars, but she was not, is not, +very<a name="page_198" id="page_198"></a> convincing. Her intentions are undoubtedly good but she is no +instrument for the mystic gods to play upon.</p> + +<p>But Miss Garden's Fiora burned through the play like a flame. She +visualized a strong-minded mediæval woman, torn by the conflicting +emotions of pity and love, but once she had abandoned herself to her +passion she became a living altar consecrated to the worship of +Aphrodite and Eros. Such a hurricane of fiery, tempestuous love has +seldom if ever before swept the stage. Miss Garden herself has never +equalled this performance, save in Mélisande and Monna Vanna, which +would lead one to the conclusion that she is at her best in parts of the +middle ages, until one reflects that in early Greek courtesans, in +French cocottes of several periods, in American Indians, and Spanish +gipsies she is equally atmospheric. Other Fioras have been content to +allow the hand of death to smite them without a struggle. Not this one. +When Archibaldo attempts to strangle her she tries to escape; her +efforts are horrible and pathetic because they are fruitless. And the +final clutch of the fingers behind his back leave the most horrible +blood-stains of tragic beauty in the memory.<a name="page_199" id="page_199"></a></p> + +<p class="c">V</p> + +<p>What is to become of Mary Garden? What can she do now? What is there +left for her to do? Those who complain of some of the dross in her +répertoire can scarcely have considered the material available to her. +In <i>Pelléas et Mélisande</i>, <i>Louise</i>, and <i>Salome</i> she has given much to +the best the contemporary lyric stage has to offer. On other occasions +she has succeeded in transfiguring indifferent material with her genius. +<i>Monna Vanna</i> is not a great opera, but she makes it seem so. But where +is there anything better? Can she turn to Puccini, whose later operas +seem bereft of merit, to Mascagni, to Strauss, to any other of the +living opera composers?</p> + +<p>Ravel's one opera is not particularly suited to her, but why, I might +ask, does not Ravel write something for her? Why not Strawinsky? Why not +Leo Ornstein? Why not John Carpenter? The talented composer of <i>The +Birthday of the Infanta</i> might very well write an opera, in which her +genius for vocal experimentation might have still further play.</p> + +<p>In the meantime I can make one or two suggestions. I have already begged +for Isolde and<a name="page_200" id="page_200"></a> Isolde I think we shall get in time. But has it occurred +to any one that the Queen in <i>The Golden Cockerel</i> is a part absolutely +suited to the Garden genius? Not, of course, <i>The Golden Cockerel</i> as at +present performed, with a double cast of singers and pantomimists but as +an opera, in the form in which Rimsky-Korsakow conceived it. And I hope +some day that she will attempt Gluck's <i>Armide</i>, perhaps one of the +Iphigénies, and Donna Anna. Why not? Of all living singers Miss Garden +is the only one who could give us the complete fulfilment of Mozart's +tragic heroine. Oscar Hammerstein, whose vision was acute, once +considered a performance of <i>Don Giovanni</i> with Maurice Renaud in the +title part, Luisa Tetrazzini as Zerlina, Lina Cavalieri as Elvira, and +Mary Garden as Anna. It was never given. But I hope at the next revival +of the work at the Opéra-Comique Miss Garden will undertake the part, +and I see no reason why the opera should not be added to the already +extensive répertoire of the Chicago Opera Company.</p> + +<p>Her stride, her lithe carriage, her plastic use of her arms and her +body, give Mary Garden a considerable advantage over a sculptor, who can +in the course of a lifetime only capture perhaps<a name="page_201" id="page_201"></a> ten perfect examples +of arrested motion, while in any one performance she makes her body a +hundred different works of art. Of course, some of us, fascinated by the +mere beauty of the Garden line, more slender now than it was even in her +most youthful past, delighted with her irreproachable taste in dress, +would rest content to watch her walk across the scene or form exquisite +pictures in any part, in any opera. But unless one of the best of the +moderns writes a great rôle for her, it would be a great satisfaction to +see her in one of the noble classic parts of the past, and that +satisfaction, I hope, will be vouchsafed us.</p> + +<p><i>March 18, 1920.</i></p> + +<p><i>New York.</i></p> + +<p class="top15">On the following pages you will find descriptions of two other +interesting books by Mr. Van Vechten.</p> + +<h3>THE MERRY-GO-ROUND</h3> + +<p class="centr">(12mo., 343 pages, $2.00 <i>net.</i>)</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="smcap">Contents</span>: In defence of bad taste; Music and supermusic; Edgar Saltus; +The new art of the singer; Au bal musette; Music and cooking; An +interrupted conversation; The authoritative work on American music; Old +days and new; Two young American playwrights; De senectute cantorum; The +Land of Joy; The new Isadora; Margaret Anglin produces As You Like It; +The modern composers at a glance.</p> + +<p>"Carl Van Vechten has the jauntiest pen that ever graced the ear of a +literary gentleman. He uses it as D'Artagnan used his sword, with sheer +joy in the wielding of it, a sharp accuracy of aim, and a fine +musketeering courage back of it. His pen is a pen of the world, a +cosmopolitan pen which is at home in the marts of Irving Berlin, as well +as in the rarefied heights of Igor Strawinsky. It knows how to turn a +phrase or a reputation. In The Merry-Go-Round his pen has the time of +its life. So will you when you flip a ride on the whirligig."—Fanny +Butcher in <i>The Chicago Tribune</i>.</p> + +<p class="centr ov"> <span class="smcap">Alfred A. Knopf, Publisher, New York</span> + </p> + +<h3>IN THE GARRET</h3> + +<p>(12mo., 347 pages, $2.00 <i>net.</i>)</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="smcap">Contents</span>: Variations on a theme by Havelock Ellis; A note on Philip +Thicknesse; The folk-songs of Iowa; Isaac Albeniz; The holy jumpers; On +the relative difficulties of depicting heaven and hell in music; Sir +Arthur Sullivan; On the rewriting of masterpieces; Oscar Hammerstein; La +Tigresse; Mimi Aguglia as Salome; Farfariello; The Negro Theatre; The +Yiddish Theatre; The Spanish Theatre.</p> + +<p>"When he surveys the American scene we go all the way with Mr. Van +Vechten. He celebrates his attachment to New York as ecstatically as +Charles Lamb's his to London, in a chapter called La Tigresse. This is +the best thing in the book. And Mr. Thomas Burke, in England, alone has +caught this peculiar gusto."—<i>The London Times.</i></p> + +<p class="centr ov"> <span class="smcap">Alfred A. Knopf, Publisher, New York</span> + </p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3 class="reg top5">FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> Madame Fremstad has appeared in concert in New York but not +in opera.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_B_2" id="Footnote_B_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_2"><span class="label">[B]</span></a> The fault is really typical of that school of criticism +which is always comparing, instead of searching out an artist's +intention and judging whether or not he has realized it.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_C_3" id="Footnote_C_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_C_3"><span class="label">[C]</span></a> Maurice Maeterlinck broke a promise to Georgette Leblanc of +seventeen years' standing to witness a performance of Debussy's lyric +drama on January 27, 1920, when, with the new Madame Maeterlinck, he sat +in a box, remaining till the final curtain, at the Lexington Theatre in +New York. After the fourth act, responding to Miss Garden's urge and the +applause of the audience, he rose to bow.</p></div> +</div> + +<table border="0" style="margin:8% auto 8% auto;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="transcriber's note"> +<tr><td align="center">Note of transcriber of this etext:</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">the consistent spelling of choregraphy has not been corrected</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">overwhemingly=>overwhelmingly</td></tr> +</table> + +<hr class="full" /> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Interpreters, by Carl Van Vechten + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INTERPRETERS *** + +***** This file should be named 32979-h.htm or 32979-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/9/7/32979/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images at The Internet Archive.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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b/32979-h/images/ill_olive_fremstad_sieglinde.jpg diff --git a/32979-h/images/ill_olive_fremstad_sieglinde_sml.jpg b/32979-h/images/ill_olive_fremstad_sieglinde_sml.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9f5d9c5 --- /dev/null +++ b/32979-h/images/ill_olive_fremstad_sieglinde_sml.jpg diff --git a/32979.txt b/32979.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4c9021f --- /dev/null +++ b/32979.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4109 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Interpreters, by Carl Van Vechten + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Interpreters + +Author: Carl Van Vechten + +Release Date: June 26, 2010 [EBook #32979] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INTERPRETERS *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images at The Internet Archive.) + + + + + + + + + +INTERPRETERS + +by + +CARL +VAN VECHTEN + + + +_BOOKS BY CARL VAN VECHTEN_ + + +INTERPRETERS + +IN THE GARRET + +THE MUSIC OF SPAIN + +THE MERRY-GO-ROUND + +MUSIC AND BAD MANNERS + +THE TIGER IN THE HOUSE + +MUSIC AFTER THE GREAT WAR + +[Illustration: MARY GARDEN AS CHERUBIN (1905)] + + + + +Interpreters + +_Carl Van Vechten_ + +_A new edition, revised, with sixteen illustrations and an epilogue_ + +[Illustration] + +New York Alfred A Knopf + +MCMXX + +COPYRIGHT, 1917, 1920, BY +ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC. + +PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + + _To + the unforgettable interpreter of Ariel, + Zelima, Louka, Wendla, + and Columbine, + Fania Marinoff, my wife_ + + + + +CONTENTS + + +Olive Fremstad 11 + +Geraldine Farrar 39 + +Mary Garden 59 + +Feodor Chaliapine 97 + +Mariette Mazarin 117 + +Yvette Guilbert 135 + +Waslav Nijinsky 149 + +Epilogue 177 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +Mary Garden as Cherubin _Frontispiece_ + + FACING + PAGE + +Olive Fremstad as Elsa 18 + +Olive Fremstad as Sieglinde 20 + +Olive Fremstad as Kundry 24 + +Geraldine Farrar as Elisabeth 40 + +Geraldine Farrar as Violetta 46 + +Geraldine Farrar as Louise in _Julien_ 52 + +Mary Garden as Chrysis 72 + +Mary Garden as Melisande 76 + +Mary Garden as Fanny Legrand 90 + +Feodor Chaliapine as Mefistofele 112 + +Mariette Mazarin as Elektra 128 + +Yvette Guilbert 140 + +Waslav Nijinsky in Debussy's _Jeux_ 168 + +Geraldine Farrar as Zaza 190 + +Mary Garden as Cleopatre 196 + + + + +Olive Fremstad + + +_"C'est que le Beau est la seule chose qui soit immortelle, et qu'aussi +longtemps qu'il reste un vestige de sa manifestation materielle, son +immortalite subsiste. Le Beau est repandu partout, il s'etend meme +jusque sur la mort. Mais il ne rayonne nulle part avec autant +d'intensite que dans l'individualite humaine; c'est la qu'il parle le +plus a l'intelligence, et c'est pour cela que, pour ma part, je +prefererai toujours une grande puissance musicale servie par une voix +defectueuse, a une voix belle et bete, une voix dont la beaute n'est que +materielle._" + +Ivan Turgeniev to Mme. Viardot. + + +The career of Olive Fremstad has entailed continuous struggle: a +struggle in the beginning with poverty, a struggle with a refractory +voice, and a struggle with her own overpowering and dominating +temperament. Ambition has steered her course. After she had made a +notable name for herself through her interpretations of contralto roles, +she determined to sing soprano parts, and did so, largely by an effort +of will. She is always dissatisfied with her characterizations; she is +always studying ways and means of improving them. It is not easy for her +to mould a figure; it is, on the contrary, very difficult. One would +suppose that her magnetism and force would carry her through an opera +without any great amount of preparation. Such is not the case. There is +no other singer before the public so little at her ease in any impromptu +performance. Recently, when she returned to the New York stage with an +itinerant opera company to sing in an ill-rehearsed performance of +_Tosca_, she all but lost her grip. She was not herself and she did not +convince. New costumes, which hindered her movements, and a Scarpia with +whom she was unfamiliar, were responsible in a measure for her failure +to assume her customary authority. + +If you have seen and heard Olive Fremstad in the scene of the spear in +_Goetterdaemmerung_, you will find it difficult to believe that what I say +is true, that work and not plenary inspiration is responsible for the +effect. To be sure, the inspiration has its place in the final result. +Once she is certain of her ground, words, music, tone-colour, gesture, +and action, she inflames the whole magnificently with her magnetism. +This magnetism is instinctive, a part of herself; the rest is not. She +brings about the detail with diligent drudgery, and without that her +performances would go for nought. The singer pays for this intense +concentration. In "Tower of Ivory" Mrs. Atherton says that all Wagnerian +singers must pay heavily. Probably all good ones must. Charles Henry +Melzer has related somewhere that he first saw Mme. Fremstad on the +stage at Covent Garden, where between her scenes in some Wagner music +drama, lost in her role, utterly oblivious of stage hands or +fellow-artists, she paced up and down in the wings. At the moment he +decided that she was a great interpretative artist, and he had never +heard her sing. When she is singing a role she will not allow herself to +be interrupted; she holds no receptions between scenes. "Come back +after the opera," she says to her friends, and frequently then she is +too tired to see any one. She often drives home alone, a prey to +quivering nerves which keep her eyeballs rolling in ceaseless +torture--sleepless. + +Nothing about the preparation of an opera is easy for Olive Fremstad; +the thought, the idea, does not register immediately in her brain. But +once she has achieved complete understanding of a role and thoroughly +mastered its music, the fire of her personality enables her easily to +set a standard. Is there another singer who can stand on the same +heights with Mme. Fremstad as Isolde, Venus, Elsa, Sieglinde, Kundry, +Armide, Bruennhilde in _Goetterdaemmerung_, or Salome? And are not these +the most difficult and trying roles in the repertoire of the lyric stage +to-day? + +In one of her impatient moods--and they occur frequently--the singer +once complained of this fact. "How easy it is," she said, "for those who +make their successes as Marguerite and Mimi.... I should like to sing +those roles...." But the remark was made under a misconception of her +own personality. Mme. Fremstad would find Mimi and Marguerite much more +difficult to compass than Isolde and Kundry. She is by nature Northern +and heroic, and her physique is suited to the goddesses and heroines of +the Norse myths (it is a significant fact that she has never attempted +to sing Eva or Senta). Occasionally, as in Salome, she has been able to +exploit successfully another side of her talent, but in the rendering of +the grand, the noble, and the heroic, she has no equal on our stage. Yet +her Tosca always lacked nobility. There was something in the music which +never brought the quality out. + +In such a part as Selika she seemed lost (wasted, too, it may be added), +although the entrance of the proud African girl was made with some +effect, and the death scene was carried through with beauty of purpose. +But has any one ever characterized Selika? Her Santuzza, one of the two +roles which she has sung in Paris, must be considered a failure when +judged by the side of such a performance as that given by Emma +Calve--and who would judge Olive Fremstad by any but the highest +standards? The Swedish singer's Santuzza was as elemental, in its way, +as that of the Frenchwoman, but its implications were too tragic, too +massive in their noble beauty, for the correct interpretation of a +sordid melodrama. It was as though some one had engaged the Victory of +Samothrace to enact the part. Munich adored the Fremstad Carmen (was it +not her characterization of the Bizet heroine which caused Heinrich +Conried to engage her for America?) and Franz von Stuck painted her +twice in the role. Even in New York she was appreciated in the part. The +critics awarded her fervent adulation, but she never stirred the public +pulse. The principal fault of this very Northern Carmen was her lack of +humour, a quality the singer herself is deficient in. For a season or +two in America Mme. Fremstad appeared in the role, singing it, indeed, +in San Francisco the night of the memorable earthquake, and then it +disappeared from her repertoire. Maria Gay was the next Metropolitan +Carmen, but it was Geraldine Farrar who made the opera again as popular +as it had been in Emma Calve's day. + +Mme. Fremstad is one of those rare singers on the lyric stage who is +able to suggest the meaning of the dramatic situation through the colour +of her voice. This tone-colour she achieves stroke by stroke, devoting +many days to the study of important phrases. To go over in detail the +instances in which she has developed effects through the use of +tone-colour would make it necessary to review, note by note, the operas +in which she has appeared. I have no such intention. It may be +sufficient to recall to the reader--who, in remembering, may recapture +the thrill--the effect she produces with the poignant lines beginning +_Amour, puissant amour_ at the close of the third act of _Armide_, the +dull, spent quality of the voice emitted over the words _Ich habe deinen +Mund gekuesst_ from the final scene of _Salome_, and the subtle, dreamy +rapture of the _Liebestod_ in _Tristan und Isolde_. Has any one else +achieved this effect? She once told me that Titian's Assumption of the +Virgin was her inspiration for her conception of this scene. + +Luscious in quality, Mme. Fremstad's voice is not altogether a tractable +organ, but she has forced it to do her bidding. A critic long ago +pointed out that another singer would not be likely to emerge with +credit through the use of Mme. Fremstad's vocal method. It is full of +expediences. Oftener than most singers, too, she has been in "bad +voice." And her difficulties have been increased by her determination to +become a soprano, difficulties she has surmounted brilliantly. In other +periods we learn that singers did not limit their ranges by the quality +of their voices. In our day singers have specialized in high or low +roles. Many contraltos, however, have chafed under the restrictions +which composers have compelled them to accept. Almost all of them have +attempted now and again to sing soprano roles. Only in the case of Edyth +Walker, however, do we find an analogy to the case of Olive Fremstad. +Both of these singers have attained high artistic ideals in both ranges. +Magnificent as Brangaene, Amneris, and Ortrud, the Swedish singer later +presented unrivalled characterizations of Isolde, Armide, and +Bruennhilde. + +The high tessitura of the music allotted to the _Siegfried_ Bruennhilde +is a strain for most singers. Mme. Nordica once declared that this +Bruennhilde was the most difficult of the three. Without having sung a +note in the early evening, she must awake in the third act, about +ten-thirty or eleven, to begin almost immediately the melismatic duet +which concludes the music drama. Mme. Fremstad, by the use of many +expediences, such as pronouncing Siegfried as if it were spelled +Seigfried when the first syllable fell on a high note, was able to get +through with this part without projecting a sense of effort, unless it +was on the high C at the conclusion, a note of which she frequently +allowed the tenor to remain in undisputed possession. But the fierce joy +and spirited abandon she put into the acting of the role, the passion +with which she infused her singing, carried her victoriously past the +dangerous places, often more victoriously than some other singer, who +could produce high notes more easily, but whose stage resources were +more limited. + +I do not think Mme. Fremstad has trained her voice to any high degree of +agility. She can sing the drinking song from _Lucrezia Borgia_ and +Delibes's _Les Filles de Cadix_ with irresistible effect, a good part of +which, however, is produced by her personality and manner, qualities +which carry her far on the concert stage, although for some esoteric +reason they have never inveigled the general public into an enthusiastic +surrender to her charm. I have often heard her sing Swedish songs in her +native tongue (sometimes to her own accompaniment) so enchantingly, with +such appeal in her manner, and such velvet tones in her voice, that +those who heard her with me not only burst into applause but also into +exclamations of surprise and delight. Nevertheless, in her concerts, or +in opera, although her admirers are perhaps stronger in their loyalty +than those of any other singer, she has never possessed the greatest +drawing power. This is one of the secrets of the stage; it cannot be +solved. It would seem that the art of Mme. Fremstad was more homely, +more human in song, grander and more noble in opera, than that of Mme. +Tetrazzini, but the public as a whole prefers to hear the latter, +just as it has gone in larger numbers to see the acting of Miss Garden +or Mme. Farrar. Why this is so I cannot pretend to explain. + +[Illustration: OLIVE FREMSTAD AS ELSA + +_from a photograph by Mishkin (1913)_] + +Mme. Fremstad has appeared in pretty nearly all of the important, and +many of the lesser, Wagner roles. She has never sung Senta, and she once +told me that she had no desire to do so, nor has she been heard as Freia +or Eva. But she has sung Ortrud and Elsa, Venus and Elisabeth, Adriano +in _Rienzi_, Kundry, Isolde and Brangaene, Fricka, Erda, Waltraute, +Sieglinde, one of the Rhine maidens (perhaps two), and all three +Bruennhildes. In most of these characterizations she has succeeded in +making a deep impression. I have never seen her Ortrud, but I have been +informed that it was a truly remarkable impersonation. Her Elsa was the +finest I have ever seen. To Ternina's poetic interpretation she added +her own greater grace and charm, and a lovelier quality of voice. If, on +occasion, the music of the second act proved too high for her, who could +sing the music of the dream with such poetic expression?--or the love +music in the last act?--as beautiful an impersonation, and of the same +kind, as Mary Garden's Melisande. + +Her Venus was another story. She yearned for years to sing Elisabeth, +and when she had satisfied this ambition, she could be persuaded only +with difficulty to appear as the goddess. She told me once that she +would like to sing both roles in a single evening--a possible feat, as +the two characters never appear together; Rita Fornia, I believe, +accomplished the dual impersonation on one occasion at the behest of +Colonel Savage. She had in mind a heroine with a dual nature, sacred and +profane love so to speak, and Tannhaeuser at the mercy of this +gemini-born wight. She never was permitted to try this experiment at the +Metropolitan, but during her last season there she appeared as +Elisabeth. Montreal, and perhaps Brooklyn, had seen this impersonation +before it was vouchsafed New York. Mme. Fremstad never succeeded in +being very convincing in this role. I do not exactly understand why, as +its possibilities seem to lie within her limitations. Nor did she sing +the music well. On the other hand, her abundantly beautiful and +voluptuous Venus, a splendid, towering, blonde figure, shimmering in +flesh-coloured garments, was one of her astoundingly accurate +characterizations. At the opposite pole to her Sieglinde it was equally +a masterpiece of interpretative art, like Duse's Camille "positively +enthralling as an exhibition of the gymnastics of perfect suppleness +and grace." In both these instances she was inspired perhaps to realize +something a little more wonderful than the composer himself had dreamed +of. The depth and subtlety and refinement of intense passion were in +this Venus--there was no suggestion here of what Sidney Homer once +referred to as Mme. Homer's platonic Venus! + +[Illustration: OLIVE FREMSTAD AS SIEGLINDE + +_from a photograph by Aime Dupont_] + +Her Sieglinde is firmly intrenched in many of our memories, the best +loved of her Wagnerian women and enchantresses. Will there rise another +singing actress in our generation to make us forget it? I do not think +so. Her melting womanliness in the first act, ending with her complete +surrender to Siegmund, her pathetic fatigue in the second act (do you +not still see the harassed, shuddering figure stumbling into view and +falling voiceless to sleep at the knees of her brother-lover?) remain in +the memory like pictures in the great galleries. And how easily in the +last act, in her single phrase, by her passionate suggestion of the +realization of motherhood, did she wrest the scene from her +fellow-artists, no matter who they might be, making such an effect +before she fled into the forest depths, that what followed often seemed +but anticlimax. + +Mme. Fremstad never sang the three Bruennhildes in sequence at the +Metropolitan Opera House (of late years no soprano has done so), but she +was called upon at various times to sing them all separately. +Undoubtedly it was as the Bruennhilde in _Goetterdaemmerung_ that she made +the most lasting impression. The scene of the oath on the spear she +carried into the realms of Greek tragedy. Did Rachel touch greater +heights? Was the French Jewess more electric? The whole performance +displayed magnificent proportions, attaining a superb stature in the +immolation scene. In scenes of this nature, scenes hovering between life +and death, the eloquent grandeur of Mme. Fremstad's style might be +observed in its complete flowering. Isolde over the body of Tristan, +Bruennhilde over the body of Siegfried, exhibited no mincing pathos; the +mood established was one of lofty calm. Great artists realize that this +is the true expression of overwhelming emotion. In this connection it +seems pertinent and interesting to recall a notable passage in a letter +from Ivan Turgeniev to Pauline Viardot:-- + +"You speak to me also about _Romeo_, the third act; you have the +goodness to ask me for some remarks on Romeo. What could I tell you that +you have not already known and felt in advance? The more I reflect on +the scene of the third act the more it seems to me that there is only +one manner of interpreting it--yours. One can imagine nothing more +horrible than finding oneself before the corpse of all that one loves; +but the despair that seizes you then ought to be so terrible that, if it +is not held and _frozen_ by the resolution of suicide, or by another +_grand_ sentiment, art can no longer render it. Broken cries, sobs, +fainting fits, these are nature, but they are not art. The spectator +himself will not be moved by that poignant and profound emotion which +you stir so easily. Whereas by the manner in which you wish to do Romeo +(as I understand what you have written me) you will produce on your +auditor an ineffaceable effect. I remember the fine and just observation +that you once made on the agitated and restrained little gestures that +Rachel made, at the same time maintaining an attitude of calm nobility; +with her, perhaps, that was only technique; but in general it is the +calm _arising from a strong conviction or from a profound emotion_, that +is to say the calm which envelopes the desperate transports of passion +from all sides, which communicates to them that purity of line, that +ideal and real beauty, the true, the only beauty of art. And, what +proves the truth of this remark, is that life itself--on rare +occasions, it is true, at those times when it disengages itself from all +that is accidental or commonplace--raises itself to the same kind of +beauty. The greatest griefs, as you have said in your letter, are the +calmest; and, one could add, the calmest are the most beautiful. But it +is necessary to know how to unite the two extremes, unless one