A second success followed hard on the heels of "Carmen." This was

"Aïda," the triumph of which was one of ensemble, in which the chorus,

under Signor Campanini, played no small part. Mme. Melba's coming, on

January 2d, was the signal for the awakening of society's interest in

Mr. Hammerstein's enterprise. She remained until March 25th, when she

said farewell in a performance of Puccini's "Bohème," the production

of which by Mr. Hammerstein in defiance of the rights of Mr. Conried

(according to the allegations of the publishers, Ricordi) and the

legal proceedings ending with the granting of an injunction against

Mr. Hammerstein at the end of his season, was one of the diverting

incidents of the merry operatic war. Mme. Melba sang three times

in "La Traviata," five times in "Rigoletto," twice in "Lucia di

Lammermoor," once in "Faust," and four times in "La Bohème."

The Bonci incident and the interest created in Mr. Hammerstein's

enterprise by Mme. Melba's popularity stimulated interest in the

offerings for a second season, which the manager answered by announcing

the engagement, besides Zenatello and Sammarco, of Nordica and

Schumann-Heink, and the re-engagement of Renaud, Bressler-Gianoli,

Gilibert, and Dalmores. He also opened his subscription for the next

season on March 19th, and announced the day after that he had received

subscriptions amounting to $200,000, of which $110,000 had come from

the four principal ticket speculators in the city. Mme. Calvé, who was

engaged to give éclat to the conclusion of the season, effected her

entrance on March 27th, and sang nine times--four in "Carmen," three

in "Cavalleria Rusticana," and two in "La Navarraise."

CHAPTER XXIV

A BRILLIANT SEASON AT THE MANHATTAN

The prospectus which Mr. Hammerstein published for his second season

was magnificently grandiloquent in its promises, but the season itself

marvelous in its achievements. Eight operas "never produced in this city

or country," "masterpieces of the most celebrated composers," which were

his "sole property," were to be brought forward, in addition to many

familiar works. He announced the engagement of "the greatest sopranos,

mezzo sopranos, contraltos, barytones, and bassos of the operatic

world." The eight new operas were to be Massenet's "Thaïs," Debussy's

"Pelléas et Mélisande," Charpentier's "Louise," Breton's "Dolores,"

Massenet's "Jongleur de Notre Dame," Saint-Saëns's "Hélène," Offenbach's

"Les Contes d'Hoffmann," and "an opera by our American composer, Victor

Herbert." Offenbach's charming opera had been heard in New York before,

from a French company managed by Maurice Grau, but it required a memory

that compassed twenty-five years to recall that fact; so in respect

of it Mr. Hammerstein's slip was venial at the worst. His list of the

greatest singers in the world read as follows: Sopranos: Nellie Melba,

Lillian Nordica, Mary Garden, Gianinna Russ, Camille Borello, Ludmilla

Sigrist, Giuseppina Giaconia, Helen Koelling, Fanny Francisca, Mauricia

Morichina, Jeanne Jomelli, Emma Trentini, and Alice Zeppilli; mezzo

sopranos and contraltos: Ernestine Schumann-Heink, Bressler-Gianoli,

Eleanore de Cisneros, J. Gerville-Reache, Emma Zaccaria, Gina Severina;

tenors: Giovanni Zenatello, Amadeo Bassi, Charles Dalmorès, Jean

Perier, Leone Cazauran, Carlo Albani, Emilio Venturini, Francesco Daddi;

barytones: Maurice Renaud, Charles Gilibert, Mario Sammarco, Vincenzo

Reschiglian, Mario Ancona, Hector Dufranne, Nicolo Fossetta; bassos:

Adamo Didur, Victorio Arimondi, Luigi Mugnoz; basso buffo: Fernando

Galetti-Gianoli. Cleofonte Campanini was again musical director.

These the magnificent promises. Had half of them been kept the fact

would have amazed a public whom long experience had taught to put no

more faith in the promises of impresarios than in those of princes. As

a matter of fact, barring the extravagant attributes alleged to be due

to the singers, the majority of whom were worse than mediocre, more

than half were kept, and the deficiency more than counterbalanced

by new elements which were introduced from time to time, as happy

emergencies called for them. Chief of these was the engagement of Luisa

Tetrazzini; of which more in its proper place. The official announcement

was of subscription performances on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday

evenings, and Saturday afternoons, for twenty weeks. Also there were to

be twenty Saturday evenings at popular prices. Just before the opening

of the season there was semi-official talk of popular performances also

on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, which, had it been realized, would

have kept the opera company as busy with a large repertory as the

ordinary theatrical company with its single play running through a

season. A beginning was made with the Thursday performances, but Mr.

Hammerstein concluded after a short trial of the experiment, that the

game was not worth the candle, and so abandoned it. Before the close of

the season Mr. Hammerstein announced an extra week of five performances,

which he invited his subscribers to enjoy without money and without

price, on the ground that the exigencies of the season had compelled him

to repeat operas on subscription nights. The season of twenty-one weeks,

which began on November 4, 1907, and ended on March 28, 1908, was thus

made to embrace 116 representations in all; that is to say, eighty

subscription nights and matinées, twenty popular Saturday nights,

five performances in the extra week, and eleven special afternoons

and evenings. The discrepancy between these figures and the total of

the last column in the appended table, showing the dates of first

productions in the season, and the number of performances given to each

opera, is accounted for by the fact that nine times in the course of

the season the entertainment consisted of two operas, and once there

was a bill of shreds and patches from various operas.

To complete the statistical record of the company's activity, it must be

added that two performances were given in Philadelphia, and that there

were eighteen concerts on Sunday nights, at the last few of which operas

were given in concert form. Twice the opera house was kept closed on

Sunday nights because of the enforcement of a rigid interpretation of

the law prohibiting theatrical entertainments on Sunday.

A study of the list of performances shows that the 116 performances were

distributed among twenty-three operas. Of these four had never been

given in New York before (they were "Thaïs," "Louise," "Siberia," and

"Pelléas et Mélisande"), three had been given in New York, but so long

ago that they were to all intents and purposes novelties ("Les Contes

d'Hoffmann," "Crispino e la Comare," and "Andrea Chenier"), and three,

though familiar to the public, were new to the house ("La Gioconda,"

"La Damnation de Faust," and "Ernani"); the other thirteen were in the

Manhattan repertory for the season of 1906-07.

Opera Composer First performance Times given

"La Gioconda," Ponchielli ................ Nov. 4 4

"Carmen," Bizet .......................... Nov. 5 11

"La Damnation de Faust," Berlioz ......... Nov. 6 3

"Trovatore," Verdi ....................... Nov. 9 5

"Aïda," Verdi ............................ Nov. 11 9

"Les Contes d'Hoffmann," Offenbach ....... Nov. 15 11

"Thaïs," Massenet ........................ Nov. 24 7

"Faust," Gounod .......................... Nov. 28 4

* "La Navarraise," Massenet .............. Dec. 9 5

* "Pagliacci," Leoncavallo ............... Dec. 9 9

"Ernani," Verdi .......................... Dec. 11 1

"Rigoletto," Verdi ....................... Dec. 20 5

"Un Ballo in Maschera," Verdi ............ Dec. 27 4

"Don Giovanni," Mozart ................... Dec. 28 3

* "Cavalleria Rusticana," Mascagni ....... Dec. 31 4

"Louise," Charpentier .................... Jan. 3 11

"La Traviata," Verdi ..................... Jan. 15 5

"Lucia di Lammermoor," Donizetti ......... Jan. 20 8

"Siberia," Giordano ...................... Feb. 5 3

"Pelléas et Mélisande," Debussy .......... Feb. 19 7

"Dinorah," Meyerbeer ..................... Feb. 26 1

"Crispino e la Comare," Ricci brothers ... Mar. 6 3

"Andrea Chenier," Giordano ............... Mar. 27 1

---

124

* Parts of double bills.

When Mr. Hammerstein issued his prospectus in the early autumn he

promised to produce no less than eight operas which had never been

performed in America. Managerial promises of this kind are generally

made and accepted in a Pickwickian sense, but Mr. Hammerstein came

nearer than is the custom to keeping his, though the season closed with

his subscribers waiting for "Dolores," by Breton; "Le Jongleur de Notre

Dame," by Massenet, and "Hélène," by Saint-Saëns. He also promised

performances of three German operas ("Lohengrin," "Tannhäuser," and

"Tristan und Isolde"), a new American opera in English, to be composed

by Victor Herbert, and the following operas from the standard list,

viz., "Le Prophète," Massenet's "Manon," "Roméo et Juliette,"

"Mefistofele," and "La Bohème." He had fought in the courts for the

privilege of performing the last opera in the preceding season, but

abandoned it without contention this season in the face of Mr. Conried's

assertion that he had purchased the exclusive rights to all Italian

performances of Puccini's operas in the United States. It is not likely

that the statement about Mr. Herbert's opera was taken very seriously

in any quarter; he is a prolific and marvelously ready writer of comic

operetta scores, but it is not likely that he will ever attempt to find

a suitable grand opera book and set it to music within six or eight

months, while occupied, as he is, with a multitude of other enterprises.

Mr. Hammerstein had promised in his prospectus that there would also be

performances in German of "Lohengrin," "Tannhäuser," and "Tristan und

Isolde." This part of the manager's scheme went by the board early

in the season. It was contingent upon the presence in the company of

singers familiar with the three works of Wagner. Of such there was only

one when the season began, and she, Mme. Nordica, remained a member

of Mr. Hammerstein's forces only six weeks, during much of which time

she was idle. Mme. Schumann-Heink, though announced as a member of the

company, interrupted her concert activity only long enough to sing once,

and then she sang in an Italian opera ("Il Trovatore"), albeit she did

her part in German.

Up to the coming of Signorina Tetrazzini Mr. Hammerstein pinned his

faith on the interest which might be aroused in his French novelties. On

the second subscription night he came forward with Berlioz's "Damnation

de Faust," with which he had contemplated adorning his first season, and

for which he had prepared the scenic outfit. The undramatic character of

the transformed cantata had caused its failure at the Metropolitan Opera

House in the season of 1906-07, and not even the fine performance of M.

Renaud, whose impersonation of Mephistopheles is one of the noblest

memories left by the season, the excellent singing of M. Dalmorès, and

the beautiful pictures could save it. There was a long wait between the

first and second representations, and after one more trial the work was

abandoned. Meanwhile, however, Offenbach's "Contes d'Hoffmann," which

had had a few performances at the Fifth Avenue Theater twenty-five years

before, was brought forward. Again Messrs. Renaud and Dalmorès were

admirably fitted with parts and scant justice done to the opera in

the distribution of the women's rôles; but the charm of Offenbach's

music overcame the defects of performance, and the opera achieved so

pronounced a success that it could be given with profit eleven times

before M. Renaud's departure from New York after the performance of

February 4th.

The libretto of "Les Contes d'Hoffmann" proclaims a phase of French

literary taste which made heroes two generations ago out of two foreign

romancers,--the German E. T. A. Hoffmann and the American Edgar Allan

Poe. Very much alike were these two men in some of their strongest

characteristics. Both were possessed of genius of a high order; both led

lives of dissipation, which wrecked them physically; both found their

fantastic creations in the world of supernaturalism which imagination,

stimulated by alcoholic indulgence, presented to them as realities. This

is literally true, at least, of Hoffmann, who, coming home from his

nightly carouses with the boon companions, whom he has celebrated in

his "Serapion's Brüder" (the coterie somewhat vulgarly parodied in the

beginning and end of Offenbach's opera), was wont to call for his wife

to sit beside him through the remainder of the night to ward off the

ghostly, ghastly, grisly creatures which his own perfervid imagination

had conjured up. Sixty years ago France was full of admiration for the

weird tales of Hoffmann, and in view of the singular vicissitudes of

the fantastic romancer's life, some of them quite as startling as the

adventures which he ascribed to his imaginary creatures, it was not

at all strange that Barbier and Carré should have conceived the idea

of making him the hero of a play dealing with incidents of his own

invention. In 1851 they brought out their play in five acts at the

Odéon. It did not endure long, but it made so deep an impression on

the mind of Offenbach that when he was seized with the ambition to

write a serious work, which he might leave to the world as a legacy,

to prove that his ambitions went beyond the things with which he amused

the careless folk of the Second Empire, he turned to the old play for

his libretto.

