A STAR
But to go back to the events the day after the destruction of the
Opera-Comique.
The Opera-Comique was moved to the Place du Chatelet, in the old theater
called Des Nations, which later became the Theatre Sarah Bernhardt. M.
Paravey was appointed director. I had known him when he directed the
Grand-Theatre at Nantes with real talent.
Hartmann offered him two works: Edouard Lalo's _Le Roi d'Ya_ and my
_Werther_ on sufferance.
I was so discouraged that I preferred to wait before I let the work see
the light.
I have just written about its genesis and destiny.
One day I received a friendly invitation to dine with a great American
family. After I had declined, as I most often did--I hadn't time, in
addition to not liking that sort of distraction--they insisted, however,
so graciously that I could not persist in my refusal. It seemed to me
that perhaps my afflicted heart might meet something there which would
turn aside my discouragements. Does one ever know?...
I was placed beside a lady who composed music and had great talent. On
the other side of my neighbor was a French diplomat whose amiable
compliments surpassed, it seemed to me, all limits. _Est modus in
rebus_, there are limits in all things, and our diplomat should have
been guided by this ancient saying together with the counsel of a
master, the illustrious Talleyrand, "_Pas de zele, surtout_!"
I would not think of telling the exact conversation which occurred in
that charming place any more than I would think of giving the menu of
what we had to eat. What I do remember is a salad--a disconcerting
mixture of American, English, German, and French.
But my French neighbors occupied my entire attention, which gave me the
chance to remember this delightful colloquy between the lady composer
and the diplomat.
The Gentleman.--"So you are ever the child of the Muses, a new Orphea?"
The Lady.--"Isn't music the consolation of souls in distress?"
The Gentleman (insinuatingly).--"Do you not find that love is stronger
than sounds in banishing heart pain?"
The Lady.--"Yesterday, I was consoled by writing the music to 'The
Broken Vase.'"
The Gentleman (poetically).--"A nocturne, no doubt...."
I heard muffled laughter. The conversation took a new turn.
After dinner we went into the drawing room for music. I was doing my
best to obliterate myself when two ladies dressed in black, one young,
the other older, came in.
The master of the house hastened to greet them and I was presented to
them almost at once.
The younger was extraordinarily lovely; the other was her mother, also
beautiful, with that thoroughly American beauty which the Starry
Republic often sends to us.
"Dear Master," said the younger woman with a slight accent, "I have been
asked to come to this friendly house this evening to have the honor of
seeing you and to let you hear my voice. I am the daughter of a supreme
court judge in America and I have lost my father. He left my mother, my
sisters, and me a fortune, but I want to go on the stage. If they blame
me for it, after I have succeeded I shall reply that success excuses
everything."
Without further preamble I granted her desire and seated myself at the
piano.
"You will pardon me," she added, "if I do not sing your music. That
would be too audacious before you."
She had scarcely said this than her voice sounded magically, dazzlingly,
in the aria, "Queen of the Night," from the _Magic Flute_.
What a fascinating voice! It ranged from low G to the counter G--three
octaves--in full strength and in pianissimo.
I was astounded, stupefied, subjugated! When such voices occur, it is
fortunate that they have the theater in which to display themselves; the
world is their domain. I ought to say that I had recognized in that
future artiste, together with the rarity of that organ, intelligence, a
flame, a personality which were reflected luminously in her admirable
face. All these qualities are of first importance on the stage.
The next morning I hurried to my publisher's to tell him about the
enthusiasm I had felt the previous evening.
I found Hartmann preoccupied. "It concerns an artist, right enough," he
said. "I want to talk about something else and ask you, yes or no,
whether you will write the music for the work which has just been
brought me." And he added, "It is urgent, for the music is wanted for
the opening of the Universal Exposition which takes place two years from
now, in May, 1889."