would +appear cold. It is easier not to attain perfection, easier to rest in +the middle of one's journey, the more so because the greater number of +spectators demand nothing else, or rather are not accustomed to anything +else, but you are what you are only because of this noble ambition to do +your best...." + +In the complex role of Kundry Mme. Fremstad has had no rival. The wild +witch of the first act, the enchantress of the second, the repentant +Magdalene of the third, all were imaginatively impersonated by this +wonderful woman. Certain actors drop their characterizations as soon as +the dialogue passes on to another; such as these fail in _Parsifal_, for +Kundry, on the stage for the entire third act, has only one word to +sing; in the first act she has but few more. Colossally alluring in the +second act, in which she symbolized the essence of the "eternal +feminine," Mme. Fremstad projected the first and third act Kundry +into the minds and hearts of her audience. + +[Illustration: OLIVE FREMSTAD AS KUNDRY, ACT I + +_from a photograph by Mishkin (1913)_] + +Well-trained in Bayreuth tradition, this singer was no believer in it; +she saw no reason for clinging to outworn ideals simply because they +prevailed at the Master's own theatre. However, she did not see how an +individual could break with tradition in these works without destroying +their effect. The break must come from the stage director. + +"If Wagner were alive to-day," she once said to me, "I don't believe +that he would sanction a lot of the silly 'business' that is insisted +upon everywhere because it is the law at Bayreuth. Wagner was constantly +changing everything. When he produced his music dramas they were so +entirely new in conception and in staging that they demanded +experimentation in many directions. Doubtless certain traditions were +founded on the interpretations of certain singers--who probably could +not have followed other lines of action, which Wagner might have +preferred, so successfully. + +"The two scenes which I have particularly in mind are those of the first +act of _Tannhaeuser_ and the second act of _Parsifal_. Both of these +scenes, it seems to me, should be arranged with the most undreamed of +beauty in colour and effect. Venus should not pose for a long time in a +stiff attitude on an uncomfortable couch. I don't object to the couch, +but it should be made more alluring. + +"The same objection holds in the second act of _Parsifal_, where Kundry +is required to fascinate Parsifal, although she is not given an +opportunity of moving from one position for nearly twenty minutes. When +Klingsor calls Kundry from below in the first scene of that act, she +comes against her will, and I think she should arise gasping and +shuddering. I try to give that effect in my voice when I sing the music, +but, following Bayreuth, I am standing, motionless, with a veil over my +head, so that my face cannot be seen for some time before I sing. + +"One singer can do nothing against the mass of tradition. If I changed +and the others did not, the effect would be inartistic. But if some +stage manager would have the daring to break away, to strive for +something better in these matters, how I would love to work with that +man!" + +Departing from the Wagnerian repertoire, Mme. Fremstad has made notable +successes in two roles, Salome and Armide. That she should be able to do +justice to the latter is more astonishing than that she should emerge +triumphant from the Wilde-Strauss collaboration. _Armide_, almost the +oldest opera to hold the stage to-day, is still the French classic +model, and it demands in performance adherence to the French grand +style, a style implying devotion to the highest artistic ideals. Mme. +Fremstad's artistic ideals are perhaps on a higher plane than those of +the Paris Conservatoire or the Comedie Francaise, but it does not follow +that she would succeed in moulding them to fit a school of opera with +which, to this point, she had been totally unfamiliar. So far as I know, +the only other opera Mme. Fremstad had ever sung in French was _Carmen_, +an experience which could not be considered as the training for a +suitable delineation of the heroine of Gluck's beautiful lyric drama. +Still Mme. Fremstad compassed the breach. How, I cannot pretend to say. +No less an authority than Victor Maurel pronounced it a triumph of the +French classic style. + +The moods of Quinault's heroine, of course, suit this singing actress, +and she brought to them all her most effectual enchantments, including a +series of truly seducing costumes. The imperious unrest of the first +act, the triumph of love over hate in the second, the invocation to La +Haine in the third, and the final scene of despair in the fifth, all +were depicted with poignant and moving power, and always with fidelity +to the style of the piece. She set her own pace in the finale of the +first act. The wounded warrior returns to tell how a single combatant +has delivered all his prisoners. Armide's half-spoken guess, _O ciel! +c'est Renaud!_ which she would like to have denied, was uttered in a +tone which definitely stimulated the spectator to prepare for the +conflict which followed, the conflict in Armide's own breast, between +her love for Renaud as a man, and her hatred of him as an enemy. I do +not remember to have seen anything on the stage more profound in its +implied psychology than her acting of the scene beginning _Enfin il est +en ma puissance_, in which she stays her hand with dagger uplifted to +kill the enemy-hero, and finally completely conquered by the darts of +Love, transports him with her through the air to her own fair gardens. + +The singer told me that she went to work on this opera with fear in her +heart. "I don't know how I dared do it. I suppose it is because I had +the simplicity to believe, with the Germans, that Kundry is the top of +everything, and I had sung Kundry. As a matter of fact my leaning toward +the classic school dates very far back. My father was a strange man, of +evangelical tendencies. He wrote a hymn-book, which is still in use in +Scandinavia, and he had a beautiful natural voice. People often came for +miles--simple country people, understand--to hear him sing. My father +knew the classic composers and he taught me their songs. + +"This training came back to me when I took up the study of _Armide_. It +was in May that Mr. Gatti-Casazza asked me if I would sing the work, +which, till then, I had never heard. I took the book with me to the +mountains and studied--not a note of the music at first, for music is +very easy for me anyway; I can always learn that in a short time--but +the text. For six weeks I read and re-read the text, always the +difficult part for me in learning a new opera, without looking at the +music. I found the text of _Armide_ particularly difficult because it +was in old French, and because it was in verse. + +"I worked over it for six weeks, as I tell you, until I had mastered its +beauties as well as I could, and then I opened the music score. Here I +encountered a dreadful obstacle. Accustomed to Wagner's harmonies, I was +puzzled by the French style. I did not see how the music could be sung +to the text with dramatic effect. I attended several performances of the +work at the Paris Opera, but the interpretation there did not assist me +in solving the problem. I tried every phrase in fifty different ways in +an attempt to arrive at my end, and suddenly, and unexpectedly, I found +myself in complete understanding; the exquisite refinement and nobility +of the music, the repression, the classic line, all suggested to me the +superb, eternal beauty of a Greek temple. Surely this is music that will +outlive Wagner! + +"Once I understood, it was easy to put my conception on the stage. There +is no such thing as genius in singing; at least one cannot depend on +genius alone to carry one through an opera. I must know exactly how I am +going to sing each phrase before I go upon the stage. Nothing must be +left to chance. In studying _Armide_ I had sketches sent to me of every +scene, and with these I worked until I knew every movement I should +make, where I should stand, and when I should walk. Look at my score--at +all these minute diagrams and directions...." + +_Armide_ was not a popular success in New York, and after one or two +performances in its second season at the Metropolitan Opera House it was +withdrawn. With the reasons for the failure of this opera to interest +the general public Mme. Fremstad, it may well be imagined, had nothing +to do. Her part in it, on the contrary, contributed to what success the +work had. New York opera-goers have never manifested any particular +regard for classic opera in any tongue; _Fidelio_ or _Don Giovanni_ have +never been popular here. Then, although Caruso sang the music of Renaud +with a style and beauty of phrasing unusual even for him, his appearance +in the part was unfortunate. It was impossible to visualize the +chevalier of the romantic story. The second tenor role, which is very +important, was intrusted to an incompetent singer, and the charming role +of the Naiad was very inadequately rendered; but the principal fault of +the interpretation was due to a misconception regarding the relative +importance of the ballet. There are dances in every act of _Armide_; +there is no lovelier music of its kind extant than that which Gluck has +devoted to his dancers in this opera. Appreciating this fact, Mr. +Toscanini refused to part with a note of it, and his delivery of the +delightful tunes would have made up a pleasant half-hour in a +concert-room. Unfortunately the management did not supplement his +efforts by providing a suitable group of dancers. This failure was all +but incomprehensible considering the fact that Anna Pavlowa was a member +of the Metropolitan company that season. Had she appeared in _Armide_, +its fate in New York, where it was performed for the first time one +hundred and thirty-three years after its original production in Paris, +might have been far different. It may have been impossible for Mr. +Gatti-Casazza to obtain the co-operation of the dancer. Times change. In +1833 Taglioni, then at the height of her powers, danced in London the +comparatively insignificant parts of the Swiss peasant in _Guillaume +Tell_ and the ghostly abbess in _Robert le Diable_. This was the season +in which she introduced _La Sylphide_ to English theatre-goers. + +The history of Richard Strauss's _Salome_ in New York has been told so +often that it seems quite unnecessary to repeat it here. There must be +few indeed of those who will read these lines who do not know how the +music drama received only one public performance at the Metropolitan +Opera House before it was withdrawn at the request of certain directors. +At that one performance Olive Fremstad sang the role of Salome. She was +also heard at the private dress rehearsal--before an auditorium +completely filled with invited guests--and she has sung the part three +times in Paris. The singer threw herself into its preparation with her +usual energy, and developed an extraordinary characterization. There +was but one flaw, the substitution of a professional dancer for the +Dance of the Seven Veils. At this time it had occurred to nobody that +the singer who impersonated Salome could dance. How could any one sing +the music of the tremendous finale after getting thoroughly out of +breath in the terpsichorean exhibition before Herod? The expedient of a +substitute was resorted to at the original performance in Dresden, and +Olive Fremstad did not disturb this tradition. She allowed Bianca +Froehlich to take off the seven veils, a feat which was accomplished +much more delicately at the performance than it had been at the dress +rehearsal. In Paris a farce resulted from the custom when Mme. +Trouhanova not only insisted on wearing a different costume from the +Salome whose image she was supposed to be, but also took curtain calls. +I think it was Gemma Belincioni, the Italian, who first conceived the +idea of Salome dancing her own dance. She was followed by Mary Garden, +who discovered what every one should have noticed in the beginning, that +the composer has given the singer a long rest after the pantomimic +episode. + +Aside from this disturbance to the symmetry of the performance, Olive +Fremstad was magnificent. Her entrance was that of a splendid leopard, +standing poised on velvet paws on the terrace, and then creeping slowly +down the staircase. Her scene with Jochanaan was in truth like the +storming of a fortress, and the scene with the Tetrarch was clearly +realized. But it was in the closing scene of the drama that Mme. +Fremstad, like the poet and the composer, achieved her most effective +results. I cannot yet recall her as she crept from side to side of the +well in which Jochanaan was confined, waiting for the slave to ascend +with the severed head, without that shudder of fascination caused by the +glimmering eyes of a monster serpent, or the sleek terribleness of a +Bengal tiger. And at the end she suggested, as perhaps it has never +before been suggested on the stage, the dregs of love, the refuse of +gorged passion. + +Singers who "create" parts in great lyric dramas have a great advantage +over those who succeed them. Mary Shaw once pointed out to me the +probability that Janet Achurch and Elizabeth Robins only won +enthusiastic commendation from Bernard Shaw because they were appearing +in the Ibsen plays which he was seeing for the first time. He attributed +a good part of his pleasure to the interpretations of these ladies. +However, he was never satisfied with their performances in plays with +which he was more familiar and he never again found anyone entirely to +suit him in the Ibsen dramas. Albert Niemann was one of the first tenors +to sing Wagner roles and there are those alive who will tell you that he +was one of the great artists, but it is perhaps because they heard him +_first_ in lyric dramas of such vitality that they confused singer and +role. Beatty-Kingston, who heard him in 1866, said (in "Music and +Manners") that he had torn his voice "to tatters by persistent shoutings +at the top of its upper register, and undermined it by excessive worship +at the shrines of Bacchus and the Paphian goddess.... His 'production' +was characterized by a huskiness and scratchiness infinitely distressing +to listen to...." No allowances of this sort need be made for the deep +impression made by Olive Fremstad. At the Metropolitan Opera House she +followed a line of well-beloved and regal interpreters of the Wagner +roles. Both Lilli Lehmann and Milka Ternina had honoured this stage and +Lillian Nordica preceded Mme. Fremstad as Kundry there. In her career at +the Metropolitan, indeed, Mme. Fremstad sang only three operas at their +first performances there, _Salome_, _Les Contes d'Hoffmann_, and +_Armide_. In her other roles she was forced to stand comparison with a +number of great artists. That she won admiration in them under the +circumstances is the more fine an achievement. + +I like to think, sometimes, that Olive Fremstad is the reincarnation of +Guiditta Pasta, that celebrated Italian singer of the early nineteenth +century, who paced triumphantly through the humbler tragedies of _Norma_ +and _Semiramide_. She too worked hard to gain her ends, and she gained +them for a time magnificently. Henry Fothergill Chorley celebrates her +art with an enthusiasm that is rare in his pages, and I like to think +that he would write similar lines of eulogy about Olive Fremstad could +he be called from the grave to do so. There is something of the mystic +in all great singers, something incomprehensible, inexplicable, but in +the truly great, the Mme. Pastas and the Mme. Fremstads, this quality +outstrips all others. It is predominant. And just in proportion as this +mysticism triumphs, so too their art becomes triumphant, and flames on +the ramparts, a living witness before mankind to the power of the +unseen. + +_August 17, 1916._ + + + + +Geraldine Farrar + +[Illustration: Mme. Farrar's insigne.] + + +The autobiography of Geraldine Farrar is a most disappointing document; +it explains nothing, it offers the reader no new insights. Given the +brains of the writer and the inexhaustibility of the subject, the result +is unaccountable. Any opera-goer who has followed the career of this +singer with even indifferent attention will find it difficult to +discover any revelation of personality or artistry in the book. +Geraldine Farrar has always been a self-willed young woman with a +plangent ambition and a belief in her own future which has been proved +justifiable by the chronological unfolding of her stage career. These +qualities are displayed over and over again in the book, together with a +certain number of facts about her early life, teachers, and so on. Of +that part of her personal experience which would really interest the +public she gives a singularly glossed account. Very little attention is +paid to composers; none at all to operas, if one may except such meagre +descriptions as that accorded to _Julien_, "a hodge-podge of operatic +efforts that brought little satisfaction to anybody concerned in it." +There are few illuminating anecdotes; no space is devoted to an account +of how Mme. Farrar composes her roles. She likes this one; she is +indifferent to that; she detests a third; but reasons for these +prejudices are rarely given. There is little manifestation of that +analytic mind with which Mme. Farrar credits herself. There are sketchy +references to other singers, usually highly eulogistic, but where did +Mme. Farrar hear that remarkable performance of _Carmen_ in which both +Saleza and Jean de Reszke appeared? For my part, the most interesting +lines in the book are those which close the thirteenth chapter: "I +cannot say that I am much in sympathy with the vague outlines of the +modern French lyric heroines; Melisande and Ariane, I think, can be +better intrusted to artists of a less positive type." + +Notwithstanding the fact that she has written a rather dull book, +Geraldine Farrar is one of the few really vivid personalities of the +contemporary lyric stage. To a great slice of the public she is an idol +in the sense that Rachel and Jenny Lind were idols. She has frequently +extracted warm praise even from the cold-water taps of discriminating +and ordinarily unsympathetic critics. Acting in opera she considers of +greater importance than singing. She once told me that she ruthlessly +sacrificed tone whenever it seemed to interfere with dramatic effect. +As an actress she has suffered from an excess of zeal, and an impatience +of discipline. She composes her parts with some care, but frequently +overlays her original conception with extravagant detail, added +spontaneously at a performance, if her feelings so dictate. + +[Illustration: GERALDINE FARRAR AS ELISABETH + +_from a photograph by Reutlinger_] + +This lawlessness sometimes leads her astray. It is an unsafe method to +follow. Actors who feel the most themselves, unless the feeling is +expressed in support of carefully thought-out effects, often leave their +auditors cold. It is interesting to recall that Mme. Malibran, who may +have excelled Mme. Farrar as a singer, had a similar passion for +impromptu stage "business." She refused to give her fellow-artists any +idea of how she would carry a part through, and as she allowed her +feelings full sway in the matter misunderstandings frequently arose. In +acting Desdemona to the Otello of the tenor, Donzelli, for example, she +would not determine beforehand the exact point at which he was to seize +her. Frequently she gave him a long chase and on one occasion in his +pursuit he stumbled and cut himself on his unsheathed dagger. Often it +has seemed that Mme. Farrar deliberately chose certain stage "business" +with an eye to astounding, and not with any particular care for the +general roundness of her operatic performance. It must also be taken +into consideration that no two of Mme. Farrar's impersonations of any +one role are exactly similar, and that he who may have seen her give a +magnificent performance is not too safe in recommending his meticulous +neighbour to go to the next. Sometimes she is "modern" and "American" in +the deprecatory sense of these words; in some of her parts she exudes no +atmospheric suggestion. There are no overtones. The spectator sees +exactly what is before his eyes on these occasions; there is no +stimulation for the imagination to proceed further. At other times, as +in her characterization of the Goosegirl in _Koenigskinder_, it would +seem that she had extracted the last poetic meaning out of the words and +music, and had succeeded in making her audience feel, not merely +everything that the composer and librettist intended, but a great deal +more. + +At times she is a very good singer. Curiously enough, it is classic +music that she usually sings best. I have heard her sing Zerlina in _Don +Giovanni_ in a manner almost worthy of her teacher, Lilli Lehmann. There +is no mention of this role in her book; nor of another in which she was +equally successful, Rosaura in _Le Donne Curiose_, beautifully sung +from beginning to end. Mme. Farrar is musical (some singers are not; +Mme. Nordica was not, for example), and I have witnessed two +manifestations of this quality. On one occasion she played for me on the +piano a good portion of the first act of _Ariane et Barbe-Bleue_, and +played it brilliantly, no mean achievement. Another time I stood talking +with her and her good friend, Josephine Jacoby, in the wings during the +last act of a performance of _Madama Butterfly_ at the Brooklyn Academy +of Music. There was no air of preoccupation on her part, no sense on +ours that she was following the orchestra. I became so interested in our +conversation, for Mme. Farrar invariably talks well, that I did not even +hear the orchestra. But her mind was quite capable of taking care of two +things at once. She interrupted a sentence to sing her phrase off stage, +and then smilingly continued the conversation. I shall never forget this +moment. To me it signified in an instant what Mme. Farrar has taken the +pains to explain in pages of her autobiography and which is all summed +up in her own comment, written at the time on the programme of the +concert of her Boston debut, May 26, 1896: "This is what I made my debut +in, very calm and sedate, not the least nervous." + +But Mme. Farrar's vocal method is not God-given, although her voice and +her assurance may be, and she sometimes has trouble in producing her +upper tones. Instead of opening like a fan, her high voice is frequently +pinched, and she has difficulty in singing above the staff. I have never +heard her sing Butterfly's entrance with correct intonation, although I +have heard her in the part many times. Her Carmen, on the whole, is a +most successful performance vocally, and so is (or was) her Elisabeth, +especially in the second act. The tessitura of Butterfly is very high, +and the role is a strain for her. She has frequently said that she finds +it easier to sing any two other roles in her repertoire, and refuses to +appear for two days before or after a performance of this Puccini opera. + +Mme. Farrar is a fine linguist. She speaks and sings French like a +Frenchwoman (I have expert testimony on this point), German like a +German, and Italian like an Italian; her enunciation of English is also +very clear (she has never sung in opera in English, but has often sung +English songs in concert). Her enunciation of Maeterlinck's text in +_Ariane et Barbe-Bleue_ was a joy, about the only one she contributed to +this performance. And in _Koenigskinder_ and _Le Donne Curiose_ she was +equally distinct. In fact there is never any difficulty about following +the text of an opera when Geraldine Farrar is singing. + +The roles in which Mme. Farrar achieves her best results, according to +my taste, are Manon, the Goosegirl, Margherita (in _Mefistofele_), +Elisabeth, Rosaura, Suzanna, and Violetta. Cio-Cio-San, of course, is +her most popular creation, and it deserves to some extent the applause +of the populace, although I do not think it should be put in the above +list. It is certainly not to be considered on the same plane vocally. +Other roles in which she is partially successful are Juliette and +Marguerite (in Gounod's _Faust_). I think her Ariane is commonly +adjudged a failure. In _Madame Sans-Gene_ she is often comic, but she +does not suggest a _bourgeoise_ Frenchwoman; in the court scenes she is +more like a graceful woman trying to be awkward than an awkward woman +trying to be graceful. Her Tosca is lacking in dignity; it is too +petulant a performance, too small in conception. In failing to find +adequate pleasure in her Carmen I am not echoing popular opinion. + +I do not think Mme. Farrar has appeared in _La Traviata_ more than two +or three times at the Metropolitan Opera House, although she has +probably sung Violetta often in Berlin. On the occasion of Mme. +Sembrich's farewell to the American opera stage she appeared as Flora +Bervoise as a compliment to the older singer. In her biography she says +that Sarah Bernhardt gave her the inspiration for the composition of the +heroine of Verdi's opera. It would be interesting to have more details +on this point; they are not forthcoming. Of course there have been many +Violettas who have sung the music of the first act more brilliantly than +Mme. Farrar; in the later acts she often sang beautifully, and her +acting was highly expressive and unconventional. She considered the role +from the point of view of make-up. Has any one else done this? Violetta +was a popular _cocotte_; consequently, she must have been beautiful. But +she was a consumptive; consequently, she must have been pale. In the +third act Mme. Farrar achieved a very fine dramatic effect with her +costume and make-up. Her face was painted a ghastly white, a fact +emphasized by her carmined lips and her black hair. She wore pale yellow +and carried an enormous black fan, behind which she pathetically hid her +face to cough. She introduced novelty into the part at the very +beginning of the opera. Unlike most Violettas, she did not make an +entrance, but sat with her back to the audience, receiving her +guests, when the curtain rose. + +[Illustration: GERALDINE FARRAR AS VIOLETTA + +_from a photograph by Aime Dupont (1907)_] + +It has seemed strange to me that the professional reviewers should have +attributed the added notes of realism in Mme. Farrar's second edition of +Carmen to her appearances in the moving-picture drama. The tendencies +displayed in her second year in the part were in no wise, to my mind, a +result of her cinema experiences. In fact, the New York critics should +have remembered that when Mme. Farrar made her debut at the Metropolitan +Opera House in the role of Juliette, they had rebuked her for these very +qualities. She had indulged in a little extra realism in the bedroom and +balcony scenes of Gounod's opera, of the sort with which Miss Nethersole +created ten-minute furores in her performances of Carmen and Sapho. +Again, as Marguerite in _Faust_ (her Margherita in _Mefistofele_ was a +particularly repressed and dreamy representation of the German maiden, +one instinct with the highest dramatic and vocal values in the prison +scene), she devised "business" calculated to startle, dancing the jewel +song, and singing the first stanza of the _Roi de Thule_ air from the +cottage, whither she had repaired to fetch her spindle of flax--this +last detail seemed to me a very good one. In early representations of +_Madama Butterfly_ and _La Boheme_ her death scenes were fraught with an +intense realism which fitted ill with the spirit of the music. I +remember one occasion on which Cio-Cio-San knocked over the +rocking-chair in her death struggles, which often embraced the range of +the Metropolitan stage. + +These points have all been urged against her at the proper times, and +there seemed small occasion for attributing her extra activities in the +first act of Bizet's opera, in which the cigarette girl engaged in a +prolonged scuffle with her rival in the factory, or her more recent +whistling of the seguidilla, to her moving-picture experiences. No, Mme. +Farrar is overzealous with her public. She once told me that at every +performance she cut herself open with a knife and gave herself to the +audience. This intensity, taken together with her obviously unusual +talent and her personal attractiveness, is what has made her a more than +ordinary success on our stage. It is at once her greatest virtue and her +greatest fault, artistically speaking. Properly manacled, this quality +would make her one of the finest, instead of merely one of the most +popular, artists now before the public. But I cannot see how the cinema +can be blamed. + +When I first