In a way it was a happy choice. If an author was to be blended with his

creations and utilized for operatic purposes, history might be searched

in vain for a better subject than Hoffmann. He was jurist, court

councillor, romancer, caricaturist, scene painter, theatrical manager,

and musical composer. In several ways he is living in the musical annals

to-day. His opera, "Undine," is forgotten, though it was highly praised

by Carl Maria von Weber, who had not feared soundly to abuse Beethoven;

but his literary creation, the Chapelmaster Kreissler, lives in

Schumann's "Kreissleriana," and other conceits of his filtered through

Jean Paul, in other compositions by the same master. His criticisms,

though cast in fantastic form, opened the eyes of many to the beauties

of Gluck, Mozart, and Beethoven. His admiration for Mozart went to such

an extreme that he cast aside part of his baptismal name in order to

substitute for it one of the given names of his hero--Amadeus. Of this

admiration neither Offenbach nor his librettists were unaware, for

when Hoffmann and Nicklausse come into the tavern where the roystering

students greet them, in the prologue, they are still so full of the

opera "Don Giovanni," to which they had just been listening, that

Nicklausse quotes the words of Leporello's first song, and Offenbach

reverently quotes the music.

Let no one think that the production of "Les Contes d'Hoffmann" was in

any way analogous with the operetta performances with which Mr. Conried

lowered the status of the Metropolitan Opera House when he performed

"Die Fledermaus" and "Der Zigeunerbaron" at his benefits. No serious

reader of mine will expect to see in this place dispraise of the genius

of Johann Strauss; but the works mentioned are operettas in form and

in spirit, while "Les Contes d'Hoffmann" was conceived in an entirely

different vein, and shows the musician who composed it in a character

that no one would dream was his who knew him only as the composer of the

Bouffes Parisiens. It is a pathetic, but also lovely, document in proof

of the fact that with all his frivolity he wanted to die at least in the

odor of artistic sanctity. The piquant rhythms and prettily superficial

melodies of his musical farces were a perfect reflex of the careless

art-feeling of his day, just as the farces themselves were admirably

adjusted to the taste of the boulevardiers who basked in the sunshine of

Napoleon the Little, and laughed uproariously while their Emperor and

their social institutions were being castigated by the cynical German

Jew and his librettists. "He was the Beethoven of the sneer," said Émil

Bergerat, when Offenbach died, and then with a fantastic pencil worthy

of the caricaturist Hoffmann himself, he drew a dreadful picture of

Offenbach and his times; of the mighty fiddler beating time upon the

well-filled goatskin and sawing away across the strings, his mouth

widened with a grin "like some drunken conception of Edgar Poe's, or

some fantasy of Hoffmann, while the startled birds flew back to heaven,

the moon split herself back to her ears, and the stars giggled behind

their cloud-fans." The planetary system only revolved to frisky rhythms,

and the earth herself, like a mad top, hummed comically about the

horrified sun. En avant la musique! and the old edifice crumbled in dust

around the musician. To Bergerat Offenbach was the great disillusioner

of the age, the incarnation of what he conceived to be the spirit of the

nineteenth century, a spirit that hated and contemned the past, mocked

at the things which the simplicity of preceding centuries held sacred,

threw ridicule upon social sentiments, rank, caste, ceremonialism,

learning, and religion.

The composer of "Les Contes d'Hoffmann" is nothing of this. The opera

was the child of his old age. He loved it, and labored over its score

for years. It is full of lovely melody (the barcarolle of the second act

will always exert a potent and lovely influence) fluent from beginning

to end, and rich in dramatic characterization. No one is likely to

listen to the trio at the culmination of the third act (that dealing

with the fate of a singer's daughter) without realizing what a really

admirable power of expression was that which Offenbach, for reasons

explained by the spirit of the times and his own moral nature, chose

to squander so many years on his opéras bouffes. Frequently the melodic

line in the opera rises to admirable heights; always melody, harmony,

and orchestration are refined, unless a burlesque effect is aimed at,

as in the ballad of "Kleinzack," and Nicklausse's song of the doll.

Offenbach's opera had its first performance on November 14, 1907, the

cast being as follows:

Olympia ...................................... Zepilli

Giulietta .................................... Jomelli

Antonia ...................................... Borello

Nicklausse ............................... De Cisneros

A Voice ..................................... Giaconia

Hoffman ..................................... Dalmorès

Cornelius |

Dappertutto |

Dr. Miracle | ................................. Renaud

Spalanzni |

Grespel | ................................. Gilibert

Lindorff |

Schlemihl | .................................. Crabbe

Cochenille |

Pitichinaccio | ................................ Daddi

Frantz ............................... Gianoli-Galetti

Hermann .................................. Reschiglian

Nathaniel .................................. Venturini

Luther ...................................... Fossetta

Conductor, Cleofonte Campanini

On November 25, 1907, Mr. Hammerstein brought forward Massenet's

"Thaïs," to signalize the first appearance in America of Miss Mary

Garden. The opera was produced with the following cast:

Thaïs ....................................... Mary Garden

Crobyle ........................................ Trentini

Myrtale ........................................ Giaconia

Albine .................................. Gerville-Reache

Athanaël ......................................... Renaud

Nicias ......................................... Cazouran

Palemon .......................................... Mugnoz

Un Serviteur ................................ Reschiglian

Conductor, Campanini

With this work French opera won its second triumph. The charm of Miss

Garden's personality was felt, but her singing compelled less tribute,

and though the opera had seven representations before the departure of

M. Renaud compelled its withdrawal, its success was due much more to him

than to his fair companion. The Thaïs of MM. Gallet and Massenet is not

the Thaïs of classical story, who induced Alexander to burn the palace

of the Persian kings at Persepolis--"who like another Helen, fired

another Troy"--but she is of her tribe. Also of the tribe of Phryne,

Laïs, and Messalina, who live in history and in art because of their

beauty and their pruriency, their loveliness and licentiousness. The

operatic Thaïs is the invention of Anatole France, who borrowed her

name for a courtesan of Alexandria some centuries after the historic

woman lived. With the help of suggestions borrowed from the stories of

innumerable saints who fled from the vicious world into the desert,

and industriously cultivated sanctity and bodily filth, of converted

trollops and holy Anthonys, he constructed a tale of how one of these

desert saints, filled with ardor to save the soul of a cyprian who

had the gay world of Alexandria at her feet, went to her, persuaded

her to put her sinful life behind her, enter the retreat of a saintly

sisterhood and die in grace, while he, falling at the last into the

clutches of carnal lust, repented of his good deed and wrought his own

damnation. Changing the name of the unfortunate zealot from Paphnuce to

Athanaël, M. Louis Gallet made an opera-book out of France's story, and

Massenet set it to music. It is a delectable story, but it fell into the

hands of master craftsmen, and the admirers of "art for art's sake" and

at any cost, have cause to rejoice at the treatment which it received.

Glimpses into the life of the frowsy fraternity of cenobites, and

fragments of their doleful canticles are not engaging in themselves, but

they are fine foils to pictures of antique vice and the songs and dances

of classic voluptuaries. There are splendid dramatic potentialities for

those who like such things and those who find profit in exploiting in

the juxtaposition cheek by jowl of saintliness and sin; of Christian

hymning and harlotry; of virtue in a physical wrestle with vice, and

coming out triumphant, but handing the palm over to the real victor at

the end; in the picture of a monk sprinkling the couch of Venus with

holy water, and decking his cowl with roses.

Also there was a large personal note in the original creation of

"Thaïs," and there was a large personal note in its reproduction. It is

not altogether a pleasant one for the lover of real art to listen to.

Had there been no Sybil Sanderson, it is doubtful if Massenet would ever

have been directed to the subject. True, he had shown a predilection

for frail women as his heroines before, as witness Marie Magdalen, Eve,

Herodias, and Manon Lescaut; but in the works which exploited these

women the personal equation did not enter so far as the world knows or

the printed page discloses. But when he wrote "Thaïs" it was neither

histrionic nor musical art that be aimed primarily to exploit, but the

physical charms of an individual. Something was needed for the jaded

boulevardiers of Paris to leer at while they feebly clapped their hands

and piped "Ah, charmante! Ravissante!" It may be that the fine command

of Oriental color which is supposed to have affinity in the idioms of

music with voluptuousness in all its forms, had something to do with

the case, but the whole structure of the piece, superb as it is in its

contrasting elements, and theatrically ingenious and effective, points

nevertheless to the unfortunate Sanderson. And in the same way its

Parisian revival points to Madame Cavalieri and Miss Garden, and its

American production to the latter. For the sake of gifted singers and

accomplished actors merely, the opera was not created, and will not

be kept alive. It rests for its success on the kind of argument which

Phryne, of classic story, presented to her austere judges.

The brilliancy of the play, its masterly handling of contrasts equally

gratifying to the scenic artist, the actor, and the composer, challenged

admiration and won it in large measure at the Manhattan performances.

From the ordinary theatrical point of view it would not be easy to pick

a quarrel with the drama. It would be almost churlish when there is so

much to be grateful for, to pick flaws in M. Massenet's score. In the

first place, compared with the vast volume of stuff poured forth by

his younger colleagues of Italy, and even by some of his confrères of

France, it makes appeal for approval by its evidences of consummate

technical mastery. It never trickles; it never grows stagnant; it never

gropes; it never fails for want of matter and manner in utterance.

Its current is smooth and self-reliant. It carries action and scene

buoyantly and unceasingly, even if it does not always expound them

deeply or give them adequate external adornment. When it has no real

warmth it simulates it admirably. Its texture is well-knit. There is

purpose, not deep, not long-sustained, but, so far as it goes, logical,

in the composer's application of the system of typical or representative

phrases. There is, too, a measure of appositeness in the structure and

character of his themes--the themes of asceticism, of Athanaël, of

Thaïs. There is mastery of local color which makes the composer's use

of Oriental tints as dramatically appropriate as it is engaging in all

the scenes of ancient profligacy which fill the center of the artist's

canvas.

M. Massenet's orchestra is an active agent in the development of the

drama, and the episodes in which it becomes dominant are not pauses

in the action created because of a felt need for something besides an

undercurrent for the inane chatter of dialogue; instead they carry on

the psychological action, the concealed drama which is playing on the

stage of the hearts of the people concerned in the story. There is

fitness in the interlude, in which Thaïs disposes herself to reproduce

the pantomime of the loves of Aphrodite and Adonis, and a pretty touch

of significance in the reminiscence of the music which had disturbed

Athanaël's dream in the first act. There is more than mere musical

charm in the intermezzo which follows the scene in which the monk wakes

into life the conscience of the courtesan. She has defied him to the

last, but the struggle in her soul has begun, and while he sleeps on

the steps of her house the progress and outcome of the struggle are

portrayed in the instrumental number which Massenet has called a

"Religious Meditation." In itself it is not unlike scores of pieces

similarly intituled, but it is made significant by its introduction of

the theme of Thaïs in a chastened mood, in the garb of solemn gravity;

and the melody of the violin solo, borne up by almost indefinable

harmonies, and floated by harp arpeggios, recurs again before the death

scene of Thaïs to delineate her ecstasy and Athanaël's despair. Though

the intermezzo, thus admirably motived, marks the highest flight of

Massenet's genius in this opera, there are many other pages in the score

which might be chosen for praise. Enough that while the admirers of

"Manon" and "Werther" are not likely to find the music of those operas

equaled, they will yet find much to fascinate them in "Thaïs."

