A FIRST PERFORMANCE AT BRUSSELS
My trips to Italy, journeys devoted to following, if not to the
preparation of, the successive performances of _Le Roi de Lahore_ at
Milan, Piacenza, Venice, Pisa and Trieste on the other side of the
Adriatic, did not prevent my working on the score of _Herodiade_ and it
was soon finished.
Perhaps such wanderings are surprising since they are so little to my
taste. Many of my pupils, however, have followed my example in this
regard and the reason is obvious. At the beginning of our careers we
have to give hints to the orchestras, the stage manager, the artists and
costumers; the why and wherefore of each scene must, oftentimes, be
explained, and the tempo, as given by the metronome, is little like the
true one.
I have let such things go for a long time for they take care of
themselves. It is true that, since I have been known for so many years,
it would be difficult to make a choice and decide where I ought to go.
And where should I begin--'twere among my keenest desires--personally
to express my gratitude to all the directors and artists who now know my
work. As to the hints I might have given them, they have gone ahead and
departures from the true rendering have become rare, much more so than
in the beginning when both directors and artists ignored my wishes and
could not foresee them; in short, when my works were, to them, those of
an unknown.
I must recall, and I do so with sincere emotion, all I owe in the great
provincial houses to those kind directors, so affectionately devoted to
me: Graviere, Saugey, Villefranck, Rachet, and many others who can claim
my thanks and my most grateful congratulations.
During the summer of 1879 I lived at the seashore at Pourville near
Dieppe. Hartmann, my publisher, and Paul Milliet, my collaborator, spent
the Sundays with me. When I say with me, I abuse the words for I kept
company but little with these excellent friends. I was accustomed to
work fifteen or sixteen hours a day, sleep six hours, and my meals and
dressing took the rest of the time. It is only through such tireless
labor continued without ceasing for years that works of great power and
scope can be produced.
Alexander Dumas, the Younger, whose modest contemporary I had been at
the Institute for a year, lived in a superb property at Puys near
Dieppe. His being near often furnished me with delightful pleasures. I
was never so happy as when he came for me at seven o'clock in the
evening to take me to dinner. He brought me back at nine o'clock so as
not to take up my time. He wanted me to have a friendly rest, and indeed
it was a rest which was both exquisite and altogether delightful. It is
easy to imagine what a treat the vivacious, sparkling, alluring
conversation of the celebrated Academician was to me.
How I envied him then for those artistic joys which he had tasted and
which I was to know later! He received and kept his interpreters at his
home and made them work on their parts. At this time Mme. Pasca, the
superb comedienne, was his guest.
The score of _Herodiade_ was finished at the beginning of 1881. Hartmann
and Paul Milliet advised me to inform the directorate of the Opera. The
three years I had given to _Herodiade_ had been one uninterrupted joy to
me. They were marked by a never to be forgotten and unexpected
concentration.
In spite of the dislike I have always had for knocking at the doors of a
theater, I had, nevertheless, to decide to speak of this work and I went
to the Opera and had an interview with M. Vaucorbeil, the Director of
the National Academy of Music. Here is the conversation I was honored
with:
"My dear Director, as the Opera has been in a small way my house with
_Le Roi de Lahore_, permit me to speak of a new work, _Herodiade_."
"Who is your librettist?"
"Paul Milliet, a man of considerable talent whom I like immensely."
"I like him immensely too; but with him one needs ... (thinking of a
word) ... a _carcassier_."
"_A carcassier!_" I replied in utter astonishment; "_a carcassier!_ What
kind of an animal is that?"
"A _carcassier_," added the eminent director, sententiously, "a
_carcassier_ is one who knows how to fix up in solid fashion the carcass
of a piece, and I may add that you are not enough of a _carcassier_ in
the strictest sense of the word. Bring me another work and the National
Theater of the Opera will be open to you."
I understood. The Opera was closed to me, and some days after this
painful interview I learned that the scenery of _Le Roi de Lahore_ had
been relegated irrevocably to the storehouse in the Rue Richer--which
meant the final abandonment.
