MILAN--LONDON--BAYREUTH
I regret all the more that I have given up traveling, for I seem to have
become lazy in this regard, since my visits to Milan were always so
delightful--I was going to say adorable--thanks to the friendly Edouard
Sonzogno, who constantly paid me the most delicate and kindly
attentions.
What delightful receptions, and perfectly arranged and elaborate
dinners, we had at the fine mansion at 11 Via Goito! What bursts of
laughter and gay sallies there were; what truly enchanted hours I passed
there, with my Italian confreres, invited to the same love-feast as I,
at the house of the most gracious of hosts: Umberto Giordano, Cilea and
many others!
In this great city I had excellent friends and illustrious ones as well,
as Mascagni and Leoncavallo, whom I had known before and had had as
friends in Paris. They did not then foresee the magnificent situation
they would create for themselves one day at the theater.
In Milan my old friend and publisher Giulio Ricordi also invited me to
his table. I was sincerely moved at finding myself again in the bosom of
the Ricordi family to whom I was attached by so many charming memories.
It is unnecessary to add that we drank to the health of the illustrious
Puccini.
Among my memories of Milan I have kept the recollection of being present
at Caruso's debut. The now famous tenor was very modest then; and when,
a year afterwards, I saw him wrapped in an ample fur-coat, it was
obvious that the figures of his salary must have mounted _crescendo_. As
I saw him I did not envy him his brilliant fortune or his undoubted
talent, but I did regret--that winter especially--that I could not put
his rich warm coat on my back.... It snowed, indeed, in Milan, in large
and seemingly endless flakes. It was a hard winter. I remember that once
I hadn't enough bread from my breakfast to satisfy the appetite of some
thirty pigeons which, shivering and trembling with cold, came to my
balcony for shelter. Poor dear little creatures! I regretted that I
could not do more for them. And involuntarily I thought of their
sisters in the Piazza Saint Marc, so pretty, so friendly, who at that
instant must be just as cold.
I have to confess to a flagrant but entirely innocent joke that I played
at a dinner of Sonzogno's, the publisher. Everyone knew of the strained
relations between him and Ricordi. I slipped into the dining room before
any of the guests had gone in and placed under Sonzogno's napkin an
Orsini bomb, which I had bought and which was really awe inspiring--be
reassured, it was only of cardboard and from the confectioner's. Beside
this inoffensive explosive I placed Ricordi's card. The joke was a great
success. The diners laughed so much that during the whole meal nothing
else was talked about and little attention was paid to the menu, in
spite of the fact that we knew that it must inevitably be appetizing,
like all those to which we had to do honor in that opulent house.
I always had the glorious good fortune to have as my interpreter of
_Sapho_ in Italy La Bellincioni, the Duse of opera. In 1911 she
continued her triumphal career at the Opera in Paris.
I have mentioned that Cavalieri was to create _Thais_ in Milan. Sonzogno
insisted strongly that I should let her see the part before I left. I
remember the considerable success she had in the work--_al teatro
lirico_ of Milan. Her beauty, her admirable plasticity, the warmth and
color of her voice, her passionate outbursts simply gripped the public
which praised her to the skies.
She invited me to a farewell dinner at the Hotel de Milan. The table was
covered with flowers and it was laid in a large room adjoining the
bedroom where Verdi had died two years before. The room was still
furnished just as it had been when the illustrious composer lived there.
The great master's grand piano was still there, and on the table where
he had worked were the inkstand, the pen and the blotting paper which
still bore the marks of the notes he had traced. The dress shirt--the
last one he wore--hung on the wall and one could still see the lines of
the body it had covered.... A detail which hurt my feelings and which
only the greedy curiosity of strangers can account for, was that bits of
the linen had been boldly cut off and carried away as relics.
Verdi! The name signifies the whole of victorious Italy from Victor
Emanuel II down to our own times. Bellini, on the other hand, is the
image of unhappy Italy under the yoke of the past.
A little while after the death of Bellini in 1835--that never to be
forgotten author of _La Somnanbula_ and _La Norma_--Verdi, the immortal
creator of so many masterpieces, came on the scene and with rare
fertility never ceased to produce his marvellous works which are in the
repertoire of all the theaters in the world.
About two weeks before Verdi's death I found at my hotel the great man's
card with his regards and best wishes.