I have said, in effect, that the chief triumph in the performance

of Massenet's opera was won by M. Renaud. Miss Garden had, indeed,

established herself as a popular favorite, but it was not until the

production of Charpentier's "Louise," on January 3, 1908, an opera with

which her name was more intimately associated in popular report, that

it could be said without qualification that French opera had won its

battle. The principal parts in this opera were distributed amongst Mr.

Hammerstein's singers thus:

Louise ..................................... Miss Mary Garden

Julien .................................. M. Charles Dalmorès

Mother of Louise ...................... Mme. Bressler-Gianoli

Father of Louise ........................ M. Charles Gilibert

Irma ................................... Mlle. Alice Zeppilli

Camille ..................................... Mlle. Morichini

Gertrude ..................................... Mlle. Giaconia

Suzanne ............................... Mlle. Helene Koelling

King of the Fools .............................. M. Venturini

A Ragpicker .................................. M. Reschiglian

A Junkman ......................................... M. Mugnoz

Elise |

A Street Sweeper | ........................... Mlle. Severina

A Street Arab ................................ Mlle. Trentini

An Apprentice ................................. Mlle. Sigrist

Conductor, Campanini

"Louise" had made a great noise, both in a literal and figurative

sense, during the greater part of the preceding eight years. It had

made the rounds of the principal opera houses on the European continent,

but most of the noise came from Paris, and among those who sat in

Mr. Hammerstein's boxes and stalls on the occasion of its American

production there were many who had already made the acquaintance of the

work at the Opéra Comique, in the French capital. It is likely that

their interest in the performance was mingled more or less with curious

questionings touching the attitude which local opera-lovers would assume

toward it. There is a vast difference in the mood in which Americans go

to public entertainments in Paris and at home. In a sense, though not a

large or dignified one, the tragic element in the story of Charpentier's

opera is universal; but its representation is in every particular

the most local and circumscribed of any opera ever written. I am not

disposed to waste much time or space in a discussion of things to

which the patrons of our playhouses have often exhibited a callous

indifference. It is only to justify a hurried analysis of the artistic

nature of the work that attention is called to some of its essential

characteristics. "Louise" is not a French opera, though its score is

French, its people speak French, and its music echoes French measures

when it is original, and also when borrowed or imitated. "Louise" is

Parisian in its gaiety, its passions, its vulgarity, and its artistic

viciousness. If music could in itself give expression to ethical ideas,

it would also be proper to say that this score is Parisian in its

immorality. Coupled with its story, which glorifies the licentiousness

of Paris and makes mock of virtue, the sanctity of the family tie, and

the institutions upon which social stability and human welfare have

ever rested and must forever rest, the music may also be set down as

immoral. Certain it is that there is nothing in it that is spiritually

uplifting, and as little that makes for gentleness and refinement of

artistic taste. It is not French in the historic sense, because it

rudely tramples upon all the esthetic principles for which the French

composers, from Lully to the best of Charpentier's contemporaries have

stood--elegance, grace, and beauty of expression.

It is, however, characteristic of the times--characteristic in subject

and in utterance. To the intellectual and moral anarchism universally

prevalent among the peoples of Western culture, which desires to

have idealism outraged, sacred things ridiculed, high conceptions of

beauty and duty dragged into the gutter, and ugliness, brutality, and

bestiality placed upon a pedestal so long as a consuming thirst for

things hot in the mouth may be slaked, it makes a strong appeal. To

Mr. Hammerstein its success meant much. It was a reward for another

exhibition of a bold and adventurous spirit; of his skill in gathering

together a band of artists splendidly capable of presenting the works

which he was trying to make the prop of a new lyric theater in the

American metropolis; of a daringly enterprising purpose to make all

the elements of his new productions harmonious and alluring--the stage

pictures, the action, the singing, and the instrumental music. This

achievement he accomplished when not only the large and striking

features of the opera--its scenic outfit, its pictures of popular

carousal on the heights of Montmartre, the roystering realism of the

scene in a dressmakers' shop, the splendid acting of Miss Garden and

Mme. Bressler-Gianoli, the fine singing of M. Dalmorès, and the more

than superb acting and singing of M. Gilibert--found their complement

in the finish of a hundred little details, insignificant in themselves,

but singularly potent in helping to create the atmosphere without which

"Louise" would be little better than Bowery melodrama,--a play that

would be a hundred times more effective if its hero and heroine were

represented as living in Williamsburg, swelling at the spectacle of

the lights spanning the East River, and longing for the fleshpots of

the so-called "Tenderloin District" in New York.

The story of "Louise," in brief, is that of a sewing-girl who lives with

her parents on Montmartre, up to which, night after night, blink and

beckon the lights of the gay city. An artist, who is her neighbor, wooes

her and offers marriage, but her parents, a harsh, unsympathetic mother

and a tender-hearted father, are rigid in their objections to him

because of his insufficient means and loose character. Her lover lures

her out of her workshop, and, after he has inculcated in her the

doctrine of free love and free life, she leaves her parents to consort

with him. The artist's jovial companions make her queen of a Montmartre

festival for a purpose wholly extraneous to the story, but one that

serves the composer, who is his own librettist, and in the midst of the

merrymaking the mother appears and pleads with the girl to return to her

home to comfort her dying father. Her lover permits her to do so on her

promise to return to him. At home her father entreats her to give up her

life of dishonor. She listens to him petulantly. The music of a fête in

the city below, voices calling her from a distance, and the flashing

lights in the great city below, throw her into a frantic ecstasy; she

sings of her love and calls to her lover. The mother thinks her mad,

but the father drives her out of the house, only to repent and call

after her a moment later. But she is gone, and the drama ends with the

father shaking his fist at the city, and shrieking at it his hatred

and detestation.

The thoughts of opera-goers will naturally revert to "La Bohème"; but

there are many points of difference between the story which Puccini's

librettist pieced together out of Mürger's tales of bohemian life more

than half a century ago, and this one of to-day. The differences are all

in favor of the earlier opera. It was in a letter written by Lafcadio

Hearn to me that he called attention to the fact that under the levity

of Mürger's picturesque bohemianism there was apparent a serious

philosophy, which had an elevating effect upon the characters of the

romance. "They followed one principle faithfully,--so faithfully that

only the strong survived the ordeal,--never to abandon the pursuit of an

artistic vocation for any other occupation, however lucrative, not even

when she remained apparently deaf and blind to her worshipers." There is

very little in Puccini's opera to justify this observation, but the

significant fact remains that throughout the dramatic development of the

piece the bohemian artists and their careless companions grow in the

sympathy of the audience. For one thing, there is no questioning their

sincerity. For this there is only one parallel in Charpentier's opera.

There is, in fact, only one really dramatic character in it. It is that

of the father; in him there is honest, human feeling, a tenderness and

love which yield only to a moment of passion when he is perplexed in the

extreme and at a moment when the last drop of sympathy for Louise has

oozed away. Her tender regard for her father is pathetic in the first

act, where it is set against the foil of her mother's harshness. In

the last act, however, she is petulant, irascible, and cold, until the

moment of frenzy, when she surrenders to the call of Paris and her

wretched passion. Julien is scantily and unconvincingly sketched. There

is little indeed even to indicate sincerity in his love for Louise; at

first, while she sings of the ecstasy of first love, he calmly reads a

book; and when he responds, it is to invoke her to join him in a paean

in praise, not of their love, but of Paris. Does she find him, when she

rushes down the stairs, pursued by her father's broken-hearted calls?

One can feel no certainty on the point. The last impression is only

that she has gone to plunge into the flood of wickedness, never to be

seen again.

It was said some years ago, when "Louise" was celebrating its first

triumphs, that the opera was the first number of a projected trilogy,

and that Charpentier would tell us the rest of the story of the

sewing-girl in other operas. But the years have passed, the composer

has grown rich and is giving no sign. Instead, there is an organized

"Louise" propaganda in Paris. Funds are raised to send the working girls

of the city to the opera in droves, there to hear the alluring call to

harlotry, under the pretense that the agonies of the father will preach

a moral lesson.

There are dramatic strength and homogeneity only in the first and last

acts of the opera. The scenes between are shreds and patches, invented

to give local color to the story. In the original form the picture

of low life at dawn on Montmartre, in which charwomen, scavengers,

ragpickers, street sweepers, milkwomen, policemen, and others figure,

was enlivened by a mysterious personage called Le Noctambule, who

proclaimed himself to be the soul of the city--the Pleasure of Paris.

It was a part of the symbolism which we are asked also to find in the

flitting visions of low life and the echoes of street cries in the

music. But it was a note out of key, and Mr. Campanini eliminated it,

with much else of the local color rubbish. And yet it is in the use of

this local color that nearly all that is original and individual in the

score consists. Until we reach the final scene of the father's wild

anguish there is very little indeed that is striking in the music,

except that which is built up out of the music of the street. We hear

echoes of the declamatory style of the young Italian veritists in the

dialogue, much that is more than suggestive of the mushy sentimentality

of the worst of Gounod and Massenet in the moments when the music

attempts the melodic vein, and no end of Wagnerian orchestration in the

instrumental passages which link the scenes together. Some of this music

is orchestrated with great beauty and discretion, like the preludes, but

all that is conceived to accompany violent emotion is only fit to "tear

a cat in" or to "make all split." The score, in fact, is chiefly a

triumph of reflection, of ingenious workmanship, and there is scarcely

a moment in the opera that takes strong hold of the fancy, for which

the memory does not immediately supply a model, either dramatic or

musical, or both. Wagner's marvelous close of the second act of "Die

Meistersinger," with the night watchman walking through the quiet

streets flooded with moonlight, singing his monotonous chant, is feebly

mimicked at the close of the first scene of the second act of "Louise,"

when, all the characters of the play having disappeared, an Old Clothes

Man comes down a staircase crying his dolorous (all the street cries

are strangely melancholy) "Marchand d'habits! Avez-vous des habits a

vendr'?" while from the distance arise the cries of the dealers in

birdseed and artichokes. The spinning scene in "The Flying Dutchman,"

which reproduces a custom of vast antiquity, is replaced in "Louise"

with a scene in the dressmaker's workshop, in which the chatter of the

girls and the antics of the comédienne are borne up by the music of the

orchestra, with the click-click of the sewing machines to make up for

the melodious hum of Wagner's spinning wheels. Puccini's bohemians meet

in front of the Café Momus, enlivened by the passing incidents of a

popular fête; Charpentier's bohemians celebrate the crowning of the Muse

of Montmartre with a carnival gathering and ballet. It is this fête, we

fancy, which formed the nucleus around which Charpentier built his work.

Twice before "Louise" was brought forward he had utilized the ideas of

the popular festival at which a working girl was crowned and made the

center of a procession of roysterers, and a musical score with themes

taken from the noises of Paris. His "Couronnement de la Muse," composed

for a Montmartre festival, was performed at Lille in 1898; from Rome he

sent to Paris along with his picturesque orchestral piece, "Impressions

d'Italie," a symphonic drama, "La Vie du Poète," for soli, chorus,

and orchestra, in which he introduced "all the noises and echoes of a

Montmartre festival, with its low dancing rooms, its drunken cornets,

its hideous din of rattles, the wild laughter of bands of revelers, and

the cries of hysterical women." But even here M. Charpentier is original

in execution only, not in plan. There is scarcely a public library in

the large cities of Europe and America which does not contain a copy

of Georges Kastner's "Les Voix de Paris," with its supplement, "Cris

de Paris," a "Symphonie humoristique," with its themes drawn from the

cries of the peripatetic hucksters and street venders of the French

Capital; and as if that were not enough, historic records and traditions

trace the use of street cries as musical material back to the sixteenth

century. There seems even to have been a possibility that a "Ballet des

Cris de Paris" furnished forth an entertainment in which the Grand

Monarch himself assisted, for the court of Louis XIV.

