SALARIES AND A TENOR'S GENIUS
If you make a hit with the audience your residence in the town is made
very pleasant. Even the conductors and motormen of the street cars used
to greet me as they passed and all the policemen were my friends. I had
letters to some of the people in the town through relations, and took as
much part as I had time for in the really charming, if slightly narrow,
social life of the place. The centre of everything was, of course, the
Court. The Grand Duke took a great interest in the theatre, and used to
watch the productions notebook in hand. Any detail which did not please
him was immediately noted and sent then and there to the stage manager
to be changed. We had some special privileges as we were classed as
_Beamten_ or official servants of the government. One was the right to
wine from the ducal cellars at cost price, or duty free. Another was a
10 per cent. discount at all the shops.
Extra money is often to be picked up by a _Gastspiel aushilfsweise_,
that is, an emergency call from a neighbouring theatre. Our opera
soubrette once received a hurry call to another _Hofoper_ one hour's
journey away. The train would have made her too late, so she took an
automobile and her costume with her, and drove at breakneck speed
through the woods to the town. She was to sing _Cherubino_ in "Figaro"
and, as she dressed in the auto to save time, the surprise of the
chauffeur may be imagined when, instead of a brunette girl, a blond boy
emerged from his car!
I made my first appearance as a regular member of the company as
_Dalila_. The only comment afterwards of the first Kapellmeister, who
directed the performance, was, "Why did you make the eighth note in such
and such a phrase a sixteenth?" I repeat this, in order to give an idea
of the standard of thoroughness with which the musical part of the opera
was prepared. When we were rehearsing _Dalila_ on the stage, I, having
studied the role in Paris and being imbued with the spirit of the French
performers, occasionally gave that swing from the hips on a particularly
luscious phrase, using as faithfully as I could remember it de Reszke's
masterly interpretation and flow of line. The _Hofrat_ rapped on his
desk, and half patronizingly, half contemptuously, with a pitying smile,
bade me not indulge in _franzoesische Manniere_--French mannerisms. As
many room rehearsals were held as were necessary before the singers
could sing their parts, giving every note its exact value. A singer
might make mistakes during the performance, but the _Hofrat_ always
mentioned it afterwards. My _Samson_ was, of course, the _Heldentenor_,
and he was a character; a tall, good-looking man, with an immense,
ill-used voice, but a wonderful actor. He had a great success with the
ladies, and his adventures, matrimonial and otherwise, were the
principal source of gossip of the town. His lady-love at this time was a
certain Baroness, whom he afterwards married. Their great amusement was
rushing about the country together in a white automobile filled with
flowers. She used to hang fascinated over the edge of her box, high
above the stage, watching his every look and gesture, her large bust on
the edge of the box. When he left the stage she would sink back in her
chair, really exhausted, and rub her eyes with her hand. He was the only
person who was allowed to disturb the orderly rehearsals. Every one was
afraid of him when he lost his temper and raged up and down the stage,
shouting what he would do to his enemy when he caught him. One day, I
remember, he was furious with the _Intendant_ because birthday honours
had been distributed by the Grand Duke, in the form of decorations, and
he had received none. He made sure that it was the _Intendant's_ spite
against him, but it was in reality, of course, his notorious way of
living that prevented his being decorated. He shouted that he would "buy
himself two cents' worth of soft soap and grease his back with it and
make the _Intendant_ climb up it!" Then that he would get him in the
woods and run his auto over him, and run it back and forth, and back and
forth, until there was nothing left but apple sauce! Finally the
Direction could stand him no longer, great actor as he was, and his
contract was broken on the pretext of his having been absent from the
town without leave. You are supposed not to go further than a certain
stated distance from the theatre without due notification and
permission. He left the place with his Baroness, and his return to it
was characteristic. The first time that Zeppelin's airship passed over
the town, he was in it, hanging out of the car, shouting and throwing
down postcards!