saw the Carmen of Mme. Farrar, her second or third +appearance in the part, I was perplexed to find an excuse for its almost +unanimous acclamation, and I sought in my mind for extraneous reasons. +There was, for example, the conducting of the score by Mr. Toscanini, +but that, like Mme. Farrar's interpretation of the Spanish gypsy, never +found exceptional favour in my ears. Mr. Caruso's appearance in the +opera could not be taken into consideration, because he had frequently +sung in it before at the Metropolitan Opera House without awakening any +great amount of enthusiasm. In fact, except as Des Grieux, this Italian +tenor has never been popularly accepted in French opera in New York. But +_Carmen_ had long been out of the repertoire, and _Carmen_ is an opera +people like to hear. The magic of the names of Caruso, Farrar, and +Toscanini may have lured auditors and critics into imagining they had +heard a more effective performance than was vouchsafed them. Personally +I could not compare the revival favourably with the wonderful Manhattan +Opera House _Carmen_, which at its best enlisted the services of Mme. +Bressler-Gianoli, the best Carmen save one that I have ever heard, +Charles Dalmores, Maurice Renaud, Pauline Donalda, Charles Gilibert, +Emma Trentini, and Daddi; Cleofonte Campanini conducting. + +At first, to be sure, there was no offensive over-laying of detail in +Mme. Farrar's interpretation. It was not cautiously traditional, but +there was no evidence that the singer was striving to stray from the +sure paths. The music lies well in Mme. Farrar's voice, better than that +of any other part I have heard her sing, unless it be Charlotte in +_Werther_, and the music, all of it, went well, including the habanera, +the seguidilla, the quintet, and the marvellous _Oui, je t'aime, +Escamillo_ of the last act. Her well-planned, lively dance after the +gypsy song at the beginning of the second act drew a burst of applause +for music usually permitted to go unrewarded. Her exit in the first act +was effective, and her scene with Jose in the second act was excellently +carried through. The card scene, as she acted it, meant very little. No +strain was put upon the nerves. There was little suggestion here. The +entrance of Escamillo and Carmen in an old victoria in the last act was +a stroke of genius on somebody's part. I wonder if this was Mme. +Farrar's idea. + +But somehow, during this performance, one didn't feel there. It was no +more the banks of the Guadalquivir than it was the banks of the Hudson. +_Carmen_ as transcribed by Bizet and Meilhac and Halevy becomes +indisputably French in certain particulars; to say that the heroine +should be Spanish is not to understand the truth; Maria Gay's +interpretation has taught us that, if nothing else has. But atmosphere +is demanded, and that Mme. Farrar did not give us, at least she did not +give it to me. In the beginning the interpretation made on me the effect +of routine,--the sort of performance one can see in any first-rate +European opera house,--and later, when the realistic bits were added, +the distortion offended me, for French opera always demands a certain +elegance of its interpreters; a quality which Mme. Farrar has exposed to +us in two other French roles. + +Her Manon is really an adorable creature. I have never seen Mary Garden +in this part, but I have seen many French singers, and to me Mme. Farrar +transcends them all. A very beautiful and moving performance she gives, +quite in keeping with the atmosphere of the opera. Her adieu to the +little table and her farewell to Des Grieux in the desert always start a +lump in my throat. + +Her Charlotte (a role, I believe, cordially detested by Mme. Farrar, and +one which she refuses to sing) is to me an even more moving conception. +This sentimental opera of Massenet's has never been appreciated in +America at its true value, although it is one of the most frequently +represented works at the Paris Opera-Comique. When it was first +introduced here by Emma Eames and Jean de Rezske, it found little +favour, and later Mme. Farrar and Edmond Clement were unable to arouse +interest in it (it was in _Werther_, at the New Theatre, that Alma Gluck +made her operatic debut, in the role of Sophie). But Geraldine Farrar as +the hesitating heroine of the tragic and sentimental romance made the +part very real, as real in its way as Henry James's "Portrait of a +Lady," and as moving. The whole third act she carried through in an +amazingly pathetic key, and she always sang _Les Larmes_ as if her heart +were really breaking. + +What a charming figure she was in Wolf-Ferrari's pretty operas, _Le +Donne Curiose_ and _Suzannen's Geheimness_! And she sang the lovely +measures with the Mozartean purity which at her best she had learned +from Lilli Lehmann. Her Zerlina and her Cherubino were delightful +impersonations, invested with vast roguery, although in both parts she +was a trifle self-conscious, especially in her assumption of +awkwardness. Her Elisabeth, sung in New York but seldom, though she +has recently appeared in this role with the Chicago Opera Company, was +noble in conception and execution, and her Goosegirl one of the most +fascinating pictures in the operatic gallery of our generation. Her +Mignon was successful in a measure, perhaps not an entirely credible +figure. Her Nedda was very good. + +[Illustration: GERALDINE FARRAR AS LOUISE IN _JULIEN_ + +_from a photograph by White (1914)_] + +Her Louise in _Julien_ was so fine dramatically, especially in the +Montmartre episode, as to make one wish that she could sing the real +Louise in the opera of that name. Once, however, at a performance of +Charpentier's earlier work at the Manhattan Opera House, she told me +that she would never, never do so. She has been known to change her +mind. Her Ariane, I think, was her most complete failure. It is a part +which requires plasticity and nobility of gesture and interpretation of +a kind with which her style is utterly at variance. And yet I doubt if +Mme. Farrar had ever sung a part to which she had given more +consideration. It was for this opera, in fact, that she worked out a +special method of vocal speech, half-sung, half-spoken, which enabled +her to deliver the text more clearly. + +Whether Mme. Farrar will undergo further artistic development I very +much doubt. She tells us in her autobiography that she can study +nothing in any systematic way, and it is only through very sincere study +and submission to well-intended restraint that she might develop still +further into the artist who might conceivably leave a more considerable +imprint on the music drama of her time. It is to be doubted if Mme. +Farrar cares for these supreme laurels; her success with her +public--which is pretty much all the public--is so complete in its way +that she may be entirely satisfied with that by no means to be despised +triumph. Once (in 1910) she gave an indication to me that this might be +so, in the following words: + +"Emma Calve was frequently harshly criticized, but when she sang the +opera house was crowded. It was because she gave her personality to the +public. Very frequently there are singers who give most excellent +interpretations, who are highly praised, and whom nobody goes to see. +Now in the last analysis there are two things which I do. I try to be +true to myself and my own conception of the dramatic fitness of things +on the stage, and I try to please my audiences. To do that you must +mercilessly reveal your personality. There is no other way. In my humble +way I am an actress who happens to be appearing in opera. I sacrifice +tonal beauty to dramatic fitness every time I think it is necessary for +an effect, and I shall continue to do it. I leave mere singing to the +warblers. I am more interested in acting myself." + +There is much that is sound sense in these remarks, but it is a pity +that Mme. Farrar carries her theories out literally. To me, and to many +another, there is something a little sad in the acceptance of easily won +victory. If she would, Mme. Farrar might improve her singing and acting +in certain roles in which she has already appeared, and she might +enlarge her repertoire to include more of the roles which have a deeper +significance in operatic and musical history. At present her activity is +too consistent to allow time for much reflection. It would afford me the +greatest pleasure to learn that this singer had decided to retire for a +few months to devote herself to study and introspection, so that she +might return to the stage with a new and brighter fire and a more +lasting message. + +_Farrar fara--forse._ + +_July 14, 1916._ + + + + +Mary Garden + +"_Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose._" + +Gertrude Stein. + + +The influence of Ibsen on our stage has been most subtle. The dramas of +the sly Norwegian are infrequently performed, but almost all the plays +of the epoch bear his mark. And he has done away with the actor, for +nowadays emotions are considered rude on the stage. Our best playwrights +have striven for an intellectual monotone. So it happens that for the +Henry Irvings, the Sarah Bernhardts, and the Edwin Booths of a younger +generation we must turn to the operatic stage, and there we find them: +Maurice Renaud, Olive Fremstad--and Mary Garden. + +There is nothing casual about the art of Mary Garden. Her achievements +on the lyric stage are not the result of happy accident. Each detail of +her impersonations, indeed, is a carefully studied and selected effect, +chosen after a review of possible alternatives. Occasionally, after a +trial, Miss Garden even rejects the instinctive. This does not mean that +there is no feeling behind her performances. The deep burning flame of +poetic imagination illuminates and warms into life the conception +wrought in the study chamber. Nothing is left to chance, and it is +seldom, and always for some good reason, that this artist permits +herself to alter particulars of a characterization during the course of +a representation. + +I have watched her many times in the same role without detecting any +great variance in the arrangement of details, and almost as many times I +have been blinded by the force of her magnetic imaginative power, +without which no interpreter can hope to become an artist. This, it +seems to me, is the highest form of stage art; certainly it is the form +which on the whole is the most successful in exposing the intention of +author and composer, although occasionally a Geraldine Farrar or a +Salvini will make it apparent that the inspiration of the moment also +has its value. However, I cannot believe that the true artist often +experiments in public. He conceives in seclusion and exposes his +conception, completely realized, breathed into, so to speak, on the +stage. When he first studies a character it is his duty to feel the +emotions of that character, and later he must project these across the +footlights into the hearts of his audience; but he cannot be expected to +feel these emotions every night. He must _remember_ how he felt them +before. And sometimes even this ideal interpreter makes mistakes. +Neither instinct nor intelligence--not even genius--can compass every +range. + +Miss Garden's career has been closely identified with the French lyric +stage and, in at least two operas, she has been the principal +interpreter--and a material factor in their success--of works which have +left their mark on the epoch, stepping-stones in the musical brook. The +roles in which she has most nearly approached the ideal are perhaps +Melisande, Jean (_Le Jongleur de Notre Dame_), Sapho, Thais, Louise, +Marguerite (in Gounod's _Faust_), Chrysis (in _Aphrodite_), and Monna +Vanna. I cannot speak personally of her Tosca, her Orlanda, her Manon, +her Violetta, or her Cherubin (in Massenet's opera of the same name). I +do not care for her Carmen as a whole, and to my mind her interpretation +of Salome lacks the inevitable quality which stamped Olive Fremstad's +performance. In certain respects she realizes the characters and sings +the music of Juliet and Ophelie, but this is _vieux jeu_ for her, and I +do not think she has effaced the memory of Emma Eames in the one and +Emma Calve in the other of these roles. She was somewhat vague and not +altogether satisfactory (this may be ascribed to the paltriness of the +parts) as Prince Charmant in _Cendrillon, la belle_ Dulcinee in _Don +Quichotte_, and Griselidis. On the other hand, in _Natoma_--her only +appearance thus far in opera in English--she made a much more important +contribution to the lyric stage than either author or composer. + +Mary Garden was born in Scotland, but her family came to this country +when she was very young, and she grew up in the vicinity of Chicago. She +may therefore be adjudged at least as much an American singer as Olive +Fremstad. She studied in France, however, and this fortuitous +circumstance accounts for the fact that all her great roles are French, +and for the most part modern French. Her two Italian roles, Violetta and +Tosca, she sings in French, although I believe she has made attempts to +sing Puccini's opera in the original tongue. Her other ventures afield +have included Salome, sung in French, and Natoma, sung in English. Her +pronunciation of French on the stage has always aroused comment, some of +it jocular. Her accent is strongly American, a matter which her very +clear enunciation does not leave in doubt. However, it is a question in +my mind if Miss Garden did not weigh well the charm of this accent and +its probable effect on French auditors. You will remember that Helena +Modjeska spoke English with a decided accent, as do Fritzi Scheff, Alia +Nazimova, and Mitzi Hajos in our own day; you may also realize that to +the public, which includes yourself, this is no inconsiderable part of +their charm. Parisians do not take pleasure in hearing their language +spoken by a German, but they have never had any objection--quite the +contrary--to an English or American accent on their stage, although I do +not believe this general preference has ever been allowed to affect +performances at the Comedie Francaise, except when _l'Anglais tel qu'on +le parle_ is on the _affiches_. At least it is certain that Miss Garden +speaks French quite as easily as--perhaps more easily than--she does +English, and many of the eccentricities of her stage speech are not +noticeable in private life. + +Many of the great artists of the theatre have owed their first +opportunity to an accident; it was so with Mary Garden. She once told me +the story herself and I may be allowed to repeat it in her own words, as +I put them down shortly after: + +"I became friends with Sybil Sanderson, who was singing in Paris then, +and one day when I was at her house Albert Carre, the director of the +Opera-Comique, came to call. I was sitting by the window as he entered, +and he said to Sybil, 'That woman has a profile; she would make a +charming Louise.' Charpentier's opera, I should explain, had not yet +been produced. 'She has a voice, too,' Sybil added. Well, M. Carre took +me to the theatre and listened while I sang airs from _Traviata_ and +_Manon_. Then he gave me the partition of _Louise_ and told me to go +home and study it. I had the role in my head in fifteen days. This was +in March, and M. Carre engaged me to sing at his theatre beginning in +October.... One spring day, however, when I was feeling particularly +depressed over the death of a dog that had been run over by an omnibus, +M. Carre came to me in great excitement; Mme. Rioton, the singer cast +for the part, was ill, and he asked me if I thought I could sing Louise. +I said 'Certainly,' in the same tone with which I would have accepted an +invitation to dinner. It was only bluff; I had never rehearsed the part +with orchestra, but it was my chance, and I was determined to take +advantage of it. Besides, I had studied the music so carefully that I +could have sung it note for note if the orchestra had played _The +Star-Spangled Banner_ simultaneously. + +"Evening came and found me in the theatre. Mme. Rioton had recovered +sufficiently to sing; she appeared during the first two acts, and then +succumbed immediately before the air, _Depuis le Jour_, which opens the +third act. I was in my dressing-room when M. Carre sent for me. He told +me that an announcement had been made before the curtain that I would +be substituted for Mme. Rioton. I learned afterwards that Andre +Messager, who was directing the orchestra, had strongly advised against +taking this step; he thought the experiment was too dangerous, and urged +that the people in the house should be given their money back. The +audience, you may be sure, was none too pleased at the prospect of +having to listen to a Mlle. Garden of whom they had never heard. Will +you believe me when I tell you that I was never less nervous?... I must +have succeeded, for I sang Louise over two hundred times at the +Opera-Comique after that. The year was 1900, and I had made my debut on +Friday, April 13!" + +I have no contemporary criticisms of this event at hand, but one of my +most valued souvenirs is a photograph of the charming interpreter as she +appeared in the role of Louise at the beginning of her career. However, +in one of Gauthier-Villars's compilations of his musical criticisms, +which he signed "L'Ouvreuse" ("La Ronde des Blanches"), I discovered the +following, dated February 21, 1901, a detail of a review of Gabriel +Pierne's opera, _La Fille de Tabarin_: "Mlle. Garden a une aimable +figure, une voix aimable, et un petit reste d'accent exotique, aimable +aussi." + +Of the composer of _Louise_ Miss Garden had many interesting things to +say in after years: "The opera is an expression of Charpentier's own +life," she told me one day. "It is the opera of Montmartre, and he was +the King of Montmartre, a real bohemian, to whom money and fame meant +nothing. He was satisfied if he had enough to pay _consommations_ for +himself and his friends at the Rat Mort. He had won the _Prix de Rome_ +before _Louise_ was produced, but he remained poor. He lived in a dirty +little garret up on the _butte_, and while he was writing this realistic +picture of his own life he was slowly starving to death. Andre Messager +knew him and tried to give him money, but he wouldn't accept it. He was +very proud. Messager was obliged to carry up milk in bottles, with a +loaf of bread, and say that he wanted to lunch with him, in order to get +Charpentier to take nourishment. + +"Meanwhile, little by little, _Louise_ was being slowly written.... Part +of it he wrote in the Rat Mort, part in his own little room, and part of +it in the Moulin de la Galette, one of the gayest of the Montmartre +dance halls. High up on the _butte_ the gaunt windmill sign waves its +arms; from the garden you can see all Paris. It is the view that you get +in the third act of _Louise_.... The production of his opera brought +Charpentier nearly half a million francs, but he spent it all on the +working-girls of Montmartre. He even established a conservatory, so that +those with talent might study without paying. And his mother, whom he +adored, had everything she wanted until she died.... He always wore the +artist costume, corduroy trousers, blouse, and flowing tie, even when he +came to the Opera-Comique in the evening. Money did not change his +habits. His kingdom extended over all Paris after the production of +_Louise_, but he still preferred his old friends in Montmartre to the +new ones his success had made for him, and he dissipated his strength +and talent. He was an adorable man; he would give his last sou to any +one who asked for it! + +"To celebrate the fiftieth performance of _Louise_, M. Carre gave a +dinner in July, 1900. Most appropriately he did not choose the Cafe +Anglais or the Cafe de Paris for this occasion, but Charpentier's own +beloved Moulin de la Galette. It was at this dinner that the composer +gave the first sign of his physical decline. He had scarcely seated +himself at the table, surrounded by the great men and women of Paris, +before he fainted...." + +The subsequent history of this composer of the lower world we all know +too well; how he journeyed south and lived in obscurity for years, +years which were embellished with sundry rumours relating to future +works, rumours which were finally crowned by the production of _Julien_ +at the Opera-Comique--and subsequently at the Metropolitan Opera House +in New York. The failure of this opera was abysmal. + +Louise is a role which Miss Garden has sung very frequently in America, +and, as she may be said to have contributed to Charpentier's fame and +popularity in Paris, she did as much for him here. This was the second +part in which she appeared in New York. The dynamics of the role are +finely wrought out, deeply felt; the characterization is extraordinarily +keen, although after the first act it never touches the heart. The +singing-actress conceives the character of the sewing-girl as hard and +brittle, and she does not play it for sympathy. She acts the final scene +with the father with the brilliant polish of a diamond cut in Amsterdam, +and with heartless brutality. Stroke after stroke she devotes to a +ruthless exposure of what she evidently considers to be the nature of +this futile drab. It is the scene in the play which evidently interests +her most, and it is the scene to which she has given her most careful +attention. In the first act, to be sure, she is _gamine_ and adorable +in her scenes with her father, and touchingly poignant in the despairing +cry which closes the act, _Paris_! In the next two acts she wisely +submerges herself in the general effect. She allows the sewing-girls to +make the most of their scene, and, after she has sung _Depuis le Jour_, +she gives the third act wholly into the keeping of the ballet, and the +interpreters of Julien and the mother. + +There are other ways of singing and acting this role. Others have sung +and acted it, others will sing and act it, effectively. The abandoned +(almost aggressive) perversity of Miss Garden's performance has perhaps +not been equalled, but this role does not belong to her as completely as +do Thais and Melisande; no other interpreters will satisfy any one who +has seen her in these two parts. + +Miss Garden made her American debut in Massenet's opera, _Thais_, +written, by the way, for Sybil Sanderson. The date was November 25, +1907. Previous to this time Miss Garden had never sung this opera in +Paris, but she had appeared in it during a summer season at one of the +French watering places. Since that night, nearly ten years ago, however, +it has become the most stable feature of her repertoire. She has sung it +frequently in Paris, and during the long tours undertaken by the +Chicago Opera Company this sentimental tale of the Alexandrian courtesan +and the hermit of the desert has startled the inhabitants of hamlets in +Iowa and California. It is a very brilliant scenic show, and is utterly +successful as a vehicle for the exploitation of the charms of a fragrant +personality. Miss Garden has found the part grateful; her very lovely +figure is particularly well suited to the allurements of Grecian +drapery, and the unwinding of her charms at the close of the first act +is an event calculated to stir the sluggish blood of a hardened +theatre-goer, let alone that of a Nebraska farmer. The play becomes the +more vivid as it is obvious that the retiary meshes with which she +ensnares Athanael are strong enough to entangle any of us. +Thais-become-nun--Evelyn Innes should have sung this character before +she became Sister Teresa--is in violent contrast to these opening +scenes, but the acts in the desert, as the Alexandrian strumpet wilts +before the aroused passion of the monk, are carried through with equal +skill by this artist who is an adept in her means of expression and +expressiveness. + +The opera is sentimental, theatrical, and over its falsely constructed +drama--a perversion of Anatole France's psychological tale--Massenet +has overlaid as banal a coverlet of music as could well be devised by +an eminent composer. "The bad fairies have given him [Massenet] only one +gift," writes Pierre Lalo, "...the desire to please." It cannot be said +that Miss Garden allows the music to affect her interpretation. She +sings some of it, particularly her part in the duet in the desert, with +considerable charm and warmth of tone. I have never cared very much for +her singing of the mirror air, although she is dramatically admirable at +this point; on the other hand, I have found her rendering of the +farewell to Eros most pathetic in its tenderness. At times she has +attacked the high notes, which fall in unison with the exposure of her +attractions, with brilliancy; at other times she has avoided them +altogether (it must be remembered that Miss Sanderson, for whom this +opera was written, had a voice like the Tour Eiffel; she sang to G above +the staff). But the general tone of her interpretation has not been +weakened by the weakness of the music or by her inability to sing a good +deal of it. Quite the contrary. I am sure she sings the part with more +steadiness of tone than Milka Ternina ever commanded for Tosca, and her +performance is equally unforgettable. + +After the production of _Louise_, Miss Garden's name became almost +legendary in Paris, and many are the histories of her subsequent career +there. Parisians and foreign visitors alike flocked to the Opera-Comique +to see her in the series of delightful roles which she assumed--Orlanda, +Manon, Chrysis, Violetta ... and Melisande. It was during the summer of +1907 that I first heard her there in two of the parts most closely +identified with her name, Chrysis and Melisande. + +Camille Erlanger's _Aphrodite_, considered as a work of art, is fairly +meretricious. As a theatrical entertainment it offers many elements of +enjoyment. Based on the very popular novel of Pierre Louys--at one time +forbidden circulation in America by Anthony Comstock--it winds its +pernicious way through a tale of prostitution, murder, theft, sexual +inversion, drunkenness, sacrilege, and crucifixion, and concludes, quite +simply, in a cemetery. The music is appallingly banal, and has never +succeeded in doing anything else but annoy me when I have thought of it +at all. It never assists in creating an atmosphere; it bears no relation +to stage picture, characters, or situation. Both gesture and colour are +more important factors in the consideration of the pleasurable elements +of this piece than the weak trickle of its sickly melodic flow. + +[Illustration: MARY GARDEN AS CHRYSIS (1906)] + +For the most part, at a performance, one does not listen to the music. +Nevertheless, _Aphrodite_ calls one again and again. Its success in +Paris was simply phenomenal, and the opera is still in the repertoire of +the Opera-Comique. This success was due in a measure to the undoubted +"punch" of the story, in a measure to the orgy which M. Carre had +contrived to embellish the third act, culminating in the really +imaginative dancing of the beautiful Regina Badet and the horrible scene +of the crucifixion of the negro slave; but, more than anything else, it +was due to the rarely compelling performance of Mary Garden as the +courtesan who consented to exchange her body for the privilege of seeing +her lover commit theft, sacrilege, and murder. In her bold entrance, +flaunting her long lemon scarf, wound round her body like a Nautch +girl's saeri, which illy concealed her fine movements, she at once gave +the picture, not alone of the _cocotte_ of the period but of a whole +life, a whole atmosphere, and this she maintained throughout the +disclosure of the tableaux. In the prison scene she attained heights of +tragic acting which I do not think even she has surpassed elsewhere. The +pathos of her farewell to her two little Lesbian friends, and the +gesture with which she drained the poison cup, linger in the memory, +refusing to give up their places to less potent details. + +I first heard Debussy's lyric drama, _Pelleas et Melisande_, at the +Opera-Comique, with Miss Garden as the principal interpreter. It is +generally considered the greatest achievement of her mimic art. Somehow +by those means at the command of a fine artist, she subdued her very +definite personality and moulded it into the vague and subtle personage +created by Maurice Maeterlinck. Even great artists grasp at straws for +assistance, and it is interesting to know that to Miss Garden a wig is +the all important thing. "Once I have donned the wig of a character, I +am that character," she told me once. "It would be difficult for me to +go on the stage in my own hair." Nevertheless, I believe she has +occasionally inconsistently done so as Louise. + +In Miss Garden's score of _Pelleas_ Debussy has written, "In the future, +others may sing Melisande, but you alone will remain the woman and the +artist I had hardly dared hope for." It must be remembered, however, +that composers are notoriously fickle; that they prefer having their +operas given in any form rather than not at all; that ink is cheap and +musicians prolific in sentiments. In how many _Manon_ scores did +Massenet write his tender eternal finalities? Perhaps little Maggie +Teyte, who imitated Mary Garden's Melisande as Elsie Janis imitates +Sarah Bernhardt, cherishes a dedicated score now. Memory tells me I have +seen such a score, but memory is sometimes a false jade. + +In her faded mediaeval gowns, with her long plaits of golden hair,--in +the first scene she wore it loose,--Mary Garden became at once in the +spectator's mind the princess of enchanted castles, the cymophanous +heroine of a _feerie_, the dream of a poet's tale. In gesture and in +musical speech, in tone-colour, she was faithful to the first wonderful +impression of the eye. There has been in our day no more perfect example +of characterization offered on the lyric stage than Mary Garden's lovely +Melisande.... _Ne me touchez pas!