French opera had won its battle; but even now, the way was not wholly

clear and open, for the successful operas were too few and their

repetition caused some grumbling.

At this critical moment the star of Luisa Tetrazzini rose in London

and threw its glare over all the operatic world. Two years before

Mr. Conried had engaged the singer while she was in California, but

had failed to bind the contract by depositing a guarantee with her

banker. He failed, it is said, because when he wanted to complete the

negotiations he could not find her. Mr. Hammerstein also negotiated

with her for the season of 1906-07, so he said, but she proved elusive.

Neither of the managers felt any loss at his failure to secure her. The

London excitement may have set Mr. Conried to thinking; Mr. Hammerstein

it stirred to action. On December 1st he announced that he had engaged

her for the season of 1908-09, and hoped to have her for a few

performances before the end of the season of 1907-08. A fortnight later

he proclaimed that she would effect her New York entrance on January

15th, and that he had secured her for fifteen representations in the

current season, with the privilege of adding to their number. Mr.

Conried threatened proceedings by injunction, but his threats were

brutum fulmen; she made her début on the specified date in "La

Traviata," and when the season closed she had added seven performances

(one in Philadelphia) to the fifteen originally contemplated. In New

York she sang five times in "Traviata," eight times in "Lucia," once

in "Dinorah," three times in "Rigoletto," three times in "Crispino e

la Comare," and once in a "mixed bill." She was rapturously acclaimed

by the public and a portion of the press. It is useless to discuss

the phenomenon. The whims of the populace are as unquestioning and

as irresponsible as the fury of the elements. That was seen in the

Tetrazzini craze in New York and in London; it was seen again in the

reception given to that musically and dramatically amorphous thing,

"Pelléas et Mélisande." This was as completely bewildering to the

admirers of the melodrama as to those who are blind and deaf to its

attractions. It should have been more so, for it is more difficult to

affect to enjoy "Pelléas et Mélisande" than to yield to the qualities

which dazzle in the singing of Tetrazzini. Nevertheless, "Pelléas et

Mélisande" had seven performances within five weeks.

Debussy's opera was performed for the first time on February 19, 1908,

the parts being distributed as follows:

Arkël ........................................ M. Arimondi

Pelléas ........................................ M. Perier

Golaud ....................................... M. Dufranne

Mélisande .................................... Miss Garden

Yniold ..................................... Mlle. Sigrist

Geneviéve ........................... Mme. Gerville-Reache

Un Médecin ..................................... M. Crabbe

Conductor, Sig. Campanini

The production of "Pelléas et Mélisande" was the most venturesome

experiment that Mr. Hammerstein had yet made and the one most difficult

to explain on any ground save the belief that a French novelty, no

matter what its character or its merits, would win profitable patronage

in New York at the moment. There was nothing in the history of the work

itself to inspire the confidence that it would make a potent appeal to

the tastes of the opera-lovers of New York. Nowhere outside of Paris

had it gained a foothold, and its success in Paris was like that which

any esthetic cult or pose may secure if diligently and ingeniously

exploited. Mr. Hammerstein knew this and he had seen the work at the

Opéra Comique. It could not have escaped his discerning mind that only

a small element in the population of even so cosmopolitan a city as

New York could by any possibility possess the intellectual and esthetic

qualifications necessary to enthusiastic appreciation of the qualities,

not to say merits, of the work. These qualifications are quite as much

negative as they are positive. It is not enough to the appreciation of

"Pelléas et Mélisande" that the listener shall understand French. He

must have a taste--and this must be an acquired one, since it cannot

be born in him--for the French of M. Maeterlinck's infantile plays,

"Pelléas et Mélisande" being on the border-line between the marionette

drama and that designed for the consumption of mature minds. He must,

moreover, have joined the inner brotherhood of symbol worshipers, and

be able to discern how it is that the world-old story of the union of

December and May, of blooming youth and crabbed age with its familiar

(and, as some poets and romancers would have us believe, inevitable)

consequences, can be enhanced by much chatter about crowns and rings

dropped into wells, white-haired beggars lying in a cave, stagnant and

mephitic pools, fluttering doves, departing ships, kings who lose their

way while hunting and are dashed against trees at twelve o'clock, maids

who know not whence they came or why they are weeping, and a whole

phantasmagoria more, out of all proportion to the simple incidents of

the tragedy itself.

This so far as the literary side of the matter is concerned. On

the musical much more is demanded. He must recognize unrhythmical,

uncadenced, disjointed, and ejaculatory prose dialogue, with scarcely a

lyrical moment in it, as a fit vehicle for music. He must not only be

willing to forego vocal melody, but even the semblance of melody also

in the instrumental music upon which the dialogue floats; for everybody

knows since the Wagnerian drama came into being that words which are in

themselves incapable of melodious flow may be the cause of melody in the

orchestral music which accompanies them. [There is here no allusion to

tune in the conventional sense, tune made up of motive, phrase, period

and section, but to a well modulated succession of musical intervals,

expressing a feeling or illustrating a mood.] He who would enjoy the

musical integument of this play must have cultivated a craving for

dissonance in harmony and find relish in combinations of tones that

sting and blister and pain and outrage the ear. He must have learned

to contemn euphony and symmetry, with its benison of restfulness, and

to delight in monotony of orchestral color, monotony of mood, monotony

of dynamics, and monotony of harmonic device.

It is not at all likely that Mr. Hammerstein expected to find a

sufficient number of opera-goers thus strangely constituted among

the patrons of his establishment to justify him in the astonishing

exhibition of enterprise or venturesomeness illustrated by the

production of "Pelléas et Mélisande" with artists brought especially

from Paris only because they had been concerned in the Parisian

performances, with new scenery, and at the cost of much money and labor

spent in the preparation. It is therefore safe to assume that he counted

on the potent power of public curiosity touching a well-advertised

thing. He had fared well with Mme. Tetrazzini in presenting operas which

represent everything that "Pelléas et Mélisande" is not. In this he had

much encouragement. He played boldly, and won.

"Pelléas et Mélisande" as it came from the hands of M. Maeterlinck, and

in the only form which the author recognizes, had been presented in

New York in an English version. What has been said above about the

qualifications of him who would rise to an enjoyment of the music with

which Debussy has consorted it ought to serve also to characterize that

music. Nothing has been exaggerated, nothing set down in a spirit of

illiberality. No student of music can be ignorant of the fact that the

art, being a pure projection of the human will, is necessarily always

in a state of flux, and in its nature, within the limitations that

bound all the manifestations of beauty, lawless. M. Debussy might have

proclaimed and illustrated that fact without in his capacity of a

critical writer having sought to throw odium on dead masters who were

better than he and living contemporaries who are at least older. The

little Parisian community who pass the candied stick of mutual praise

from mouth to mouth would nevertheless have given him their plaudits. In

his proclamation of the principles of musical composition as applied to

the drama he has proclaimed principles as old as opera. It needed no man

who has outlived the diatonic scale to tell us that vocal music should

be written in accordance with the rhythm and accents of the words, and

that dramatic music should be an integral element of the drama, or, as

he puts it, be "the atmosphere through which dramatic emotion radiates."

The Florentine inventors of monody told us that, Gluck echoed them,

Wagner re-enunciated the principle, and no modern composer has dreamed

of denying its validity. The only question is whether or not such

admirable results have been attained by M. Debussy; whether his music

sweetens or intensifies or vitalizes the play. That question must be

answered by the individual hearer. No one should be ashamed to proclaim

his pleasure in four hours of uninterrupted, musically inflected speech

over a substratum of shifting harmonies, each with its individual tang

and instrumental color; but neither should anybody be afraid to say that

nine-tenths of the music is a dreary monotony because of the absence

of what to him stands for musical thought. Let him admit or deny, as

he sees fit, that the principle of symphonic development is a proper

concomitant of the musical drama, but let him also say whether or

not what to some appears a flocculent, hazy web of dissonant sounds,

now acrid, now bitter-sweet, maundering along from scene to scene,

unrelieved by a single pregnant melodic phrase, stirs within him the

emotions awakened by a union of melody, harmony, and rhythm, either in

the old conception or the new. Debussy has had his fling at Wagner and

his system of construction in the lyric drama; yet he adopts his system

of musical symbols, It is almost a humiliation to say it. There is

sea music and forest music in "Pelléas et Mélisande." What a flight

of gibbering phantoms there would be if the fluttering of Tristan's

pennants or the "hunt's up" of King Mark's horns could be heard even

for a moment!

It would be difficult accurately and honestly to say what was the

verdict of the audience touching the merit of the work; concerning

the performance there was never a question. The first three acts were

followed by a respectful patter of applause. When Mr. Campanini came

into the orchestra to begin the fourth act he received an ovation

which was both spontaneous and cordial. The dramatic climax, which is

accompanied by superb music of its kind, is reached in the scene of

Pelléas's killing at the end of the fourth act. This stirred up hearty

enthusiasm, and after all the artists, Mr. Campanini, and the stage

manager had shared in the expression of enthusiastic gratitude, Mr.

Hammerstein was brought before the curtain. He made a brief speech,

saying that by its appreciation of the opera, with its poetical beauty

and musical grandeur, New York had set itself down as the most highly

cultivated city in the world, and that for himself the only purpose he

had had in producing it was to endear himself to the city's people!

Would that one dared to exclaim: "O sancta simplicitas!"

Mr. Hammerstein did not perform all the novelties which he had promised

in his prospectus, but to make good the loss he brought forward two

operas, one a complete novelty, which he had not promised. This was

Giordano's "Siberia." More surprising was the fact that only one day

before the close of the season he produced the same composer's "Andrea

Chenier" under circumstances which made the occasion a gala one for

Signor Cleofonte Campanini, the energetic and capable director who

more than anyone else had made the marvelous achievements of the

Manhattan company possible. The production of "Andrea Chenier" was not

contemplated when Mr. Hammerstein came forth in the summer with his

official announcement of the season; it had, however, been promised

by Mr. Conried, who seems to have found that the production of two

novelties of a vastly inferior kind taxed to the limit the resources of

the proud establishment in Broadway. There it was permitted to slumber

on with "Otello," "Der Freischütz," and "Das Nachtlager von Granada,"

whose titles graced Mr. Conried's prospectus. That circumstance may

have had something to do with Mr. Hammerstein's resolve at the eleventh

hour to add it to the list of five other new productions which he had

already placed to his credit. If so, he gave no indication of the fact

but permitted the announcement to go out that the performance was a

compliment to Signor Campanini and his wife, who, as Signora Tetrazzini,

had retired from the operatic stage after singing in the opera three

years before. Incidentally the circumstance appealed to whatever

feelings of gratitude the patrons of the Manhattan Opera House felt

toward Signor Campanini and also to the popular curiosity to hear a

sister of the Tetrazzini whose coming to the opera was the season's

chief sensation.

The occasion was well calculated to set the beards of memory mongers to

wagging. Those who could recall some of the minor incidents of a

quarter-century earlier remembered that the indefatigable director of

to-day was a modest maestro di cembalo at the Metropolitan in its

first season, and on a few occasions when his famous brother Italo

Campanini sang was permitted to try his "prentice hand" at conducting.