One day that same summer I was walking on the Boulevard des Capuchines,
not far from the Rue Daunou; my publisher, George Hartmann, lived in a
ground-floor apartment at the end of the court at No. 20 of this street.
My thoughts were terribly dark. I went along with careworn face and
fainting heart deploring the deceitful promises the directors had
sprinkled on me like holy water, when I was suddenly saluted and stopped
by one whom I recognized as M. Calabresi, director of the Theatre Royal
de la Monnaie at Brussels.
I stopped nonplussed. Must I put him too in my collection of
wooden-faced directors?
"I know," said M. Calabresi, as he accosted me, "that you have a great
work, _Herodiade_. If you will give it to me, I will put it on at once
at the Theatre de la Monnaie."
"But you don't know it," I said.
"I would never dream of asking a hearing--of you!"
"Well," I replied at once, "I will inflict it on you."
"But I am going back to Brussels to-morrow morning."
"This evening, then," I retorted. "I shall expect you at eight o'clock
in Hartmann's shop. It will be closed by that time ... we shall be
alone."
I hurried to Hartmann's, radiant, and told him, laughing and crying,
what had happened to me.
A piano was brought immediately, and Paul Milliet was hurriedly
informed.
Alphonse de Rothschild, my colleague at the Academie des Beaux Arts,
knew that I had to go to Brussels very often for the rehearsals of
_Herodiade_. They were about to begin at the Theatre Royal de la
Monnaie, and he wanted me to avoid delays at the stations so he gave me
a pass.
They became so accustomed to seeing me cross the frontier at Feignies
and Quevy that I became a real friend of the customs' officers,
especially of those on the Belgian side. I remember that to thank them
for their kind attentions I sent them seats for the Theatre de la
Monnaie.
A real ceremony took place at the Theatre Royal in the month of October
of this same year 1881. As a matter of fact _Herodiade_ was the first
French work to be created on the superb stage of the capital of Belgium.
On the appointed day, my two excellent directors, Stoumon and Calabresi,
went with me as far as the great public foyer. It was a vast place with
gilt paneling and was lighted from the colonnaded peristyle of the
theater on the Place de la Monnaie. On the other side of the Place (a
relic of old Brussels) was the Mint and, in a corner, the Stock
Exchange. These buildings have since disappeared and have been replaced
by a magnificent Post Office. The Exchange has been moved to a
magnificent palace a short ways away.
In the middle of the foyer to which I was taken was a grand piano about
which there were twenty chairs arranged in a semi-circle. Besides the
directors, there were my publisher and my collaborator, as well as the
artists we had selected to create the parts. At the head of these
artists was Martha Duvivier, whose talent, fame, and beauty fitted her
for the role of Salome; Mlle. Blanche Deschamps, later the wife of the
famous orchestra leader Leon Jehin, had the role of Herodiade; Vernet,
Jean; Manoury, Herod; the elder Gresse, Phanuel. I went to the piano,
turned my back towards the windows, and sang all the roles including the
choruses.
I was young, eager, happy, and, I add to my shame, very greedy. But if I
accuse myself, it is to excuse myself--for leaving the piano so often to
get a bite at a table laden with exquisite food spread out on a
plentiful buffet in the same foyer. Every time I got up, the artists
stopped me as if to say, "Have pity.... Keep on.... Continue.... Don't
stop again." I ate almost all the food which had been prepared for us
all. The artists were so much pleased that they thought more of
embracing me than of eating. Why should I complain?
I lived at the Hotel de la Poste, Rue Fosse-aux-Loups, beside the
theater. In the same room, on the ground floor on the corner of the
hotel overlooking the Rue d'Argent, I wrote, the following autumn, the
rough draft of the Seminaire act of _Manon_. Later on I preferred to
live in the dear kindly Hotel du Grand-Monarque, Rue des Fripiers, and
I continued to do so until 1910.
This hotel plays a part in my deepest memories. I lived there often with
Reyer, the author of _Sigurd_ and of _Salammbo_, my colleague at the
Academie des Beaux-Arts. There, we both lost our collaborator and friend
Ernest Blau. He died here, and in spite of the custom that no funeral
black shall be hung in front of a hotel, Mlle. Wanters, the
proprietress, insisted that the obsequies should be public and should
not be concealed from the people who lived there. In the salon among
strangers we said the tender words of farewell to the collaborator on
_Sigurd_ and _Esclarmonde_.