_ became the cry of a terrified child, +a real protestation of innocence. _Je ne suis pas heureuse ici_, was +uttered with a pathos of expression which drove its helplessness into +our hearts. The scene at the fountain with Pelleas, in which Melisande +loses her ring, was played with such delicate shading, such poetic +imagination, that one could almost crown the interpreter as the creator, +and the death scene was permeated with a fragile, simple beauty as +compelling as that which Carpaccio put into his picture of _Santa +Ursula_, a picture indeed which Miss Garden's performance brought to +mind more than once. If she sought inspiration from the art of the +painter for her delineation, it was not to Rossetti and Burne-Jones that +she went. Rather did she gather some of the soft bloom from the +paintings of Bellini, Carpaccio, Giotto, Cimabue ... especially +Botticelli; had not the spirit and the mood of the two frescos from the +Villa Lemmi in the Louvre come to life in this gentle representation? + +Before she appeared as Melisande in New York, Miss Garden was a little +doubtful of the probable reception of the play here. She was surprised +and delighted with the result, for the drama was presented in the late +season of 1907-08 at the Manhattan Opera House no less than seven times +to very large audiences. The singer talked to me before the event: "It +took us four years to establish _Pelleas et Melisande_ in the repertoire +of the Opera-Comique. At first the public listened with disfavour or +indecision, and performances could only be given once in two weeks. As a +contrast I might mention the immediate success of _Aphrodite_, which I +sang three or four times a week until fifty representations had been +achieved, without appearing in another role. _Pelleas_ was a different +matter. The mystic beauty of the poet's mood and the revolutionary +procedures of the musician were not calculated to touch the great public +at once. Indeed, we had to teach our audiences to enjoy it. Americans +who, I am told, are fond of Maeterlinck, may appreciate its very +manifest beauty at first hearing, but they didn't in Paris. At the early +representations, individuals whistled and made cat-calls. One night +three young men in the first row of the orchestra whistled through an +entire scene. I don't believe those young men will ever forget the way I +looked at them.... But after each performance it was the same: the +applause drowned out the hisses. The balconies and galleries were the +first to catch the spirit of the piece, and gradually it grew in public +favour, and became a success, that is, comparatively speaking. _Pelleas +et Melisande_, like many another work of true beauty, appeals to a +special public and, consequently, the number of performances has always +been limited, and perhaps always will be. I do not anticipate that it +will crowd from popular favour such operas as _Werther_, _La Vie de +Boheme_ and _Carmen_, each of which is included in practically every +week's repertoire at the Opera-Comique. + +[Illustration: MARY GARDEN AS MELISANDE + +_from a photograph by Davis and Eickemeyer (1908)_] + +"We interpreters of Debussy's lyric drama were naturally very proud, +because we felt that we were assisting in the making of musical +history. Maeterlinck, by the way, has never seen the opera. He wished +his wife, Georgette Leblanc, to 'create' the role of Melisande, but +Debussy and Carre had chosen me, and the poet did not have his way. He +wrote an open letter to the newspapers of Paris in which he frankly +expressed his hope that the work would fail. Later, when composers +approached him in regard to setting his dramas to music, he made it a +condition that his wife should sing them. She did appear as Ariane, you +will remember, but Lucienne Breval first sang Monna Vanna, and +Maeterlinck's wrath again vented itself in pronunciamentos." + +Miss Garden spoke of the settings. "The _decor_ should be dark and +sombre. Mrs. Campbell set the play in the Renaissance period, an epoch +flooded with light and charm. I think she was wrong. Absolute latitude +is permitted the stage director, as Maeterlinck has made no restrictions +in the book. The director of the Opera at Brussels followed Mrs. +Campbell's example, and when I appeared in the work there I felt that I +was singing a different drama." + +One afternoon in the autumn of 1908, when I was Paris correspondent of +the "New York Times," I received the following telegram from Miss +Garden: "Venez ce soir a 5-1/2 chez Mlle. Chasles 112 Boulevard +Malesherbes me voir en Salome." It was late in the day when the message +came to me, and I had made other plans, but you may be sure I put them +all aside. A _petit-bleu_ or two disposed of my engagements, and I took +a fiacre in the blue twilight of the Paris afternoon for the _salle de +danse_ of Mlle. Chasles. On my way I recollected how some time +previously Miss Garden had informed me of her intention of interpreting +the Dance of the Seven Veils herself, and how she had attempted to gain +the co-operation of Maraquita, the ballet mistress of the Opera-Comique, +a plan which she was forced to abandon, owing to some rapidly revolving +wheels of operatic intrigue. So the new Salome went to Mlle. Chasles, +who sixteen years ago was delighting the patrons of the Opera-Comique +with her charming dancing. She it was who, materially assisted by Miss +Garden herself, arranged the dance, dramatically significant in gesture +and step, which the singer performed at the climax of Richard Strauss's +music drama. + +Mlle. Chasles's _salle de danse_ I discovered to be a large square room; +the floor had a rake like that of the Opera stage in Paris. There were +footlights, and seats in front of them for spectators. The walls were +hung with curious old prints and engravings of famous dancers, Mlle. +Salle, La Camargo, Taglioni, Carlotta Grisi, and Cerito. + +This final rehearsal--before the rehearsals in New York which preceded +her first appearance in the part anywhere at the Manhattan Opera +House--was witnessed by Andre Messager, who intended to mount _Salome_ +at the Paris Opera the following season, Mlle. Chasles, an accompanist, +a maid, a hair-dresser, and myself. I noted that Miss Garden's costume +differed in a marked degree from those her predecessors had worn. For +the entrance of Salome she had provided a mantle of bright orange +shimmering stuff, embroidered with startling azure and emerald flowers +and sparkling with spangles. Under this she wore a close-fitting garment +of netted gold, with designs in rubies and rhinestones, which fell from +somewhere above the waistline to her ankles. This garment was also +removed for the dance, and Miss Garden emerged in a narrow strip of +flesh-coloured tulle. Her arms, shoulders, and legs were bare. She wore +a red wig, the hair falling nearly to her waist (later she changed this +detail and wore the cropped wig which became identified with her +impersonation of the part). Two jewels, an emerald on one little finger, +a ruby on the other, completed her decoration. The seven veils were of +soft, clinging tulle. + +Swathed in these veils, she began the dance at the back of the small +stage. Only her eyes were visible. Terrible, slow ... she undulated +forward, swaying gracefully, and dropped the first veil. What followed +was supposed to be the undoing of the jaded Herod. I was moved by this +spectacle at the time, and subsequently this pantomimic dance was +generally referred to as the culminating moment in her impersonation of +Salome. On this occasion, I remember, she proved to us that the exertion +had not fatigued her, by singing the final scene of the music drama, +while Andre Messager played the accompaniment on the piano. + +I did not see Mary Garden's impetuous and highly curious interpretation +of the strange eastern princess until a full year later, as I remained +in Paris during the extent of the New York opera season. The following +autumn, however, I heard _Salome_ in its second season at the Manhattan +Opera House--and I was disappointed. Nervous curiosity seemed to be the +consistent note of this hectic interpretation. The singer was never +still; her use of gesture was untiring. To any one who had not seen her +in other parts, the actress must have seemed utterly lacking in repose. +This was simply her means, however, of suggesting the intense nervous +perversity of Salome. Mary Garden could not have seen Nijinsky in +_Scheherazade_ at this period, and yet the performances were +astonishingly similar in intention. But the Strauss music and the Wilde +drama demand a more voluptuous and sensual treatment, it would seem to +me, than the suggestion of monkey-love which absolutely suited +Nijinsky's part. However, the general opinion (as often happens) ran +counter to mine, and, aside from the reservation that Miss Garden's +voice was unable to cope with the music, the critics, on the whole, gave +her credit for an interesting performance. Indeed, in this music drama +she made one of the great popular successes of her career, a career +which has been singularly full of appreciated achievements. + +Chicago saw Mary Garden in _Salome_ a year later, and Chicago gasped, as +New York had gasped when the drama was performed at the Metropolitan +Opera House. The police--no less an authority--put a ban on future +performances at the Auditorium. Miss Garden was not pleased, and she +expressed her displeasure in the frankest terms. I received at that time +a series of characteristic telegrams. One of them read: "My art is +going through the torture of slow death. Oh Paris, splendeur de mes +desirs!" + +It was with the (then) Philadelphia-Chicago Opera Company that Miss +Garden made her first experiment with opera in English, earning thereby +the everlasting gratitude and admiration--which she already possessed in +no small measure--of Charles Henry Meltzer. She was not sanguine before +the event. In January, 1911, she said to me: "No, malgre Tito Ricordi, +NO! I don't believe in opera in English, I never have believed in it, +and I don't think I ever shall believe in it. Of course I'm willing to +be convinced. You see, in the first place, I think all music dramas +should be sung in the languages in which they are written; well, that +makes it impossible to sing anything in the current repertoire in +English, doesn't it? The only hope for opera in English, so far as I can +see it, lies in America or England producing a race of composers, and +they haven't it in them. It isn't in the blood. Composition needs Latin +blood, or something akin to it; the Anglo-Saxon or the American can't +write music, great music, at least not yet.... I doubt if any of us +alive to-day will live to hear a great work written to a libretto in our +own language. + +"Now I am going to sing Victor Herbert's _Natoma_, in spite of what I +have just told you, because I don't want to have it said that I have +done anything to hinder what is now generally known as 'the cause.' For +the first time a work by a composer who may be regarded as American is +to be given a chance with the best singers, with a great orchestra, and +a great conductor, in the leading opera house in America--perhaps the +leading opera house anywhere. It seems to me that every one who can +should put his shoulder to this kind of wheel and set it moving. I shall +be better pleased than anybody else if _Natoma_ proves a success and +paves the way for the successful production of other American lyric +dramas. Of course _Natoma_ cannot be regarded as 'grand opera.' It is +not music, like _Tristan_, for instance. It is more in the style of the +lighter operas which are given in Paris, but it possesses much melodic +charm and it may please the public. I shall sing it and I shall try to +do it just as well as I have tried to do Salome and Thais and +Melisande." + +She kept her word, and out of the hodge-podge of an opera book which +stands unrivalled for its stiltedness of speech, she succeeded in +creating one of her most notable characters. She threw vanity aside in +making up for the role, painting her face and body a dark brown; she +wore two long straight braids of hair, depending on either side from the +part in the middle of her forehead. Her garment was of buckskin, and +moccasins covered her feet. She crept rather than walked. The story, as +might be imagined, was one of love and self-sacrifice, touching here and +there on the preserves of _L'Africaine_ and _Lakme_, the whole +concluding with the voluntary immersion of Natoma in a convent. +Fortunately, the writer of the book remembered that Miss Garden had +danced in _Salome_ and he introduced a similar pantomimic episode in +_Natoma_, a dagger dance, which was one of the interesting points in the +action. The music suited her voice; she delivered a good deal of it +almost _parlando_, and the vapid speeches of Mr. Redding tripped so +audibly off her tongue that their banality became painfully apparent. + +The story has often been related how Massenet, piqued by the frequently +repeated assertion that his muse was only at his command when he +depicted female frailty, determined to write an opera in which only one +woman was to appear, and she was to be both mute and a virgin! _Le +Jongleur de Notre Dame_, perhaps the most poetically conceived of +Massenet's lyric dramas, was the result of this decision. Until Mr. +Hammerstein made up his mind to produce the opera, the role of Jean had +invariably been sung by a man. Mr. Hammerstein thought that Americans +would prefer a woman in the part. He easily enlisted the interest of +Miss Garden in this scheme, and Massenet, it is said, consented to make +certain changes in the score. The taste of the experiment was doubtful, +but it was one for which there had been much precedent. Nor is it +necessary to linger on Sarah Bernhardt's assumption of the roles of +Hamlet, Shylock, and the Duc de Reichstadt. In the "golden period of +song," Orfeo was not the only man's part sung by a woman. Mme. Pasta +frequently appeared as Romeo in Zingarelli's opera and as Tancredi, and +she also sang Otello on one occasion when Henrietta Sontag was the +Desdemona. The role of Orfeo, I believe, was written originally for a +_castrato_, and later, when the work was refurbished for production at +what was then the Paris Opera, Gluck allotted the role to a tenor. Now +it is sung by a woman as invariably as are Stephano in _Romeo et +Juliette_ and Siebel in _Faust_. There is really more excuse for the +masquerade of sex in Massenet's opera. The timid, pathetic little +juggler, ridiculous in his inefficiency, is a part for which tenors, as +they exist to-day, seem manifestly unsuited. And certainly no tenor +could hope to make the appeal in the part that Mary Garden did. In the +second act she found it difficult to entirely conceal the suggestion of +her sex under the monk's robe, but the sad little figure of the first +act and the adorable juggler of the last, performing his imbecile tricks +before Our Lady's altar, were triumphant details of an artistic +impersonation; on the whole, one of Miss Garden's most moving +performances. + +Miss Garden has sung _Faust_ many times. Are there many sopranos who +have not, whatever the general nature of their repertoires? She is very +lovely in the role of Marguerite. I have indicated elsewhere her skill +in endowing the part with poetry and imaginative force without making +ducks and drakes of the traditions. In the garden scene she gave an +exhibition of her power to paint a fanciful fresco on a wall already +surcharged with colour, a charming, wistful picture. I have never seen +any one else so effective in the church and prison scenes; no one else, +it seems to me, has so tenderly conceived the plight of the simple +German girl. The opera of _Romeo et Juliette_ does not admit of such +serious dramatic treatment, and Thomas's _Hamlet_, as a play, is +absolutely ridiculous. After the mad scene, for example, the stage +directions read that the ballet "waltzes sadly away." I saw Mary Garden +play Ophelie once at the Paris Opera, and I must admit that I was +amused; I think she was amused too! I was equally amused some years +later when I heard Titta Ruffo sing the opera. I am afraid I cannot take +_Hamlet_ as a lyric drama seriously. + +In Paris, Violetta is one of Miss Garden's popular roles. When she came +to America she fancied she might sing the part here. "Did you ever see a +thin Violetta?" she asked the reporters. But so far she has not appeared +in _La Traviata_ on this side of the Atlantic, although Robert Hichens +wrote me that he had recently heard her in this opera at the Paris +Opera-Comique. He added that her impersonation was most interesting. + +To me one of the most truly fascinating of Miss Garden's +characterizations was her Fanny Legrand in Daudet's play, made into an +opera by Massenet. _Sapho_, as a lyric drama, did not have a success in +New York. I think only three performances were given at the Manhattan +Opera House. The professional writers, with one exception, found nothing +to praise in Miss Garden's remarkable impersonation of Fanny. And yet, +as I have said, it seemed to me one of the most moving of her +interpretations. In the opening scenes she was the trollop, no less, +that Fanny was. The pregnant line of the first act: _Artiste?.... +Non.... Tant mieux. J'ai contre tout artiste une haine implacable!_ was +spoken in a manner which bared the woman's heart to the sophisticated. +The scene in which she sang the song of the _Magali_ (the Provencal +melody which Mistral immortalized in a poem, which Gounod introduced +into _Mireille_, and which found its way, inexplicably, into the ballet +of Berlioz's _Les Troyens a Carthage_), playing her own accompaniment, +to Jean, was really too wonderful a caricature of the harlot. Abel +Faivre and Paul Guillaume have done no better. The scene in which Fanny +reviles her former associates for telling Jean the truth about her past +life was revolting in its realism. + +If Miss Garden spared no details in making us acquainted with Fanny's +vulgarity, she was equally fair to her in other respects. She seemed to +be continually guiding the spectator with comment something like this: +"See how this woman can suffer, and she is a woman, like any other +woman." How small the means, the effect considered, by which she +produced the pathos of the last scene. At the one performance I saw half +the people in the audience were in tears. There was a dismaying display +of handkerchiefs. Sapho sat in the window, smoking a cigarette, +surveying the room in which she had been happy with Jean, and preparing +to say good-by. In the earlier scenes her cigarette had aided her in +making vulgar gestures. Now she relied on it to tell the pitiful tale of +the woman's loneliness. How she clung to that cigarette, how she sipped +comfort from it, and how tiny it was! Mary Garden's Sapho, which may +never be seen on the stage again (Massenet's music is perhaps his +weakest effort), was an extraordinary piece of stage art. That alone +would have proclaimed her an interpreter of genius. + +[Illustration: MARY GARDEN AS FANNY LEGRAND + +_from a photograph by Mishkin (1909)_] + +George Moore, somewhere, evolves a fantastic theory that a writer's name +may have determined his talent: "Dickens--a mean name, a name without +atmosphere, a black out-of-elbows, back-stairs name, a name good enough +for loud comedy and louder pathos. John Milton--a splendid name for a +Puritan poet. Algernon Charles Swinburne--only a name for a reed through +which every wind blows music.... Now it is a fact that we find no fine +names among novelists. We find only colourless names, dry-as-dust names, +or vulgar names, round names like pot-hats, those names like +mackintoshes, names that are squashy as goloshes. We have charged Scott +with a lack of personal passion, but could personal passion dwell in +such a jog-trot name--a round-faced name, a snub-nosed, spectacled, +pot-bellied name, a placid, beneficent, worthy old bachelor name, a name +that evokes all conventional ideas and formulas, a Grub Street name, a +nerveless name, an arm-chair name, an old oak and Abbotsford name? And +Thackeray's name is a poor one--the syllables clatter like plates. 'We +shall want the carriage at half-past two, Thackeray.' Dickens is surely +a name for a page boy. George Eliot's real name, Marian Evans, is a +chaw-bacon, thick-loined name." So far as I know Mr. Moore has not +expanded his theory to include a discussion of acrobats, revivalists, +necromancers, free versifiers, camel drivers, paying tellers, painters, +pugilists, architects, and opera singers. Many of the latter have taken +no chances with their own names. Both Pauline and Maria Garcia adopted +the names of their husbands. Garcia possibly suggests a warrior, but do +Malibran and Viardot make us think of music? Nellie Melba's name evokes +an image of a cold marble slab but if she had retained her original name +of Mitchell it would have been no better ... Marcella Sembrich, a name +made famous by the genius and indefatigable labour of its bearer, surely +not a good name for an operatic soprano. Her own name, Kochanska, +sounds Polish and patriotic ... Luisa Tetrazzini, a silly, fussy name +... Emma Calve.... Since _Madame Bovary_ the name Emma suggests a solid +_bourgeois_ foundation, a country family.... Emma Eames, a chilly name +... a wind from the East! Was it Philip Hale who remarked that she sang +_Who is Sylvia?_ as if the woman were not on her calling list?... +Lillian Nordica, an evasion. Lillian Norton is a sturdy work-a-day name, +suggesting a premonition of a thousand piano rehearsals for Isolde ... +Johanna Gadski, a coughing raucous name ... Geraldine Farrar, tomboyish +and impertinent, Melrose with a French sauce ... Edyth Walker, a +militant suffragette name.... Surely Lucrezia Bori and Maria Barrientos +are ill-made names for singers ... Adelina Patti--a patty-cake, +patty-cake, baker's man, sort of a name ... Alboni, strong-hearted ... +Scalchi ... ugh! Further evidence could be brought forward to prove that +singers succeed in spite of their names rather than because of them ... +until we reach the name of Mary Garden.... The subtle fragrance of this +name has found its way into many hearts. Since Nell Gwyn no such scented +cognomen, redolent of cuckoo's boots, London pride, blood-red poppies, +purple fox-gloves, lemon stocks, and vermillion zinnias, has blown its +delicate odour across our scene.... Delightful and adorable Mary Garden, +the fragile Thais, pathetic Jean ... unforgettable Melisande.... + +_October 10, 1916._ + + + + +Feodor Chaliapine + + + "_Do I contradict myself?_ + _Very well, then, I contradict myself;_" + + Walt Whitman. + + +Feodor Chaliapine, the Russian bass singer, appeared in New York at the +Metropolitan Opera House, then under the direction of Heinrich Conried, +during the season of 1907-08. He made his American debut on Wednesday +evening, November 20, 1907, when he impersonated the title part of +Boito's opera, _Mefistofele_. He was heard here altogether seven times +in this role; six times as Basilio in _Il Barbiere di Siviglia_; three +times as Mephistopheles in Gounod's _Faust_; three times as Leporello in +_Don Giovanni_; and at several Sunday night concerts. He also appeared +with the Metropolitan Opera Company in Philadelphia, and possibly +elsewhere. + +I first met this remarkable artist in the dining-room of the Hotel Savoy +on a rainy Sunday afternoon, soon after his arrival in America. His +personality made a profound impression on me, as may be gathered from +some lines from an article I wrote which appeared the next morning in +the "New York Times": "The newest operatic acquisition to arrive in New +York is neither a prima donna soprano, nor an Italian tenor with a high +C, but a big, broad-shouldered boy, with a kindly smile and a deep bass +voice, ... thirty-four years old.... 'I spik English,' were his first +words. 