THE ART OF MARIE MUELLE
One factor in my success was the beautiful wardrobe I was enabled to
have through the kindness of Mr. and Mrs. Frank S. Jones. The first
clothes I ordered from Marie Muelle in Paris, the summer before I went
to Metz, I left entirely to her. She showed me designs and had bolts of
wonderful shimmering silks unrolled for my inspection, and brought out
boxes of curious embroideries, which she kept for her special friends.
The _Amneris_ and _Dalila_ costumes she made me were very French of that
period of the _Comique_; pale pinks and greens and everything in long
wigs. I wore them a few seasons, but as I grew more in knowledge I did
not feel at all Egyptian in pink _crepe de Chine_, nor Syrian in pale
green. My brother Cecil and I love the Egyptian part of the Louvre, and
have spent hours there together. We found a fascinating bronze princess
of the right period, which we proceeded to try and copy for me for
_Amneris_.
[Illustration: DALILA AS I USED TO DRESS IT]
We were staying out of town at Giverny, the artist colony made famous by
Monet, Macmonnies, Friesieke, the A. B. Frost family and many artist
friends. I had a big studio with my brother, and he made huge designs of
the wings the princess used for her skirt, pinning them on the wall of
the studio, then colouring them in the tones of the mummy cases,
allowing for their fading through the ages. These designs we took to
Muelle, who was most enthusiastic. We worked hard and long on that
costume, getting the headdress just right, and making it practical as
well as correct. The jewelry I made myself, from wooden beads painted
the right colour and in the rue de Rivoli I found just the right
Egyptian charms and figures of blue earthenware to hang on the necklace.
My wig maker could not seem to satisfy me, so I finally took a
short-haired black wig, and braided into it one hundred strands, made of
lustreless wool. The dress seemed to lack something when on, so I
twisted ropes of turquoise beads round the wrists and the blue accented
the whole.
The _Dalila_ clothes I had been wearing then seemed hopelessly pale,
washy and conventional, so we hunted the shops of Berlin and Paris for
vivid embroideries and searched museums for Syrian women. They did not
seem at all popular, though we found magnificent reliefs of men. Taking
these as a basis, we built some barbaric robes of scarlet and purple,
added a fuzzy short black wig, and I felt much more "like it." I found a
necklace of silver chains with clumps of turquoise matrix, in Darmstadt,
and had a headdress made to match it. A comparison of the _Amneris_ and
_Dalila_ photos will show how one's sense of costuming develops.
We bought all the books on the subject we could find, and studied them
for hours. We cut out reproductions of historic portraits and invested
largely in photos in the different art galleries we haunted, and pasted
them into scrap books. Caps and headdresses have always interested me
intensely. The one I wear in "Meistersinger" I copied from a portrait in
Antwerp. The Norwegian one I wear as _Mary_ in "Fliegender Hollaender" I
bought in Norway, together with the rest of my costume.
Nothing gives such character to a silhouette as a characteristic head,
and having to do endless old women, I could give them all just as
endless changes of headgear. A comparison of the photos will also show
how one grows into the role with years of playing, and how one's eyes
"come to," how one develops histrionically--how the silhouette acquires
snap and vim and carrying power at a distance, and outlines become crisp
and authoritative.
My first _Carmen_ clothes were very _Opera Comique_ and not at all
Spanish gipsy. I studied the Spanish cigarette girls and those of gipsy
blood as carefully as possible, and my idea of the role changed
naturally. I went to Muelle one summer, and told her that I was no
longer happy in satin princess dresses. She said that Zuloaga had just
designed and superintended the making of Breval's clothes for the
_Comique's_ real Spanish revival of _Carmen_. She could duplicate these
for me as she knew just where to send in Spain for the flowered cottons
in garish colours, and the shot silk scarfs that Zuloaga had imported
for Breval. I was delighted at this and adapted the costumes to my
needs, using the last one exactly as Zuloaga had intended, with the huge
red comb, made specially in Spain.
When I sang _Carmen_ before Prince Henry of Prussia in Darmstadt, he
sent word to me that my skirts were too long, no Spanish woman wore them
so long. I knew, however, that they were the right length, and any one
can see by studying Zuloaga's paintings that the soubrette length skirt
is not worn on the proud, swinging hips of the Spanish girl. I have been
told by Spaniards that I am an exact reproduction of a Spanish gipsy as
_Carmen_, which shows my studies were not in vain. People have said that
Merimee's and Bizet's _Carmen_ is not Spanish, and perhaps they are
right; but in aiming to portray a Spaniard, what model can one take but
a real one?
