MARIE TEMPEST
[Illustration: MARIE TEMPEST.]
No better characterization of Marie Tempest, that wonderfully
fascinating personality which last appeared in this country during the
season of 1893-94 in "The Algerian," have I ever seen than that written
by Charles Frederick Nirdlinger and published several years ago in the
"Illustrated American."
"Nell Gwynne lives again in the person of Marie Tempest," declared Mr.
Nirdlinger. "From out of a past tinkling with tuneful poesy, sparkling
with the glory of palettes that limned only beauty and grace, bubbling
with the merriment and gallantry of gay King Charlie's court, there
trips down to moderns a most convincing counterfeit of that piquant
creature. If one may trust imagination's ear, little Tempest sings as
pretty Nell did: in the same tenuous, uncertain voice, with the same
captivating tricks of tone, the same significant nuances, and the same
amorous timbre. Tempest talks just as Nell did, and walks with the same
sturdy stride,--there was nothing mincing about Nell,--and, if one may
trust to fancy's eye, she looks just as Nell looked. I have seen Nell a
hundred times, and so have you, dear reader. The mere sight of that
curt, pert, and jadish name--Nell Gwynne--calls up that strangely
alluring combination of features: the tip-tilted nose, the pouting lips,
the eyes of a drowsy Cupid, the confident, impudent poise of the head.
None of them fashioned to the taste of the painter or sculptor, but
forming in their unity a face of pleasing witchery.
"There is no record of Nell's artistic methods, of the school of her
mimetic performance, or the style of her singing. All we know of that
sort of thing we must gather from the rhymes and rhapsodies of the
poets. Some of them wrote in prose, to be sure; but they were poets for
all that, and poets are such an unreliable lot when it comes to judging
such a girl as Nell. If she had any art, though, I'll be bound it was
like Tempest's. There is but one way to be infinitely charming in the
craft of the theatre,--the eternal verities of art prevent that it
should be otherwise,--and whatever devices of mimic mechanism Nell
employed must have been those of her modern congener. But she never
studied in Paris, some sceptic will say, and Tempest did: how could Nell
Gwynne have mastered the lightness of touch, the exquisite refinement of
gesture, the infinity of significant byplay that constitute the
distinctly Parisian method of Tempest? To that I would answer that
Tempest's method is not distinctly Parisian, that it is not at all
Parisian. She is a delightful artist, not because of her brief period of
Gallic training, but in spite of it.
"Elsewhere I have ventured an opinion on the subject of what we have
been taught to regard as the French school of comic opera. That school,
if we may judge of its academic principles and practices by the
performances of some of its most proficient graduates, has nothing in
common with the methods of Tempest. Wanton wiles and indecent
suggestion,--these are the essential features of that ridiculously
lauded French school; kicks and winks and ogling glances, postures of
affected languor, and convincing feats of vicious sophistication. Where,
in all that, is to be found the simple graciousness, the dainty,
delicate, unobtrusive art of Marie Tempest? To liken her to the garish
product of that French school--as well liken Carot's sensuous nymph of
the wood to Bougereau's sensual nymph of the bath! For my own part, I
don't believe Tempest belongs to any school, or if she does, it is a
school of which she is at once mistress and sole pupil. Indeed, it may
be doubted whether instruction and training have any considerable part
in the charm of such a player. There are women of infinitely better
method--not manner--of singing and acting; women with whom nature has
dealt far more carefully and generously in beauty of face and figure;
women even in no degree inferior to Tempest in innate allurement. But
this little Englishwoman, with her svelte form and her bewitching face
of ugly features, her tricky voice that makes one think of a thrush that
has caught a cold, her impertinences and patronizing ways with her
audience, has about her a vague, illusive something that makes of her
the most fetching personality of the comic-opera stage."
Marie Tempest, whose real name is Marie Etherington, was born in London
in 1867. Her father died while she was a child, and she was educated
abroad by her mother. Five or six years of her life were spent in a
convent near Brussels. From there she was sent to Paris to finish her
education, afterward going to London, where she became a student at the
Royal Academy of Music.