'How do you do? et puis good-by, et puis I drrrink, you drrink, +he drrrrinks, et puis I love you!' ... Mr. Chaliapine looked like a +great big boy, a sophomore in college, who played football." (Pitts +Sanborn soon afterwards felicitously referred to him as _ce doux geant_, +a name often applied to Turgeniev.) + +I have given the extent of the Russian's English vocabulary at this +time, and I soon discovered that it was not accident which had caused +him first to learn to conjugate the verb "to drink"; another English +verb he learned very quickly was "to eat." Some time later, after his +New York debut, I sought him out again to urge him to give a synopsis of +his original conception for a performance of Gounod's _Faust_. The +interview which ensued was the longest I have ever had with any one. It +began at eleven o'clock in the morning and lasted until a like hour in +the evening,--it might have lasted much longer,--and during this whole +time we sat at table in Mr. Chaliapine's own chamber at the Brevoort, +whither he had repaired to escape steam heat, while he consumed vast +quantities of food and drink. I remember a detail of six plates of onion +soup. I have never seen any one else eat so much or so continuously, or +with so little lethargic effect. Indeed, intemperance seemed only to +make him more light-hearted, ebullient, and Brobdingnagian. Late in the +afternoon he placed his own record of the _Marseillaise_ in the +victrola, and then amused himself (and me) by singing the song in unison +with the record, in an attempt to drown out the mechanical sound. He +succeeded. The effect in this moderately small hotel room can only be +faintly conceived. + +Exuberant is the word which best describes Chaliapine off the stage. I +remember another occasion a year later when I met him, just returned +from South America, on the Boulevard in Paris. He grasped my hand warmly +and begged me to come to see his zoo. He had, in fact, transformed the +_salle de bain_ in his suite at the Grand Hotel into a menagerie. There +were two monkeys, a cockatoo, and many other birds of brilliant plumage, +while two large alligators dozed in the tub. + +My second interview with this singer took place a day or so before he +returned to Europe. He had been roughly handled by the New York critics, +treatment, it is said, which met with the approval of Heinrich Conried, +who had no desire to retain in his company a bass who demanded sixteen +hundred dollars a night, a high salary for a soprano or a tenor. Stung +by this defeat--entirely imaginary, by the way, as his audiences here +were as large and enthusiastic as they are anywhere--the only one, in +fact, which he has suffered in his career up to date, Chaliapine was +extremely frank in his attitude. My interview, published on the first +page of the "New York Times," created a small sensation in operatic +circles. The meat of it follows. Chaliapine is speaking: + +"Criticism in New York is not profound. It is the most difficult thing +in the world to be a good critical writer. I am a singer, but the critic +has no right to regard me merely as a singer. He must observe my acting, +my make-up, everything. And he must understand and know about these +things. + +"Opera is not a fixed art. It is not like music, poetry, sculpture, +painting, or architecture, but a combination of all of these. And the +critic who goes to the opera should have studied all these arts. While a +study of these arts is essential, there is something else that the +critic cannot get by study, and that is the soul to understand. That he +must be born with. + +"I am not a professional critic, but I could be. I have associated with +musicians, painters, and writers, and I know something of all these +arts. As a consequence when I read a criticism, I see immediately what +is true and what is false. Very often I think a man's tongue is his +worst enemy. However, sometimes a man keeps quiet to conceal his mental +weakness. We have a Russian proverb which says, 'Keep quiet; don't tease +the geese.' You can't judge of a man's intelligence until he begins to +talk or write. + +"I have been sometimes adversely criticized during the course of my +artistic life. The most profound of these criticisms have taught me to +correct my faults. But I have learned nothing from the criticisms I have +received in New York. After searching my inner consciousness, I find +they are not based on a true understanding of my artistic purposes. For +instance, the critics found my Don Basilio a dirty, repulsive creature. +One man even said that I was offensive to another singer on the stage! +Don Basilio is a Spanish priest; it is a type I know well. He is not +like the modern American priest, clean and well-groomed; he is dirty and +unkempt; he is a beast, and that is what I make him, a comic beast, but +the critics would prefer a softer version.... It is unfair, indeed, to +judge me at all on the parts I have sung here, outside of Mefistofele, +for most of my best roles are in Russian operas, which are not in the +repertoire of the Metropolitan Opera House. + +"The contemporary direction of this theatre believes in tradition. It is +afraid of anything new. There is no movement. It has not the courage to +produce novelties, and the artists are prevented from giving original +conceptions of old roles. + +"New York is a vast seething inferno of business. Nothing but business! +The men are so tired when they get through work that they want +recreation and sleep. They don't want to study. They don't want to be +thrilled or aroused. They are content to listen forever to _Faust_ and +_Lucia_. + +"In Europe it is different. There you will find the desire for novelty +in the theatre. There is a keen interest in the production of a new +work. It is all right to enjoy the old things, but one should see life. +The audience at the Metropolitan Opera House reminds me of a family that +lives in the country and won't travel. It is satisfied with the same +view of the same garden forever...." + +Feodor Ivanovich Chaliapine was born February 13 (February 1, old +style), 1873, in Kazan; he is of peasant descent. It is said that he is +almost entirely self-educated, both musically and intellectually. He +worked for a time in a shoemaker's shop, sang in the archbishop's choir +and, at the age of seventeen, joined a local operetta company. He seems +to have had difficulty in collecting a salary from this latter +organization, and often worked as a railway porter in order to keep +alive. Later he joined a travelling theatrical troupe, which visited the +Caucasus. In 1892, Oussatov, a singer, heard Chaliapine in Tiflis, gave +him some lessons, and got him an engagement. + +He made his debut in opera in Glinka's _A Life for the Czar_ (according +to Mrs. Newmarch; my notes tell me that it was Gounod's _Faust_). He +sang at the Summer and Panaevsky theatres in Petrograd in 1894; and the +following year he was engaged at the Maryinsky Theatre, but the +directors did not seem to realize that they had captured one of the +great figures of the contemporary lyric stage, and he was not permitted +to sing very often. In 1896, Mamantov, lawyer and millionaire, paid the +fine which released the bass from the Imperial Opera House, and invited +him to join the Private Opera Company in Moscow, where Chaliapine +immediately proved his worth. He became the idol of the public, and it +was not unusual for those who admired striking impersonations on the +stage to journey from Petrograd to see and hear him. In 1899 he was +engaged to sing at the Imperial Opera in Moscow at sixty thousand +roubles a year. Since then he has appeared in various European capitals, +and in North and South America. He has sung in Milan, Paris, London, +Monte Carlo, and Buenos Aires. During a visit to Milan he married, and +at the time of his New York engagement his family included five +children. The number may have increased. + +Chaliapine's repertoire is extensive but, on the whole, it is a strange +repertoire to western Europe and America, consisting, as it does, almost +entirely of Russian operas. In Milan, New York, and Monte Carlo, where +he has appeared with Italian and French companies, his most famous role +is Mefistofele. Leporello he sang for the first time in New York. +Basilio and Mephistopheles in _Faust_ he has probably enacted as often +in Russia as elsewhere. He "created" the title part of Massenet's _Don +Quichotte_ at Monte Carlo (Vanni Marcoux sang the role later in Paris). +With the Russian Opera Company, organized in connection with the Russian +Ballet by Serge de Diaghilew, Chaliapine has sung in London, Paris, and +other European capitals in Moussorgsky's _Boris Godunow_ and +_Khovanchina_, Rimsky-Korsakow's _Ivan the Terrible_ (originally called +_The Maid of Pskov_), and Borodine's _Prince Igor_, in which he appeared +both as Prince Galitzky and as the Tartar Chieftain. His repertoire +further includes Rubinstein's _Demon_, Rimsky-Korsakow's _Mozart and +Salieri_ (the role of Salieri), Glinka's _A Life for the Czar_, +Dargomijsky's _The Roussalka_, Rachmaninow's _Aleko_, and Gretchaninow's +_Dobrynia Nikitich_. This list is by no means complete. + +I first saw Chaliapine on the stage in New York, where his original +ideas and tremendously vital personality ran counter to every tradition +of the Metropolitan Opera House. The professional writers about the +opera, as a whole, would have none of him. Even his magnificently +pictorial Mefistofele was condemned, and I think Pitts Sanborn was the +only man in a critic's chair--I was a reporter at this period and had no +opportunity for expressing my opinions in print--who appreciated his +Basilio at its true value, and _Il Barbiere_ is Sanborn's favourite +opera. His account of the proceedings makes good reading at this date. I +quote from the "New York Globe," December 13, 1907: + +"The performance that was in open defiance of traditions, that was +glaringly and recklessly unorthodox, that set at naught the accepted +canons of good taste, but which justified itself by its overwhelming and +all-conquering good humour, was the Basilio of Mr. Chaliapine. With his +great natural stature increased by art to Brobdingnagian proportions, a +face that had gazed on the vodka at its blackest, and a cassock that may +be seen but not described, he presented a figure that might have been +imagined by the English Swift or the French Rabelais. It was no voice or +singing that made the audience re-demand the 'Calumny Song.' It was the +compelling drollery of those comedy hands. You may be assured, +persuaded, convinced that you want your Rossini straight or not at all. +But when you see the Chaliapine Basilio you'll do as the rest do--roar. +It is as sensational in its way as the Chaliapine Mephisto." + +It was hard to reconcile Chaliapine's conception of Mephistopheles with +the Gounod music, and I do not think the Russian himself had any +illusions about his performance of _Leporello_. It was not his type of +part, and he was as good in it, probably, as Olive Fremstad would be as +Nedda. Even great artists have their limitations, perhaps more of them +than the lesser people. But his Mefistofele, to my way of +thinking,--and the anxious reader who has not seen this impersonation +may be assured that I am far from being alone in it,--was and is a +masterpiece of stage-craft. However, opinions differ. Under the alluring +title, "Devils Polite and Rude," W. J. Henderson, in the "New York Sun," +Sunday, November 24, 1907, after Chaliapine's first appearance here in +Boito's opera, took his fling at the Russian bass (was it Mr. Henderson +or another who later referred to Chaliapine as "a cossack with a +cold"?): "He makes of the fiend a demoniac personage, a seething +cauldron of rabid passions. He is continually snarling and barking. He +poses in writhing attitudes of agonized impotence. He strides and +gestures, grimaces and roars. All this appears to superficial observers +to be tremendously dramatic. And it is, as noted, not without its +significance. Perhaps it may be only a personal fancy, yet the present +writer much prefers a devil who is a gentleman.... But one thing more +remains to be said about the first display of Mr. Chaliapine's powers. +How long did he study the art of singing? Surely not many years. Such an +uneven and uncertain emission of tone is seldom heard even on the +Metropolitan Opera House stage, where there is a wondrous quantity of +poorly grounded singing. The splendid song, _Son lo Spirito Che Nega_, +was not sung at all in the strict interpretation of the word. It was +delivered, to be sure, but in a rough and barbaric style. Some of the +tones disappeared somewhere in the rear spaces of the basso's capacious +throat, while others were projected into the auditorium like stones from +a catapult. There was much strenuosity and little art in the +performance. And it was much the same with the rest of the singing of +the role." + +Chaliapine calls himself "the enemy of tradition." When he was singing +at the Opera in Petrograd in 1896 he found that every detail of every +characterization was prescribed. He was directed to make his entrances +in a certain way; he was ordered to stand in a certain place on the +stage. Whenever he attempted an innovation the stage director said, +"Don't do that." Young singer though he was, he rebelled and asked, "Why +not?" And the reply always came, "You must follow the tradition of the +part. Monsieur Chose and Signor Cosi have always done thus and so, and +you must do likewise." "But I feel differently about the role," +protested the bass. However, it was not until he went to Moscow that he +was permitted to break with tradition. From that time on he began to +elaborate his characterizations, assisted, he admits, by Russian +painters who gave him his first ideas about costumes and make-up. He +once told me that his interpretation of a part was never twice the same. +He does not study his roles in solitude, poring over a score, as many +artists do. Rather, ideas come to him when he eats or drinks, or even +when he is on the stage. He depends to an unsafe degree--unsafe for +other singers who may be misled by his success--on inspiration to carry +him through, once he begins to sing. "When I sing a character I am that +character; I am no longer Chaliapine. So whatever I do must be in +keeping with what the character would do." This is true to so great an +extent that you may take it for granted, when you see Chaliapine in a +new role, that he will envelop the character with atmosphere from his +first entrance, perhaps even without the aid of a single gesture. His +entrance on horseback in _Ivan the Terrible_ is a case in point. Before +he has sung a note he has projected the personality of the cruel czar +into the auditorium. + +"As an actor," writes Mrs. Newmarch in "The Russian Opera," "his +greatest quality appears to me to be his extraordinary gift of +identification with the character he is representing. Shaliapin (so +does Mrs. Newmarch phonetically transpose his name into Roman letters) +does not merely throw himself into the part, to use a phrase commonly +applied to the histrionic art. He seems to disappear, to empty himself +of all personality, that Boris Godunov or Ivan the Terrible may be +reincarnated for us. While working out his own conception of a part, +unmoved by convention or opinion, Shaliapin neglects no accessory study +that can heighten the realism of his interpretation. It is impossible to +see him as Ivan the Terrible, or Boris, without realizing that he is +steeped in the history of those periods, which live again at his will. +In the same way he has studied the masterpieces of Russian art to good +purpose, as all must agree who have compared the scene of Ivan's +frenzied grief over the corpse of Olga, in the last scene of +Rimsky-Korsakow's opera, with Repin's terrible picture of the Tsar, +clasping in his arms the body of the son whom he has just killed in a +fit of insane anger. The agonizing remorse and piteous senile grief have +been transformed from Repin's canvas to Shaliapin's living picture, +without the revolting suggestion of the shambles which mars the +painter's work. Sometimes, too, Shaliapin will take a hint from the +living model. His dignified make-up as the Old Believer Dositheus, in +Moussorgsky's _Khovanstchina_, owes not a little to the personality of +Vladimir Stassov." + +Chaliapine, it seems to me, has realized more completely than any other +contemporary singer the opportunities afforded for the presentation of +character on the lyric stage. In costume, make-up, gesture, the +simulation of emotion, he is a consummate and painstaking artist. As I +have suggested, he has limitations. Who, indeed, has not? Grandeur, +nobility, impressiveness, and, by inversion, sordidness, bestiality, and +awkward ugliness fall easily within his ken. The murder-haunted Boris +Godunow is perhaps his most overpowering creation. From first to last it +is a masterpiece of scenic art; those who have seen him in this part +will not be satisfied with substitutes. His Ivan is almost equally +great. His Dositheus, head of the Old Believers in _Khovanchina_, is a +sincere and effective characterization along entirely different lines. +Although this character, in a sense, dominates Moussorgsky's great +opera, there is little opportunity for the display of histrionism which +Boris presents to the singing actor. By almost insignificant details of +make-up and gesture the bass creates before your eyes a living, +breathing man, a man of fire and faith. No one would recognize in this +kind old creature, terrible, to be sure, in his stern piety, the nude +Mefistofele surveying the pranks of the motley rabble in the Brocken +scene of Boito's opera, a flamboyant exposure of personality to be +compared with Mary Garden's Thais, Act I. + +As the Tartar chieftain in _Prince Igor_, he has but few lines to sing, +but his gestures during the performance of the ballet, which he has +arranged for his guest, in fact his actions throughout the single act in +which this character appears, are stamped on the memory as definitely as +a figure in a Persian miniature. And the noble scorn with which, as +Prince Galitzky, he bows to the stirrup of Prince Igor at the close of +the prologue to this opera, still remains a fixed picture in my mind. +There is also the pathetic Don Quichotte of Massenet's poorest opera. +All great portraits these, to which I must add the funny, dirty, +expectorating Spanish priest of _Il Barbiere_. + +[Illustration: FEODOR CHALIAPINE AS MEFISTOFELE] + +Chaliapine is the possessor of a noble voice which sometimes he uses by +main strength. He has never learned to sing, in the conventional meaning +of the phrase. He must have been singing for some time before he studied +at all, and at Tiflis he does not seem to have spent many months on his +voice. In the circumstances it is an extremely tractable organ, at +least always capable of doing his bidding, dramatically speaking. +Indeed, there are many who consider him a great artist in his +manipulation of it. Mrs. Newmarch quotes Herbert Heyner on this point: + +"His diction floats on a beautiful cantilena, particularly in his +_mezzo-voce_ singing, which--though one would hardly expect it from a +singer endowed with such a noble bass voice--is one of the most telling +features of his performance. There is never any striving after vocal +effects, and his voice is always subservient to the words.... The +atmosphere and tone-colour which Shaliapin imparts to his singing are of +such remarkable quality that one feels his interpretation of Schubert's +_Doppelgaenger_ must of necessity be a thing of genius, unapproachable by +other contemporary singers ... his method is based upon a thoroughly +sound breath control, which produces such splendid _cantabile_ results. +Every student should listen to this great singer, and profit by his +art." + +My intention in placing before the eyes of my readers such contradictory +accounts as may be found in this article has not been altogether +ingenuous. The fact of the matter is that opinions differ on every +matter of art, and on no point are they so various as on that which +refers to interpretation. It may further be urged that the personality +of Chaliapine is so marked and his method so direct that the variations +of opinion are naturally expressed in somewhat violent language. + +For those, accustomed to the occidental operatic repertoire, who find it +hard to understand how a bass could acquire such prominence, it may be +explained that deep voices are both common and very popular in Russia. +They may be heard in any Greek church, sustaining organ points a full +octave below the notes to which our basses descend with trepidation. As +a consequence, many of the Russian operas contain bass roles of the +first importance. In both of Moussorgsky's familiar operas, for example, +the leading part is destined for a bass voice. + +_July 18, 1916._ + + + + +Mariette Mazarin + + +Sometimes the cause of an intense impression in the theatre apparently +disappears, leaving "not a rack behind," beyond the trenchant memory of +a few precious moments, inclining one to the belief that the whole +adventure has been a dream, a particularly vivid dream, and that the +characters therein have returned to such places in space as are assigned +to dream personages by the makers of men. This reflection comes to me +as, sitting before my typewriter, I attempt to recapture the spirit of +the performances of Richard Strauss's music drama _Elektra_ at Oscar +Hammerstein's Manhattan Opera House in New York. The work remains, if +not in the repertoire of any opera house in my vicinity, at least deeply +imbedded in my eardrum and, if need be, at any time I can pore again +over the score, which is always near at hand. But of the whereabouts of +Mariette Mazarin, the remarkable artist who contributed her genius to +the interpretation of the crazed Greek princess, I know nothing. As she +came to us unheralded, so she went away, after we who had seen her had +enshrined her, tardily to be sure, in that small, slow-growing circle of +those who have achieved eminence on the lyric stage. + +Before the beginning of the opera season of 1909-10, Marietta Mazarin +was not even a name in New York. Even during a good part of that season +she was recognized only as an able routine singer. She made her debut +here in _Aida_ and she sang Carmen and Louise without creating a furore, +almost, indeed, without arousing attention of any kind, good or bad +criticism. Had there been no production of _Elektra_ she would have +passed into that long list of forgotten singers who appear here in +leading roles for a few months or a few years and who, when their time +is up, vanish, never to be regretted, extolled, or recalled in the +memory again. For the disclosure of Mme. Mazarin's true powers an +unusual vehicle was required. _Elektra_ gave her her opportunity, and +proved her one of the exceptional artists of the stage. + +I do not know many of the facts of Mariette Mazarin's career. She +studied at the Paris Conservatoire; Leloir, of the Comedie Francaise, +was her professor of acting. She made her debut at the Paris Opera as +Aida; later she sang Louise and Carmen at the Opera-Comique. After that +she seems to have been a leading figure at the Theatre de la Monnaie in +Brussels, where she appeared in _Alceste_, _Armide_, _Iphigenie en +Tauride_ and _Iphigenie en Aulide_, even _Orphee_, the great Gluck +repertoire. She has also sung Salome, the three Bruennhildes, Elsa in +_Lohengrin_, Elisabeth in _Tannhaeuser_, in Berlioz's _Prise de Troie_, +_La Damnation de Faust_, _Les Huguenots_, _Griselidis_, _Thais_, _Il +Trovatore_, _Tosca_, _Manon Lescaut_, _Cavalleria Rusticana_, +_Herodiade_, _Le Cid_, and _Salammbo_. She has been heard at Nice, and +probably on many another provincial French stage. At one time she was +the wife of Leon Rothier, the French bass, who has been a member of the +Metropolitan Opera Company for several seasons. + +Away from the theatre I remember her as a tall woman, rather awkward, +but quick in gesture. Her hair was dark, and her eyes were dark and +piercing. Her face was all angles; her features were sharp, and when +conversing with her one could not but be struck with a certain eerie +quality which seemed to give mystic colour to her expression. She was +badly dressed, both from an aesthetic and a fashionable point of view. In +a group of women you would pick her out to be a doctor, a lawyer, an +_intellectuelle_. When I talked with her, impression followed +impression--always I felt her intelligence, the play of her intellect +upon the surfaces of her art, but always, too, I felt how narrow a +chance had cast her lot upon the stage, how she easily might have been +something else than a singing actress, how magnificently accidental her +career was! + +She was, it would seem, an unusually gifted musician--at least for a +singer,--with a physique and a nervous energy which enabled her to +perform miracles. For instance, on one occasion she astonished even +Oscar Hammerstein by replacing Lina Cavalieri as Salome in _Herodiade_, +a role she had not previously sung for five years, at an hour's notice +on the evening of an afternoon on which she had appeared as Elektra. On +another occasion, when Mary Garden was ill she sang Louise with only a +short forewarning. She told me that she had learned the music of Elektra +between January 1, 1910, and the night of the first performance, January +31. She also told me that without any special effort on her part she had +assimilated the music of the other two important feminine roles in the +opera, Chrysothemis and Klytaemnestra, and was quite prepared to sing +them. Mme. Mazarin's vocal organ, it must be admitted, was not of a very +pleasant quality at all times, although she employed it with variety and +usually with taste. There was a good deal of subtle charm in her middle +voice, but her upper voice was shrill and sometimes, when emitted +forcefully, became in effect a shriek. Faulty intonation often played +havoc with her musical interpretation, but do we not read that the great +Mme. Pasta seldom sang an opera through without many similar slips from +the pitch? _Aida_, of course, displayed the worst side of her talents. +Her Carmen, it seemed to me, was in some ways a very remarkable +performance; she appeared, in this role, to be possessed by a certain +_diablerie_, a power of evil, which distinguished her from other +Carmens, but this characterization created little comment or interest in +New York. In _Louise_, especially in the third act, she betrayed an +enmity for the pitch, but in the last act she was magnificent as an +actress. In Santuzza she exploited her capacity for unreined intensity +of expression. I have never seen her as Salome (in Richard Strauss's +opera; her Massenetic Salome was disclosed to us in New York), but I +have a photograph of her in the role which might serve as an +illustration for the "Mephistophela" of Catulle Mendes. I can imagine no +more sinister and depraved an expression, combined with such potent +sexual attraction. It is a remarkable photograph, evoking as it does a +succession of lustful ladies, and it is quite unpublishable. If she +carried these qualities into her performance of the work, and there is +every reason to believe that she did, the evenings on which she sang +Salome must have been very terrible for her auditors, hours in which the +Aristotle theory of Katharsis must have been amply proven. + +_Elektra_ was well advertised in New York. Oscar Hammerstein is as able +a showman as the late P. T. Barnum, and he has devoted his talents to +higher aims. Without his co-operation, I think it is likely that America +would now be a trifle above Australia in its operatic experience. It is +from Oscar Hammerstein that New York learned that all the great singers +of the world were not singing at the Metropolitan Opera House, a matter +which had been considered axiomatic before the redoubtable Oscar +introduced us to Alessandro Bonci, Maurice Renaud, Charles Dalmores, +Mary Garden, Luisa Tetrazzini, and others. With his productions of +_Pelleas et Melisande_, _Louise_, _Thais_, and other works new to us, he +spurred the rival house to an activity which has been maintained ever +since to a greater or less degree. New operas are now the order of the +day--even with the Chicago and the Boston companies--rather than the +exception. And without this impresario's courage and determination I do +not think New York would have heard _Elektra_, at least not before its +uncorked essence had quite disappeared. Lover of opera that he +indubitably is, Oscar Hammerstein is by nature a showman, and he +understands the psychology of the mob. Looking about for a sensation to +stir the slow pulse of the New York opera-goer, he saw nothing on the +horizon more likely to effect his purpose than _Elektra_. _Salome_, +spurned by the Metropolitan Opera Company, had been taken to his heart +the year before and, with Mary Garden's valuable assistance, he had +found the biblical jade extremely efficacious in drawing shekels to his +doors. He hoped to accomplish similar results with _Elektra_.... + +One of the penalties an inventor of harmonies pays is that his +inventions become shopworn. A certain terrible atmosphere, a suggestion +of vague dread, of horror, of rank incest, of vile murder, of sordid +shame, was conveyed in _Elektra_ by Richard Strauss through the adroit +use of what we call discords, for want of a better name. Discord at one +time was defined as a combination of sounds that would eternally affront +the musical ear. We know better now. Discord is simply the word to +describe a never-before or seldom-used chord. Such a juxtaposition of +notes naturally startles when it is first heard, but it is a mistake to +presume that the effect is unpleasant, even in the beginning. + +Now it was by the use of sounds cunningly contrived to displease the ear +that Strauss built up his atmosphere of ugliness in _Elektra_. When it +was first performed, the scenes in which the half-mad Greek girl stalked +the palace courtyard, and the queen with the blood-stained hands related +her dreams, literally reeked with musical frightfulness. I have never +seen or heard another music drama which so completely bowled over its +first audiences, whether they were street-car conductors or musical +pedants. These scenes even inspired a famous passage in +"Jean-Christophe" (I quote from the translation of Gilbert Cannon): +"Agamemnon was neurasthenic and Achilles impotent; they lamented their +condition at length and, naturally, their outcries produced no change. +The energy of the drama was concentrated in the role of Iphigenia--a +nervous, hysterical, and pedantic Iphigenia, who lectured the hero, +declaimed furiously, laid bare for the audience her Nietzschian +pessimism and, glutted with death, cut her throat, shrieking with +laughter." + +But will _Elektra_ have the same effect on future audiences? I do not +think so. Its terror has, in a measure, been dissipated. Schoenberg, +Strawinsky, and Ornstein have employed its discords--and many newer +ones--for pleasanter purposes, and our ears are becoming accustomed to +these assaults on the casual harmony of our forefathers. _Elektra_ will +retain its place as a forerunner, and inevitably it will eventually be +considered the most important of Strauss's operatic works, but it can +never be listened to again in that same spirit of horror and repentance, +with that feeling of utter repugnance, which it found easy to awaken in +1910. Perhaps all of us were a little better for the experience. + +An attendant at the opening ceremonies in New York can scarcely forget +them. Cast under the spell by the early entrance of Elektra, wild-eyed +and menacing, across the terrace of the courtyard of Agamemnon's palace, +he must have remained with staring eyes and wide-flung ears, straining +for the remainder of the evening to catch the message of this tale of +triumphant and utterly holy revenge. The key of von Hofmannsthal's fine +play was lost to some reviewers, as it was to Romain Rolland in the +passage quoted above, who only saw in the drama a perversion of the +Greek idea of Nemesis. That there was something very much finer in the +theme, it was left for Bernard Shaw to discover. To him _Elektra_ +expressed the regeneration of a race, the destruction of vice, +ignorance, and poverty. The play was replete in his mind with +sociological and political implications, and, as his views in the matter +exactly coincide with my own, I cannot do better than to quote a few +lines from them, including, as they do, his interesting prophecies +regarding the possibility of war between England and Germany, +unfortunately