MY DEBUT AND BREAKING INTO HARNESS
I had to sing _Azucena_, my first part on any stage, without rehearsal.
The reason for this dawned upon me afterwards. Though I sang German well
by this time, my conversational powers still left something to be
desired. I have explained that the present director had never heard my
voice; no one knew of what I was capable, and they quite expected that I
would prove incompetent, and had engaged a native born contralto to
provide for this contingency.
When I heard one evening, that I should have to sing _Azucena_ on the
next, I confess that something rather like panic assailed me for a few
minutes. The stage manager called me onto the stage, and spent half an
hour in showing me the entrances and exits, and giving me the merest
outline of the positions. That is all the preparation I had for my
so-called debut. The other members of the cast had sung the opera
together many times the year before, which made the performance
possible. The lyric tenor was a decent enough colleague, though an
absolute peasant in behaviour, with an extraordinary high voice which
was rapidly degenerating from misuse. The baritone was of the tried and
true type, and a great favourite, and the soprano was easy to get on
with. They were all nice enough to me, if somewhat uninterested and
indifferent, for I had had as yet so little to do with them that we
hardly knew each other. They thought me a rich dilettante at that time I
fancy. I was so horribly nervous all that day that I fainted whenever I
tried to stand up, and when I began to sing my sister did not recognize
my voice. However, I was very well received indeed, all the criticisms
the next day were favourable, and there was no question after that as to
who should sing the leading roles.
It was fortunate for me that I succeeded in pulling myself together
sufficiently to make a success, as at that time the old system of
_Kuendigung_ was still in force. I have said that a contract was not
valid until the singer had successfully completed the number of guest
performances stated therein. I had not been called upon for these
_Gastspiele_ because I was a beginner, but they are almost invariably
included in the contract. Now-a-days your engagement is settled after
you have successfully made these trial appearances, and you then remain
in that engagement for a full season; and the management must let you
know before February first (sometimes January first) whether you are to
be re-engaged or not. This is in order to give the singer time to make
arrangements for the coming season. When I was engaged in Metz the
management of a theatre had the right to dismiss any singer after three
weeks, whether he had made his guest appearances beforehand or not, if
he had failed in that time to make good with the public. He was also
liable to dismissal after his first appearance, if he proved quite
impossible. This was what they were expecting in my case. The
arrangement was most unfair to the poor singer, leaving him stranded
(with practically no chance of work that year) after he had moved all
his possessions and thought himself established for the season. The big
artists' society, the _Genossenschaft_, which is the only protective
institution for singers in Germany, has at last succeeded in abolishing
this unjust condition of affairs. There was a flagrant case of this kind
in the theatre during the first three weeks of my engagement. The "high
dramatic" soprano had finished the first three weeks of her engagement,
during which she had had to learn two new parts, providing costumes, at
her own expense, for a role which she had not expected to have to sing.
She had had a fair success and thought herself secure. In the meantime,
the management had had no idea of keeping her on permanently, but had
merely engaged her to fill in the time, while they were waiting for
another singer, who was filling an out-of-season engagement elsewhere,
and could not report for three weeks. When she was free, they told the
first one that she had not pleased sufficiently and dismissed her. The
good theatres did not take advantage of this privilege of course, even
while it still existed.
My second role was a very small one, one of the court ladies of "Les
Huguenots." A native first contralto would probably not have been asked
to do such a small part, but there being no regular part for my voice in
the opera, I think they were glad to use my good stage appearance, and
of course, as a beginner I made no protest, being glad of every chance
to become more used to the stage. The part was sprung upon me suddenly,
and I had no dress for it. The second contralto also had a court lady to
do, and the good creature offered to lend me a gorgeous Elizabethan
dress of white satin and silver (which, she told me, she also intended
to wear as _Amneris_!) and she would "go in black." I was touched, but I
could not deprive her of her splendour, so we arranged something out of
the pointed pink bodice of one of my other gowns, and the long white
skirt of a summer dress, with a ladder arrangement of pink velvet bands
sewn on up the front.
I remember as I made my entrance, looking up suddenly and seeing the
sinister eyes of Carlhof the stage manager, fixed on me from the wings.
He proceeded to mock my walk, which was no doubt very American, and not
that of a court lady at all. I never forgot the mental jolt it gave me
and the sudden realization that every role should have a different walk.
The range of parts that one is called upon to perform is astonishing.
Formerly the limits of a _Fach_ (line of parts) were more rigidly
observed than at present, when the personality of a singer in relation
to a role is more often taken into consideration. Still, if a role
definitely belongs to the _Fach_ of a certain singer, he is supposed to
have first right to it. Difficulties arise in apportioning the parts in
very modern operas, whose composers seem no longer disposed to write
definitely for a coloratura soprano or a serious bass, but mix up the
voice range and styles of singing indiscriminately in one part. My
second real part was _Fricka_ in "Walkuere," in which I had a great
success vocally, but unfortunately looked a great deal younger than the
portly _Bruennhilde_ and far more like her daughter than her stepmother.
Then came the _Third Lady_ in "Magic Flute," the _Third Grace_ in
"Tannhaeuser," _Martha_ in "Faust," _Orlofsky_ in "Fledermaus," _Frau
Reich_ in the "Merry Wives of Windsor," the _Graefin_ in "Trompeter von
Saekkingen," _Pamela_ in "Fra Diavolo," _Witch_ in "Haensel und Gretel";
and finally "Carmen." All these before Christmas of my first year. I did
not have one of them on my repertoire when I arrived in Metz, except
_Fricka_ and _Carmen_, and the latter in French.
