Puccini's and that of Massenet. Massenet remains supreme in his own
place from the delicate and spirited characterisation of his music.
His Manon is essentially French, entirely of the eighteenth century,
bringing out in the music all the artificiality, all the airs and
graces. While the story is not without flesh and blood, it remains
as a thing apart, moving in its own sphere, full of its own special
atmosphere. Puccini takes the same French story and gives us a moving
lyric drama, which is on a far broader plane, is essentially human and
common to every place, every race and all time, since it deals with
purely elemental passions.
Since _Manon_ was the work by which Puccini's operatic music was first
given to the English music-lovers, the following extracts from the
critiques which appeared after its first performance in England will
be of interest.
There is nothing which brings back the past so vividly as the
fascinating process of turning up back files of daily papers. The
actual day and all the "common round" come back like a living thing; so
many of the "trivial tasks" seem to assume quite a special importance
of their own. To read the advertisements, the announcements of
concerts, theatres and picture galleries, is to remember events and
pleasant moments which have long passed out of one's mind. Speaking as
a journalist, the astonishing thing to me is that the daily paper of
twelve years ago or so should seem such an old-fashioned thing to look
at. One does not feel this with regard to the journals of a far more
remote age. It is only these few recent years that seem to have rushed
along at such a fearful pace.
The _Morning Post_ calls attention to the enterprise shown by
producing a new work on the opening night of the season and promising
another--Verdi's _Falstaff_ to wit--within the first week.
Mr. Arthur Hervey, its critic, says: "Now that Italian composers have
once more come to the fore we may expect to be well provided with
operas from the quondam land of song, and now the home _par excellence_
of the melodramatic opera. Mascagni and Leoncavallo having been duly
welcomed, it is now the turn of Puccini, the much applauded author of
_Manon Lescaut_." After pointing out the differences in the two books,
he says that they offer the same amount of similarity the one to the
other as do those of Gounod's _Faust_ and Boïto's _Mefistofele_. "The
seeds of Wagnerian reform have not fallen on barren ground. Puccini
reveals himself in _Manon_ as a composer gifted with strong dramatic
power, possessing an apparently innate feeling for stage effect and
considerable melodic expression. His score is exempt from the crudities
and vulgarities from which certain modern Italian operas are not
free. The entire first act is treated with a wonderful lightness of
touch. In the grand duet between Manon and Des Grieux in the second
act, the composer has fully risen to the height of the situation. His
music is full of melody and passion. It ends in a decidedly Wagnerian
fashion which evokes recollections of _Tristan und Isolde_. We have
only singled out a few salient features in a work that is remarkable
from many points of view, not the least of which is its sincerity of
purpose, and we cordially congratulate the composer upon having made so
successful a _debut_ amongst us."
In contrast to the _Times_ critic, the writer says: "The inevitable
intermezzo separates the second from the third act. It reproduces
some of the motives heard in the above-named duet, and is extremely
effective."
In the _Academy_ of May 19, 1894, Mr. J. S. Shedlock writes: "The
composer has really something to say, and has said it to very great,
though not the best, advantage. At present he is too strongly
influenced by Wagner and by others to display his full individuality.
The influence of Wagner is specially marked not so much in the use of
representative themes as in phrases and melodies which recall _Die
Meistersinger_, _Tristan_, and _Siegfried_. As, for example, the music
in the first act, when Manon descends from the coach, or the opening
of the intermezzo.... Of the four acts, the second and fourth appear
to us the strongest ... the love duet between Manon and Des Grieux is
a masterpiece of concentration and gradation, the fine broad phrase
at the close, afterwards heard with imposing effect at the end of the
third act and with tender expression in the fourth, ought alone to
ensure the success of the work.... Of course, in a modern opera an
intermezzo is indispensable. Puccini, however, gives to his distinct
dramatic meaning: the coda with its orchestration is original and
expressive."