unfulfilled. Strauss could not quite prevent the war with +his _Elektra_. Here is the passage: + +"What Hofmannsthal and Strauss have done is to take Klytaemnestra and +AEgisthus, and by identifying them with everything evil and cruel, with +all that needs must hate the highest when it sees it, with hideous +domination and coercion of the higher by the baser, with the murderous +rage in which the lust for a lifetime of orgiastic pleasure turns on its +slaves in the torture of its disappointment, and the sleepless horror +and misery of its neurasthenia, to so rouse in us an overwhelming flood +of wrath against it and a ruthless resolution to destroy it that +Elektra's vengeance becomes holy to us, and we come to understand how +even the gentlest of us could wield the ax of Orestes or twist our firm +fingers in the black hair of Klytaemnestra to drag back her head and +leave her throat open to the stroke. + +"This was a task hardly possible to an ancient Greek, and not easy even +for us, who are face to face with the America of the Thaw case and the +European plutocracy of which that case was only a trifling symptom, and +that is the task that Hofmannsthal and Strauss have achieved. Not even +in the third scene of _Das Rheingold_ or in the Klingsor scene in +_Parsifal_ is there such an atmosphere of malignant, cancerous evil as +we get here and that the power with which it is done is not the power of +the evil itself, but of the passion that detests and must and finally +can destroy that evil is what makes the work great and makes us rejoice +in its horror. + +"Whoever understands this, however vaguely, will understand Strauss's +music. I have often said, when asked to state the case against the fools +and the money changers who are trying to drive us into a war with +Germany, that the case consists of the single word 'Beethoven.' To-day I +should say with equal confidence 'Strauss.' In this music drama Strauss +has done for us with utterly satisfying force what all the noblest +powers of life within us are clamouring to have said in protest against +and defiance of the omnipresent villainies of our civilization, and this +is the highest achievement of the highest art." + +Mme. Mazarin was the torch-bearer in New York of this magnificent +creation. She is, indeed, the only singer who has ever appeared in the +role in America, and I have never heard _Elektra_ in Europe. However, +those who have seen other interpreters of the role assure me that Mme. +Mazarin so far outdistanced them as to make comparison impossible. This, +in spite of the fact that _Elektra_ in French necessarily lost something +of its crude force, and through its mild-mannered conductor at the +Manhattan Opera House, who seemed afraid to make a noise, a great deal +more. I did not make any notes about this performance at the time, but +now, seven years later, it is very vivid to me, an unforgettable +impression. Of how many nights in the theatre can I say as much? + +Diabolical ecstasy was the keynote of Mme. Mazarin's interpretation, +gradually developing into utter frenzy. She afterwards assured me that a +visit to a madhouse had given her the inspiration for the gestures and +steps of Elektra in the terrible dance in which she celebrates Orestes's +bloody but righteous deed. The plane of hysteria upon which this singer +carried her heroine by her pure nervous force, indeed reduced many of us +in the audience to a similar state. The conventional operatic mode was +abandoned; even the grand manner of the theatre was flung aside; with a +wide sweep of the imagination, the singer cast the memory of all such +baggage from her, and proceeded along vividly direct lines to make her +impression. + +[Illustration: MARIETTE MAZARIN AS ELEKTRA + +_From a photograph by Mishkin (1910)_] + +The first glimpse of the half-mad princess, creeping dirty and ragged, +to the accompaniment of cracking whips, across the terraced courtyard of +the palace, was indeed not calculated to stir tears in the eyes. The +picture was vile and repugnant; so perhaps was the appeal to the sister +whose only wish was to bear a child, but Mme. Mazarin had her design; +her measurements were well taken. In the wild cry to Agamemnon, the +dignity and pathos of the character were established, and these +qualities were later emphasized in the scene of her meeting with +Orestes, beautiful pages in von Hofmannsthal's play and Strauss's score. +And in the dance of the poor demented creature at the close the full +beauty and power and meaning of the drama were disclosed in a few +incisive strokes. Elektra's mind had indeed given way under the strain +of her sufferings, brought about by her long waiting for vengeance, but +it had given way under the light of holy triumph. Such indeed were the +fundamentals of this tremendously moving characterization, a +characterization which one must place, perforce, in that great memory +gallery where hang the Melisande of Mary Garden, the Isolde of Olive +Fremstad, and the Boris Godunow of Feodor Chaliapine. + +It was not alone in her acting that Mme. Mazarin walked on the heights. +I know of no other singer with the force or vocal equipment for this +difficult role. At the time this music drama was produced its intervals +were considered in the guise of unrelated notes. It was the cry that the +voice parts were written without reference to the orchestral score, and +that these wandered up and down without regard for the limitations of a +singer. Since _Elektra_ was first performed we have travelled far, and +now that we have heard _The Nightingale_ of Strawinsky, for instance, +perusal of Strauss's score shows us a perfectly ordered and +understandable series of notes. Even now, however, there are few of our +singers who could cope with the music of _Elektra_ without devoting a +good many months to its study, and more time to the physical exercise +needful to equip one with the force necessary to carry through the +undertaking. Mme. Mazarin never faltered. She sang the notes with +astonishing accuracy; nay, more, with potent vocal colour. Never did the +orchestral flood o'er-top her flow of sound. With consummate skill she +realized the composer's intentions as completely as she had those of the +poet. + +Those who were present at the first American performance of this work +will long bear the occasion in mind. The outburst of applause which +followed the close of the play was almost hysterical in quality, and +after a number of recalls Mme. Mazarin fainted before the curtain. Many +in the audience remained long enough to receive the reassuring news that +she had recovered. As a reporter of musical doings on the "New York +Times," I sought information as to her condition at the dressing-room of +the artist. Somewhere between the auditorium and the stage, in a +passageway, I encountered Mrs. Patrick Campbell, who, a short time +before, had appeared at the Garden Theatre in Arthur Symons's +translation of von Hofmannsthal's drama. Although we had never met +before, in the excitement of the moment we became engaged in +conversation, and I volunteered to escort her to Mme. Mazarin's room, +where she attempted to express her enthusiasm. Then I asked her if she +would like to meet Mr. Hammerstein, and she replied that it was her +great desire at this moment to meet the impresario and to thank him for +the indelible impression this evening in the theatre had given her. I +led her to the corner of the stage where he sat, in his high hat, +smoking his cigar, and I presented her to him. "But Mrs. Campbell was +introduced to me only three minutes ago," he said. She stammered her +acknowledgment of the fact. "It's true," she said. "I have been so +completely carried out of myself that I had forgotten!" + +_August 22, 1916._ + + + + +Yvette Guilbert + + "_She sings of life, and mirth and all that moves_ + _Man's fancy in the carnival of loves;_ + _And a chill shiver takes me as she sings_ + _The pity of unpitied human things._" + + Arthur Symons. + + +The natural evolution of Gordon Craig's theory of the stage finally +brought him to the point where he would dispense altogether with the +play and the actor. The artist-producer would stand alone. Yvette +Guilbert has accomplished this very feat, and accomplished it without +the aid of super-marionettes. She still uses songs as her medium, but +she has very largely discarded the authors and composers of these songs, +recreating them with her own charm and wit and personality and brain. A +song as Yvette Guilbert sings it exists only for a brief moment. It does +not exist on paper, as you will discover if you seek out the printed +version, and it certainly does not exist in the performance of any one +else. Not that most of her songs are not worthy material, chosen as they +are from the store-houses of a nation's treasures, but that her +interpretations are so individual, so charged with deep personal +feeling, so emended, so added to, so embellished with grunts, shrieks, +squeaks, trills, spoken words, extra bars, or even added lines to the +text; so performed that their performance itself constitutes a veritable +(and, unfortunately, an extremely perishable) work of art. Sometimes, +indeed, it has seemed to me that the genius of this remarkable +Frenchwoman could express itself directly, without depending upon songs. + +She could have given no more complete demonstration of the inimitability +of this genius than by her recent determination to lecture on the art of +interpreting songs. Never has Yvette been more fascinating, never more +authoritative than during those three afternoons at Maxine Elliott's +Theatre, devoted ostensibly to the dissection of her method, but before +she had unpacked a single instrument it must have been perfectly obvious +to every auditor in the hall that she was taking great pains to explain +just how impossible it would be for any one to follow in her footsteps, +for any one to imitate her astonishing career. With evident candour and +a multiplicity of detail she told the story of how she had built up her +art. She told how she studied the words of her songs, how she planned +them, what a large part the plasticity of her body played in their +interpretation, and when she was done all she had said only went to +prove that there is but one Yvette Guilbert. + +She stripped all pretence from her vocal method, explained how she sang +now in her throat, now falsetto. "When I wish to make a certain sound +for a certain effect I practise by myself until I succeed in making it. +That is my vocal method. I never had a teacher. I would not trust my +voice to a teacher!" Her method of learning to breathe was a practical +one. She took the refrain of a little French song to work upon. She made +herself learn to sing the separate phrases of this song without +breathing; then two phrases together, etc., until she could sing the +refrain straight through without taking a breath. Ratan Devi has told me +that Indian singers, who never study vocalization in the sense that we +do, are adepts in the art of breathing. "They breathe naturally and with +no difficulty because it never occurs to them to distort a phrase by +interrupting it for breath. They have respect for the phrase and sing it +through. When you study with an occidental music teacher you will find +that he will mark little Vs on the page indicating where the pupil may +take breath until he can capture the length of the phrase. This method +would be incomprehensible to a Hindu or to any other oriental." The +wonderful breath control of Hebrew cantors who sing long and florid +phrases without interruption is another case of the same kind. + +Mme. Guilbert finds her effects everywhere, in nature, in art, in +literature. When she was composing her interpretation of _La Soularde_ +she searched in vain for the cry of the thoughtless children as they +stone the poor drunken hag, until she discovered it, quite by accident +one evening at the Comedie Francaise, in the shriek of Mounet-Sully in +_Oedipe-Roi_. In studying the _Voyage a Bethleem_, one of the most +popular songs of her repertoire, she felt the need of breaking the +monotony of the stanzas. It was her own idea to interpolate the +watchman's cry of the hours, and to add the jubilant coda, _Il est ne, +le divin enfant_, extracted from another song of the same period. With +Guilbert nothing is left to chance. Do you remember one of her most +celebrated chansons, _Notre Petite Compagne_ of Jules Laforgue, which +she sings so strikingly to a Waldteufel waltz, + + _Je suis la femme,_ + _On me connait._ + +Her interpretation belies the lines. She has contrived to put all the +mystery of the sphinx into her rendering of them. How has she done this? +By means of the cigarette which she smokes throughout the song. She has +confessed as much. Always on the lookout for material which will assist +her in perfecting her art she has observed that when a woman smokes a +cigarette her expression becomes inscrutable. Her effects are +cumulative, built up out of an inexhaustible fund of detail. In those +songs in which she professes to do the least she is really doing the +most. Have you heard her sing _Le Lien Serre_ and witnessed the +impression she produces by sewing, a piece of action not indicated in +the text of the song? Have you heard her sing _L'Hotel Numero 3_, one of +the repertoire of the _gants noirs_ and the old days of the Divan +Japonais? In this song she does not move her body; she scarcely makes a +gesture, and yet her crisp manner of utterance, her subtle emphasis, her +angular pose, are all that are needed to expose the humour of the ditty. +Much the same comment could be made in regard to her interpretation of +_Le Jeune Homme Triste_. The _apache_ songs, on the contrary, are +replete with gesture. Do you remember the splendid _apache_ saluting his +head before he goes to the guillotine? Again Yvette has given away her +secret: "Naturally I have deep feelings. To be an artist one must feel +intensely, but I find that it is sometimes well to give these feelings a +spur. In this instance I have sewn weights into the lining of the cap of +the _apache_. When I drop the cap it falls with a thud and I am reminded +instinctively of the fall of the knife of the guillotine. This trick +always furnishes me with the thrill I need and I can never sing the +last lines without tears in my eyes and voice." + +It seems ungracious to speak of Yvette Guilbert as a great artist. She +is so much less than that and so much more. She has dedicated her +autobiography to God and it is certain that she believes her genius to +be a holy thing. No one else on the stage to-day has worked so +faithfully, or so long, no one else has so completely fulfilled her +obligations to her art, and certainly no one else is so nearly human. +She compasses the chasm between the artist and the public with ease. She +is even able to do this in America, speaking a foreign tongue, for it +has only been recently that she has learned to speak English freely and +she rarely sings in our language. Her versatility, it seems to me, is +limitless; she expresses the whole world in terms of her own +personality. She never lacks for a method of expression for the effect +she desires to give, and she gives all, heart and brains alike. Now she +is raucous, now tender; have you ever seen so sweet a smile; have you +ever observed so coarse a mien? She can run the gamut from a sleek +priest to a child (as in _C'est le Mai_), from a jealous husband to a +guilty wife (_Le Jaloux et la Menteuse_), from an apache (_Ma Tete_) to +a charming old lady (_Lisette_). + +[Illustration: YVETTE GUILBERT + +_from a photograph by Alice Boughton_] + +It is easy to liken the art of this marvellous woman to something +concrete, to the drawings of Toulouse-Lautrec or Steinlen, the posters +of Cheret ... and there is indeed a suggestion of these men in the work +of Yvette Guilbert. The same broad lines are there, the same ample +style, the same complete effect, but there is more. In certain phases of +her talent, the _gamine_, the _apache_, the _gavroche_, she reflects the +spirit of the inspiration which kindled these painters into creation, +but in other phases, of which _Lisette_, _Les Cloches de Nantes_, _La +Passion_, or _Le Cycle du Vin_ are the expression, you may more readily +compare her style with that of Watteau, Eugene Carriere, Felicien Rops, +or Boucher.... She takes us by the hand through the centuries, offering +us the results of a vast amount of study, a vast amount of erudition, +and a vast amount of work. In so many fine strokes she evokes an epoch. +She has studied the distinction between a curtsey which precedes the +recital of a fable of La Fontaine and a poem of Francis Jammes. She has +closely scrutinized pictures in neglected corridors of the Louvre to +learn the manner in which a cavalier lifts his hat in various periods. +There are those who complain that she emphasizes the dramatic side of +the old French songs, which possibly survive more clearly under more +naive treatment. Her justification in this instance is the complete +success of her method. The songs serve her purpose, even supposing she +does not serve theirs. But a more valid cause for grievance can be urged +against her. Unfortunately and ill-advisedly she has occasionally +carried something of the scientific into an otherwise delightful +matinee, importing a lecturer, like Jean Beck of Bryn Mawr, to analyze +and describe the music of the middle ages, or even becoming pedantic and +professorial herself; sometimes Yvette preaches or, still worse, permits +some one else, dancer, violinist, or singer to usurp her place on the +platform. These interruptions are sorry moments indeed but such lapses +are forgiven with an almost divine graciousness when Yvette interprets +another song. Then the dull or scholarly interpolations are forgotten. + +I cannot, indeed, know where to begin to praise her or where to stop. My +feelings for her performances (which I have seen and heard whenever I +have been able during the past twelve years in Chicago, New York, +London, and Paris) are unequivocal. There are moments when I am certain +that her rendering of _La Passion_ is her supreme achievement and there +are moments when I prefer to see her as the unrestrained purveyor of the +art of the _chansonniers_ of Montmartre--unrestrained, I say, and yet +it is evident to me that she has refined her interpretations of these +songs, revived twenty-five years after she first sang them, bestowed on +them a spirit which originally she could not give them. From the +beginning _Ma Tete_, _La Soularde_, _La Glu_, _La Pierreuse_, and the +others were drawn as graphically as the pictures of Steinlen, but age +has softened her interpretation of them. What formerly was striking has +now become beautiful, what was always astonishing has become a +masterpiece of artistic expression. Once, indeed, these pictures were +sharply etched, but latterly they have been lithographed, drawn softly +on stone.... I have said that I do not know in what song, in what mood, +I prefer Yvette Guilbert. I can never be certain but if I were asked to +choose a programme I think I should include in it _C'est le Mai_, _La +Legende de St. Nicolas_, _Le Roi a Fait Battre Tambour_, _Les Cloches de +Nantes_, _Le Cycle du Vin_, _Le Lien Serre_, _La Glu_, _Lisette_, _La +Femme_, _Que l'Amour Cause de Peine_, and Oh, how many others! + +All art must be beautiful, says Mme. Guilbert, and she has realized the +meaning of what might have been merely a phrase; no matter how sordid or +trivial her subject she has contrived to make of it something beautiful. +She is not, therefore, a realist in any literal signification of the +word (although I doubt if any actress on the stage can evoke more sense +of character than she) because she always smiles and laughs and weeps +with the women she represents; she sympathizes with them, she humanizes +them, where another interpreter would coldly present them for an +audience to take or to leave, exposing them to cruel inspection. Even in +her interpretation of heartless women it is always to our sense of +humour that she appeals, while in her rendering of _Ma Tete_ and _La +Pierreuse_ she strikes directly at our hearts. Zola once told Mme. +Guilbert that the _apaches_ were the logical descendants of the old +chevaliers of France. "They are the only men we have now who will fight +over a woman!" he said. When you hear Mme. Guilbert call "_Pi-ouit!_" +you will readily perceive that she understands what Zola meant. + +Wonderful Yvette, who has embodied so many pleasant images in the +theatre, who has expressed to the world so much of the soul of France, +so much of the soul of art itself, but, above all, so much of the soul +of humanity. It is not alone General Booth who has made friends of +"drabs from the alley-ways and drug fiends pale--Minds still +passion-ridden, soul-powers frail! Vermin-eaten saints with mouldy +breath, unwashed legions with the ways of death": these are all friends +of Yvette Guilbert too. And when Balzac wrote the concluding paragraph +of "Massimila Doni" he may have foreseen the later application of the +lines.... Surely "the peris, nymphs, fairies, sylphs of the olden time, +the muses of Greece, the marble Virgins of the Certosa of Pavia, the Day +and Night of Michael Angelo, the little angels that Bellini first drew +at the foot of church paintings, and to whom Raphael gave such divine +form at the foot of the Vierge au donataire, and of the Madonna freezing +at Dresden; Orcagna's captivating maidens in the Church of Or San +Michele at Florence, the heavenly choirs on the tombs of St. Sebald at +Nuremberg, several Virgins in the Duomo at Milan, the hordes of a +hundred Gothic cathedrals, the whole nation of figures who break their +forms to come to you, O all-embracing artists--" surely, surely, all +these hover over Yvette Guilbert. + +_April 16, 1917._ + + + + +Waslav Nijinsky + + +"_A thing of beauty is a boy forever._" + +Allen Norton. + + +Serge de Diaghilew brought the dregs of the Russian Ballet to New York +and, after a first greedy gulp, inspired by curiosity to get a taste of +this highly advertised beverage, the public drank none too greedily. The +scenery and the costumes, designed by Bakst, Roerich, Benois, and +Larionow, and the music of Rimsky-Korsakow, Tcherepnine, Schumann, +Borodine, Balakirew, and Strawinsky--especially Strawinsky--arrived. It +was to be deplored, however, that Bakst had seen fit to replace the +original _decor_ of _Scheherazade_ by a new setting in rawer colours, in +which the flaming orange fairly burned into the ultramarine and green +(readers of "A Rebours" will remember that des Esseintes designed a room +something like this). A few of the dancers came, but of the best not a +single one. Nor was Fokine, the dancer-producer, who devised the +choregraphy for _The Firebird_, _Cleopatre_, and _Petrouchka_, among the +number, although his presence had been announced and expected. To those +enthusiasts, and they included practically every one who had seen the +Ballet in its greater glory, who had prepared their friends for an +overwhelmingly brilliant spectacle, over-using the phrase, "a perfect +union of the arts," the early performances in January, 1916, at the +Century Theatre were a great disappointment. Often had we urged that the +individual played but a small part in this new and gorgeous +entertainment, but now we were forced to admit that the ultimate glamour +was lacking in the ensemble, which was obviously no longer the glad, gay +entity it once had been. + +The picture was still there, the music (not always too well played) but +the interpretation was mediocre. The agile Miassine could scarcely be +called either a great dancer or a great mime. He had been chosen by +Diaghilew for the role of Joseph in Richard Strauss's version of the +Potiphar legend but, during the course of a London season carried +through without the co-operation of Nijinsky, this was the only part +allotted to him. In New York he interpreted, not without humour and with +some technical skill, the incidental divertissement from +Rimsky-Korsakow's opera, _The Snow-Maiden_, against a vivid background +by Larionow. The uninspired choregraphy of this ballet was also ascribed +to Miassine by the programme, although probably in no comminatory +spirit. In the small role of Eusebius in _Carneval_ and in the +negligible part of the Prince in _The Firebird_ he was entirely +satisfactory, but it was impertinent of the direction to assume that he +would prove an adequate substitute for Nijinsky in roles to which that +dancer had formerly applied his extremely finished art. + +Adolf Bolm contributed his portraits of the Moor in _Petrouchka_, of +Pierrot in _Carneval_, and of the Chief Warrior in the dances from +_Prince Igor_. These three roles completely express the possibilities of +Bolm as a dancer or an actor, and sharply define his limitations. His +other parts, Dakon in _Daphnis et Chloe_--Sadko, the Prince in _Thamar_, +Amoun in _Cleopatre_, the Slave in _Scheherazade_, and Pierrot in +_Papillons_, are only variations on the three afore-mentioned themes. +His friends often confuse his vitality and abundant energy with a sense +of characterization and a skill as a dancer which he does not possess. +For the most part he is content to express himself by stamping his heels +and gnashing his teeth, and when, as in _Cleopatre_, he attempts to +convey a more subtle meaning to his general gesture, he is not very +successful. Bolm is an interesting and useful member of the +organization, but he could not make or unmake a season; nor could +Gavrilow, who is really a fine dancer in his limited way, although he +is unfortunately lacking in magnetism and any power of characterization. + +But it was on the distaff side of the cast that the Ballet seemed +pitifully undistinguished, even to those who did not remember the early +Paris seasons when the roster included the names of Anna Pavlowa, Tamara +Karsavina, Caterina Gheltzer, and Ida Rubinstein. The leading feminine +dancer of the troupe when it gave its first exhibitions in New York was +Xenia Maclezova, who had not, so far as my memory serves, danced in any +London or Paris season of the Ballet (except for one gala performance at +the Paris Opera which preceded the American tour), unless in some very +menial capacity. This dancer, like so many others, had the technique of +her art at her toes' ends. Sarah Bernhardt once told a reporter that the +acquirement of technique never did any harm to an artist, and if one +were not an artist it was not a bad thing to have. I have forgotten how +many times Mlle. Maclezova could pirouette without touching the toe in +the air to the floor, but it was some prodigious number. She was +past-mistress of the _entrechat_ and other mysteries of the ballet +academy. Here, however, her knowledge of her art seemed to end, in the +subjugation of its very mechanism. She was very nearly lacking in those +qualities of grace, poetry, and imagination with which great artists are +freely endowed, and although she could not actually have been a woman of +more than average weight, she often conveyed to the spectator an +impression of heaviness. In such a work as _The Firebird_ she really +offended the eye. Far from interpreting the ballet, she gave you an idea +of how it should not be done. + +Her season with the Russians was terminated in very short order, and +Lydia Lopoukova, who happened to be in America, and who, indeed, had +already been engaged for certain roles, was rushed into her vacant +slippers. Now Mme. Lopoukova had charm as a dancer, whatever her +deficiencies in technique. In certain parts, notably as Colombine in +_Carneval,_ she assumed a roguish demeanor which was very fetching. As +La Ballerine in _Petrouchka,_ too, she met all the requirements of the +action. But in _Le Spectre de la Rose_, _Les Sylphides_, _The Firebird_, +and _La Princesse Enchantee_, she floundered hopelessly out of her +element. + +Tchernicheva, one of the lesser but more steadfast luminaries of the +Ballet, in the roles for which she was cast, the principal Nymph in +_L'Apres-midi d'un Faune_, Echo in _Narcisse_, and the Princess in _The +Firebird_, more than fulfilled her obligations to the ensemble, but her +opportunities in these mimic plays were not of sufficient importance to +enable her to carry the brunt of the performances on her lovely +shoulders. Flore Revalles was drafted, I understand, from a French opera +company. I have been told that she sings--Tosca is one of her roles--as +well as she dances. That may very well be. To impressionable spectators +she seemed a real _femme fatale_. Her Cleopatre suggested to me a +Parisian _cocotte_ much more than an Egyptian queen. It would be +blasphemy to compare her with Ida Rubinstein in this role--Ida +Rubinstein, who was true Aubrey Beardsley! In Thamar and Zobeide, both +to a great extent dancing