STAGE FASHIONS AND THE GLORY OF COLOUR
We played continuously nine months from September to June, and then
scattered for the holidays. I often went to Munich for the Wagnerian
_Festspiel_. We have many German relatives (though not a drop of German
blood), as three of my grandfather's sisters married German officers.
Through remote ancestors we also have dozens of cousins in the north of
Germany. The Munich relations I dearly loved. The son of the famous
court architect, von Klenze, who built nearly all the noble buildings in
Munich for the old King Ludwig of Bavaria, who abdicated his
throne--married my mother's aunt, and their descendants were always very
charming to me. The northern cousins who lived in East and North Prussia
we always heard were quite different, cold, critical, and not warm, and
artistic, and friendly, as I found our southern relations. In Darmstadt
they seem between the two peoples in character, and of course in the
theatre one meets all sorts.
Our _Souffleuse_, "Bobberle," was from Schwabia, and her sister was a
character. She proved her elegance by wearing the most brilliant colours
on her fat little body, and plastering the family jewelry all over
herself. She screamed remarks about the members of the company to her
friends between the acts, and the remarks were not as undiscerning as
you might think.
The top box on the right side of the house, was reserved for the humble
hangers-on of the _Personal_. My sister used often to sit up there as
she could just walk in without my having to ask for a seat, while my
mother sat in state in a specially reserved seat in the orchestra, for
which I had to ask each time. The oldest mothers and the _Souffleuse's_
sister used to be an unending joy to my sister, in their comments. The
order of their seats was theirs by divine right, they thought, and woe
betide some comparatively new-comer who would venture to take one-eyed
Frau S----'s or fat Frau W----'s chair. It was called the _Raben's
Nest_ (the raven's nest), and we felt its influence hanging over us on
the stage. I was quite familiar with the remarks that were made nightly:
"_Ach! unsere Kaethe spielt ja Heute!_" ("Oh! our little Katy plays
tonight"), the mother of Katy would announce rapturously, and settle
down with her chin on the rail, and her back bent like a jack-knife,
for three hours of proud but critical joy. She had probably toiled most
of the night with her little seamstress to turn out the marvels Kaethe
wore.
There are certain props that lend an unfailing air of gorgeousness to
the provincial German mind, whether viewed from in front of, or behind
the footlights. An aigrette does duty for years and has a sure-fire
elegance; pinned on a winter hat of black velvet, or a summer leghorn,
or worn with a bow in an evening coiffure, you know its wearer belongs
to the most exclusive social set. Our coiffeur had only one eye, but
used to bring that one as close as possible to the head of her victim
and make it do duty for two. She turned out wonderful puffs and curls.
In "Dollar Prinzessin" I introduced a new style of hair dressing from
Paris: the hair parted, and a multitude of close curls at the back of
the head, the whole surrounded by a rather broad band of ribbon of the
shade one desired. This took Darmstadt by storm, and was repeated for
two years in every conceivable version. The curls I am sorry to say,
turned into tight sausages, but how much more _praktisch_! Couldn't the
curls then be worn at least three times without being re-dressed?
A lorgnon is of course "Hoch elegant," also quite irresistibly snorty,
if you are playing an elderly Duchess type of person. If you read that
tunics are worn in Paris you put them on all your gowns, though they
may be hideously unbecoming to you. Even the time-honoured
hat-on-the-back-of-the-head outline had to be renounced one season, and
every one peered out at you from a hat or toque brim almost down on the
bridge of the nose in front, and cocked up in the back. Unbecoming--it
was admitted--, but "man" did it in Paris and should Darmstadt lag
behind?
The problem of clothes for the actress is a terrific one, and I think
almost every one in town knows and makes allowances for this. The men go
further astray in the quest of fashion, or perhaps it is that the
slightest lapse from rigid formality is so noticeable in their dress of
today. In Metz dickeys, or small false fronts, were worn as a matter of
course in the place of evening shirts. If you were long and the dickey
was short you stuck a jaunty, flaming silk handkerchief in your vest in
front, to hide dangerous glimpses of Jaegers. And then why stick
slavishly to the bow tie of white cotton? A black or scarlet string tie
was distinctly more novel, and attracted attention at once if worn with
an otherwise conventional evening coat.