Next they recalled that four years later, when that brother made an

unlucky venture as impresario and sought to rouse the people of New York

to enthusiasm with a production of Verdi's "Otello" it was Cleofonte

Campanini who was the conductor of the company and Signorina Eva

Tetrazzini who was the prima donna. The original American production

of "Andrea Chenier" took place at the Academy of Music on November 13,

1896. At the revival on March 27, 1908, the parts were distributed as

follows:

Maddalena de Coigny ................. Mme. Tetrazzini-Campanini

Andrea Chenier ..................................... Sig. Bassi

Carlo Gerard ................................... Sig. Sainmarco

Contessa de Coigny ............................ Sig'ra Giaconia

Bersi ......................................... Sig'ra Seppilli

Madelon ...................................... Mme. De Cisneros

Roucher ........................................... Sig. Crabbe

Fouquier-Tinville ............................... Sig. Arimondi

A Story Writer |

Mathieu, a sansculotte | ................. Sig. Gianoli-Galetti

An Incroyable .................................. Sig. Venturini

Abbé ............................................... Sig. Daddi

Schmidt, a jailor ............................... Sig. Fossetta

Major Domo ................................... Sig. Reschiglian

Dumas, president of the tribunal .................. Sig. Mugnoz

Conductor, Sig. Campanini

"Siberia" was performed on February 5, 1908, with the following cast:

Stephana ................................... Sig'ra Agostinelli

La Fanciulla .................................. Sig'ra Trentini

Nikona ........................................ Sig'ra Zaccaria

Vassili ........................................ Sig. Zenatello

Gleby ........................................... Sig. Sammarco

Walitzin .......................................... Sig. Crabbe

Alexis .......................................... Sig. Casauran

Ivan |

The Sergeant | ................................. Sig. Venturini

The Captain ....................................... Sig. Mugnoz

The Invalid .............................. Sig. Gianoli-Galetti

Miskinsky .................................... Sig. Reschiglian

L'Ispravnik |

The Cossack |

The Inspector | ................................. Sig. Fossetta

Conductor, Sig. Campanini

Giordano's opera is an experiment along the lines faintly suggested by

Mascagni in "Iris," but boldly and successfully drawn by Puccini in

"Madama Butterfly" and Charpentier in "Louise." The Italian disciples of

verismo are in full cry after nationalism and local color. A generation

ago the scenes, the characters, and the subject of an opera were of no

concern to the composer. His indifference to anachronism was like that

of Shakespeare, whose stage-folk, whether supposed to be ancient Greeks,

Romans, or Bretons, were all sixteenth-century Englishmen. When Verdi

wrote his Egyptian opera he was content with a little splash of

Orientalism which colors the chant of the priestess in the temple of

Phtha; the rest of the music is Italian. So the Germans remained German

in their music, and the Frenchmen continued to speak their own idioms,

saving a few characteristic rhythms for the incidental ballet. Mascagni

injected a little twanging of the Japanese samiesen into the music of

"Iris" but let the effort to obtain local color stop there.

Nevertheless the hint was seized upon by both Giordano and Puccini, and

apparently at about the same time. The former made an excursion into

Russia, the latter into Japan; Signor Illica acted as guide for both.

The more daring of the two was Puccini, for Japan is musically sterile,

while Russia has a wealth of characteristic folk-song unequaled by

that of any other country on the face of the earth. Nevertheless there

is nothing more admirable in the score of "Madama Butterfly" than the

refined and ingenious skill with which the composer bent the square-toed

rhythms and monotonous tunes of Japanese music to his purposes.

The dramatic structure of "Siberia" is not strong. Incidents of convict

life in Siberia which have formed the staple of Russian fiction for

so long are depended on to awaken interest and provide picturesque

stage-furniture, while sympathy is asked for the heroine who obtains

"redemption" by an honest love and a heroic sacrifice. Of course, that

the requisite degree of piquancy may not be wanting, the martyr is

a bawd who surrenders the luxuries of St. Petersburg provided by a

princely lover, to endure the privations of the Siberian mines with that

lover's successful rival. Only in the "redemption motive," so to speak,

is there any likeness between the story of the opera and Tolstoi's

"Resurrection," or the play based on that book which had been seen in

New York five years before, though the two had been associated in the

gossip of the theaters. There are three acts. The first, in which the

young officer Vassili, with whom the heroine Stephana is in love, draws

his sword against his superior officer, Prince Alexis, and thereby draws

down on himself the sentence of banishment to the mines, plays in a

palace in St. Petersburg, which the Prince had given to Stephana, who is

his mistress. The second act discloses incidents in the journey of the

convicts through Siberia, Vassili being joined at a station by Stephana,

who has sacrificed her all to follow him into exile. In the third act

phases of convict life and customs belonging to the Russian Easter

festival are disclosed, and there is a resumption of the dramatic story

which now hurries rapidly to its tragic conclusion. Gleby, the seducer

of Stephana, is found among a gang of new arrivals at the mines, and the

governor of the province, who had been among her old admirers, renews

his protestations of devotion and promises her liberty and a life of

pleasure. Him she repulses gently and proclaims the joy which Siberia

has brought to her. Gleby also attempts to regain his old influence over

her, but is cast aside with contumely. Thereupon he denounces her to the

community. She and her lover determine to escape but are betrayed and

the heroine is shot in her attempted flight. She dies "redeemed."

"Siberia" has no overture. In place of an instrumental introduction

there is a chorus of mujiks, which, Russian in idea as well as in

harmonization and manner of performance, introduces at once the most

interesting as it is the most effective element in the score. Without

this element the opera would be deplorably dull, so far as its music

is concerned. Giordano's original melody is for the greater part

commonplace and unexpressive. The dramatic scenes between the lovers in

each of the acts are passionate only to ears accustomed or willing to

find passion in strenuousness. Throughout Stephana and Vassili sing as

the Irishman played the fiddle--by main strength. In the second act

there is much more to warm the fancy and delight the ear. Here the

lack of an opening overture is made good by an extended instrumental

introduction of real beauty and power. In a way the music is both

meteorological and psychological; it pictures the dreary waste of

country; it seems to speak of the falling snow and biting frost; but it

also gives voice to the heavy-heartedness which is the prevailing mood

of the act. It introduces, too, as a thematic motive, the opening phrase

of the Russian folk-song which the convicts sing as they enter. This

melody is one of the gems of Russian folk-song so much admired by the

composers of the Czar's empire that there are few of them who have not

put it to artistic use. It is "Ay ouchnem," the song originally created

for the bargemen of the Volga, who to its sighing and groaning measures,

with broad straps across their breasts, towed heavy vessels against the

current of the river. Now it is also used by workmen to assist them in

the lifting and carrying of burdens. Giordano makes excellent use of it

at the end as well as at the beginning of the act, though as a direct

quotation, not for thematic treatment as Puccini uses the Japanese

themes in his score. This is one of the characteristics of Giordano's

opera and one which illustrates his inferiority as a musician to his

more successful rival. In the second act a semi-chorus of women quote

again from Russian folk-song by singing the melody of the air known to

all musical folklorists by its German title, "Schöne Minka." In the

third act there is a Russian Easter canticle which has little of the

Russian character but makes an agreeable impression upon the popular

ear by reason of its effective use of bell-chimes. There is another

folk-melody in the opera which has gained publicity in a manner

different from that which made "Ay ouchnem" and "Schöne Minka" widely

known; it is the melody of the "Glory" song--"Slava"--which Beethoven

used in the scherzo of one of his Rasoumowski Quartets.

The season was not without its humorous incidents. A quarrel of Messrs.

Conried and Hammerstein over MM. Dalmorès and Gilibert, who were enticed

away from their old allegiance by Mr. Conried but would not stay

bought, was one of these. Another was a circular letter sent out by Mr.

Hammerstein on December 23d, scolding his subscribers because they were

not coming up to his help against the mighty. The letter caused much

amused comment amongst the knowing, who asked themselves whether it was

the scolding of the innocent or the coming of "Louise," Tetrazzini,

and "Pelléas et Mélisande" which turned the tables in the favor of the

manager. Mr. Hammerstein seemed to believe that the letter had been

efficacious.

APPENDIX I

THREE SEASONS AT THE METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE

Season 1908-1909

The twenty-fourth regular subscription season of grand opera at the

Metropolitan Opera House began on November 16th, 1908, and ended

on April 10th, 1909. The subscription was for one hundred regular

performances in twenty weeks, on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday

evenings, and Saturday afternoons. In their prospectus the directors,

Messrs. Giulio Gatti-Casazza and Andreas Dippel, announced a change of

plan in respect of the Saturday night performances which had been given

for a number of years. Those at the reduced prices which had hitherto

prevailed were to be limited to the first twelve and the last two weeks

of the season; the others were to be at regular rates. From the end of

February till April a series of special performances on Tuesday and

Saturday nights was projected. Wagner's "Parsifal" was to be reserved

for the customary holiday performances, and there were to be two

performances of other works, the proceeds of which were to go into a

pension and endowment fund, the establishment of which, it was hoped,

would help to give greater permanency to the working forces of the

institution. There was a promise of a large increase in the orchestra

as well as the chorus, not only to give greater brilliancy to the local

performances, but also to make possible a division of the company, with

less injury than used to ensue, when it became necessary to give two

performances on the same day--one in the Metropolitan Opera House and

one in Philadelphia or Brooklyn as the case might be.

These plans were carried out practically to the letter, Mr.

Gatti-Casazza reinforcing the Italian side of the house, and Mr. Dippel

the German, with artists, scenery, and choristers, as each thought

best, under the supervision of the Executive Committee of the Board of

Directors of what became the Metropolitan Opera Company as soon as

that style could be legally adopted. The management found it less easy

to keep its word in reference to the repertory. Eight novelties were

promised, viz.: D'Albert's "Tiefland," and Smetana's "The Bartered

Bride" in German; Catalani's "La Wally," Puccini's "Le Villi," and

Tschaikowsky's "Pique Dame" in Italian; Laparra's "Habanera" in French;

Frederick Converse's "Pipe of Desire," and either Goldmark's "Cricket on

the Hearth," or Humperdinck's "Königskinder" in English. Only the first

four of these works was produced. A promise that three operas of first

class importance--Massenet's "Manon," Mozart's "Nozze di Figaro," and

Verdi's "Falstaff"--would be revived was brilliantly redeemed. To the

subscription season of twenty weeks one week was added for Wagner's

Nibelung drama and extra performances of "Aïda" and "Madama Butterfly,"

and Verdi's "Requiem," composed in honor of Manzoni, having been twice

brilliantly performed in the series of Sunday night concerts which

extended through the season, was repeated instead of an opera on the

night of Good Friday. The extra performances, outside of those of

the last week, were the holiday representations of "Parsifal" on

Thanksgiving Day, New Year's Day, Lincoln's birthday, and Washington's

birthday, and benefit performances for the French Hospital, the German

Press Club, the Music School Settlement, and the Pension and Endowment

Fund benefit. To the latter one of the Sunday night concerts was also

devoted. At the operatic benefit performance, as also at a special

representation at which Mme. Sembrich bade farewell to the operatic

stage in America (on February 6th, 1909), the program was made up of

excerpts from various operas--a fact which must be borne in mind (as

must also the double bills at regular performances) when the following

tabulated statement of the season's activities is studied. The table

which now follows gives the list of all the operas performed in the

order of their production and the number of representations given to

each in the entire season of twenty-one weeks:

Opera First performance Times

"Aïda" ......................... November 16 .......... 8

"Die Walküre" .................. November 18 .......... 5

"Madama Butterfly" ............. November 19 .......... 8

"La Traviata" .................. November 20 .......... 5

"Tosca" ........................ November 21 .......... 6

"La Bohème" .................... November 21 .......... 7

"Tiefland" ..................... November 23 .......... 4

"Parsifal" ..................... November 26 .......... 5

"Rigoletto" .................... November 28 .......... 3

"Carmen" ....................... December 3 ........... 6

"Faust" ........................ December 5 ........... 7

"Götterdämmerung" .............. December 10 .......... 5

"Le Villi" ..................... December 17 .......... 5

"Cavalleria Rusticana" ......... December 17 .......... 7

"Lucia di Lammermoor" .......... December 19 .......... 2

"Il Trovatore" ................. December 21 .......... 5

"Tristan und Isolde" ........... December 23 .......... 4

"L'Elisir d'Amore" ............. December 25 .......... 2

"Pagliacci" .................... December 26 .......... 5

"La Wally" ..................... January 6 ............ 4

"Le Nozze di Figaro" ........... January 13 ........... 6

"Die Meistersinger" ............ January 22 ........... 5

"Manon" ........................ February 3 ........... 6

"Tannhäuser" ................... February 5 ........... 7

"The Bartered Bride" ........... February 19 .......... 6

"Fidelio" ...................... February 20 .......... 1

"Falstaff" ..................... March 20 ............. 3

"Don Pasquale" ................. March 24 ............. 1

"Il Barbiere di Siviglia" ...... March 25 ............. 2

"Siegfried" .................... March 27 ............. 2

"Das Rheingold" ................ April 5 .............. 1

SUMMARY

Subscription weeks .......................................... 20

Extra week ................................................... 1

Regular performances (afternoons and evenings) ............. 120

Special representations of the dramas in "Der Ring" .......... 4

Special benefit and holiday performances .................... 10

Italian operas in the repertory ............................. 17

German operas in the repertory .............................. 10

French operas in the repertory ............................... 3

Bohemian opera in the repertory .............................. 1

German representations ...................................... 45

Italian representations ..................................... 79

French representations ...................................... 19

Oratorial performance on opera night ......................... 1

Double bills ................................................ 11

Mixed bills .................................................. 2

Novelties produced ........................................... 4

To arrive at the sum of the company's activities there must be added

fifteen performances given in the new Academy of Music in the Borough

of Brooklyn; twenty-four performances in the Academy of Music,

Philadelphia; and four performances in the Lyric Theater, Baltimore.

Brooklyn and Baltimore were privileged to hear "Hänsel und Gretel,"

which was denied to the Borough of Manhattan.

There was an unusual number of artists new to New York in the company.

With Giulio Gatti-Casazza, the Italian General Manager, came Arturo

Toscanini, who, though an Italian, chose Wagner's "Götterdämmerung" as

the opera in which to make a striking demonstration of his extraordinary

abilities as a conductor. It was he, too, who prepared the revival of

"Falstaff" and the production of the two Italian novelties, "Le Villi"

and "La Wally." His assistant in the Italian department was Signor

Spetrino, to whom was intrusted the Italian and French operas of lighter

caliber. Of the two German conductors, Mr. Mahler and Mr. Hertz, neither

was a newcomer. The former brought about the revival of "Le Nozze di

Figaro" and the production of "The Bartered Bride," two of the most

signal successes of the season. Mr. Hertz placed "Tiefland" on the

stage and added to his long Wagnerian record the first performance

heard in America of an unabridged "Meistersinger." Singers new to

the Metropolitan Opera House Company were Miss Emmy Destinn (whose

engagement had been effected by Mr. Conried some two years before),

Mmes. Alda, Gay, Di Pasquali, L'Huillier, Ranzenberg, and Flahaut; and

Messrs. Amato (an admirable barytone), Grassi, Didur (a bass who had

sung in previous seasons in Mr. Hammerstein's company), Hinckley,

Feinhals, Schmedes, Jörn, and Quarti.

A painful and pitiful incident of the season was the vocal shipwreck

suffered by Signor Caruso. After the first week of March he was unable

to sing because of an affection of his vocal organs. At the last matinée

of the subscription season and again on the following Wednesday evening,

he made ill-advised efforts to resume his duties, but the consequences

were distressful to the connoisseurs and seemed so threatening to his

physician that it was deemed advisable to relieve him of his obligation

to go West with the company.

Season 1909-1910

This, the twenty-fifth subscription season at the Metropolitan Opera

House, began on November 15th, 1909, and ended on April 2nd, 1910,

and thus endured twenty weeks. But the twenty weeks of the local

subscription by no means summed up the activities of the Metropolitan

company; there was a subscription series of twenty representations in

the Borough of Brooklyn, a subscription series of two representations

each week during the continuance of the Metropolitan season at the New

Theater in the Borough of Manhattan, many special performances, and

subscription representations in Philadelphia and Baltimore which,

though they did not belong to the local record must still be mentioned

because of the influence which they exerted on the local performances.

The first performance of the company took place in Brooklyn on

November 8th, and before the season opened at the official home of

the company representations had also been given in the distant cities

mentioned which heard twenty performances each. There were also eleven

performances in Boston, five in January and six in the last week

of March. After all this there still remained before the company a

Western tour and a visit to Atlanta, Ga. The season began with a

proclamation of harmonious cooperation between the General Manager,

Signor Gatti-Casazza, and the Administrative Manager, Mr. Dippel, and

ended with what amounted to the dismissal of the latter, who solaced

himself by accepting the directorship of the Chicago-Philadelphia Opera

Company, which was called into existence after the principal financial

backers of the Metropolitan Opera House had retired Mr. Hammerstein

from the field by the purchase of the opera house which he had built in

Philadelphia and paid him for abandoning grand opera at the Manhattan

Opera House in New York, which had been the Metropolitan's rival for

four years. The season of operas of a lighter character than those given

at the Metropolitan Opera House which was undertaken at the New Theater,

a beautiful playhouse built for high purposes by a body of gentlemen

most of whom were interested in the larger institution, proved to be a

disastrous failure for reasons which are not to be discussed here, but

which were not wholly disconnected with the causes which, a year later,

led to the abandonment of the New Theater to the same uses to which the

other playhouses of the city are put.

The local season can be most clearly and succinctly set forth in tabular

form, it being premised that apparent discrepancies between the number

of meetings and the number of performances are to be explained by the

fact that frequently two, and sometimes three, works were brought

forward on one evening or afternoon. These double and triple bills

came to be very numerous in the last month, when it was found that

the Russian dancers, Mme. Pavlowa and M. Mordkin, exerted a greater

attractive power than any opera or combination of singers:

SUBSCRIPTION SEASON AT THE METROPOLITAN

Opera First performance Times given

"La Gioconda" ................. November 15 ......... 5

"Otello" ...................... November 17 ......... 6

"La Traviata" ................. November 18 ......... 3

"Madama Butterfly" ............ November 19 ......... 6

"Lohengrin" ................... November 20 ......... 6

"La Bohème" ................... November 20 ......... 6

"Tosca" ....................... November 22 ......... 6

* "Cavalleria Rusticana" ...... November 24 ......... 7

* "Pagliacci" ................. November 24 ......... 7

"Il Trovatore" ................ November 25 ......... 6

"Tristan und Isolde" .......... November 27 ......... 5

"Aïda" ........................ December 3 .......... 6

"Tannhäuser" .................. December 4 .......... 4

"Manon" ....................... December 6 .......... 3

"Siegfried" ................... December 16 ......... 2

"Orfeo ed Eurydice" ........... December 23 ......... 5

"The Bartered Bride" .......... December 24 ......... 1

"Faust" ....................... December 25 ......... 5

"Rigoletto" ................... December 25 ......... 2

"Die Walküre" ................. January 8 ........... 3

"Il Barbiere di Siviglia" ..... January 15 .......... 3

"Germania" .................... January 22 .......... 5

"L'Elisir d'Amore" ............ January 27 .......... 1

* "Hänsel und Gretel" ......... January 29 .......... 1

"Don Pasquale" ................ February 2 .......... 2

"Stradella" ................... February 3 .......... 2

"Fra Diavolo" ................. February 6 .......... 3

"Falstaff" .................... February 16 ......... 2

"Das Rheingold" ............... February 24 ......... 1

"Werther" ..................... February 28 ......... 2

* "Coppélia" (ballet) ......... February 28 ......... 4

"Götterdämmerung" ............. March 4 ............. 1

"Pique Dame" .................. March 5 ............. 4

"Der Freischütz" .............. March 11 ............ 2

* "The Pipe of Desire" ........ March 18 ............ 2

"Die Meistersinger" ........... March 26 ............ 2

* "Hungary" (ballet) .......... March 31 ............ 2

"La Sonnambula" ............... April 2 ............. 1

* Performed only in double bills.

SUMMARY

Weeks in the season ........................................ 20

Subscription performances ................................. 120

Number of operas produced .................................. 36

German operas .............................................. 11

Bohemian opera .............................................. 1

Russian opera ............................................... 1

English opera ............................................... 1

Italian operas ............................................. 18

French operas ............................................... 4

German performances ........................................ 34

French performances ........................................ 13

Italian performances ....................................... 79

English performances ........................................ 2

Double bills (including ballets and divertissements) ....... 23

Number of ballets ........................................... 2

Performances of complete ballets ............................ 6

EXTRA REPRESENTATIONS AT THE METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE

"Parsifal," Thanksgiving matinée, November 25.

"Hänsel und Gretel," special matinées, December 21 and 28.

"La Bohème," benefit of Italian charities, January 4.

"Manon," benefit of French charities, January 18.

"Das Rheingold," serial matinées of "Der Ring," January 24.

"Die Walküre," serial matinées of "Der Ring," January 27.

"Siegfried," serial matinées of "Der Ring," January 28.

"Götterdämmerung," serial matinées of "Der Ring," February 1.

"Stradella," benefit of German Press Club, February 15.

"Vienna Waltzes," ballet, benefit of German Press Club, February 15.

"Parsifal," special matinée on Washington's birthday, February 22.

"La Gioconda," benefit of Italian charities, February 22.

Mixed bill, benefit of Opera House Pension Fund, March 1

"Aïda" and ballet divertissement, benefit of the Legal Aid Society, March 15.

"Hänsel und Gretel" and "Coppélia," ballet, special matinée, March 15.

"Parsifal," Good Friday matinée, March 25.

SUMMARY

Total number of extra performances ...................... 16

German operas ............................................ 7

German representations .................................. 11

French opera ............................................. 1

French representation .................................... 1

Italian operas ........................................... 3

Italian representations .................................. 3

Miscellaneous program .................................... 1

Double bills (operas, ballets, and divertissements) ...... 5

PERFORMANCES AT THE NEW THEATER

Opera First performance Times

"Werther" ................................ November 16 ..... 4

"The Bartered Bride" ..................... November 17 ..... 2

"Il Barbiere di Siviglia" ................ November 25 ..... 3

"Czar und Zimmermann" .................... November 30 ..... 4

* "Il Maestro di Capella" ................ December 9 ...... 3

"Cavalleria Rusticana" ................... December 9 ...... 3

"La Fille de Madame Angot" ............... December 14 ..... 4

"Don Pasquale" ........................... December 23 ..... 3

* "Le Histoire de Pierrot" (pantomime) ... December 28 ..... 4

* "Pagliacci" ............................ January 6 ....... 2

"Fra Diavolo" ............................ January 11 ...... 2

"Manon" .................................. February 3 ...... 1

"L'Elisir d'Amore" ....................... February 4 ...... 1

"L'Attaque du Moulin" .................... February 8 ...... 4

"La Bohème" .............................. February 17 ..... 2

"Stradella" .............................. February 22 ..... 1

"Madama Butterfly" ....................... March 4 ......... 1

"Tosca" .................................. March 22 ........ 1

"La Sonnambula" .......................... March 23 ........ 1

* "The Awakening of Woman" (ballet) ...... March 31 ........ 1

* "The Pipe of Desire" ................... March 31 ........ 1

* "Hungary" (ballet) ..................... March 31 ........ 1

* "Coppélia" (ballet) .................... April 1 ......... 1

* In double bills only.