roles, Mlle. Revalles, both as dancer and +actress, was but a frail substitute for Karsavina. + +The remainder of the company was adequate, but not large, and the +ensemble was by no means as brilliant as those who had seen the Ballet +in London or Paris might have expected. Nor in the absence of Fokine, +that master of detail, were performances sufficiently rehearsed. There +was, of course, explanation in plenty for this disintegration. +Gradually, indeed, the Ballet as it had existed in Europe had suffered a +change. Only a miracle and a fortune combined would have sufficed to +hold the original company intact. It was not held intact, and the war +made further inroads on its integrity. Then, for the trip to America +many of the dancers probably were inclined to demand double pay. +Undoubtedly, Serge de Diaghilew had many more troubles than those which +were celebrated in the public prints, and it must be admitted that, even +with his weaker company, he gave us finer exhibitions of stage art than +had previously been even the exception here. + +In the circumstances, however, certain pieces, which were originally +produced when the company was in the flush of its first glory, should +never have been presented here at all. It was not the part of reason, +for example, to pitchfork on the Century stage an indifferent +performance of _Le Pavilion d'Armide_, in which Nijinsky once disported +himself as the favourite slave, and which, as a matter of fact, requires +a company of _virtuosi_ to make it a passable diversion. _Cleopatre_, in +its original form with Nijinsky, Fokine, Pavlowa, Ida Rubinstein, and +others, hit all who saw it square between the eyes. The absurdly +expurgated edition, with its inadequate cast, offered to New York, was +but the palest shadow of the sensuous entertainment that had aroused all +Paris, from the Batignolles to the Bastille. The music, the setting, the +costumes--what else was left to celebrate? The altered choregraphy, the +deplorable interpretation, drew tears of rage from at least one pair of +eyes. It was quite incomprehensible also why _The Firebird_, which +depends on the grace and poetical imagination of the filmiest and most +fairy-like actress-dancer, should have found a place in the repertoire. +It is the dancing equivalent of a coloratura soprano role in opera. +Thankful, however, for the great joy of having re-heard Strawinsky's +wonderful score, I am willing to overlook this tactical error. + +All things considered, it is small wonder that a large slice of the +paying population of New York tired of the Ballet in short order. One +reason for this cessation of interest was the constant repetition of +ballets. In London and Paris the seasons as a rule have been shorter, +and on certain evenings of the week opera has taken the place of the +dance. It has been rare indeed that a single work has been repeated more +than three or four times during an engagement. I have not found it +stupid to listen to and look at perhaps fifteen performances of varying +degrees of merit of _Petrouchka_, _Scheherazade_, _Carneval_, and the +dances from _Prince Igor_; I would rather see the Russian Ballet +repeatedly, even as it existed in America, than four thousand five +hundred and six Broadway plays or seventy-three operas at the +Metropolitan once, but I dare say I may look upon myself as an +exception. + +At any rate, when the company entered upon a four weeks' engagement at +the Metropolitan Opera House, included in the regular subscription +season of opera, the subscribers groaned; many of them groaned aloud, +and wrote letters to the management and to the newspapers. To be sure, +during the tour which had followed the engagement at the Century the +repertoire had been increased, but the company remained the same--until +the coming of Waslav Nijinsky. + +When America was first notified of the impending visit of the Russian +Ballet it was also promised that Waslav Nijinsky and Tamara Karsavina +would head the organization. It was no fault of the American direction +or of Serge de Diaghilew that they did not do so. Various excuses were +advanced for the failure of Karsavina to forsake her family in Russia +and to undertake the journey to the United States but, whatever the +cause, there seems to remain no doubt that she refused to come. As for +Nijinsky, he, with his wife, had been a prisoner in an Austrian +detention camp since the beginning of the war. Wheels were set grinding +but wheels grind slowly in an epoch of international bloodshed, and it +was not until March, 1916, that the Austrian ambassador at Washington +was able to announce that Nijinsky had been set free. + +I do not believe the coming to this country of any other celebrated +person had been more widely advertised, although P. T. Barnum may have +gone further in describing the charitable and vocal qualities of Jenny +Lind. Nijinsky had been extravagantly praised, not only by the official +press representatives but also by eminent critics and private persons, +in adjectives which seemed to preclude any possibility of his living up +to them. I myself had been among the paean singers. I had thrust +"half-man, half-god" into print. "A flame!" cried some one. Another, "A +jet of water from a fountain!" Such men in the street as had taken the +trouble to consider the subject at all very likely expected the arrival +of some stupendous and immortal monstrosity, a gravity-defying being +with sixteen feet (at least), who bounded like a rubber ball, never +touching the solid stage except at the beginning and end of the +evening's performance. + +Nijinsky arrived in April. Almost immediately he gave vent to one of +those expressions of temperament often associated with interpretative +genius, the kind of thing I have described at some length in "Music and +Bad Manners." He was not at all pleased with the Ballet as he found it. +Interviewed, he expressed his displeasure in the newspapers. The +managers of the organization wisely remained silent, and a controversy +was avoided, but the public had received a suggestion of petulance which +could not contribute to the popularity of the new dancer. + +Nijinsky danced for the first time in New York on the afternoon of April +12, at the Metropolitan Opera House. The pieces in which he appeared on +that day were _Le Spectre de la Rose_ and _Petrouchka_. Some of us +feared that eighteen months in a detention camp would have stamped their +mark on the dancer. As a matter of fact his connection with the Russian +Ballet had been severed in 1913, a year before the war began. I can say +for myself that I was probably a good deal more nervous than Nijinsky on +the occasion of his first appearance in America. It would have been a +cruel disappointment to me to have discovered that his art had perished +during the intervening three years since I had last seen him. My fears +were soon dissipated. A few seconds after he as the Rose Ghost had +bounded through the window, it was evident that he was in possession of +all his powers; nay, more, that he had added to the refinement and +polish of his style. I had called Nijinsky's dancing perfection in years +gone by, because it so far surpassed that of his nearest rival; now he +had surpassed himself. True artists, indeed, have a habit of +accomplishing this feat. I may call to your attention the careers of +Olive Fremstad, Yvette Guilbert, and Marie Tempest. Later I learned that +this first impression might be relied on. Nijinsky, in sooth, has now no +rivals upon the stage. One can only compare him with himself! + +The Weber-Gautier dance-poem, from the very beginning until the end, +when he leaps out of the window of the girl's chamber into the night, +affords this great actor-dancer one of his most grateful opportunities. +It is in this very part, perhaps, which requires almost unceasing +exertion for nearly twelve minutes, that Nijinsky's powers of +co-ordination, mental, imaginative, muscular, are best displayed. His +dancing is accomplished in that flowing line, without a break between +poses and gestures, which is the despair of all novices and almost all +other _virtuosi_. After a particularly difficult leap or toss of the +legs or arms, it is a marvel to observe how, without an instant's pause +to regain his poise, he rhythmically glides into the succeeding +gesture. His dancing has the unbroken quality of music, the balance of +great painting, the meaning of fine literature, and the emotion inherent +in all these arts. There is something of transmutation in his +performances; he becomes an alembic, transforming movement into a finely +wrought and beautiful work of art. The dancing of Nijinsky is first an +imaginative triumph, and the spectator, perhaps, should not be +interested in further dissection of it, but a more intimate observer +must realize that behind this the effect produced depends on his supreme +command of his muscles. It is not alone the final informing and +magnetized imaginative quality that most other dancers lack; it is also +just this muscular co-ordination. Observe Gavrilow in the piece under +discussion, in which he gives a good imitation of Nijinsky's general +style, and you will see that he is unable to maintain this rhythmic +continuity. + +Nijinsky's achievements become all the more remarkable when one +remembers that he is working with an imperfect physical medium. Away +from the scene he is an insignificant figure, short and ineffective in +appearance. Aside from the pert expression of his eyes, he is like a +dozen other young Russians. Put him unintroduced into a drawing-room +with Jacques Copeau, Orchidee, Doris Keane, Bill Haywood, Edna Kenton, +the Baroness de Meyer, Paulet Thevenaz, the Marchesa Casati, Marcel +Duchamp, Cathleen Nesbitt, H. G. Wells, Anna Pavlowa, Rudyard +Chenneviere, Vladimir Rebikow, Henrie Waste, and Isadora Duncan, and he +probably would pass entirely unnoticed. On the stage it may be observed +that the muscles of his legs are overdeveloped and his ankles are too +large; that is, if you are in the mood for picking flaws, which most of +us are not in the presence of Nijinsky in action. Here, however, +stricture halts confounded; his head is set on his shoulders in a manner +to give satisfaction to a great sculptor, and his torso, with its +slender waist line, is quite beautiful. On the stage, Nijinsky makes of +himself what he will. He can look tall or short, magnificent or ugly, +fascinating or repulsive. Like so many interpretative artists, he +remoulds himself for his public appearances. It is under the electric +light in front of the painted canvas that he becomes a personality, and +that personality is governed only by the scenario of the ballet he is +representing. + +From the day of Nijinsky's arrival, the ensemble of the Ballet improved; +somewhat of the spontaneity of the European performances was regained; +a good deal of the glamour was recaptured; the loose lines were gathered +taut, and the choregraphy of Fokine (Nijinsky is a director as well as a +dancer) was restored to some of its former power. He has appeared in +nine roles in New York during the two short seasons in which he has been +seen with the Russian Ballet here: the Slave in _Scheherazade_, +Petrouchka, the Rose Ghost, the Faun, the Harlequin in _Carneval_, +Narcisse, Till Eulenspiegel, and the principal male roles of _La +Princesse Enchantee_ and _Les Sylphides_. To enjoy the art of Nijinsky +completely, to fully appreciate his genius, it is necessary not only to +see him in a variety of parts, but also to see him in the same role many +times. + +Study the detail of his performance in _Scheherazade_, for example. Its +precision alone is noteworthy. Indeed, precision is a quality we see +exposed so seldom in the theatre that when we find it we are almost +inclined to hail it as genius. The role of the Slave in this ballet is +perhaps Nijinsky's scenic masterpiece--exotic eroticism expressed in so +high a key that its very existence seems incredible on our puritanic +stage, and yet with such great art (the artist always expresses himself +with beauty) that the intention is softened by the execution. Before +the arrival of this dancer, _Scheherazade_ had become a police court +scandal. There had been talk of a "Jim Crow" performance in which the +blacks were to be separated from the whites in the harem, and I am told +that our provincial police magistrates even wanted to replace the +"mattresses"--so were the divans of the sultanas described in court--by +rocking chairs! But to the considerably more vivid _Scheherazade_ of +Nijinsky no exception was taken. This strange, curious, head-wagging, +simian creature, scarce human, wriggled through the play, leaving a long +streak of lust and terror in his wake. Never did Nijinsky as the Negro +Slave touch the Sultana, but his subtle and sensuous fingers fluttered +close to her flesh, clinging once or twice questioningly to a depending +tassel. Pierced by the javelins of the Sultan's men, the Slave's death +struggle might have been revolting and gruesome. Instead, Nijinsky +carried the eye rapidly upward with his tapering feet as they balanced +for the briefest part of a second straight high in the air, only to fall +inert with so brilliantly quick a movement that the aesthetic effect +grappled successfully with the feeling of disgust which might have been +aroused. This was acting, this was characterization, so completely +merged in rhythm that the result became a perfect whole, and not a +combination of several intentions, as so often results from the work of +an actor-dancer. + +The heart-breaking Petrouchka, the roguish Harlequin, the Chopiniac of +_Les Sylphides_,--all were offered to our view; and _Narcisse_, in which +Nijinsky not only did some very beautiful dancing, but posed (as the +Greek youth admired himself in the mirror of the pool) with such utter +and arresting grace that even here he awakened a definite thrill. In _La +Princesse Enchantee_ he merely danced, but how he danced! Do you who saw +him still remember those flickering fingers and toes? "He winketh with +his eyes, he speaketh with his feet, he teacheth with his fingers," is +written in the Book of Proverbs, and the writer might have had in mind +Nijinsky in _La Princesse Enchantee_. All these parts were +differentiated, all completely realized, in the threefold intricacy of +this baffling art, which perhaps is not an art at all until it is so +realized, when its plastic, rhythmic, and histrionic elements become an +entity. + +After a summer in Spain and Switzerland, without Nijinsky, the Russian +Ballet returned to America for a second season, opening at the Manhattan +Opera House October 16, 1916. It is always a delight to hear and see +performances in this theatre, and it was found that the brilliance of +the Ballet was much enhanced by its new frame. The season, however, +opened with a disappointment. It had been announced that Nijinsky would +dance on the first night his choregraphic version of Richard Strauss's +tone-poem, _Till Eulenspiegel_. It is not the first time that a press +agent has made a false prophecy. While rehearsing the new work, Nijinsky +twisted his ankle, and during the first week of the engagement he did +not appear at all. This was doubly unfortunate, because the company was +weaker than it had been the previous season, lacking both Miassine and +Tchernicheva. The only novelty (for America) produced during the first +week was an arrangement of the divertissement from Rimsky-Korsakow's +opera, _Sadko_, which had already been given a few times in Paris and +London by the Ballet, never with conspicuous success. The second week of +the season, Nijinsky returned to appear in three roles, the Faun, Till +Eulenspiegel, and the Slave in _Scheherazade_. Of his performance to +Debussy's lovely music I have written elsewhere; nor did this new vision +cause me to revise my opinions. + +_Till Eulenspiegel_ is the only new ballet the Russians have produced in +America. (_Soleil de Nuit_ was prepared in Europe, and performed once at +the Paris Opera before it was seen in New York. Besides, it was an +arrangement of dances from an opera which is frequently given in Russia +and which has been presented at the Opera-Comique in Paris.) The _chef +d'orchestre_, Pierre Monteux, refused to direct performances of this +work, on the ground that the composer was not only a German, but a very +much alive and active German patriot. On the occasions, therefore, that +_Till_ was performed in New York, the orchestra struggled along under +the baton of Dr. Anselm Goetzl. In selecting this work and in his +arrangement of the action Nijinsky was moved, no doubt, by consideration +for the limitations of the company as it existed,--from which he was +able to secure the effects he desired. The scenery and costumes by +Robert E. Jones, of New York, were decidedly diverting--the best work +this talented young man has done, I think. Over a deep, spreading +background of ultramarine, the crazy turrets of mediaeval castles leaned +dizzily to and fro. The costumes were exaggerations of the exaggerated +fashions of the Middle Ages. Mr. Jones added feet of stature to the +already elongated peaked headdresses of the period. The trains of the +velvet robes, which might have extended three yards, were allowed to +trail the full depth of the Manhattan Opera House stage. The colours +were oranges, reds, greens, and blues, those indeed of Bakst's +_Scheherazade_, but so differently disposed that they made an entirely +dissimilar impression. The effect reminded one spectator of a Spanish +omelet. + +In arranging the scenario, Nijinsky followed in almost every detail +Wilhelm Klatte's description of the meaning of the music, which is +printed in programme books whenever the tone-poem is performed, without +Strauss's authority, but sometimes with his sanction. Nijinsky was quite +justified in altering the end of the work, which hangs the rogue-hero, +into another practical joke. His version of this episode fits the music +and, in the original _Till Eulenspiegel_ stories, Till is not hanged, +but dies in bed. The keynote of Nijinsky's interpretation was gaiety. He +was as utterly picaresque as the work itself; he reincarnated the spirit +of Gil Blas; indeed, a new quality crept into stage expression through +this characterization. Margaret Wycherly, one of the most active +admirers of the dancer, told me after the first performance that she +felt that he had for the first time leaped into the hearts of the great +American public, whose appreciation of his subtler art as expressed in +_Narcisse_, _Petrouchka_, and even _Scheherazade_, had been more +moderate. There were those who protested that this was not the Till of +the German legends, but any actor who attempts to give form to a folk +or historical character, or even a character derived from fiction, is +forced to run counter to many an observer's preconceived ideas. + +[Illustration: WASLAV NIJINSKY IN DEBUSSY'S _JEUX_ (1913)] + +"It is an error to believe that pantomime is merely a way of doing +without words," writes Arthur Symons," that it is merely the equivalent +of words. Pantomime is thinking overheard. It begins and ends before +words have formed themselves, in a deeper consciousness than that of +speech. And it addresses itself, by the artful limitations of its craft, +to universal human experience, knowing that the moment it departs from +those broad lines it will become unintelligible. It risks existence on +its own perfection, as the rope-dancer does, to whom a false step means +a down-fall. And it appeals democratically to people of all nations.... +And pantomime has that mystery which is one of the requirements of true +art. To watch it is like dreaming. How silently, in dreams, one gathers +the unheard sounds of words from the lips that do but make pretence of +saying them! And does not every one know that terrifying impossibility +of speaking which fastens one to the ground for the eternity of a +second, in what is the new, perhaps truer, computation of time in +dreams? Something like that sense of suspense seems to hang over the +silent actors in pantomime, giving them a nervous exaltation, which has +its subtle, immediate effect upon us, in tragic and comic situation. The +silence becomes an atmosphere, and with a very curious power of giving +distinction to form and motion. I do not see why people should ever +break silence on the stage except to speak poetry. Here, in pantomime, +you have a gracious, expressive silence, beauty of gesture, a perfectly +discreet appeal to the emotions, a transposition of the world into an +elegant accepted convention." + +Arthur Symons wrote these words before he had seen the Russian Ballet, +before the Russian Ballet, as we know it, existed, indeed, before +Nijinsky had begun to dance in public, and he felt that the addition of +poetry and music to pantomime--the Wagner music-drama in other +words--brought about a perfect combination of the arts. Nevertheless, +there is an obvious application of his remarks to the present instance. +There is, indeed, the quality of a dream about the characters Nijinsky +presents to us. I remember once, at a performance of the Russian Ballet, +I sat in a box next to a most intelligent man, a writer himself; I was +meeting him for the first time, and he was seeing the Ballet for the +first time. Before the curtain rose he had told me that dancing and +pantomime were very pretty to look at, but that he found no stimulation +in watching them, no mental and spiritual exaltation, such as might +follow a performance of _Hamlet_. Having seen Nijinsky, I could not +agree with him--and this indifferent observer became that evening +himself a fervent disciple of the Ballet. For Nijinsky gave him, he +found, just what his ideal performance of Shakespeare's play might have +given him, a basis for dreams, for thinking, for poetry. The ennobling +effect of all great and perfect art, after the primary emotion, seems to +be to set our minds wandering in a thousand channels, to suggest new +outlets. Pater's experience before the _Monna Lisa_ is only unique in +its intense and direct expression. + +No writer, no musician, no painter, can feel deep emotion before a work +of art without expressing it in some way, although the expression may be +a thousand leagues removed from the inspiration. And how few of us can +view the art of Nijinsky without emotion! To the painter he gives a new +sense of proportion, to the musician a new sense of rhythm, while to the +writer he must perforce immediately suggest new words; better still, new +meanings for old words. Dance, pantomime, acting, harmony, all these +divest themselves of their worn-out accoutrements and appear, as if +clothed by magic, in garments of unheard-of novelty; hue, texture, cut, +and workmanship are all a surprise to us. We look enraptured, we go away +enthralled, and perhaps even unconsciously a new quality creeps into our +own work. It is the same glamour cast over us by contemplation of the +Campo Santo at Pisa, or the Roman Theatre at Orange, or the Cathedral at +Chartres,--the inspiration for one of the most word-jewelled books in +any language--or the New York sky line at twilight as one sails away +into the harbour, or a great iron crane which lifts tons of alien matter +in its gaping jaw. Great music can give us this feeling, the symphonies +of Beethoven, Mozart's _Don Giovanni_, Schubert's _C Major Symphony_, or +Cesar Franck's _D Minor_, _The Sacrifice to the Spring_ of Strawinsky, +_L'Apres-midi d'un Faune_ of Debussy, Chabrier's Rhapsody, _Espanya_; +great interpretative musicians can give it to us, Ysaye at his best, +Paderewski, Marcella Sembrich in song recital; but how few artists on +the stage suggest even as much as the often paltry lines of the author, +the often banal music of the composer! There is an _au dela_ to all +great interpretative art, something that remains after story, words, +picture, and gesture have faded vaguely into that storeroom in our +memories where are concealed these lovely ghosts of ephemeral beauty, +and the artist who is able to give us this is blessed even beyond his +knowledge, for to him has been vouchsafed the sacred kiss of the gods. +This quality cannot be acquired, it cannot even be described, but it can +be felt. With its beneficent aid the interpreter not only contributes to +our pleasure, he broadens our horizon, adds to our knowledge and +capacity for feeling. + +As I read over these notes I realize that I have not been able to +discover flaws in the art of this young man. It seems to me that in his +chosen medium he approaches perfection. What he attempts to do, he +always does perfectly. Can one say as much for any other interpreter? +But it is a difficult matter to give the spirit of Nijinsky, to describe +his art on paper, to capture the abundant grace, the measureless poetry, +the infinite illusion of his captivating motion in ink. Who can hope to +do it? Future generations must take our word for his greatness. We can +do little more than call it that. I shall have served my purpose if I +have succeeded in this humble article in bringing back to those who have +seen him a flashing glimpse of the imaginative actuality. + +_January 16, 1917._ + + + + +Epilogue + +_as a substitute for a preface to the new edition_. + + +I + +It was formerly the custom, in England at any rate, to publish one book +in two or three volumes. Judge, therefore, of my dismay and delight on +discovering, shortly after the first appearance of "Interpreters and +Interpretations," in 1917, that I, abetted by my always delightfully +agreeable publisher, had issued two books in one volume! Even the title +itself fell apart. This practical detail has made it a comparatively +simple matter to exhibit these twins separately in the future, and such +is my intention. This volume, then, contains the first half of the +longer book. + +I have been asked occasionally why I devote so much attention in my +writing to interpreters. The answer is, of course, that I devote very +little attention to them, not enough, I sometimes think. This book, +indeed, says nearly all that I have said up to date on the subject. But +I am not at all in sympathy with those critics of music and the drama +who lay stress on the relative unimportance of interpreters. Sometimes I +am inclined to believe that interpreters, who mould their own +personalities rather than clay or words, are greater than creators. I +think we might have a more ideal theatre if interpreters could be their +own creators, like the mediaeval troubadours or the gipsies of Spain. For +there are many disadvantages about creative art. One of them is its +persistence. Beethoven and Dante wrote notes and letters down on paper +and there they remain, apparently forever. It is very annoying. Legends +hover round the names of these artists, and for centuries after their +deaths all the stupid creators in the world try to do something similar +to the work these men have done, and all the really inspired artists +have to pass a period of probation during which they strive to forget +the work these men have done. "You will find," remarks sagaciously one +Henry C. Lunn, "that people will often praise a bad fugue because Bach +has produced so many good ones." It would be much better for everybody +if a law were passed consigning all creative work to the flames ten +years after it saw the light. Then we would have novelty. If Beethoven +recurred again, at least nobody would know it. Any knowledge about books +or pictures or music of the past would have to be carried in the memory +and in a few decades all memory of anything that was not essential would +have disappeared. It must have been a thrilling experience to have +lived in Alexandria at the time the library was burned. Just think, +twenty years after that event, philosophers and professors probably +could be found in Alexandria who did not go round with long faces +telling you what had been done and what should be done. No references to +the early Assyrians and the Greeks until the papyruses were replaced. +The Renaissance and the Revival of Learning, on the other hand, +doubtless pleasant enough at the time, smeared a terrible blot on the +future of art. + +Now interpretative art is different. It depends upon the contemporary +individual, and some of its most thrilling effects may be entirely +accidental. Any traditions which persist in interpretative art must be +carried in the memory. In exceptional cases, of course, a singer, a +dancer, or an actor is able to so stamp his or her personal achievement +into the flowing rhythm of artistic space that a _style_ does persist. +We have a very good example before us in the case of Isadora Duncan, who +has been followed by a long train of animated Grecian urns. The +deleterious effect of this persistence of an interpretative tradition +must be apparent to any one. For the imitator of an interpreter is a +thousand times more futile than the