DEAR EMOTIONS
During the summer of 1902 I left Paris and went to my home in Egreville.
Among the books and pamphlets I took with me was _Rome Vaincue_ by
Alexandre Parodi. That magnificent tragedy had had a never to be
forgotten success when it was played on the stage of the
Comedie-Francaise in 1876.
Sarah Bernhardt and Mounet-Sully, then in their youth, were the
protagonists in the two most impressive acts of the work; Sarah
Bernhardt incarnated the blind grandmother, Posthumia, and Mounet-Sully
interpreted the Gallic slave Vestapor.
Sarah in all the flower of her radiant beauty had demanded the role of
the old woman, so true is it that the real artiste does not think of
herself, but knows when it is necessary to abstract from self, to
sacrifice her charms, her grace and the light of her allurements to the
higher exigencies of art.
The same remark could be applied at the Opera thirty years later.
I remember those tall bay windows through which the sunshine came into
my great room at Egreville.
After dinner I read the engaging brochure, _Rome Vaincue_, until the
last beams of daylight. I could not get away from it I became so
enthusiastic. My reading was stopped only by
... l'obscure clarte qui tombe des etoiles
Bientot avec la nuit....
as our great Corneille said.
Need I add that I was unable to resist the desire to go to work
immediately and that during the following days I wrote the whole scene
for Posthumia in the fourth act? One might say that in this way I worked
by chance, as I had not yet distributed the scenes in accord with the
necessities of an opera. All the same I had already decided on a title:
_Roma_.
The complete concentration with which I threw myself into this work did
not prevent my realizing that in default of Alexandre Parodi who died in
1901, I needed the authority of the heirs. I wrote, but my letter
brought no response.
I owed this contretemps to a wrong address. Indeed the widow of the
illustrious poet of tragedy told me afterwards that my request never
reached its destination.
Parodi! Truly he was the _vir probus dicendi peritus_ of the ancients.
What memories I have of our strolls along the Boulevard des Batignolles!
How eloquently he narrated the life of the Vestals which he had read in
Ovid, their great historian!
I listened eagerly to his colorful talk, so enthusiastic about things of
the past. Ah, his outbursts against all that was not elevated in
thought, his noble pride in his intentions, dignified and simple in
form--how superb, I say, these outbursts were, and how one felt that his
soul thrilled in the Beyond! It was as if a flame burned in him searing
on his cheeks the signs of his inward tortures.
I admired him and loved him deeply. It seems to me that our work
together is not finished, but that some day we shall be able to take it
up again in that mysterious realm whither we go but from which none ever
returns.
I was entirely led astray by the silence which followed the sending of
my letter and I was going to abandon the project of writing _Roma_,
when a master poet came into my life. He offered me five
acts--_Ariane_--for the Opera, as I have said already.
Five years later, in 1907, my friend Henri Cain asked me if I intended
to resume my faithful collaboration with him.
As he chatted with me, he remarked that my thoughts were elsewhere and
that I was preoccupied with another idea. That was it exactly. I was
drawn to confess my adventure with _Roma_.
My desire to find in that work the text of my dreams was immediately
shared by Henri Cain; forty-eight hours afterwards he brought me the
authorization of the heirs. They had signed an agreement which gave me
five years in which to write and put on the work.
It is an agreeable thing to thank again Mme. Parodi, a woman of unusual
and real distinction, and her sons, one of whom holds a high place in
the Department of Public Instruction.
As I have already said, I found myself in February, 1910, at Monte Carlo
for the rehearsals and first performance of _Don Quichotte_. I again
lived as before in that apartment in the Hotel du Prince de Galles which
has always pleased me so much. I always returned to it with joy. How
could it be otherwise?
The room in which I worked looked out on the level of the boulevards of
the city and I had an incomparable view from my windows.
In the foreground were orange, lemon, and olive trees; on the horizon
the great rock rising out of the azure waves, and on the rock the old
palace modernized by the Prince of Monaco.
In this quiet peaceful home--an exceptional thing for a hotel--in spite
of the foreign families installed there, I was stirred to work. During
my hours of freedom from rehearsals I busied myself in writing an
overture for _Roma_. I had brought with me the eight hundred pages of
orchestration in finished manuscript.