The _Times_ said of _Manon_, on May 15, 1894, that in melodic structure
and general cast of its phraseology the new work has many points
of affinity with the most popular productions of the young Italian
school; but it is far above these in workmanship, in the reality of its
sentiment, and, above all, in the atmosphere. It supposes that Puccini
is the author of his own book, and on the whole prefers Massenet's
libretto, and points out that the climax of the piece, musically, if
not dramatically, is the penultimate scene, outside the prison at
Havre. The finale to this scene in which occur the comments of the
crowd on the prisoners, some of whom are covered with confusion, while
others are jauntily defiant, is hailed as the finest number in the
work. The weakest thing in the opera is, according to this critic, the
intermezzo, but an atonement is made by the opening of the third act.
The work, he concludes, amply deserved the very enthusiastic reception
it obtained.
Even at this short distance of time it is something of a curiosity
to read that the National Anthem was sung, under Signor Mancinelli's
direction, at the beginning of the evening by the choristers grouped
round a bust of the Queen.
VII
"LA BOHÈME"
The mere fact that _La Bohème_, Puccini's fourth work, to which he
gave the plain title of opera, is his most popular composition for the
stage, makes one all the more inclined to search more minutely for
weaknesses. But with repeated performances (for it has passed into the
regular repertory of all opera houses wherever it has been played) its
unity, both as an idea and an expression, comes out more and more with
remarkable distinctness.
[Illustration: MISS ALICE ESTY AS MIMI IN "LA BOHEME"]
It captured the Italian ear and taste immediately, and babies were
christened Mimi and Rodolfo just as ten years before, Santuzza and
Turiddu, culled from Mascagni's _Cavalleria Rusticana_, were favourite
baptismal appellations. It did not take long for England--represented,
in this instance, by the comparatively limited number of
opera-lovers--to take it to its heart. It delighted fastidious France
and even satisfied hypercritical and essentially conservative Germany.
Of all Puccini's work, it exhibits perhaps the most spontaneity, and
as a piece of modern music--if the melodies themselves, apart from
their very definite piquancy and freshness, do not rise to any vast
heights of emotional expression--its absolute continuity is certainly
a very high artistic achievement and stands unquestionably as its most
striking feature.
Illica and Giocosa provided the book, and their idea in providing the
framework is clearly indicated by the prefatory note to the vocal
score. They begin with a quotation from the preface to Murger's _Vie
de Bohème_, of which the thoroughly impressionistic opera is a most
spirited musical expression. _The Bohemians_, under which title the
opera was first presented in England, does not express by any means the
exact nature of the work. It is the spirit of Bohemianism--that curious
almost undefinable quality, which in reality simply means the absolute
living for, and in, the mood of the moment, and is not by any means
the entire monopoly of the artistic temperament--that is portrayed by
the dramatic scheme. In the matter of following Murger's story, which
as a novel is the most free in the whole range of modern literature,
the librettists have been careful to give the spirit rather than the
letter. They even roll two characters, Francine and Mimi, into one;
for they find that although in Murger's book characters of each person
are clearly defined, one and the same temperament bears different
names and is incarnated, so to speak, in two different persons. "Who
cannot detect," they say, "in the delicate profile of one woman the
personality both of Mimi and Francine? Who as he reads of Mimi's little
hands, whiter than those of the Goddess of Ease, is not reminded of
Francine's little muff?"
The librettists were content to string together four more or less
detached scenes from the story. Save for the death of Mimi at the
close, there is no real climax to any of the four acts. In the first
act, the two chief characters go off and sing their final high note
in the passage; in the third, where they part more in sorrow than in
anger, the situation is varied between a similar device of finishing
the duet "off" or by quietly sitting up at the back of the scene. These
two, out of many points of subtlety, are mentioned merely as showing
Puccini's mastery in catching the essential spirit of the dramatic
scheme, which is atmospheric, or purely impressionistic. The supremacy
of his art is shown in a very marked way by the preservation of the
continuity of the idea by the musical expression. In this _La Bohème_
stands as a very notable modern work solely because of its absolute
keeping to the idea which dominates it. Leoncavallo set the same story
to music, writing the book himself. As a mere adaptation of a novel
for stage purposes, the dramatic portion of this opera, which keeps
the stage in France and Germany, may be pointed to as offering certain
points of superiority. But the music is certainly not atmospheric nor
impressionistic, and the two works never really come into rivalry.
Puccini's _La Bohème_ is absolutely on its own plane, and in its own
particular way supreme.