imitator of a creator. Fortunately, +on the whole, styles in acting, in singing, and in dancing frequently +change. The Catalani-Jenny Lind-Patti tradition, which God knows has +hung on long enough, is nearly exhausted. We live in the age of the Mary +Garden tradition. + +There is another and even better reason why I find it pleasant to write +about interpreters. In looking over the books on music written in the +past I find that the books about singers are infinitely more fascinating +than the books about composers. I am enthralled by what H. F. Chorley +has to say about Pauline Viardot and Henrietta Sontag; I am delighted +with the Goncourt's books about Guimard, Clairon, and Sophie Arnould. +Auguste Ehrhard's "Fanny Elssler" is an extraordinary document and one +cannot afford to miss P. T. Barnum on Jenny Lind and Mapleson on Patti. +But I find that the old scribes on Mozart and Mendelssohn, Beethoven and +Schubert, quite bore me, and it is impossible to say anything new about +these men. Books about Beethoven are still appearing but I advise nobody +to read them. The authors have arrived at that fine point where they can +only compare authorities and quibble about details. Was Beethoven in a +cold sweat when he composed the _Ninth Symphony_ or was he merely angry? +The ink on the manuscript of such and such a work being blotted on a +certain page, interest naturally arises as to whether the fifth note in +the sixteenth bar is F sharp or G flat. Did Haydn or Prince H---- conduct +the first performance of the _Symphony in X major_? Did Weber arrive in +England on Thursday or Friday? And so on. It is all very tiresome. + +Sometimes I believe that it is the whole duty of a critic to write about +interpreters, about the interpretative arts. Less is understood about +acting, singing, and dancing than about anything else in the field of +aesthetic discussion, the more that is written about them, therefore, the +better. Besides creative artists speak for themselves. Anybody can read +a book; anybody can see a picture, or a reproduction of it. As for +posterity it rejects all contemporary criticism of creative work; it has +no use for it. It goes back to the work itself. So the critic of +creative work entirely disappears in the course of a few years. After +his short day nobody will read him any more. + +Now an actor, a singer, or a dancer, can appear in comparatively few +places for a comparatively short time. The number of people who can see +or hear these interpreters is relatively small; consequently they like +to read about them. As for posterity it is absolutely dependent upon +books for its knowledge of the interpreters of a bygone day. That is the +only way it can see the actors of the past. For that reason I am +perfectly sure in my own mind that of such of my books as are devoted to +criticism this is the one most likely to please posterity. + +All criticism may not be creative writing, but certainly all good +criticism is. For all good writing should be self-expression and the +subject treated and the form into which it is cast are mere matters of +convenience. There is no essential difference between poetry, fiction, +drama, and essay. An essay may be as creative as a work of fiction, +often it is more so. You will find criticism elsewhere than in the work +of acknowledged critics. Dostoevsky's "The House of the Dead" is +certainly a critical work, but the author chooses to criticize the +conditions under which human beings are compelled to live rather than +the works of Pushkin. Turgeniev once wrote to Flaubert, "There is no +longer any artist of the present time who is not also a critic." He +might have added that while all artists are assuredly critics, all +critics are not artists. On the other hand Walter Pater's famous passage +about the _Monna Lisa_ is certainly creative; it might almost be held +responsible for the vogue of the picture. Before the war, nearly any day +you might find frail American ladies from the Middle West standing in +front of Leonardo's canvas and repeating the lines like so much +doggerel. All artists express themselves as they may but they are not +artists unless they express _themselves_. Only thus may they establish a +current between themselves and their readers; only thus may they arouse +emotion. And if they succeed in arousing emotion we may disregard the +form in which their work is cast and bathe in the essence of spirit and +idea. + +Whether you agree with this theory or not you must be compelled to admit +that criticism of interpreters, if it is anything at all, is bound to be +creative. For the art of the interpreter exists in time and space only +for the moment in an arbitrary place. Therefore he who writes about an +interpreter is using him to express certain ideas as a painter uses his +model. + +It is a well-established fact that singers and actors in general only +approve of the critics who praise them, but it will readily be apparent +that there is a good instinctive reason back of this peculiarity. Their +work only lives as it exists in criticism and people who dwell in places +where these actors are not to be seen or in times after they are dead +must perforce depend upon the critic for their impressions of these +interpreters. The case of creative work is entirely different. The +creator of genius should never be disturbed by a bad criticism. If his +work is good it will far outlast the criticism. Indeed a bad notice +helps a fine book to find its public sooner than a good notice, because +it attracts attention and stimulates discussion. I think it is likely, +for instance, that the striking collection of bad notices of his +previous books, which James Branch Cabell inserted in the end pages of +"The Cream of the Jest," did as much to advertise that author as the +subsequent publication of "Jurgen." + + +II + +Somewhere in Agnes G. Murphy's vivid but somewhat hysterical account of +the life and adventures of Madame Melba, the diva's Boswell declares +that the singer never permitted herself the pleasure of meeting +newspaper critics lest, it is to be assumed, they should be prejudiced +in her favour through the acquaintanceship. I can assure Madame Melba +that this decision, if strictly adhered to, has cost her many pleasant +hours, for I number certain music critics among my most diverting +friends. I can further assure these colleagues of mine that they have +missed knowing a very amusing woman, for once, not being considered at +the time anything so formidable as a critic, I was permitted to sit next +to the Australian canary while she toyed with her grapefruit and tasted +her _oeuf benedictine_. + +Madame Melba's point of view is not held exclusively by her. There are +many singers who believe that a series of dinner invitations will buy a +critic's pen; a few do not hesitate to offer emerald stick-pins and even +substantial cheques. These methods are often entirely successful. On the +other hand there are critics who will rush across the street, though the +mud be ankle deep, to avoid an introduction to an artist. I have been +frequently asked where I stood in the matter, as if it were necessary to +take a stand and defend it. + +I may say that if my profession kept me from knowing anybody I really +wanted to know I should relinquish that profession without hesitation. +It is absurd to feel that you cannot dine with a singer without praising +her performances. Many days in each month I dine with authors whose +works I abhor. I find their companionship delightful. Should I be +deprived of their society because I happen to be a critic? I suppose I +have a price--almost everybody has--but I should like to state right +here and now that it is not a dinner, or a series of dinners, or even an +emerald scarf-pin. I should be inclined, however, I admit frankly, to +say at least gentle things about a lady who made me a present of a +blooded silver cat. + +But the crux of the matter lies deeper than this. No mere music critic +can hope to write about singing, violin playing, or piano playing +without knowing singers, violinists, and pianists. He can learn much +from books, from the reviews of other critics, from hearing +performances, but the great critics are those who study from the lips of +the interpreters themselves. The valuable hints, suggestions, and +inspiration that a critic with an open mind can gather from an +interpreter are priceless, and not to be found elsewhere. Not that an +interpreter will always tell the truth, not that he always knows what +the truth is in his particular case. Nevertheless any _virtuoso_ will +always have something of interest to say. It stands to reason that any +man or woman who has devoted his life to his profession will know more +about its difficulties, limitations, and tricks, than a mere critic can +hope to learn in any way except through social intercourse with the +interpreter. A young critic may learn much through reading Chorley, +Burney, Schumann, Ernest Newman, and James Huneker. He can further +prepare himself for his trade by listening with open ears to concerts +and operas (although, in passing, it may be stated categorically that no +critic learns immediately the value of opening his ears, so steeped is +he in the false tradition of his craft), by burying his nose in the +scores of the masters, and by reading all that the composers themselves +may have said about the performances of their works. But he can learn +more in a five-minute conversation with a great orchestral conductor, a +great singer, or a great instrumentalist than he can in all the other +ways combined. + +Arturo Toscanini, Mary Garden, Ysaye, Marcella Sembrich, Yvette +Guilbert, Pablo Casals, Fritz Kreisler, Waslav Nijinsky, Marguerite +d'Alvarez, or Leo Ornstein can give any reviewer, young or old, +invaluable lessons. Such as these are their own severest critics and +they teach the writer-critic to be severe--and just. One piece of +advice, however, I would give to prospective critics. Become acquainted +with artist-interpreters by all means, but other things being equal, it +is perhaps better to meet good artists than bad ones! + + +III + +Chaliapine, Nijinsky, Mazarin, and Fremstad[A] have not appeared on the +New York stage since I painted their portraits; nor have I seen them +elsewhere. Consequently any revision I might make in these pictures +would be revision of what I felt then in terms of what I feel now. +Nothing could be more ridiculous. So I let them stand as they are. + +With Yvette Guilbert the case is somewhat different. She has been before +the American public almost consistently since the original publication +of this book. Her work at her own recitals is still the fine thing it +was and probably will remain so for a great many years to come. Madame +Guilbert, however, has seen fit to appear in a play at the Neighbourhood +Playhouse in New York, a fourteenth century French miracle play called +_Guibour_. + +It is often said of an actress that she is too great to fail even when a +part does not suit her. But this is an utterly fallacious theory. Only +_great_ actresses _can_ fail. A really bad actress always fails and +consequently cannot be considered at all. A mediocre or conventional +actress is neither very good nor very bad in any role, but a great +actress, when she fails, fails magnificently, because she plays with +such precision and authority that she is worse than a lesser person +possibly could be. + +Certainly Yvette Guilbert failed magnificently in _Guibour_. I have been +told that her infrequent performances in comedy in Paris have been +equally unsuccessful. When Guilbert sings a song she is forced by the +very nature of her method to make much of little; without setting, +frequently without costume, without the aid of other actors, she is +obliged in a period of three or four minutes to give her public an +atmosphere, several characters, and a miniature drama. Now, taking into +consideration the average low rate of intelligence and the almost entire +lack of imagination of the ordinary theatre audience, she is compelled +to chuck in as much detail as the thing will hold. The result is +generally admirable. In a play, however, this method becomes monotonous, +tiresome, picayune, fussy, overelaborate. One does not want the lift of +an eyelash, a gesture with every line; one does not want emphasis on +every word. The great actors employ broader methods. It was here that +Madame Guilbert failed, by applying the extremely efficacious technique +of her own perfect craft to another craft which calls for another +technique. + +[Illustration: GERALDINE FARRAR AS ZAZA + +_from a photograph by Geisler and Andrews (1920)_] + +Geraldine Farrar has been seen and heard in a number of impersonations +at the Metropolitan Opera House (she has also enlarged her cinema +repertoire), since I wrote my paper about her, Orlanda in _La Reine +Fiamette_, Lodoletta, Thais, Suor Angelica, and Zaza, but I can add very +little to what I have said. Orlanda, Lodoletta, and, naturally enough, +Thais, she has permanently dropped, I think, after a short period of +experimentation. In Zaza, however, it seems possible, although it is too +early to predict with certainty, as I am writing these lines a month +after her assumption of the part, that she has found a role in which she +will meet popular satisfaction for some years to come. On the whole, +however, I must leave the case as I pleaded it originally, withal it is +probably a trifle rosier than I would plead it now. Nevertheless I must +state in fairness that Madame Farrar has probably never sung so well +before as she is singing this winter (1919-20) and that she retains the +admiration of opera-goers in general. It seems apparent to me now that +in exploiting herself as a "character" actress she has perhaps made a +mistake. Her best work has not been done in operas like _Thais_, +_Carmen_, and _Zaza_, but as Elisabeth in _Tannhaeuser_, as the Goosegirl +in _Koenigskinder_, and as Rosaura in _Le Donne Curiose_. Usually, +indeed, she is charming in what are called "ingenue" roles. It may +therefore be considered unfortunate that these are the roles in her +repertoire to which she is most indifferent. However it must be admitted +that it seems impertinent and even stupid to storm and fret about a +career which has been so evenly successful. The public must admire +Madame Farrar or it would not go to see her, and at the Metropolitan +Opera House it is a recognized fact that she is one of two singers in +the company who is always sure of drawing a full house. + + +IV + +We come to Mary Garden. I never can resist the temptation to write about +Mary Garden. I never even try to. Other subjects intrigue me for a time, +but I usually pass them by in the end and go on to something new, new to +me, at least. But I always feel that I have left something unsaid about +this singing actress. It is probable that I always will feel this way +for Miss Garden in her performances constantly suggests some new idea or +awakens some dormant emotion. As a result, although I may write about +coleoptera, the influence of cobalt on the human mind, or a history of +Persian miniatures, I shall probably always find occasion to insert a +few remarks about this incomparable artist. + +The paper devoted to her in this book seems to me at present pitifully +weak, absurdly inadequate. I have gone farther in "The New Art of the +Singer," which you will find in "The Merry-Go-Round" (1918), and in my +study of _Carmen_ in "The Music of Spain" (1918). This seems a good +place to state, however, that Miss Garden's Carmen was only seen to its +best advantage when she appeared with Muratore. The nature of her +interpretation of this role is such that it depends to a great extent on +satisfactory assistance from her fellow singers. Her Carmen is a study +of a cold, brutal, mysterious gipsy, who does not seek lovers, they come +to her. When, as at some recent performances, the tenors and baritones +do not come (it is obvious that some of them might take lessons to +advantage in crossing the stage) her interpretation loses a good deal of +its intention. I offer this explanation to any one who feels that my +enthusiasm for her in this role is exaggerated. To fully understand the +greatness of Miss Garden's Carmen one must have observed it in fitting +surroundings. I hope this environment may soon be provided again. + +On the whole I feel that the most enthusiastic of Miss Garden's admirers +have so far done the woman scant justice. Most of us are beginning to +realize that she is the greatest of living lyric artists, that she has +done more to revive the original intention of the Florentines in +inventing the opera to recapture the theatre of the Greeks, than any +one else. She has made opera, indeed, sublimated speech. And she is +certainly the contemporary queen of lyric sigaldry. + +It is said by some who do not stop to think, or who do not know what +singing is, that Mary Garden is a great actress but that she cannot +sing.[B] These misguided bigots, who try to make it their business to +misunderstand anything that approaches perfection, remind me of the +incident of Lady Astor and the American sailor. She met the youth just +outside the Houses of Parliament and asked him if he would like to go +in. "I _would_ not," were the words he flung into her astonished face. +"My mother told me to avoid women like you." Some day a few of the most +intelligent of these sacculi may realize that Mary Garden is probably +the greatest living singer. It is, indeed, with her voice, and with her +_singing_ voice that she does her most consummate acting. Indeed her +capacity for colouring her voice to suit the emergencies not only of a +phrase but of an entire role, might give a hint to future interpreters, +were there any capable of taking advantage of such a valuable hint. +But, good God, in such matters as phrasing, _portamento_, _messa di +voce_, and other paraphernalia of the singing teacher's laboratory, she +is past-mistress, and if any one has any complaints to make about the +quality and quantity of tone she used in the second act of _l'Amore dei +Tre Re_ I feel that he did not listen with unprejudiced ears. + +There is, perhaps, nothing that need be added at present to what I have +already said of her Sapho, Marguerite, Melisande,[C] Chrysis, Jean, +Louise, and Thais, except that such of these impersonations as still +remain in her repertoire are as clean-cut, as finely chiselled as ever; +probably each is a little improved on each subsequent occasion on which +it is performed. Some day I shall have more to say about her marvellous +Monna Vanna. I am sure I would understand her Salome better now. When I +first saw her in Richard Strauss's music drama I was still under the +spell of Olive Fremstad's impersonation, and was astonished, and perhaps +a little indignant at Miss Garden's divagations. But now I know what I +did not know so well then, that an interpreter must mould a part to suit +his own personality. It is probable that if Mary Garden should vouchsafe +us another view of her nervous, unleashed tiger-woman I would be +completely bowled over. + +It seems necessary to speak of the portraits she has added to her +gallery since the fall of 1917. Since then she has been seen in +Fevrier's _Gismonda_, Massenet's _Cleopatre_, and Montemezzi's _l'Amore +dei Tre Re_. The first of these is a very bad opera; it is not even one +of Sardou's best plays. The part afforded Miss Garden an opportunity for +the display of pride, dignity, and authority. Her gowns were very +beautiful--I remember particularly the lovely Grecian drapery of the +convent scene, which she has since developed into a first-act costume +for Fiora; she made a handsome figure of the woman, but the thing itself +was pasteboard and will soon be forgotten. The posthumous _Cleopatre_ +was nearly as bad, but in the scene in which the queen, disguised as a +boy, visits an Egyptian brothel and makes love to another boy, Mary was +very startling, and the death scene, in which, after burying the asp in +her bosom, she tosses it away with a shudder, sinks to the ground, +then crawls to Antony's side and expires below his couch, one arm waving +futilely in the air in an attempt to touch her lover, was one of her +most touching and finest bits of acting. Her pale face, her green +eyelids combined to create a sinister make-up. But, on the whole, a dull +opera, and not likely to be heard again. + +[Illustration: MARY GARDEN AS CLEOPATRE + +_from a photograph by Moffett (1919)_] + +But Fiora! What a triumph! What a volcano! I have never been able to +find any pleasure in listening to the music of Montemezzi's _l'Amore dei +Tre Re_, although it has a certain pulse, a rhythmic beat, especially in +the second act, which gives it a factitious air of being better than it +really is. The play, however, is interesting, and subtle enough to +furnish material for quibble and discussion not only among critics, but +among interpreters themselves. Miss Bori, who originally sang Fiora in +New York, was a pathetic flower, torn and twisted by the winds of fate, +blown hither and thither without effort or resistance on her part. It +was probably a possible interpretation, and it found admirers. Miss +Muzio, the next local incumbent of the role, fortified with a letter +from Sem Benelli, or at least his spoken wishes, found it convenient to +alter this impersonation in most particulars, but she was not, is not, +very convincing. Her intentions are undoubtedly good but she is no +instrument for the mystic gods to play upon. + +But Miss Garden's Fiora burned through the play like a flame. She +visualized a strong-minded mediaeval woman, torn by the conflicting +emotions of pity and love, but once she had abandoned herself to her +passion she became a living altar consecrated to the worship of +Aphrodite and Eros. Such a hurricane of fiery, tempestuous love has +seldom if ever before swept the stage. Miss Garden herself has never +equalled this performance, save in Melisande and Monna Vanna, which +would lead one to the conclusion that she is at her best in parts of the +middle ages, until one reflects that in early Greek courtesans, in +French cocottes of several periods, in American Indians, and Spanish +gipsies she is equally atmospheric. Other Fioras have been content to +allow the hand of death to smite them without a struggle. Not this one. +When Archibaldo attempts to strangle her she tries to escape; her +efforts are horrible and pathetic because they are fruitless. And the +final clutch of the fingers behind his back leave the most horrible +blood-stains of tragic beauty in the memory. + + +V + +What is to become of Mary Garden? What can she do now? What is there +left for her to do? Those who complain of some of the dross in her +repertoire can scarcely have considered the material available to her. +In _Pelleas et Melisande_, _Louise_, and _Salome_ she has given much to +the best the contemporary lyric stage has to offer. On other occasions +she has succeeded in transfiguring indifferent material with her genius. +_Monna Vanna_ is not a great opera, but she makes it seem so. But where +is there anything better? Can she turn to Puccini, whose later operas +seem bereft of merit, to Mascagni, to Strauss, to any other of the +living opera composers? + +Ravel's one opera is not particularly suited to her, but why, I might +ask, does not Ravel write something for her? Why not Strawinsky? Why not +Leo Ornstein? Why not John Carpenter? The talented composer of _The +Birthday of the Infanta_ might very well write an opera, in which her +genius for vocal experimentation might have still further play. + +In the meantime I can make one or two suggestions. I have already begged +for Isolde and Isolde I think we shall get in time. But has it occurred +to any one that the Queen in _The Golden Cockerel_ is a part absolutely +suited to the Garden genius? Not, of course, _The Golden Cockerel_ as at +present performed, with a double cast of singers and pantomimists but as +an opera, in the form in which Rimsky-Korsakow conceived it. And I hope +some day that she will attempt Gluck's _Armide_, perhaps one of the +Iphigenies, and Donna Anna. Why not? Of all living singers Miss Garden +is the only one who could give us the complete fulfilment of Mozart's +tragic heroine. Oscar Hammerstein, whose vision was acute, once +considered a performance of _Don Giovanni_ with Maurice Renaud in the +title part, Luisa Tetrazzini as Zerlina, Lina Cavalieri as Elvira, and +Mary Garden as Anna. It was never given. But I hope at the next revival +of the work at the Opera-Comique Miss Garden will undertake the part, +and I see no reason why the opera should not be added to the already +extensive repertoire of the Chicago Opera Company. + +Her stride, her lithe carriage, her plastic use of her arms and her +body, give Mary Garden a considerable advantage over a sculptor, who can +in the course of a lifetime only capture perhaps ten perfect examples +of arrested motion, while in any one performance she makes her body a +hundred different works of art. Of course, some of us, fascinated by the +mere beauty of the Garden line, more slender now than it was even in her +most youthful past, delighted with her irreproachable taste in dress, +would rest content to watch her walk across the scene or form exquisite +pictures in any part, in any opera. But unless one of the best of the +moderns writes a great role for her, it would be a great satisfaction to +see her in one of the noble classic parts of the past, and that +satisfaction, I hope, will be vouchsafed us. + +_March 18, 1920._ + +_New York._ + + +On the following pages you will find descriptions of two other +interesting books by Mr. Van Vechten. + + +THE MERRY-GO-ROUND + +(12mo., 343 pages, $2.00 _net._) + +CONTENTS: In defence of bad taste; Music and supermusic; Edgar Saltus; +The new art of the singer; Au bal musette; Music and cooking; An +interrupted conversation; The authoritative work on American music; Old +days and new; Two young American playwrights; De senectute cantorum; The +Land of Joy; The new Isadora; Margaret Anglin produces As You Like It; +The modern composers at a glance. + +"Carl Van Vechten has the jauntiest pen that ever graced the ear of a +literary gentleman. He uses it as D'Artagnan used his sword, with sheer +joy in the wielding of it, a sharp accuracy of aim, and a fine +musketeering courage back of it. His pen is a pen of the world, a +cosmopolitan pen which is at home in the marts of Irving Berlin, as well +as in the rarefied heights of Igor Strawinsky. It knows how to turn a +phrase or a reputation. In The Merry-Go-Round his pen has the time of +its life. So will you when you flip a ride on the whirligig."--Fanny +Butcher in _The Chicago Tribune_. + +ALFRED A. KNOPF, PUBLISHER, NEW YORK + + +IN THE GARRET + +(12mo., 347 pages, $2.00 _net._) + +CONTENTS: Variations on a theme by Havelock Ellis; A note on Philip +Thicknesse; The folk-songs of Iowa; Isaac Albeniz; The holy jumpers; On +the relative difficulties of depicting heaven and hell in music; Sir +Arthur Sullivan; On the rewriting of masterpieces; Oscar Hammerstein; La +Tigresse; Mimi Aguglia as Salome; Farfariello; The Negro Theatre; The +Yiddish Theatre; The Spanish Theatre. + +"When he surveys the American scene we go all the way with Mr. Van +Vechten. He celebrates his attachment to New York as ecstatically as +Charles Lamb's his to London, in a chapter called La Tigresse. This is +the best thing in the book. And Mr. Thomas Burke, in England, alone has +caught this peculiar gusto."--_The London Times._ + +ALFRED A. KNOPF, PUBLISHER, NEW YORK + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[A] Madame Fremstad has appeared in concert in New York but not in +opera. + +[B] The fault is really typical of that school of criticism which is +always comparing, instead of searching out an artist's intention and +judging whether or not he has realized it. + +[C] Maurice Maeterlinck broke a promise to Georgette Leblanc of +seventeen years' standing to witness a performance of Debussy's lyric +drama on January 27, 1920, when, with the new Madame Maeterlinck, he sat +in a box, remaining till the final curtain, at the Lexington Theatre in +New York. After the fourth act, responding to Miss Garden's urge and the +applause of the audience, he rose to bow. + + +Typographical error note of transcriber of this etext: + +choregraphy has not been corrected + +overwhemingly=>overwhelmingly + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Interpreters, by Carl Van Vechten + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INTERPRETERS *** + +***** This file should be named 32979.txt or 32979.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/9/7/32979/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images at The Internet Archive.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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