In Darmstadt the men knew better, but some of them tried to ape the
officers in walk, monocle, or hair brushing, to the huge delight of the
officers. One clever actor always made his greatest climax by suddenly
throwing back his coat edge as he finished a "There, what do you say to
that?" speech, and so revealing the gorgeous black satin lining. This of
course was unanswerable, and never failed of its effect. You knew at
once you had a man of the world before you, a man familiar with the most
exclusive club life, valeted, perfumed and manicured irreproachably, and
you succumbed accordingly.
The Grand Duke would sit, lynx-eyed, up in his box, and take this all
in. I always felt he never missed anything, and it was inspiring to play
to him. When his box was empty I always missed this scrutiny.
Sometimes one gets messages that well-known people have been out in
front, and this knowledge, and the thought that some wandering
_Intendant_ in search of talent may be watching you, always spurs you on
if you are tired. Once a famous Dutch painter saw me as _Amneris_. He
was of course quite unknown to me, but sent me word later to say what
pleasure I had given him by recreating in his mind the Egyptian
silhouettes and colouring he loved. I had striven so hard to do this, it
was a great pleasure to know that I had succeeded in suggesting it.
A dear old gentleman in town, who had travelled much, sent me many
postcards from Spain, because my _Carmen_ brought back to him his happy
days there. He sent me a real Russian "Order" for my _Orlofsky_ in
"Fledermaus," which I always afterwards wore with that gentleman's
severe court dress. Laurel wreaths and wreaths of heavy silvered leaves
were sent to me, with gold lettered inscriptions, and I kept them for
ages in my music room.
During the last winter in Darmstadt I went up to Berlin to give a
try-out recital. It was managed by the great Wolf Bureau, and my friend
Mr. Fernow at once took an interest in me, which continued as long as I
was in Germany. I heard of Coenraad von Bos, and wanted to have him play
for me. We rehearsed the day before the concert, and I soon found I had
made another real friend in Bos. He said afterwards, when he was told I
wanted just one rehearsal for a Berlin recital, he thought to himself I
must be either very bad or very good. The truth was I could not get a
longer leave of absence from the opera and so more than one rehearsal
was impossible. I have always adored rehearsing, especially for a
concert, with such an artist as Bos to play for me, and one of the
greatest joys of my life was preparing a program with Erich Wolf for a
later Berlin recital. To go back to my concert--Bos worked very hard
that evening to make it a success, calling up all of his musical friends
to tell them of his new find. It _was_ a great success and I have never
read such notices as I received from all the papers. They told me no
foreigner had ever had such unanimous and extraordinary praise for a
first recital, and Papa Fernow kissed me in the green room.
I should have immediately followed up that concert with two or three
more, but I was obliged to return to my duties, and so lost the
opportunity of reaping the reward of an unusual beginning.
They wanted me to sign on in Darmstadt, but I felt that I had sung the
repertoire faithfully for three years, and that I wanted more worlds to
conquer, and a bigger town to criticize my work.
I went to Munich to sing for Baron S----, who liked me and offered me a
contract, depending on the outcome of two _Gastspiele_, or guest
performances, to be absolved the following October, my contract then to
go into effect.
My farewell in Darmstadt was "Carmen" and the people _were_ good to me.
After the last curtain I left the stage for a minute, and when I came
back to take my calls the stage was filled from side to side with
flowers; they were banked and grouped all round me. The curtain then
went up and down innumerable times, till I felt like weeping at leaving
all these kind friends. For some reason my cab did not come for me and
when I left the theatre the crowd waiting at the stage door followed me
home, calling out "Come back soon," "Auf Wiedersehen," and many kind
things. These are not perhaps great triumphs, but they make an artist's
life very happy, and the life I led for those three years, comes very
near being the ideal one for an opera singer.
I think it was two years before this, on returning to Paris, that I took
part in Strauss' "Salome." We gave six performances at the Chatelet. I
took the page's small part, just for the fun of it, and so as to study
the opera. The stage manager was a German of course, and spoke very
little French. The singers were all Germans, and the "figurants,"
supers, all French. Things did not go well at rehearsals. Burrian, as
the King would cry for wine or grapes, and no one moved to get what he
wished, as no one understood what he was saying, and so could not get
the musical cue. I was the only person able to speak the two languages
fluently, and finally the stage manager asked me to take charge of all
the business on my side of the stage. "_Suivez Madame!_" he would yell.