_La Bohème_ was composed partly at Torre del Lago and partly in a villa
which Puccini took for a time at Castellaccio, near Pescia. It was
given for the first time at the Teatro Regio, Turin, on February 1,
1896, Toscanini being the conductor, and cast as follows:
_Rodolfo_ GORGA.
_Marcello_ WILMANT.
_Schaunard_ PINI-CORSI.
_Colline_ MAZZARA.
_Benoit_ }
_Alcindoro_ } POLONINI.
_Mimi_ FERRANI.
_Musetta_ PASINI.
Its first appearance in England was interesting from the rare fact that
a new opera should not only be produced within a year of its production
in its native land, but that an English company should be the first to
present it in our native tongue. With the title _The Bohemians_ it was
given at Manchester on April 22, 1897, at the Theatre Royal, by the
Carl Rosa Company, conducted by Claude Jacquinet, and cast as follows:
_Rodolfo_ ROBER CUNINGHAM.
_Marcello_ WILLIAM PAUL.
_Schaunard_ CHAS. TILBURY.
_Colline_ ARTHUR WINCKWORTH.
_Mimi_ ALICE ESTY.
_Musetta_ BESSIE MACDONALD.
It was given at Covent Garden in English, in the October of the same
year, with practically the same cast. Madame Alice Esty, from whom I
learnt several interesting particulars, not only of the production of
the opera, but of the work in general, and some of the past history of
the wonderful organisation which is still doing such excellent work
in keeping alive the love for opera in English, was the first English
Mimi, although she was born in Boston. There were many difficulties in
the production, and, strange to say, the part of Mimi was first offered
to Mdlle. Zelie de Lussan, the well-known exponent of the part of
Carmen, not only in English, but in French as well. The photograph of
Mdme. Alice Esty shows her in the last Act of _La Bohème_; and it will
be noticed that she wears, not the customary black gown of the little
seamstress, but one of some pretensions to magnificence. She followed,
she told me, the idea of the composer, who particularly wished to
bring out the fact that Mimi, after parting with Rodolfo, had formed
an alliance with a rich viscount. This little incident, it will be
remembered, is duly referred to by Musetta in the text.
[Illustration: PUCCINI'S MANUSCRIPT SCORES. FROM THE LAST ACT OF "LA
BOHÈME"]
I have also talked with Puccini about this first English performance of
_La Bohème_. "I always feel about past performances," he said, "in the
same way as dead people. Let us say nothing about them but good. But I
shall never forget the shock it was to me on arriving at the theatre to
find the disposition of the orchestra in a fashion which I have never
seen except at a circus. Out of two boxes at each end the bass brass on
the one side and the drum on the other gave forth detached blares and
pops which really frightened the life out of me. They did not seem to
have anything to do with the general musical scheme. I heard this band
rehearsal start, and then I saw that the right idea, simply because of
the square-cut idea as to the tempi on the part of the conductor was
absolutely away from the spirit of the work. I asked the band to take
a rest and then took two rehearsals with the piano myself. It was
not long before the artists, all of them sincerely concerned with the
proper interpretation of my ideas, and myself got into complete accord.
I was very pleased on the whole with the way it eventually went, and
although I did not see the subsequent London production, Ricordi told
me that the Manchester performance was far more spontaneous."
How wonderfully Puccini is able, by playing a score of his on the piano
and by his eloquent directions as to interpretation, to convey his
subtlest meaning to an artist, I can speak from actual knowledge. I
have heard him take a singer through a good deal of this very opera.
Under his almost magical hands, a well learned interpretation is
transformed into a genuinely spontaneous interpretation. Puccini in the
present year of grace, when I told him that I had seen an important
opera revived in the provinces with the same strange disposal of the
orchestra which had caused him such distress, threw back his head and
roared with laughter, not in the least unkindly. "You are a delightful
people and seriously artistic, but you will keep on doing such funny
things."
For a long time, however, Mdme. Melba, who in this country has
invariably, since her first performance of the part in Italian here,
been seen in the character, has appeared in the final scene in much
the same plain dress as in the opening Act, the reason, doubtless,
being that Mimi's loneliness and poverty should be emphasised. Lately,
however, Mdme. Melba has reverted to the original method of dressing
the part, and appears in the last scene in an even more elaborate
evening gown of pale blue satin, with a cloak, and dispenses with a hat.