The second month of my stay at Monte Carlo I spent at the Palace of
Monaco. I finished the composition there amidst enchantment, in its
deeply poetic splendor.
When I was present at the rehearsals of _Roma_ two years later and first
heard the work played at sight by the artists of the Opera conducted
with an extraordinary art by that master Leon Jehin, I thought of the
coincidence that these pages had been written on the spot so near where
they were to be played.
When I returned to Paris in April, after the sumptuous fetes with which
the Oceanographic Museum was opened, I received a call from Raoul
Gunsbourg. He came in the name of his Serene Highness to learn whether I
had a work I could let him have for 1912. _Roma_ had been finished for
some time; the material for it was all ready, and in consequence I could
promise it to him and wait two years more. I offered it to him.
My custom, as I have said, is never to speak of a work until it is
entirely finished, and the materials which are always important are
engraved and corrected. It is a considerable task, for which I want to
thank my dear publishers, Henri Heugel and Paul-Emile Chevalier, as well
as my rigid correctors at the head of whom I love to place Ed. Laurens,
a master musician. If I insist on this, it is because up to now, nothing
has been able to prevent the persistence of this formula, "M. Massenet
is hurrying to finish his score in order to be ready for the first
performance." Let us record it and get on!
It was not until December, 1911, that the rehearsals of the artists in
_Roma_ began at Raoul Gunsbourg's, Rue de Rivoli.
It was fine to see our great artists enamored of the teachings of
Gunsbourg who lived the roles and put his life into it in putting them
on the stage.
Alas for me! An accident put me in bed at the beginning of those
impassioned studies. However, every evening from five to seven I
followed from my bed, thanks to the telephone, the progress of the
rehearsals of _Roma_.
The idea of not being able, perhaps, to go to Monte Carlo bothered me,
but finally my excellent friend, the eminent Dr. Richardiere, authorized
my departure. On January 29 my wife and I started for that country of
dreams.
At the station in Lyons, an excellent dinner! A good sign. Things look
well.
The night, always fatiguing in a train, was endured by means of the joy
of the future rehearsals. Things looked better!
The arrival in my beloved room at the Prince de Galles. An intoxication.
Things look better still!
What an incomparable health bulletin, is it not?
Finally, the reading of _Roma_, in Italian with the orchestra, artists
and chorus. There were so many fine, kindly manifestations, that I paid
for my warm emotions by catching cold.
What a contrast; what irony! However why be surprised? Are not all
contrasts of that kind?
Happily my cold did not last long. Two days later I was up again, better
than ever. I profited by this by going with my wife, always curious and
eager to see picturesque places, to wander in an abandoned park. We were
there in the solitude of that rich, luxuriant nature, in the olive
groves, which let us see through their grayish green leaves, so tender
and sweet, the sea in its changeless blue, when I discovered ... a cat!
Yes, a cat, a real cat, and a very friendly one! Knowing without a doubt
that I had always been friendly with his kind, he honored me with his
society and his insistent and affectionate mewings never left me. I
poured out my anxious heart to this companion. Indeed, it was during my
hours of isolation that the dress rehearsal of _Roma_ was at its height.
Yes, I said to myself, just now Lentulus has arrived. Now Junia. Behold
Fausta in the arms of Fabius. At this very moment Posthumia drags
herself to the feet of the cruel senators. For we, we others, have, and
it is a strange fact, an intuition of the exact moment when this or that
scene is played, a sort of divination of the mathematical division of
time applied to the action of the theater. It was the fourteenth of
February. The sun of that splendid day could not but brighten the joy of
all my fine artists.
Monte Carlo,
Feb. 29, 1912.
Dear great friend,
You do me the honor to ask me for these lines for reproduction in
America.
In America!...
It will be my glory to send thither my thought, full of admiration
for that great country, for its choice public, for its theaters in
which my works have been given. You honor my artists and myself so
much by speaking of _Roma_, and I am the prouder of your words
because they will present that _tragic opera_ with your talent's
high authority.
MASSENET.
[Illustration: Facsimile of Massenet's Reply to an Invitation to Visit
America]
I cannot speak of the superb first performance of _Roma_ without a
certain natural embarrassment. I leave that task to others, but I permit
myself to reproduce what anyone could read in the next day's papers.