So I said "Remove throne." "Bring golden vessels." "Clear stage," etc.,
to the intelligent crowd of supers, many of whom were young actors, who
wanted as I did to study the opera. I remember one hideous little girl,
who had an unattractive sore lip. Some one told her that it did not
matter much, trying to comfort her, as she seemed so depressed about
it, but she was inconsolable, and replied darkly, "it was always seven
days lost." This brave effort to create the impression of an otherwise
lurid existence deceived no one however, though they were too polite to
show their doubt.
Destinn's voice rose thrillingly in the love phrases that _Salome_ pours
at _John_; and though she wore a costume that my young French friends
considered consisted chiefly of _chats enrages_,--mad cats,--as it had
two huge animal heads of gold, where such types of stage villainesses
are always heavily protected, the tense quality of her voice, and the
simple strength of her acting suited the character as Strauss had
painted it with his music, and she achieved results that no other singer
I know of could have done.
I had gone back as usual to de Reszke to have my voice put in order, and
was having, at the same time, my taste put in order by my sculptor
brother Cecil, in our walks and talks about Paris and its museums. My
brother's wonderfully clear vision of art and beauty is never clouded,
and I owe much to my association with him. We used to go to all the
Salons, and I remember vividly the first time we stumbled on a specimen
of the modern Spanish school, then quite new to us. We had looked at
dreary wastes of raspberry jam Venuses, resting on the crests of most
solid waves, dozens of canvases still in the Louis XVI era, and much
pastel-coloured mediocrity, when suddenly I called out "Look, Cec,
something new!" It was a big square of flaming colour--women and a child
in red checked cotton, picking scarlet tomatoes from high-trained vines,
in the brilliant sun. It glowed and fairly zizzed with colour, and had
that radiating, vibrating quality that things have in the hot sunshine.
We had had the "confetti" and "spot" types of work for some years, but
this canvas dwarfed anything modern I had seen in Paris. We have never
found another one by the same man, and have often wondered what became
of his work.
I think that was when I first fell in love with colour _per se_, though
I had flirted with it before. We had loved Monet and the opalescent,
shimmering lights in his water-garden series, but never had I been so
stirred and thrilled by mere paint on canvas as I was by this Spaniard's
work. It seems that a man only rarely can put colours together that will
have the living dazzling look that one sees in nature. Matisse was a
past master of it, and even though one might not agree with him
otherwise, his colour was a joy.
Later the Cubists and Futurists invaded Paris. When I am with Cecil and
he talks to me of their work, I see their aims quite clearly, and
understand what they are trying to express, for their "line of talk" is
much more lucid than their work: but when I am not with my brother I
must confess my understanding is dimmed, and I forget the arguments he
used.
We lived very simply in Paris, having our meals sometimes at the
_quartier_ restaurants, and sometimes getting _filets_ of fresh
mushrooms, peas, and delicious Paris potatoes, with big strawberries
shaped like little whisk-brooms, and _creme d' Isigny_ in its stubby
little earthen pots, and preparing them at home. I had a small apartment
in the same house as my mother, and my brother had his studio some
blocks from us.
We met Spaniards, Norwegians, French, anything but Americans, of whom we
knew but few--we learnt so much more through talking with people of
other nationalities than our own. Paris is such a marvellous place for
development. As my brother said, he never knew when some one whose
opinion he must respect might not drop into the studio, and give his
work a searching inspection. The atmosphere of having to keep constantly
at your very best because of the rigid intellectual criticism you
encounter at every turn, is most stimulating.
Rembrandt Bugatti was a great friend of my brother's, of whom I think he
was really fond, and this was a priceless association for a young
student. Bugatti was a genius, unrivalled by any other man of his age,
and very few of any other age, and his tragic death is a great loss to
the art world. His growing deafness and his acute sensitiveness must
have made life impossible for him. His recollection of the happy years
spent in Antwerp, when he and my brother were well-known figures
there--wearing long, swinging, dark blue, Italian cavalry capes, smoking
eternal pipes and working all day in the open air in the Zoo--compared
to what the Germans have made of Belgium, proved too great a spiritual
burden for him.