In a remarkable study of Verdi Camille Bellaigue uses the following
words about the great master. They are as just as they are beautiful.
"He died on January 27, 1901, in his eighty-eighth year. In him music
lost some of its strength, light and joy. Henceforth a great, necessary
voice will be missing from the balance of the European 'concert.' A
splendid bower has fallen from the chaplet of Latin genius. I cannot
think of Verdi without recalling that famous phrase of Nietzsche, who
had come back from Wagnerism and had already turned against the
composer: 'Music must be Mediterraneanized.' Certainly not all music.
But to-day as the old master has departed, that glorious host of the
Doria palace, from which each winter his deep gaze soared over the azure
of the Ligurian sea, one may well ask who is to preserve the rights and
influence of the Mediterranean in music?"
* * * * *
To add another of my memories of _Thais_ I recall two letters which must
have touched me deeply.
August 1, 1892
...I brought a little doll Thais to the Institute for you, and as I
was going to the country after the session and you were not there,
I left it with Bonvalot and begged him to handle her carefully....
I return in a day or so, for on Saturday we receive Fremiet who
wishes me to thank you for voting for him.
GEROME.
I wanted this colored statuette by my illustrious colleague to place on
my table as I wrote _Thais_. I have always liked to have before my eyes
an image or a symbol of the work on which I am engaged.
The second letter I received the day after the first performance of
_Thais_ at the Opera.
_Dear Master_:
You have lifted my poor _Thais_ to the first rank of operatic
heroines. You are my sweetest glory. I am delighted. "Assieds-toi
pres de nous," the aria to Love, the final duet, is charmingly
beautiful.
I am happy and proud at having furnished you with the theme on
which you have developed the most inspiring phrases. I grasp your
hand with joy.
ANATOLE FRANCE.>
I had already been to Covent Garden twice. First, for _Le Roi de
Lahore_, and then for _Manon_ which was sung by Sanderson and Van Dyck.
I went back again for the rehearsals of _La Navarraise_. Our principal
artists were Emma Calve, Alvarez and Plancon.
The rehearsals with Emma Calve were a great honor for me and a great joy
as well, which I was to renew later in the rehearsals for _Sapho_ in
Paris.
The Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, attended the first performance of
_La Navarraise_.
The recalls of the artists were so numerous and enthusiastic that
finally they called for me. As I did not appear, for the good reason
that I was not there, and could not be presented to the Prince of Wales
who wanted to congratulate me, the manager could find only this way to
excuse me both to the prince and to the public. He came on the stage and
said, "M. Massenet is outside smoking a cigarette and won't come."
Doubtless this was true, but "the whole truth should not always be
spoken."
I returned on board the boat with my wife, Heugel, my dear publisher,
and Adrien Bernheim, the Governmental Commissary General of the
subsidized theaters, who had honored the performance with his presence.
Ever since he has been one of my most charming and dearest friends.
I learned that her Majesty Queen Victoria summoned Emma Calve to Windsor
to sing _La Navarraise_, and I was told that they improvised a stage
setting in the queen's own drawing room, which was most picturesque but
primitive. The Barricade was represented by a pile of pillows and down
quilts.
Have I said that in the month of May preceding _La Navarraise_ in London
(June 20, 1894), the Opera-Comique gave _Le Portrait de Manon_, an
exquisite act by Georges Boyer, which was delightfully interpreted by
Fugere, Grivot and Mlle. Laine?
Many of the phrases of _Manon_ reappeared in the work. The subject
prompted me to this, for it is concerned with Des Grieux at forty, a
poetical souvenir of Manon long since dead.
Between whiles I again visited Bayreuth. I went to applaud the
_Meistersingers of Nuremburg_.
Richard Wagner had not been there for many a long year, but his titanic
soul ruled over all the performances. As I strolled in the gardens about
the theater at Bayreuth, I recalled that I had known him in 1861. I had
lived for ten days in a small room near him in the Chateau de
Plessis-Trevise, which belonged to the celebrated tenor Gustave Roger.
Roger knew German and offered to do the French translation of
_Tannhauser_. So Richard Wagner came to live with him properly to set
the French words to music.
I still remember his vigorous interpretation when he played on the piano
fragments of that masterpiece, then so clumsily misunderstood and now so
much admired by the whole world of art and music.