_La Bohème_ was brought to London after its first production, as we
have seen, and was played about twenty times that season. The Covent
Garden production in Italian was two years later, on June 30, 1899,
when Mancinelli conducted, the cast being as follows:
_Rodolfo_ DE LUCIA.
_Marcello_ ANCONA.
_Schaunard_ GILIBERT.
_Collins_ JOURNET.
_Benoit_ } DUFRICHE.
_Alcindoro_ }
_Mimi_ MELBA.
_Musetta_ ZELIE DE LUSSAN.
It will be noticed that the gifted lady who was in the mind of the
Carl Rosa authorities, for their initial production, as Mimi, was then
seen in the particular part for which her temperament fitted her. By
substituting Caruso as the Rodolfo--it is one of the very finest parts
of this tenor--and Scotti as the Marcello, we have practically the same
cast as that with which this opera at the present time fills Covent
Garden; invariably one of its most brilliant audiences.
In June 1898 Paris saw _La Bohème_ at the Opera Comique, for which
performance the composer visited the French Capital, for the first
time, to superintend some of the first rehearsals. It went to America
in the December of the same year, when it was mounted at the Academy of
Music, Philadelphia, and sung in Italian. Melba was the Mimi, De Lussan
the Musetta, and Pandolfini the Rodolfo.
New York had seen it, in English, at the American Theatre, in the
previous month. This production, in which the Rodolfo was J. F.
Sheehan; the Mimi, Yvonne de Treville; and the Musetta, Villa Knox,
was by Henry W. Savage's Castle Square Opera Company. It was given in
French at New Orleans in the winter of 1900 by Barrich's Company. It
was first given in Germany at the Ander Wren Theatre, Vienna, Frances
Saville being the Mimi and Franz Naval the Rodolfo.
Coming to the story, which with the music is by this time so familiar
to opera-goers, the composer, in characteristic fashion, plunges us
at once, without scarcely as much as a few bars of prelude, into the
midst of things. At the outset the atmosphere is established by the
restless, vivacious, detached and spirited phrase which, if it hardly
ever assumes the proportions, musically considered, of a leading
theme, at least flavours very strongly the whole musical fabric. It
may well be taken to represent the free unrestrained spirit of the VIE
DE BOHÈME. The curtain rises quickly, and we see an attic, inhabited
by the quartet of gay spirits, those bold adventurers, as Murger calls
them, who are stopped by nothing--rain or dust, cold or heat. Every
day's existence is a work of genius, a daily problem. Now abstemious as
anchorites, now riding forth on the most ruinous fancies, not finding
enough windows whence to throw their money. Truly, as Murger puts it, a
gay life yet a terrible one!
Rodolfo, the poet, gazes pensively out of the window, Marcello, the
artist, is painting the passage of the Red Sea. It is Christmas Eve,
and the cold is bitter: and to keep the stove alight, they burn up a
MS.--a drama--of Rodolfo's.
All through this scene of colloquial and snappy dialogue, the music
runs with remarkable movement. Soon Schaunard the musician comes in. He
has been lucky enough not only to find a job but to get paid for it;
and he tells us it was an Englishman who employed him. He has bought
provisions with the spoil, and they spread the feast, in true Bohemian
fashion, with a newspaper for table cloth. They begin the meal with
light-hearted merriment, when the landlord comes in to collect his much
overdue rent. That worthy is amazed to find his tenants can pay it, and
after taking a glass with them, and chatting about his _amours_, the
four irresponsibles get rid of him. They then decide on a visit to the
café Momus in the Latin quarter, and leave Rodolfo behind for a space,
as he has to finish an article for the _Beaver_. "Be quick, then," says
Marcello, "and cut the _Beaver's_ tale short."