SUMMARY

Number of performances ................................ 40

Number of operas produced ............................. 19

German operas .......................................... 2

Bohemian opera ......................................... 1

English opera .......................................... 1

Italian operas ......................................... 9

French operas .......................................... 6

German representations ................................. 7

French representations ................................ 15

Italian representations ............................... 20

English representation ................................. 1

Double bills (including ballets and divertissements) .. 15

Pantomime .............................................. 1

Ballets ................................................ 3

THE BROOKLYN SEASON

Opera Date of Performance

"Manon" ........................................ November 8

"Tannhäuser" ................................... November 15

"Madama Butterfly" ............................. November 22

"Tosca" ........................................ November 29

"Lohengrin" .................................... December 6

"Martha" ....................................... December 13

"Il Trovatore" ................................. December 20

"Il Maestro di Capella" and "Pagliacci" ........ January 3

"Aïda" ......................................... January 17

"Faust" ........................................ January 27

"Fra Diavolo" .................................. January 31

"Stradella" and divertissement ................. February 7

"L'Attaque du Moulin" .......................... February 13

"La Bohème" .................................... February 21

"Otello" ....................................... February 28

"La Gioconda" .................................. March 7

"Il Barbiere" and divertissement ............... March 14

"Rigoletto" .................................... March 21

"Der Freischütz" ............................... March 29

"Madama Butterfly" and "Hungary" (ballet) ...... April 4

There was an extra performance of "Hänsel und Gretel," and ballet

divertissement on Christmas day. New York was never before in its

history so overburdened with opera. The following table offers an

analytical summary of the entire season:

Subscription performances .................................... 160

Total performances ........................................... 197

Operas produced ............................................... 41

German operas produced ........................................ 13

Italian operas produced ....................................... 18

French operas produced ......................................... 7

Bohemian opera produced ........................................ 1

Russian opera produced ......................................... 1

English opera produced ......................................... 1

German representations ........................................ 56

Italian representations ...................................... 115

French representations ........................................ 23

Double bills (including ballets and divertissements) .......... 48

Performances of complete ballets .............................. 12

"The Awakening of Woman" and "Hungary" have been treated as ballets in

this record simply for the sake of convenience. They were, in fact, a

testimonium paupertatis to the feature which had aroused the greatest

interest during the dying weeks of the season. The public wanted to see

the two Russians dance; the management cared so little for artistic

integrity that it did not trouble itself to keep its promises even as

to the ballet. "Vienna Waltzes," which had figured in the prospectus,

was performed but once, and then only because it was demanded by the

German Press Club for its annual benefit. "Die Puppenfee," "Sylvia,"

"Les Sylphides," and "Chopin," though on the program, were not given,

short divertissements after long operas being made to take their

place. Operatic novelties promised but not given were: Leo Blech's

"Versiegelt," Goetzl's "Les Précieuses Ridicules," Goldmark's "Cricket

on the Hearth," Humperdinck's "Königskinder," Laparra's "La Habanera,"

Lehar's "Amour des Tziganes," Leroux's "Le Chemineau," Maillart's "Les

Dragons des Villars," Offenbach's "Les Contes d'Hoffmann," Rossini's

"Il Signor Bruschino," Suppé's "Schöne Galatea," and Wolf-Ferrari's "Le

Donne Curiose." The works which had a first production in New York were

Franchetti's "Germania;" Tschaikowsky's "Pique Dame," Converse's "Pipe

of Desire," and Bruneau's "L'Attaque du Moulin." In familiar operas the

public was permitted to see new impersonations of Elsa, Floria Tosca,

and Santuzza by Mme. Fremstad, and of Floria Tosca by Miss

Farrar. Notable achievements from an artistic point of view were the

representations of "Tristan und Isolde" and "Die Meistersinger,"

under the direction of Signor Toscanini, and "Pique Dame," under

Herr Mahler.

SEASON 1910-1911

The twenty-sixth season at the Metropolitan began on November 14th, and

ended on April 15th, thus embracing twenty-two weeks. When the public

was invited to subscribe for the season in the summer, performances were

promised in French, Italian, German, and English. In the preceding two

years there had been talk of producing Goldmark's "Heimchen am Heerd"

("The Cricket on the Hearth") and Humperdinck's "Königskinder" in

English, and so there was again this; but on his return from Europe in

the fall Signor Gatti put a quietus on it immediately by proclaiming

that the project was impracticable. Nevertheless, in midseason he

announced an opera in English by an American composer (Arthur Nevin's

"Twilight"), and withdrew it, although the public had been told to

expect it. Meanwhile a somewhat singular combination of circumstances

led to a partial fulfilment of the promise in the prospectus. Mr.

Dippel, who had undertaken the management of the Chicago Opera Company

(renamed the Philadelphia-Chicago Company after the Chicago season was

over and that in Philadelphia begun), had carried with him from New

York the purpose to give opera in the vernacular. He was encouraged in

this by Mr. Clarence Mackay and Mr. Otto Kahn, the chief backers of

the Chicago institution, but the Chicago season was not long enough

to enable him to bring it to fruition. For his second season at the

Manhattan Opera House, Mr. Hammerstein had promised to produce an

English opera "by our American composer, Victor Herbert" (see p. 372).

This opera, entitled "Natoma," had been offered to Signor Gatti-Casazza,

and an act of it tried with orchestra on the stage of the Metropolitan;

but the director did not care to produce it. It was then offered to

Mr. Dippel, who accepted it, and produced it first in Philadelphia

and then at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, where the

Philadelphia-Chicago company gave a subscription series of French operas

on Tuesdays from January to April. To this incident there is a pendant

of more serious purport. The Directors of the Metropolitan Opera Company

had met what seemed to them a challenge on the part of Mr. Hammerstein

by offering a prize of $10,000 for the best opera in English by a

native-born American composer. The time allowed for the competition was

two years and the last day for the reception of scores September 15th,

1910. On May 2nd the jury of award, composed of Alfred Hertz, Walter

Damrosch, George W. Chadwick, and Charles Martin Loeffler, announced

that the successful opera was a three-act musical tragedy entitled

"Mona," of which the words were written by Brian Hooker, the music

by Professor Horatio Parker of Yale University.

The change of plan occasioned by the abandonment of the representations

at the New Theater and in Baltimore, the latter city being left to the

ministrations of Mr. Dippel's organization, brought with it a large

reduction of the Metropolitan forces, but the smaller company

nevertheless gave eight performances in Philadelphia and fourteen in

Brooklyn besides those called for by the subscription and special

representations in New York. Support on occasions had been promised by

the affiliated companies in Chicago and Boston, but the little that was

offered was not very graciously received by the New York public. Mme.

Melba sang once in "Rigoletto," and once again in "Traviata," one of the

two performances being in the regular subscription list. Then she was

announced as ill, and departed for England. Mlle. Lipowska sang a few

times, as also did Signor Constantino (who had been a member of Mr.

Hammerstein's company and was now the principal tenor in Boston), but

the public was indifferent to these performances of the old Verdi

operas.

Interesting incidents were the visits of Signor Puccini and Herr

Humperdinck to superintend the rehearsals and witness the first

performances on any stage of their operas, "La Fanciulla del West" and

"Königskinder," the latter of which was sung in the original German

instead of the promised English. For the Italian opera the management

had arranged two special performances at double prices; these were

popular failures in spite of the interest excited by Mr. David Belasco's

play "The Girl of the Golden West," on which the opera was based. The

presence of the Russian dancers, who had won much favor in the preceding

season, was particularly fortunate in the closing weeks of the season,

when another failure of Signor Caruso's voice threatened disaster. Mme.

Pavlowa and her companion, M. Mordkin, supported by a very mediocre

troupe of dancers, had discovered themselves to their admirers before

the opera season opened. They then took part in the Metropolitan

entertainments until the end of the first week of January. Thereupon

they departed, but came back very opportunely for the second fortnight

of March.

The rest of the story may be read out of the following table and

remarks. There were twenty-two weeks of opera with subscription

performances on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday evenings, and

Saturday afternoons. At these performances operas were given as follows:

REGULAR METROPOLITAN SUBSCRIPTION PERFORMANCES

Opera First Performance Times

"Armide" ............................... November 14 ....... 3

"Tannhäuser" ........................... November 16 ....... 5

"Aïda" ................................. November 17 ....... 6

"Die Walküre" .......................... November 18 ....... 4

"Madama Butterfly" ..................... November 19 ....... 5

"La Bohème" ............................ November 21 ....... 5

"La Gioconda" .......................... November 23 ....... 6

"Rigoletto" ............................ November 24 ....... 3

"Cavalleria Rusticana" (double bill) ... November 25 ....... 5

"Pagliacci" (double bill) .............. November 25 ....... 7

"Lohengrin" ............................ November 28 ....... 5

"Il Trovatore" ......................... December 1 ........ 5

"Faust" ................................ December 10 ....... 4

"Orfeo ed Eurydice" .................... December 10 ....... 5

"La Fanciulla del West" ................ December 26 ....... 7

"Königskinder" ......................... December 28 ....... 7

"Tristan und Isolde" ................... January 4 ......... 4

"Roméo et Juliette" .................... January 13 ........ 2

"Siegfried" ............................ January 14 ........ 1

"Die Meistersinger" .................... January 20 ........ 4

"Germania" ............................. February 1 ........ 2

"La Traviata" .......................... February 2 ........ 2

"Tosca" ................................ February 8 ........ 5

"Die Verkaufte Braut" .................. February 15 ....... 4

"Otello" ............................... February 27 ....... 5

"Ariane et Barbe-Bleue" ................ March 29 .......... 4

"Hänsel und Gretel" (double bill) ...... April 6 ........... 2

There were ten Saturday evening subscriptions at regular prices at

which the following operas were given, viz.: "Cavalleria Rusticana"

and "Pagliacci," "Madama Butterfly," "Il Trovatore," "Parsifal,"

"Lohengrin," "Thaïs" (Chicago Opera Company), "Aïda," "Königskinder,"

"Tannhäuser," and "Tosca." There were holiday, benefit, and special

performances as follows:

EXTRA PERFORMANCES

Opera First Performance Times

"Parsifal" ............................ November 24 ........ 3

"La Traviata" ......................... November 29 ........ 1

"La Fanciulla del West" ............... December 10 ........ 2

"Cavalleria" and ballet ............... December 24 ........ 1

"Hänsel und Gretel" ................... December 26 ........ 4

"Königskinder" ........................ December 31 ........ 3

"Aïda" ................................ January 7 .......... 1

"Rigoletto" ........................... January 14 ......... 1

"Roméo et Juliette" ................... January 21 ......... 1

"Die Meistersinger" ................... January 28 ......... 1

"Das Rheingold" ....................... February 2 ......... 1

"Madama Butterfly" .................... February 4 ......... 2

"Die Walküre" ......................... February 9 ......... 1

"Siegfried" ........................... February 13 ........ 1

"Götterdämmerung" ..................... February 22 ........ 1

"La Bohème" and ballet ................ March 30 ........... 1

Mixed bill ............................ April 6 ............ 1

Twenty-six representations; sixteen operas.

There was also an extra subscription season by the Chicago Opera

Company, which made a showing as follows:

SUBSCRIPTION SEASON OF THE PHILADELPHIA-CHICAGO COMPANY

Opera First Performance Times

"Thaïs" ........................................ January 24 ....... 1

"Louise" ....................................... January 31 ....... 2

"Pelléas et Mélisande" ......................... February 7 ....... 1

"Les Contes d'Hoffmann" ........................ February 14 ...... 1

"Carmen" ....................................... February 21 ...... 1

"Natoma" (once in double bill) ................. February 28 ...... 3

"Il Segreto di Susanna" (in double bill) ....... March 14 ......... 2

"Le Jongleur de Notre Dame" (in double bill) ... March 14 ......... 1

"Quo Vadis" .................................... April 4 .......... 1

Eleven evenings, one extra, nine operas, three double bills.