I took the manuscript and I had scarcely run through a scene or two than
I cried in an outburst of deep conviction, "I have the artiste for this
part. I have the artiste. I heard her yesterday! She is Mlle. Sibyl
Sanderson! She shall create Esclarmonde, the heroine of the new opera
you offer me."
She was the ideal artiste for the romantic work in five acts by Alfred
Blau and Louis de Gramont.
The new director of the Opera-Comique, who always showed me deference
and perfect kindness, engaged Mlle. Sibyl Sanderson and accepted without
discussion the salary we proposed.
He left the ordering of the scenery and the costumes entirely to my
discretion, and made me the absolute master and director of the
decorators and costumers whom I was to guide in entire accordance with
my ideas.
If I was agreeably satisfied by this state of affairs, M. Paravey for
his part could not but congratulate himself on the financial results
from _Esclarmonde_. It is but just to add that it was brought out at the
necessarily brilliant period of the Universal Exposition in 1889. The
first performance was on May 14 of that year.
The superb artists who figured on the bill with Sibyl Sanderson were Mm.
Bouvet, Taskin, and Gibert.
The work had been sung one hundred and one consecutive times in Paris
when I learned that sometime since the Theatre Royal de la Monnaie at
Brussels had engaged Sibyl Sanderson to create _Esclarmonde_ there. That
meant her enforced disappearance from the stage of the Opera-Comique,
where she had triumphed for several months.
If Paris, however, must needs endure the silence of the artiste,
applauded by so many and such varied audiences during the Exposition, if
this star who had risen so brilliantly above the horizon of the artistic
heavens departed for a time to charm other hearers, the great
provincial houses echoed with the success in _Esclarmonde_ of such
famous artistes as Mme. Brejean-Silver at Bordeaux; Mme. de Nuovina at
Brussels, and Mme. Verheyden and Mlle. Vuillaume at Lyons.
Notwithstanding all this, _Esclarmonde_ remained the living memory of
that rare and beautiful artiste whom I had chosen to create the role in
Paris; it enabled her to make her name forever famous.
Sibyl Sanderson! I cannot remember that artiste without feeling deep
emotion, cut down as she was in her full beauty, in the glorious bloom
of her talent by pitiless Death. She was an ideal Manon at the
Opera-Comique, and a never to be forgotten Thais at the Opera. These
roles identified themselves with her temperament, the choicest spirit of
that nature which was one of the most magnificently endowed I have ever
known.
An unconquerable vocation had driven her to the stage, where she became
the ardent interpreter of several of my works. But for our part what an
inspiring joy it is to write works and parts for artists who realize our
very dreams!
It is in gratitude that in speaking of _Esclarmonde_ I dedicate these
lines to her. The many people who came to Paris from all parts of the
world in 1889 have also kept their memories of the artiste who was their
joy and who had so delighted them.
A large, silent, meditative crowd gathered at the passing of the cortege
which bore Sibyl Sanderson to her last resting place. A veil of sorrow
seemed to be over them all.
Albert Carre and I followed the coffin. We were the first behind all
that remained of her beauty, grace, goodness, and talent with all its
appeal. As we noted the universal sorrow, Albert Carre interpreted the
feeling of the crowd towards the beautiful departed, and said in these
words, eloquent in their conciseness and which will survive, "She was
loved!"
What more simple, more touching, and more just homage could be paid to
the memory of her who was no more?
It is a pleasure to recall in a few rapid strokes the happy memory of
the time I spent in writing _Esclarmonde_.
During the summers of 1887 and 1888 I went to Switzerland and lived in
the Grand Hotel at Vevey. I was curious to see that pretty town at the
foot of Jorat on the shores of Lake Geneva and which was made famous by
its Fete des Vigerons. I had heard it praised for the many charming
walks in the neighborhood and the beauty and mildness of the climate.
Above all I remembered that I had read of it in the "Confessions" of
Jean Jacques Rousseau, who, at any rate, had every reason to love
it,--Mme. de Warens was born there. His love for this delightful little
city lasted through all his wanderings.