My _Orfeo_ clothes I have never changed. The _crepe de chine_ for them
was imported by Mounet-Sully for one of his characters, and Muelle gave
me the piece that was left over. Its beautiful creamy colour and thick
softness cannot be improved upon, to my mind.
Marie Muelle is now the first operatic costumer of the world. This
reputation she has built unaided through her own unfailing energy.
Through her rooms pass the most fabulous-priced opera singers, the
greatest actors, the stage beauties, famous managers, producers, and
designers, the ladies of the great world seeking costumes for wonderful
private _fetes_--and gentlemen seeking the ladies--all the varied crowd
of many nationalities to whom the old childish pastime of "dressing up"
is a business or a pleasure. The present establishment in the rue de la
Victoire is quite impressive. The hall is usually half-filled with the
trunks of "Muelle artists" engaged in America, who bring their things
into New York in bond to avoid paying the ruinous customs charges, and
are therefore forced to go through the weary round of dispatching the
same old stage wardrobe out of the country and bringing it back again
every season. Even when the clothes are quite reduced to shreds and
patches the rags have to be elaborately packed, identified by lynx-eyed
officials, and sent at least outside the three-mile limit of the
American Continent to be thrown away!
The first big white reception room of the Maison contains a long table
usually littered with samples, some chairs, and a large mirror lit like
that of a star's dressing room. There is a mantelpiece covered with
photographs of singers of all grades of celebrity, each dedicated with a
message of admiring affection to Marie Muelle. Around the wall are
various _armoires_, one containing a library of works on costume,
another a glittering collection of stage jewelry, a third many
portfolios of water-colour designs for every sort and kind of theatrical
garment for every role.
Oh! those designs! A young soprano has won an engagement in Monte Carlo
and wants a stage wardrobe for her repertoire. Out comes the "Modern
French" portfolio with a bewildering series of blonde and sinuous
_Thaises_, Moyen-Age _Melisandes_, a scintillating _Ariane_ in contrast
to a demure little work-a-day _Louise_; and the lady spends a delightful
afternoon in selecting her favourites.
Then Muelle sends for an armful of samples--
"_Crepe de chine_, of course, for the _Thais_. Yes, in flesh pink with
plenty of embroidery. Here is an _echantillon_"--and she pins it to the
drawing.
The singer picks out a scrap of heavy, lustrous crepe--
"No, not that quality. That is something special, and there is no more
to be had for love or money."
Colours and fabrics are decided upon, all tested for becomingness under
the bunched electric lights, which mimic the strong light of the stage.
Each design has an assortment of tags of material pinned where many
others have been pinned before. Muelle is an expert in colours for the
stage. She doesn't talk learnedly of synthetic dyes, processes, or
German competition, but she can give you a bright blue that is warranted
to stay blue, no matter what vagaries of lighting a stage manager may
indulge in.
Her pale colours never turn insipid, nor her dark ones muddy. She keeps
a special dyeing establishment busy with her orders alone, and
twenty-four hours seems time enough to obtain any shade known to the
palette.
The textiles once chosen, Camille is called to "take measures" and
arrange for the fittings.
"And now, one question," says Mademoiselle, "Is your stage level, or
does it slope towards the back? Very well, that is all."
When the singer arrives for her first trying-on, the fitting room is
filled with lengths of material, and Mademoiselle herself stands in the
midst, brandishing a huge pair of shears. She throws a length of silk
over one of your shoulders, puts in two pins, and bunching the material
in her left hand, gives a slash with the scissors in her right, with a
recklessness that makes you shudder. A pull here, a fold there, two more
pins--and the stuff hangs as almost no one else can make it hang,
accentuating a good figure and disguising a poor one.
Occasionally in filling a regular order she will stumble upon an unusual
effect. One day they were making Moyen-Age sleeves for the dress of a
well-known singer whom Mlle. Muelle has gowned for years, but who has
never been included in the list of her special favourites. The sleeve
was of slashed silvery grey, lined with cerise, the lining showing on
the edges. She picked up a bit of cloth of silver and pulled it through
the slashes. The effect charmed her.
"_Tenez!_" she said, "That is too good for her. We'll keep that for La
Belle Geraldine."