As _Siegfried_ in "Goetterdaemmerung," he left an ineffaceable
impression on me. I have never seen it equalled by any tenor. When he
gazes at _Bruennhilde's_ ring, and his memory fails to recall just what
it means to him, his puzzled look of baffled memory, the ray of
understanding that almost pierced his forgetfulness, all were suggested
in so tremendous a way that one saw inside his brain,--and all this
utterly without exaggerated mannerisms.
I seemed to find favour in his sight, and during the _Dalila_ rehearsals
he made hot love to me. In the performance, when _Dalila_ sinks into his
arms on the couch, he nearly upset me by saying fervently out loud:
"_Ach! endlich weiss man was est ist ein schoenes Weib im Arm zu
haben?_" ("Ah! at last one knows what it is to have a beautiful woman in
one's arms.") I considered this a distinct reflection on his adoring
Baroness, and withheld the signs of delight he no doubt expected. He
told me once, one only wish he had,--just to see my _Spinne_, or
_lingerie_ closet. One day, as we were all in the greenroom, during a
rehearsal, waiting our turn to be called to the stage, I saw S----'s
eyes transfixed with horror. Looking in the direction he pointed I saw
the opera soubrette Z----, putting on her rubbers and crossing her legs
in doing so. This action revealed to our delighted gaze trouserettes of
red striped canton flannel, shirred into a band half way between calf
and ankle, and there adorned with a blanket-stitched frill of the same
material. S---- was too sickened by the sight to do more than helplessly
gasp, "Typical!" to me. A curious person; fastidious, sensual,
unquestionably endowed with genius, he just couldn't behave.
He was asked to sing _Siegfried_ once, at a neighbouring opera house, on
very short notice. He had to dress in the train in order to be there on
time when the curtain went up. Fellow travellers, who saw him enter the
train dressed in the ordinary way, were rather horrified to see a
half-naked savage emerge at the journey's end; but S---- was quite
impervious to the sensation he created. He never wore the hideous tights
most _Siegfrieds_ try to make you think are skin, but his splendid
shoulders rose naked from his bearskin, and his bare legs were bound
with furry thongs.
The _Heldenbariton_ was of another type. He had been twenty-five years
on the stage, and twenty in this theatre. Opera singing for him was like
going to his office. He had his house with a charming garden, his
family, and a circle of friends and acquaintances, which included nearly
the whole population. There are many cases like his in this class of
theatre, and a pleasant life they lead. After eight years in the same
_Hoftheater_ they are eligible for a pension, a certain proportion of
their salary, which increases with their years of service, up to a fixed
point. Only certain _Hoftheaters_ have this pension fund; it is very
nice for some singers, but a great hardship for others. If you leave
that theatre before your eight years are up, you lose all that you have
paid during your engagement. Contribution to the pension fund is
compulsory for all singers and actors in that theatre. One singer whom
I knew had spent sixteen years in different theatres, always paying a
pension tax, and never receiving the benefit of one penny from the
money, as her engagement in each place came to an end before the
stipulated eight years. Unscrupulous directors take advantage of this to
fail to renew a singer's contract when it gets near the eighth year. The
invaluable _Genossenschaft_ is also trying to remedy this abuse.
Some of the regular members of a _Hoftheater_ have enviable concert
reputations as well, though in Germany the two professions are quite
separate, and concert singing is generally looked upon as the higher
branch of art. The critics are suspicious of the opera singer in
concert, to such an extent that I was advised, at my first Berlin
recital, to keep my real standing in the profession dark and present
myself without my title of _Hofopernsaengerin_. I suggested to my agent
that, as I was quite unknown in Berlin, it might be well to spend a
little money in extra advertising. "Advertising?" said he, "they will
think you are a soap!" So I sang unheralded except by the usual
half-inch in the daily papers. In contrast to the publicity campaigns
and press-agents of this country, let me give another instance of how
they did things in Germany before the war. On being engaged at this
_Hoftheater_, I thought I ought to let the public know it. I wrote my
agent, Herr Harder, asking him to spend 1000 marks ($250) for me in
judicious advertising of my engagement. He answered that there was no
way in which he could place the money to further my interests, and
returned it! The first contract which was offered me for a concert tour
in America, provided for $2,000 to be paid down for advertising before
the tour began.