As Rodolfo sits at the table to work, a timid knock is heard at the
door, and Mimi, the pretty little seamstress who occupies a room
near the roof, and who is already in the grip of the fell disease,
consumption, comes in to ask for a light, her candle having been
extinguished by the draught in the passage. She is evidently worn out
by cough, cold and fatigue, and Rodolfo, after reviving her with a
little wine, makes a remark as to her delicate beauty. Mimi, however,
has not come to chatter or to be flattered, and with thanks, prettily
expressed, she departs for her chamber. Fate, in the shape of a lost
key, sends her back again, and the draught in the passage puts out
not only Mimi's candle, but Rodolfo's as well. While they both search
for the key, Mimi's cold little hand touches that of Rodolfo, and
the latter clasps it; and he then tells her of his life and aims and
prospects in the beautifully melodious number, _Che gelida manina_,
which, like so many of Puccini's themes, seems to grow out of the
reiteration of a single note, swelling out in a delightful emotional
fulness. Mimi tells Rodolfo of her work, and how she embroiders flowers
on rich stuffs, which make her think of the green fields and the sweet
scents of the country side; how lonely she is all by herself in her
little top attic; how she takes her frugal supper all alone. The two
natures are quickly brought together, and Mimi is soon in Rodolfo's
arms and has received his first passionate kiss. The three friends
outside now call up to him, and he says he has three lines to finish,
but that he will join them anon, and that he wants two places kept
at the supper table. With a full confession of her love, Mimi takes
Rodolfo's arm, and their last notes, "My love, my love," are heard as
they descend the staircase.
At the café Momus--the exterior of which we see as the curtain rises on
the second Act, preceded by a clever and vivacious phrase given to the
trumpets in the orchestra--our four brave Bohemians were known as the
Four Musketeers, since they were inseparable. "Indeed," says Murger,
"they always went about together, played together, dined together,
often without paying the bill, yet always with a beautiful harmony
worthy of the conservatoire orchestra."
In this scene, which is full of life and movement--showing in the
treatment of the chorus, formed of children, people, soldiers,
students, work girls, and gendarmes, that beautifully polished
technique in melodic construction which makes Puccini so strong and
in every way a master musician--the lively Musetta comes on the
scene. Once more may Murger's own words fittingly recall her to mind.
"Mademoiselle Musetta was a pretty girl of twenty, very coquettish,
rather ambitious, but without any pretensions to spelling. Oh, those
delightful suppers ... a perpetual alternative between a blue brougham
and an omnibus: between the Rue Breda and the Latin quarter."
Although the incidents represented appear to follow consecutively, it
is a little strange to find a sort of _al fresco_ entertainment in
progress after the references to the bitter cold in the preceding Act.
At any rate, whether the dramatist's license be allowed or not--and
we may easily imagine a flight of time to have taken place since the
happenings in the opening Act--the café Momus, in this second Act, is
so full that our quartet of Bohemians, with Musetta and her elderly
admirer, take their supper _en plein air_. There is little of incident,
or progress of events, in this lively scene. Musetta is reconciled
after singing her delicious song, in slow waltz form, to her Marcello,
and the fatuous old Alcindoro is left to pay the bill of the whole
party. Yet against this, the sense of movement and gaiety, shown by the
ever-moving crowd, and the incident of the toy-seller Parpignol--just a
plain slice of life put down on the stage in a truly modern method--is
beautifully worked out in the music, and never for an instant does it
flag in vivacity.
Musetta comes into prominence again in the third Act. Again is the
weather intensely cold, and the chill drear atmosphere is indicated in
the music at the opening by the subtle passage of bare fifths, which
is further remarkable as a purely musical effect from its connection
with the trumpet passage which heralded the second Act. The scene is a
place beyond the toll-gate, on the Orleans road, at the end of the Rue
d'Enfer. Over a tavern hangs Marcello's picture as a signboard, with
its title altered to the Port of Marseilles, signifying its adaptation
to its environment.
Two scenes of parting dominate the dramatic plan of this Act, that
of Rodolfo and Mimi, and that of Marcello and Musetta. They are
cleverly contrasted. Very pathetically does Mimi's "addio senza
rancor" come from the depths of her simple little heart, while the
end is foreshadowed by the hacking cough which frequently chokes her
utterances. Musetta is taken to task by Marcel for flirting, and off
she goes after a strongly dramatic duet, which for characterisation and
force is one of the most distinctive numbers in the opera; and after
her exit, in a fury, Mimi and Rodolfo appear to agree, indicated by
the last phrases of their tender duet, to continue together, for yet a
space, in the old relations.