"La Belle Geraldine," as Miss Farrar is known in Paris, is one of
Muelle's most constant patrons. Ever since her Berlin days she has been
costumed by the Maison Muelle, and she stands very high in the list of
Mademoiselle's favourites.
The outer room may contain the photographs of celebrities great and
small, but in the inner room there are just two--a portrait of Miss
Farrar as _Elizabeth_ and one of myself as _Carmen_.
Opening off the main reception and fitting rooms are others lined with
_armoires_ and stacks of boxes running to the ceiling. Then come the
rooms for cutting and sewing, and the embroidery rooms. Muelle uses
quantities of solid embroidery and _applique_ work, where other
costumers are content with stenciling and gilding. She has the secret of
a metal thread that does not tarnish. Her idea is that the use of
first-class materials, good silks and satins, real velvets is a
necessity in these days of electric lighting, which is as revealing as
sunlight; that the substitution of imitation fabrics went out with the
use of gas in the theatre, and that the superior wearing qualities alone
of the best materials justify the greater expense.
The capacity of her _armoires_ and the size of the accumulated
collections they contain were tested some years ago by the special
production of Strauss's "Salome" at the Chatelet Theatre in Paris, when
Muelle was called upon, at ridiculously short notice, to furnish all
costumes for a cast of 150 people. There was a royal ransacking of
cupboards and jewel cabinets, but everything was ready on time for the
dress rehearsal.
[Illustration: DALILA AS I NOW DRESS IT]
A greater feather in her cap was the order to costume the new
productions of the Russian Ballet, from designs by no less a
personage than the great Leon Bakst himself. Then ensued a dyeing of
silks and a printing of chiffons, a stringing of beads and knotting of
fringes which set the whole establishment humming like a beehive.
For all their thousand problems, the costumes were finished and
delivered at the appointed time.
Since that triumph there has been hardly an important costume event in
all Paris in which Muelle has not had a share, if not entire charge. She
costumed Astruc's first season in the Theatre des Champs Elysees. She
has been responsible for the costuming of many productions of the
Russian Ballet, and for great spectacles like Debussy's "St. Sebastien"
and "La Pisanelle" of D'Annunzio. Society knows her as well as the
stage, for she has been the presiding genius at many an exquisite fete,
Greek, Roman, or Persian, held in lovely gardens behind the prosaic
exteriors of exclusive Parisian homes.
But all this has not turned her head, nor changed her toward her old
friends. She still loves a good gossip. Many a note have we had from
her--"I am delighted that Mademoiselle is returning to Paris, and hope
that she will come to see me. I have quantities of stories to tell her,
and we shall die of laughing."
But though she enjoys a choice tidbit, she will tolerate no malicious
tale-bearing. She refused an order, tactfully and firmly, from one
singer because the lady tried to tell tales out of school against one of
Muelle's chosen favourites. Her revenge in this case was typical. She
knows that advancing age is the enemy _par excellence_ of popularity for
stage people, so she makes a point of always referring to the delinquent
as "La Mere So-and-So!"
The list of her kindnesses to artists is unending. One case that I know
of personally is typical. A girl with an unusually beautiful voice had
arranged a debut, leading to a first engagement, and she ordered her
wardrobe from Muelle. She failed to be engaged after her debut, however,
and one disappointment after another came to her, so that it seemed
impossible for her to make a start at all. But Muelle had faith in her,
and kept the beautiful clothes, unpaid for, hanging in her presses for
several years. At last the girl made a great hit in Russia, and is now a
well-known singer, and, needless to say, a faithful adherent of the
Maison Muelle. This is only one instance of the kind, and, of course,
there are many, many more in which Mademoiselle's kindness does not find
a monetary reward.
Often have I heard her suggesting economy to those whose salaries are
not in the "fabulous" class. She will show a girl how to costume two
roles, with the same dresses, by combinations and changes so cleverly
thought out that the keenest public won't detect them. _Elizabeth_ and
_Elsa_ may wear the same mantle, right side out in one role and wrong
side out in the other. An extra tabard of brocade or embroidery will
allow an _Ophelia_ to wear the gowns of _Marguerite_--all tricks of the
trade, and well understood in the Maison Muelle.
Brilliantly clever, immensely capable, good-natured, and big-hearted, a
splendid organizer and the faithfulest of friends, Marie Muelle has
earned by the hardest of hard work, and now justly enjoys her title of
"First Theatrical Costumer," not only of Paris, but of the world.