METROPOLITAN PERFORMANCES IN BROOKLYN

Opera First Performance Times

"Il Trovatore" ......................... November 19 ....... 1

"Orfeo ed Eurydice" .................... November 26 ....... 1

"Tannhäuser" ........................... December 3 ........ 1

"Cavalleria" (double bill) ............. January 3 ......... 1

"Pagliacci" (double bill) .............. January 3 ......... 1

"Lohengrin" ............................ January 17 ........ 1

"Königskinder" ......................... January 24 ........ 1

"La Bohème" ............................ January 31 ........ 1

"Rigoletto" ............................ February 7 ........ 1

"Madama Butterfly" ..................... February 21 ....... 1

"Tosca" ................................ February 28 ....... 1

"Aïda" ................................. March 7 ........... 1

"Otello" ............................... March 14 .......... 1

"La Fanciulla del West" ................ March 18 .......... 1

"Parsifal" ............................. March 21 .......... 1

Fourteen representations, fifteen operas, one double bill.

The novelties produced in the season were Gluck's "Armide," Puccini's

"La Fanciulla del West," Humperdinck's "Königskinder," Dukas's "Ariane

et Barbe-Bleue," Herbert's "Natoma," Wolf-Ferrari's "Il Segreto di

Susanna," and Nouguet's "Quo Vadis."

APPENDIX II

TWO SEASONS AT THE MANHATTAN OPERA HOUSE

The third season of opera under the sole direction of Mr. Oscar

Hammerstein at the Manhattan Opera House, New York, began on November

9th, 1908, and lasted twenty weeks until March 27th, 1909. During

this period there were five regular performances each week. Had there

been no deviation from the rule there would have been one hundred

representations, but advantage was taken of occasions which seemed

auspicious to give extra performances, and therefore there were also

representations on Thanksgiving Day, New Year's Day, Washington's

birthday, and to signalize by special attention (and, incidentally,

special prices) the coming of Richard Strauss's delectable "Salome."

So there were added four performances to the weekly five originally

set down for Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday evenings, and

Saturday afternoons.

In his prospectus, issued in the summer, Mr. Hammerstein specifically

promised to produce "Samson et Dalila," by Saint-Saëns, "Salome," by

Richard Strauss, "Le Jongleur de Notre Dame" and "Grisélidis," by

Massenet, and "Princesse d'Auberge," by Jan Blockx. He brought forward

all of these except "Grisélidis." In the list of operas which he was

less specifically bound to perform were Massenet's "Manon," Bizet's

"Les Pécheurs des Perles," Verdi's "Falstaff," Bréton's "Dolores,"

Giordano's "Andrea Chenier" and "Siberia," Puccini's "Madama Butterfly,"

Donizetti's "Linda di Chamounix," Verdi's "Un Ballo in Maschera" and

"Ernani," all of which fell by the board. The chief features of interest

in the season were the productions of the novelties, "Salome," "Le

Jongleur de Notre Dame" (with Mary Garden in the part of the Juggler,

which was written for a man), and "Princesse d'Auberge," and the series

of performances headed by Mme. Melba, who opened the sixth week of the

season on December 14th in "La Bohème," and concluded her engagement on

January 11th in "Rigoletto." Her performances were confined to these two

operas and "Otello." For the rest let the following table speak:

Opera First performance Times

"Tosca" ....................... November 9 ............ 5

"Thaïs" ....................... November 11 ........... 7

"Samson et Dalila" ............ November 13 ........... 6

"Il Barbiere di Siviglia" ..... November 14 ........... 3

"Lucia di Lammermoor" ......... November 18 ........... 7

"Gli Ugonotti" ................ November 20 ........... 2

"Carmen" ...................... November 26 ........... 2

"Le Jongleur de Notre Dame" ... November 27 ........... 7

"Cavalleria Rusticana" ........ December 4 ............ 5

"Pagliacci" ................... December 4 ............ 5

"Rigoletto" ................... December 5 ............ 5

"Traviata" .................... December 12 ........... 5

"La Bohème" ................... December 14 ........... 5

"Les Contes d'Hoffmann" ....... December 16 ........... 7

"Otello" ...................... December 25 ........... 6

"Pelléas et Mélisande" ........ January 6 ............. 4

"Crispino e la Comare" ........ January 9 ............. 3

"Salome" ...................... January 28 ........... 10

"Aïda" ........................ February 10 ........... 2

"La Sonnambula" ............... February 13 ........... 3

"Louise" ...................... February 19 ........... 5

"I Puritani" .................. February 26 ........... 2

"Il Trovatore" ................ March 1 ............... 1

"Princesse d'Auberge" ......... March 10 .............. 3

"La Navarraise" ............... March 20 .............. 1

Total number of performances, 111; number of representations, 104; total

number of operas, 25; operas composed in Italian, 14; in French, 9;

in German, 1; in Flemish, 1; Italian representations, 59; French, 52.

The difference between the number of representations and the total of

performances of the different operas is due to the fact that on seven

occasions two operas were given on the same afternoon or evening.

SEASON 1909-1910

Before beginning his fourth season Mr. Hammerstein opened his house for

a season of "educational" opera, as he called it at first, which began

on August 30th, 1909, and lasted until October 30th, 1909. In this

preliminary season Mr. Hammerstein not only made trial of a considerable

number of singers, some of whom remained with him throughout the regular

season, but also experimented with operas, some of which went over into

the subscription repertory with no considerable change either in casts

or settings, while others, notably "La Juive" and "Le Prophète," might

well have done so. In them also some singers of notable excellence

were heard, like Zerola, the tenor; William Beck, the barytone, and

Marguerite Sylva, but after the regular season got under way they

were heard from chiefly in the newspapers in connection with the

disaffections and disagreements which were almost incessant.

In the season proper Mr. Hammerstein tried to give opéra comique, as he

politely called it, though it was largely opéra bouffe, and when the

experiment proved a failure he courageously abandoned it. The proceeding

has its parallel in the so-called "lyric" opera conducted by the

Metropolitan management of the New Theater. After pondering the matter

for a space, Mr. Hammerstein substituted opera at popular prices on

Saturday evenings for the opéra bouffe, with a result of which we are

not in a position to speak.

The promises of an impresario, whether made positively, like "The

following operas will be performed," or vaguely, like "The repertory

will be selected from the following lists"--an old and favorite

device--are always accepted by the public in a Pickwickian sense. Mr.

Hammerstein did not disturb the precedents in this respect, but he

came creditably near to keeping his definite promises. He said that

"Hérodiade," "Elektra," "Grisélidis," and "Sapho" would be among his

novelties, and they were. He said that "Cendrillon," "Feuersnoth,"

"The Violin Maker of Cremona," and Victor Herbert's "Natoma" would

also be given--and they were not. Of old works the only ones promised

in the list of grand operas and not given were "Crispino e la Comare,"

"Siberia," "Lohengrin," "I Puritani," "Meistersinger," and "Le

Prophète." Most of them were easily spared, especially the two Wagnerian

operas, the futility of which in French must have been obvious after Mr.

Hammerstein had admitted the failure of his French singers to grasp the

spirit of "Tannhäuser."

Here is the tabular record:

Opera First performance Times

"Hérodiade" ...................... November 8 ........... 6

"Traviata" ....................... November 10 .......... 4

"Aïda" ........................... November 12 .......... 3

"Thaïs" .......................... November 13 .......... 6

"Cavalleria Rusticana" ........... November 13 .......... 4

"Pagliacci" ...................... November 13 .......... 8

"Lucia di Lammermoor" ............ November 16 .......... 7

"La Fille de Madame Angot" ....... November 16 .......... 2

"Sapho" .......................... November 17 .......... 3

"La Fille du Régiment" ........... November 22 .......... 4

"Mascotte" ....................... November 23 .......... 1

"Carmen" ......................... November 25 .......... 6

"Tosca" .......................... November 26 .......... 3

"Les Dragons des Villars" ........ November 27 .......... 2

"Le Jongleur de Notre Dame" ...... December 4 ........... 5

"Les Cloches de Corneville" ...... December 4 ........... 3

"Faust" .......................... December 8 ........... 3

"Tannhäuser" ..................... December 10 .......... 3

"Les Contes d'Hoffmann" .......... December 25 .......... 8

"Trovatore" ...................... January 8 ............ 2

"La Bohème" ...................... January 14 ........... 5

"Grisélidis" ..................... January 19 ........... 4

"Samson et Dalila" ............... January 28 ........... 2

"Elektra" ........................ February 1 ........... 7

"Rigoletto" ...................... February 11 .......... 4

"Louise" ......................... February 23 .......... 2

"La Navarraise" .................. February 28 .......... 2

"Salome" ......................... March 5 .............. 4

"Pelléas et Mélisande" ........... March 11 ............. 3

"Lakmé" .......................... March 21 ............. 1

Mixed bill ....................... March 25 ............. 1

After the conclusion of the season Mr. Hammerstein sold his Philadelphia

Opera House, which had been opened a week after the performances began

in New York, to a company of gentlemen largely interested in the

Metropolitan, and entered into an obligation with them not to give grand

opera in New York City for ten years. It seems appropriate, therefore,

to print the following tabular record of his performances during his

four years' management of the Manhattan Opera House:

Operas 1906-1907 1907-1908 1908-1909 1909-1910

"Aïda" ..................... 12 9 2 3

"Andrea Chenier" ............ 0 1 0 0

"Ballo in Maschera" ......... 2 4 0 0

"Barbiere di Siviglia" ...... 2 0 3 0

"Bohème" .................... 4 0 5 5

"Cavalleria" ................ 8 4 3 4

"Carmen" ................... 19 11 2 6

"Contes d'Hoffmann" ......... 0 11 7 8

"Cloches de Corneville" ..... 0 0 0 3

"Crispino e la Comare" ...... 0 3 3 0

"Damnation de Faust" ........ 0 3 0 0

"Dinorah" ................... 1 1 0 0

"Don Giovanni" .............. 4 3 0 0

"Dragons des Villars" ....... 0 0 0 2

"Elektra" ................... 0 0 0 7

"Elisir d'Amore" ............ 3 0 0 0

"Ernani" .................... 0 1 0 0

"Faust" ..................... 7 4 0 3

"Fille de Mme. Angot" ....... 0 0 0 2

"Fille du Régiment" ......... 0 0 0 2

"Fra Diavolo" ............... 4 0 0 0

"Gioconda" .................. 0 4 0 0

"Grisélidis" ................ 0 0 0 4

"Héodiade" .................. 0 0 0 6

"Huguenots" ................. 5 0 2 0

"Jongleur de Notre Dame" .... 0 0 7 5

"Lakmé" ..................... 0 0 0 1

"Louise" .................... 0 11 5 2

"Lucia di Lammermoor" ....... 6 8 7 7

"Martha" .................... 4 0 0 0

"Mascotte" .................. 0 0 0 1

"Mignon" .................... 3 0 0 0

"Navarraise" ................ 2 5 1 2

"Otello" .................... 0 0 6 0

"Pagliacci" ................ 10 9 5 8

"Pelléas et Mélisande" ...... 0 7 4 3

"Princesse d'Auberge" ....... 0 0 3 0

"Puritani" .................. 2 0 2 0

"Rigoletto" ................ 11 5 5 4

"Salome" .................... 0 0 10 4

"Samson et Dalila" .......... 0 0 6 2

"Siberia" ................... 0 3 0 0

"Sapho" ..................... 0 0 0 3

"Sonnambula" ................ 3 0 3 0

"Tannhäuser" ................ 0 0 0 3

"Thaïs" ..................... 0 7 7 6

"Traviata" .................. 3 5 5 4

"Tosca" ..................... 0 0 5 3

"Trovatore" ................. 6 5 1 2

End of Project Gutenberg's Chapters of Opera, by Henry Edward Krehbiel