At that time she had no idea of going upon the stage. Her exceptional
musical talent at once became apparent to the professors at the academy,
notably Emanuel Garcia, who, although then upward of eighty years of
age, took the liveliest interest in his young pupil. Miss Tempest worked
so successfully with Garcia that within eighteen months of her entrance
at the academy she had carried off from all other competitors the
bronze, silver, and gold medals representing the highest rewards the
academy could offer. She also studied for a time with Signor Randeggor,
in London, and in 1886 made her first appearance on any stage at the
London Comedy in "Boccaccio." It was a small part that she played in the
London company managed by Arthur Henderson, and the salary which she
received was four pounds a week.
After that she created the soprano part in an opera called "The Fay o'
Fire" at the Opera Comique, from thence returning for a few months to
the Comedy Theatre to take Florence St. John's place in "Erminie." Miss
Tempest then took an engagement with Augustus Harris at the Drury Lane
in Hervise's comic opera, "Frivoli." In 1887 she joined Henry J.
Leslie's company, then playing at the Prince of Wales's Theatre, London,
in Alfred Cellier's opera, "Dorothy," in which she assumed the title
role. In this part Miss Tempest made a very great success. She played in
"Dorothy" for nearly nine hundred performances at the Prince of Wales
and Lyric theatres. Subsequently she appeared at the Lyric in Cellier's
opera of "Doris" and after that in "The Red Hussar." Although Miss
Tempest was engaged chiefly in light opera, during these years she at
various times undertook more serious work, frequently singing in
oratorio and in the high-class London concerts.
She came to this country for the first time in the spring of 1890,
appearing in New York and after on tour as Kitty Carroll in "The Red
Hussar." Her success was remarkable, and she at once became an
established favorite. Although the prima donna of to-day might consider
Kitty Carroll, with only its three changes of costume, from soldier to
beggar girl and then to heiress, a veritable sinecure, Marie Tempest's
skill in passing quickly from one character to another was ten years ago
quite as much commented on as was her unquestionably artistic
presentation of the triple roles. She also repeated in this country her
London success in "Dorothy," and sang in "Carmen" as well.
Miss Tempest was next seen at the New York Casino as the successor to
Lillian Russell and Pauline Hall. In the operetta, "The Tyrolean," she
had a part scarcely equal to her abilities, although the nightingale
song, which came in the last act, was a charming melody and was so
delightfully sung by Miss Tempest as really to be the feature of the
performance. In her peasant's dress Miss Tempest was the choicest of
dainty morsels, a dream of fairylike loveliness.
Her greatest success in this country, however, was "The Fencing Master"
in which the prima donna role was peculiarly suited to her personality.
This opera was built around the conceit of a master of fencing, who, not
being blessed with a son to succeed him in his profession, brought up
his daughter as a boy, and by severe training made her a most expert
user of foil and sword. In this character Miss Tempest united remarkably
well boyish freedom and masculine swagger with feminine charm and
ingenuousness, and the picture that she made was one never to be
forgotten. It was true, however, in spite of her great attractiveness in
the part, that tights and tunic did take away a little of that subtle
bewitchery, which was the root of her wonderful winsomeness in
"Dorothy." It was a Boston critic, I believe, who said of her in this
opera, that she suggested a Dresden china image that had hopped down
from the mantel and committed an indiscretion. Still another, evidently
a bit of a china connoisseur himself, applied the fancy porcelain simile
with far more searching analysis. "She reminds one of a bit of Sevres
china," he declared, "although a pretty piece of Dresden would not be an
inappropriate simile, especially when she is dressed in that
picturesquely ragged costume in the first act. Sevres china, however, is
to an art connoisseur what truffles and pate-de-foie gras are to an
accomplished epicure." Whether she were Dresden china or Sevres china,
it mattered not; the main fact remained that a thoroughly feminine woman
like Miss Tempest needed the fuss and feathers of feminine attire to
bring out her attractions in the most effective way. That the public
unconsciously felt this was proven even in "The Fencing Master," where
her appearance in the last act in all the glory of court gown and
flashing jewels was always the signal for the heartiest applause.
In "The Algerian," by Reginald DeKoven and Glen MacDonough, which
followed "The Fencing Master," being brought out in Philadelphia in
September, 1893, Miss Tempest not only returned to the garb of her own
sex, but appeared as well in her own auburn hair with that tiny
irresistible curl hanging down the middle of her forehead, just like
that of the little girl in the old ballad.
At the close of the run of this opera in 1894, Miss Tempest returned to
London. Her greatest hits of recent years in that city have been made as
the heroine in "The Artist's Model" and as O Mimosa San in George
Edwardes's original production of "The Geisha" at Daly's Theatre in
London.