of oil paintings and pastels by Renoir. Some of them were relatively
unimportant earlier works, but the majority belonged to the later
period. None of them, with the exception, perhaps, of a flower piece
and a small head of a woman, can be ranked very high; but they indicate
the limits and at the same time the mellow charm of the work of this
time. This charm is not perhaps immediately felt; it grows upon one,
but it is quite real. In his old age Renoir remained as much as ever a
poet, only his poetry is thinner and more fragile.
Renoir was born in 1841 and died in 1919. Of his famous contemporaries
only Claude Monet is still alive.
HOWARD HANNAY
MUSIC
THE NATURALIZATION OF OPERA IN ENGLAND
In Italy opera is a tree which has sprung from a seed and grown swiftly
in the course of centuries to an exuberant, perhaps an over-exuberant,
maturity. It has been fertilised from other countries, but its
trunk has kept one firm straight line by its own perfectly natural
development. In England that tree has not flourished. Various attempts
have been made to naturalize it, but for the most part the English
cultivators never produced more than stunted and distorted growths.
Even when they seemed to do well for a time they bore curiously little
resemblance to their original parent. Other gardeners, observing how
meagrely the tree prospered in the open ground, transplanted opera
full-grown from Italy, and did their best to provide it artificially
with its own soil and its own climate. It was an expensive amusement,
and the more expensive it was the more successful its promoters
proclaimed it to be. But it could not be called naturalization. The
only course which has shown any signs of being practicable was to graft
the foreign shoot on to a sturdy native growth, if a suitable stock
could be found. But it is a process requiring careful handling and
careful watching, for the tree takes a long time to become thoroughly
acclimatized.
It is pretty generally agreed that English opera must be preceded by
opera in English. Our public--our real public, that is to say, not the
handful of people who concentrate a special attention on opera, both
English and foreign--will not be ready to take new native operas to
their hearts until they have got thoroughly into the habit of enjoying
those popular works which form the international repertory. Those
operas--_Faust_, _Carmen_, _Il Trovatore_, and the rest--are popular in
England already, it will be said. Yes, as operas go, they are indeed
popular; but only among those people, in whatever section of society,
who have developed the opera habit. For even in what are called the
popular theatres, where they are played in English to cheap and crowded
audiences, they are almost always exotic still. If it were not that a
large majority of operas are called by the names of their principal
characters, we should see more significance in the fact that we speak
of the others in nearly every case by their native titles, and do not
translate them. We have learnt to talk of _The Magic Flute_ and _The
Flying Dutchman_; but even at the "Old Vic." they keep the names of _Il
Trovatore_, _La Traviata_, and _Cavalleria Rusticana_.
Wherever they are played by English singers in English theatres they
remain, as it were, extra-territorial. To begin with, the translations
of nearly all popular operas are abominable. This has been said many
times before. But what has not been said so often is that, abominable
as they are, there is hardly an opera-singer who is willing to learn
a new translation, even when it is candidly admitted that the new
translation is easier to sing than the old one. There are plenty of
sound reasons for this apparent obstinacy. It is not due merely to
laziness or to the vested interests of publishers. What is far more
important is that a new translation, if it is really good, involves
a new style of singing, a new style of acting, a new scheme for the
entire production of the opera. The average opera-singer learns his
parts in a spirit of routine. He cannot waste time over trying to
find out the plot of the opera or to analyse the personalities of the
characters. He learns the traditions and is ready to step into his part
without rehearsal in any operatic company that may happen to engage
him. It may sound very shocking to the reader that operas should be
put on the stage without any rehearsal whatever; but it is nothing
unusual in the world of actual fact. After all, it is not much more
unreasonable that an opera company should sing _Maritana_ without
rehearsing than that an orchestra of professionals should give an
unrehearsed performance of the overture to _William Tell_ or the ballet
music from _Rosamunde_.
The Function of the Audience
Sir Thomas Beecham, when he first formed his opera company, sought out
youth, intelligence and enthusiasm. He began in a brave and gallant
spirit, and in his company there is still something of that spirit
left. At the beginning it was hardly expected that he would do much
better than the well-known provincial companies which used occasionally
to give a season in London. But he aimed at storming Covent Garden.
Covent Garden was inaccessible during the war, partly because no
foreign singers were available to fill it, and partly because it was
already filled with furniture. The war ended, the old Covent Garden
exotic opera reappeared. Sir Thomas, however, did not leave its
territory inviolate, and he is now in complete possession. But Covent
Garden has been too strong for the invaders. Like the barbarians who
invaded Italy, they are becoming Romanised. At Covent Garden there are
boxes and box-holders who adore Melba, Caruso, and the rest. There is
a splendid orchestra, there are fine singers, there is magnificent
scenery. But the longer the company stays there the less chance there
seems to be of their preparing the way for the real English opera of
the future.
What English opera wants is an audience. And the best audience that I
have ever seen in any opera-house in Europe is the audience at the "Old
Vic." Italian audiences are reputed to be appreciative; but they are
interested primarily in singing and in little else. They are critical
of this only, and they have a certain tendency to be cruel. The "Old
Vic." audience, if it is bored, lets the actors know it; but it is
never cruel, and it is ready to appreciate other things besides mere
singing. Once its attention has been secured there is no audience to
equal it for quick intelligence and responsiveness to both tragedy and
comedy. But Covent Garden has no pit, and its gallery is too small and
too distant to assert itself.