The hotel was surrounded by a fine park which afforded the guests the
shade of its large trees and led to a small harbor where they could
embark for excursions on the lake.
In August, 1887, I wanted to pay a visit to my master Ambroise Thomas.
He had bought a group of islands in the sea near the North Coast and I
had been there to see him. Doubtless my visit was pleasant to him, for I
received from him the next summer in Switzerland the following pages:
ILLIEC, Monday, August 20, 1888
Thanks for your good letter, my dear friend. It has been forwarded
to me in this barbarous island where you came last year. You remind
me of that friendly visit of which we often speak, but we regret
that we were only able to keep you two days.
It was too short!
Will you be able to come again, or rather, shall I see you here
again? You say you work with pleasure and you appear content.... I
congratulate you on it, and I can say without envy that I wish I
were able to say as much for myself. At your age one is filled with
confidence and zeal; but at mine!...
I am taking up again, not without some difficulty, a work which has
been interrupted for a long time, and what is better, I find that I
am already rested in my solitude from the excitement and fatigue of
life in Paris.
I send you the affectionate regards of Mme. Ambroise Thomas, and I
say au revoir, dear friend, with a good grip of the hand.
Yours with all my heart,
AMBROISE THOMAS.
Yes, as my master said, I did work with pleasure.
Mlle. Sibyl Sanderson, her mother and three sisters were also living at
the Grand Hotel at Vevey and every evening from five o'clock until seven
I made our future Esclarmonde work on the scene I had written that day.
After _Esclarmonde_ I did not wait for my mind to grow fallow. My
publisher knew my sad feelings about _Werther_ which I persisted in
being unwilling to have given to a theater (no management had then made
advances to obtain the work) and he opened negotiations with Jean
Richepin. They decided to offer me a great subject for the Opera on the
story of Zoroaster, entitled _Le Mage_.
In the course of the summer of 1889 I already had several scenes of the
work planned out.
My excellent friend the learned writer on history, Charles Malherbe, was
aware of the few moments I made no use of, and I found him a real
collaborator in these circumstances. Indeed, he chose among my scattered
papers a series of manuscripts which he indicated to me would serve in
the different acts of _Le Mage_.
P. Gailhard, our director at the Opera, was as ever the most devoted of
friends. He put the work on with unheard of elaborateness. I owed to him
a magnificent cast with Mmes. Fierens and Lureau Escalais and Mm.
Vergnet and Delmas. The ballet was important and was staged in a
fairylike way and had as its star Rosita Mauri.
Although it was knocked about a good deal by the press, the work ran for
more than forty performances.
Some were glad of the chance to seek a quarrel with our director who had
played his last card and had arrived at the last month of his privilege.
It was useless trouble on their part. Gailhard was shortly afterwards
called upon to resume the managerial scepter of our great lyric stage. I
found him there associated with E. Bertrand when _Thais_, of which I
shall speak later, was put on.
Apropos of this, some verses of the ever witty Ernest Reyer come to
mind. Here they are:
_Le Mage_ est loin, _Werther_ est proche,
Et deja _Thais_ est sous roche;
Admirable fecondite ...
Moi, voila dix ans que je pioche
Sur _Le Capuchin enchante_.
You may be astonished at never having seen this work of Reyer's played.
Here is the theme as he told it, with the most amusing seriousness, at
one of our monthly dinners of the Institute, at the excellent Champeaux
restaurant, Place de Bourse.
First and Only Act!
The scene represents a public square; on the left the sign of a famous
tavern. Enter from the right a Capuchin. He stares at the tavern door.
He hesitates; then, finally, he decides to cross the threshold and
closes the door. Music in the orchestra--if desired. Suddenly, the
Capuchin comes out again--enchanted, assuredly enchanted by the cooking!
Thus the title of the work is explained; it has nothing to do with
fairies enchanting a poor monk!