* * * * *
The interpretation--one of the most beautiful that it has been our lot
to applaud--was in every way worthy of this new masterpiece of
Massenet's.
A remarkable thing which must be noted in the first place is that all
the parts are what are termed in theatrical parlance "good roles." Every
one of them gives its interpreter chances for effects in singing and
acting which are calculated to win the admiration and applause of the
audience.
Having said this much in praise of the work, let us congratulate the
marvellous interpreters in their order on the program.
Mlle. Kousnezoff with her youth, fresh beauty and superb dramatic
soprano voice was a feast to the eyes and the ears and she will continue
to be for a long time the prettiest and most seductive Fausta that one
might wish for.
The particularly dramatic part of the blind Posthumia was the occasion
of a creation which will rank among the most extraordinary in the
brilliant career of that great operatic tragedienne Lucy Arbell.
Costumed with perfect esthetic appreciation in a beautiful dark robe of
iron gray silk, with her face artificially aged but beautiful along
classic lines, Lucy Arbell moved and stirred the audience profoundly, as
much by her impressive acting as by the deep velvety notes of her
contralto voice.
Mme. Guiraudon in her scene in the second act achieved a great personal
success, and never so much as yesterday did the Paris critic regret that
this young, exquisite artist had abandoned prematurely her career as an
artist and consents to appear hereafter but rarely and ... at Monte
Carlo.
Mme. Eliane Peltier (the High Priestess) and Mlle. Doussot (Galla)
completed excellently a female cast of the first order.
Furthermore the male parts were no less remarkable or less applauded.
M. Muratore, a grand opera tenor of superb appearance and generous
voice, invested the role of Lentulus with a vigor and manly beauty which
won all hearts, and which, in Paris as at Monte Carlo, will ensure him a
brilliant and memorable triumph.
M. J. F. Delmas with his clear diction and lyrical declamation, which is
so properly theatrical, was an incomparable Fabius and was no less
applauded than his comrades from the Opera, Muratore and Note. The
latter in fact was marvellous in the part of the slave Vestapor whose
wild imprecations resounded to the utmost in his great sonorous
baritone.
Finally, M. Clauzure, whose Roman mask was perfect, achieved a
creation--the first in his career--which places this young Premier Prix
of the Conservatoire on an equal footing with the famous veterans of the
Paris Opera beside whom last night he fought the good fight of art.
The chorus, both men and women, patiently trained by their devoted
master M. Louis Vialet, and the artists of the Opera, who anew affirmed
their mastery and homogeneity, were irreproachable under the supreme
direction of the master Leon Jehin. All the composers whose works he
conducts justly load him down with thanks and felicitations, and his
talent and indefatigable power are acclaimed constantly by all the
dilettanti of Monte Carlo.
M. Visconti, who in his way is one of the indispensable artistic
mainsprings of the Theatre de Monte Carlo, painted five scenes of
_Roma_, better five masterly paintings, which were greatly admired and
which won great admiration and prolonged applause. His "Forum" and
"Sacred Grove" are among the most beautiful theatrical paintings ever
seen here.
As for M. Raoul Gunsbourg, the stage manager in whose praise it is
henceforth superfluous to speak, it is sufficient to say that _Roma_ is
one of the scores he has put on with the most pleasure and the most
sincere veneration. That is to say that he brought to bear on it all his
care, and all his dictatorial and artistic mind.
With such a combination of the elements of success put into _Roma_,
victory was certain. Last night's triumph was one of the most complete
that we have had to chronicle here for fifteen years. And it is with joy
that we affirm this to the glory of the Master, Massenet, and of the
Monte Carlo Opera.
* * * * *
That year the days passed at the Palace were all the sweeter to my heart
as the Prince showed me an even more touching affection, if that were
possible.
I was honored by the duty of attending in the salon adjoining the
Prince's box (everyone knows that I do not attend first performances)
and I recall that his Serene Highness at the end of the first act, in
front of the attentive assemblage, said to me, "I have given you all I
could; I have not yet embraced you." And as he said this his Highness
embraced me with keen emotion.
* * * * *
Here I am in Paris, on the eve of the rehearsals and first performance
of _Roma_ at the Opera. I have hope ... I have such admirable artists.
They have already won the first battle for me. Will they not be able to
triumph in the second?