A grim detail! Our poor friend Blau dined the evening of his death at
the house of Stoumon, the director. As he was early, he stopped in the
Rue des Sablons to look at some luxurious coffins displayed in an
undertaker's shop. As we had just paid our last farewell and had placed
the mortal remains of Blau in a temporary vault beside the casket of a
young girl, which was covered with white roses, one of the bearers
observed that if he had been consulted the deceased could not have
chosen a better neighborhood. The head undertaker reflected: "We have
done things well. M. Blau noticed a fine coffin and we let him have it
cheap."
As we came from that vast cemetery, comparatively empty at that time, we
were all impressed by the poignant grief of Mme. Jeanne Raunay, the
great artiste. She walked slowly by the side of the great master
Gevaert.
Oh, mournful winter day!
* * * * *
The rehearsals of _Herodiade_ went on at the Monnaie. They were full of
delirious joy and surprises for me. Its success was considerable. Here
is what I find in the papers of the times.
* * * * *
At last the great night came.
From the night before--Sunday--the public formed lines at the entrance
to the theater (the cheaper seats were not sold in advance at that
time). The ticket sellers spent the whole night in this way, and while
some sold their places in line at a high price on Monday morning, others
held on and sold places in the pit for sixty francs on the average. A
stall cost one hundred and fifty francs.
That evening the auditorium was taken by storm.
Before the curtain rose, the Queen entered her stage box accompanied by
two ladies of honor and Captain Chretien, the King's orderly.
In the neighboring box were their Royal Highnesses the Count and
Countess of Flanders, accompanied by the Baron Van den Bossch d'Hylissem
and Count Oultremont de Duras, grand master of the princely household.
In the Court Boxes were Jules Devaux, chief of the King's cabinet;
Generals Goethals and Goffinet, aides-de-camp; Baron Lunden, Colonel
Baron Anethan, Major Donny, Captain Wyckerslooth, the King's orderlies.
In the principal boxes: M. Antonin Proust, Minister of Fine Arts in
France, with Baron Beyens, Belgian Minister to Paris, the heads of the
cabinet, and Mme. Frere Orban, etc.
In the lower stage box: M. Buls, recently elected Burgomaster, and the
aldermen.
In the stalls and balcony were numerous people from Paris: the
composers, Reyer, Saint-Saens, Benjamin Godard, Joncieres, Guiraud,
Serpette, Duvernois, Julien Porchet, Wormser, Le Borne, Lecocq, etc.,
etc.
This brilliant emotional audience, said the chronicles of the time, made
the work a delirious success.
Between the second and the third acts Queen Marie Henriette summoned the
composer to her box and congratulated him warmly, as well as Reyer
whose _Statue_ had just been given at the Monnaie.
The enthusiasm swelled crescendo to the end of the evening. The last act
ended amid cheers. There were loud calls for the composer and the
curtain was raised several times, but the "author" did not appear. As
the audience was unwilling to leave the house, the stage manager,
Lapissida, who had staged the work, finally had to announce that the
author had left as soon as the performance ended.
Two days after the Premiere the composer was invited to dine at Court
and a royal decree appeared in the _Moniteur_ naming him Chevalier de
l'Ordre de Leopold.
The dazzling success of the first performance was trumpeted through the
European press, which, almost without exception, praised it in
enthusiastic terms. As to the enthusiasm of the first days, it continued
persistently through fifty-five consecutive performances, which,
according to the papers, realized four thousand francs every evening
above the subscriptions.
_Herodiade_, which made its first appearance on the stage of the Monnaie
December 19, 1881, under the exceptionally brilliant circumstances just
quoted from the newspapers of Belgium as well as of other countries,
reappeared at this theater, after many revivals, during the first
fortnight of November, 1911--nearly thirty years later. _Herodiade_ long
ago passed its hundredth performance at Brussels.
And I was already thinking of a new work.