Half-way between the "Old Vic." and Covent Garden stands the new
enterprise of Messrs. Miln and Fairbairn, at the Surrey. The Surrey has
secured its audience. It has begun with the old familiar favourites,
but it has also included in its repertory _The Flying Dutchman_ and
_Don Giovanni_, both of which have drawn full houses. Very wisely the
management has not wasted its money on elaborate scenery, though it
is in a position to stage the _Flying Dutchman_ quite adequately, and
that is no small matter. There is an orchestra which, if not large, is
at least complete. It began by being rather rough, and even in _Don
Giovanni_, for which it is just exactly balanced in proportion of
wind and strings, it only too forcibly recalled the criticisms made
by Mozart's contemporaries on his overpowering orchestration. It is
in their singers that Messrs. Miln and Fairbairn have been peculiarly
successful. Youth, intelligence, and enthusiasm are certainly well
represented here.
The Surrey's Opportunity
Mr. Fairbairn, who is responsible for the production of the operas, has
in this company a wonderful opportunity, if he will only seize it. Here
is a splendid house that combines the dignity of an eighteenth-century
design with the practical convenience of an interior recently
remodelled; an audience with no critical and social pretensions to keep
up, but unsophisticated, appreciative, and alert; and a company of
young singers keen to learn and ready to throw themselves generously
into their work. Starting on such a basis, the Surrey has every chance
to develop into a great and flourishing school of English opera. But
to develop such a school needs more than average courage, initiative,
intelligence, and hard work. It means that gradually, one by one, the
translations of all the standard operas must be thoroughly revised.
Along with this revision there must be a thorough-going revision and
reconsideration from the beginning of the system on which each opera
is produced. Tradition must be abandoned if it cannot be justified by
common sense. Each opera must be worked out afresh from the beginning,
as if it had never been put on the stage before. And the director of
such a school must be prepared to face possible hostility towards his
revisions. There will always be some among his audience who prefer the
old tradition, good or bad, simply because they like to hear what they
have always heard. Such people have got to be convinced and converted.
That is not impossible. Even operatic audiences have a certain amount
of common sense, and it is to common sense that an operatic producer
must not be afraid of appealing. The plots of most operas are generally
admitted to be nonsense, but that is no reason why one should not make
a vigorous effort to put sense into them. Few plots could be more
absurd than that of _Il Trovatore_; but if Verdi succeeded in writing
music that, by virtue of its persistent directness, its unswerving
pursuit of its dramatic end, has made _Il Trovatore_ one of the
greatest operas ever composed, surely it is worth a producer's while
to concentrate attention on making the libretto as clear and as sure
of its dramatic intention as the music is. The translator of an opera
must not rest satisfied with merely translating each line as singably
and as reasonably as he can, just as it happens to come along. He must
regard the libretto as a literary whole, must endeavour to attain
some unity of style, and still more to achieve a cumulative dramatic
effect by little touches, significant phrases to fit important musical
phrases; he must in each recitative or aria see at once where the
climax is and fit it with a telling point, to which the rest of the
movement will lead up. He must differentiate his characters, giving
each its own literary individuality. If his original text is a bad one
he must improve upon it. There are many cases in which a librettist has
had a good idea but has failed to express it adequately. Sometimes the
composer has understood the idea and has clothed the wretched words
with music that lifts them on to a higher plane. The translator here
finds his opportunity, and must do his best to find English words which
may express the poet's intention rather than his actual achievement.
The singer who meets with a good translation is no longer
uncomfortable, nervous, and ashamed about his part. He finds that he
can bring home his songs to his audience in a way that he never could
before; he learns to realise his part as a personality, he may even get
as far as beginning to imagine what the character in question might
have said or done when he was not on the stage. In this way the double
appeal to the audience can be made, the appeal that is irresistible,
the appeal to their own common sense, coupled with the overwhelming
appeal of real personality in the actor.
If all operatic directors insisted resolutely on good translations and
insisted that their singers should sing them like real natural English,
we might develop a really English school of opera. Our own poets and
composers could watch and listen, and possibly learn something which
would guide them in the construction of their own original librettos
and music. They would gradually come to find out what even our
song-writers have only very partially discovered, namely, what are the
true dramatic possibilities of English voices singing English poetry.
EDWARD J. DENT
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Transcribers' Notes:
Greek transliterations provided by transcribers are enclosed in {curly
braces}. Greek letters and special symbols that cannot be displayed
with simple text have been omitted from some versions of this eBook,
and may be displayed as question marks on some mobile devices.
Footnotes have been moved to immediately follow the paragraphs or
headings that refer to them.
Since this eBook contains text written by many authors, inconsistencies
in spelling and punctuation have not been changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced
quotation marks retained.
Inconsistent hyphenation and ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines
were retained.
Text uses both "Newdigate" and "Newdegate".
Page 53: "God bless your Majesty" is missing ending punctuation.
Page 65: "the corn of the crocus" perhaps should be "corm".
Page 201: "rallying-point or the new" perhaps should be "of".
Page 202: "an" was added by Transcribers to "a familiar thing from an
unfamiliar angle", as there was empty space where a short word belonged.
Page 243: "Les Précieuses Ridicules" was printed without the acute
accent.
Page 262: "Keatsiam" probably should be "Keatsian".
Page 367: Unclear whether the punctuation after "Ramsay Macdonald" is a
comma or period.
Page 388: "rake-hells" was printed that way.
Page 388: "with a priceless gift" had blank space where the "a" has
been added in this eBook.
Page 560: "as the authors' record" was printed with the apostrophe.
Page 608: "deeplier" was printed that way.
Page 714: The printing of "twenty more he lover's" was defective.
Page 719: "^e" represents the superscript "e".
Page 720: "^a" represents the superscript "a".