The three graces in "Tannhaeuser" were done by the beauties of the
theatre, two premieres danseuses and myself! We were to dress in white
Greek draperies with jewels, and of course, as we were to be seductive,
pink roses. I wore my beautiful _Bergcrystal_ necklace, made for me in
Paris. The ladies could not contain their jealousy and said of course,
"aufgedonnert" (thundered out) like that I naturally would stand out
from them. Annoyed at their pettiness I removed the diamonds and flowers
and all ornaments. They then said of course to go without any ornaments
was palpably the best way of all to make myself conspicuous. So I let it
go at that.
I well remember the _Third Lady_, for there are spoken passages in this
opera, and I had to speak German for the first time before an audience
of critically listening natives, and Mozartian German at that! _Pamela_
nearly gave me nervous prostration. They were determined that I should
do it because she had to speak German with an English accent, so they
said it was made for me. As a matter of fact, after the months I had
spent in carefully eradicating my English accent it was difficult
suddenly to exaggerate it to order. I had to learn, rehearse and play
the entire part in five days, and I thought I should go mad. I had never
seen the wretched thing, so the baritone who played my husband kindly
came over to help me with the business. Otherwise my sister and I hardly
left the piano to eat and sleep. The dialect part of the libretto was in
an ancient manuscript copy, torn, marked and dog's-eared, and written in
an almost illegible German script. I could not take time enough to
puzzle it out, so my sister spent hours poring over it, deciphering the
German letters literally one by one by aid of a key, and writing it
again in Latin script. I had no clothes for it, as it was not on my
repertoire and it plays in 1820, but they costumed it for me in modern
dress, so again my summer wardrobe was called into service.
I learned it so quickly that the colleagues called me "Die
Notenfresserin" or note-eater, but the strain was awful. I remember when
I was studying _Pamela_ the Kapellmeister told me at least ten times,
how the contralto who played the _Pamela_ in his father's theatre and
who was also an English-speaking woman, had so caught his father's fancy
in that role, that from then on he had a tremendous affair with her.
This he repeated to me again and again, but I never seemed to take the
hint.
As _Erda_ in "Siegfried" I had a most trying experience. The director
had been, as I have said, a well-known Bayreuth singer, and he thought
no one could sing Wagner but himself. Unfortunately he had a strong
tendency to "look upon the wine," and when he had a part to sing
nervousness attacked him to such an extent that he began drinking in
self-defence to enable him to stand the strain. Perhaps his beverages
were more potent than usual, but that night he was decidedly
irresponsible. He struggled through the _Wanderer's_ first scene, and
conscious that he was doing it badly, he sent out for a bottle of
champagne as a bracer. The consequence was that in our scene in the
third act, he was utterly incapacitated. He sang all kinds of things not
in the text, bits from _Hunding_ in "Walkuere," from _Daland_ in
"Hollaender," from "Fidelio." He rolled about the stage and lurched in
my direction with his spear pointed at me, shouting _Pogner's_ advice to
_Eva_ while I was singing _Erda's_ responses. It seemed to go on for
ages, but at last _Siegfried_, waiting for his cue in the wings,
realized that he must save the scene, entered and escorted his befuddled
relation from the stage. I had made up with a creamy white grease paint
and no red. My sister said, "Why did you make up with rouge and not
have the pallor we agreed upon?" My cheeks were so scarlet from
mortification that no grease paint would have paled them.
The audience took it splendidly, I must confess, and refrained from any
expression of disapproval or joy--though it _must_ have been funny! The
next day there were announcements in all the papers that he had had a
temporary lapse of memory owing to grief over the sudden death of his
mother, who, as the stage manager cynically informed us, had reached out
a hand from the grave to save her son, she having been dead for ten
years! The director went to Berlin and stayed there for weeks. We
afterwards learned that it was a plot, deliberately planned and put
through by Carlhof to gain the direction of the theatre. I can see him
now stalking around, six foot four, chewing his rag of a dyed moustache,
his face pale and his eyes glittering with anxiety as to the success of
his plan to encourage the director to drink. The director once told me
the hours between the last meal and the time to go to one's dressing
room to begin making up are the dangerous ones. He said, "First one
takes a glass of wine to steady one's shaking nerves; later a glass is
not enough so it becomes a bottle, then two bottles and so on till
control is lost." It is easy for any singer to understand, and the best
remedy is to omit that first glass.
"Carmen" was the second opera which I had to do without rehearsal. The
soprano had failed in it and it was promised to me to keep if I could do
it _ohne probe_ (without rehearsal). I sang it for the first time,
quaking with nerves, on Christmas Day, and my nick-name after that was
"Die schoene Carmen." After Christmas we produced the "Merry Widow"
which was new then, and I was cast for the _Dutiful Wife_. There was
plenty of variety in my work. I would sing _Carmen_ on Sunday,
_Orlofsky_ in "Fledermaus" on Tuesday, speaking German with a Russian
accent, _Pamela_ on Thursday night with an English accent, and _Frau
Reich_ on Friday night with no accent at all! I dressed _Frau Reich_ in
a gown of the time of Henry V while the rest of the cast "went
Shakespearean." We were far too busy for dress rehearsals of an old
opera, and I supposed of course that it would be costumed in the real
period of the play. When I appeared on the stage, they all demanded "And
what, pray, are _you_ supposed to represent?" "I am playing
Shakespeare's _Frau Reich_," I answered with dignity--"and I am the only
person on the stage who is properly dressed." But you have to know your
colleagues well before you can make an answer like that successfully,
without their hating you for it.