THE RETREAT FROM FRISCO--HOTEL DANGERS--A SCENE FROM "CARMEN"--OPERATIC
INVALIDS--MURDEROUS LOVERS--RAVELLI'S CLAIM--GENERAL BARNES'S
REPLY--CLAMOUR FOR HIGHER PRICES--MY ONWARD MARCH.
San Francisco, or Frisco, as the inhabitants pleasantly call it, is at
the end of the American world; it is the toe of the stocking beyond
which there is no further advance. For this reason many persons who go
to Frisco with the intention of coming back do, as a matter of fact,
remain. It is comparatively easy to get there, but the return may be
difficult. It is obviously a simpler matter to scrape together enough
money for a single journey than to collect sufficient funds for a
journey to and fro; and the capital of California is full of
newly-settled residents, many of whom, having got so far, have found
themselves without the means of retracing their steps.
At the period of the operatic campaign conducted by me--which,
beginning most auspiciously, ended in trouble, disaster, and a retreat
that was again and again on the point of being cut off--contending
railway companies had so arranged matters that access to San Francisco
was easier than ever. The war of rates had been carried on with such
severity that the competing railway companies had at last, in their
determination of outstripping one another, reduced the charge for
carriage from Omaha to Frisco to a nominal sum per head. L20 (100
dollars) was the amount levied for conveying a passenger to Frisco
direct; but on his arrival at the Frisco terminus L19 was returned to
him as "rebate" when he gave up his ticket.
The rates from Frisco to New York had also been considerably reduced;
and it was not until, after a series of pecuniary failures, we were on
the point of starting that, to our confusion and my despair, they were
suddenly raised. I had a force of 160 under my command, with an unusual
proportion of baggage; and this hostile move on the part of the railway
companies had the immediate effect of arresting my egress from the city.
Ravelli, possibly at the suggestion of his oracular dog (who always gave
him the most perfidious counsel), had laid an embargo on all the music,
thus delaying our departure, which would otherwise have been effected
while the railway companies were still at war. They seemed to have come
to an understanding for the very purpose of impeding my retreat.
Ravelli suffered more than I did by his inconsiderate behaviour, for he
was entirely unable, with or without the aid of his canine adviser, to
look after his own interests.
It must be understood that in America a creditor or any claimant for
money, _bona-fide_ or not, can in the case of a foreigner commence
process by attaching the property of the alleged debtor. This may be
done on a simple affidavit, and the matter is not brought before the
Courts until afterwards.
All the foreigner can do in return is to find "bondsmen" who will
guarantee his appearance at a future period, or, in default, payment of
the sum demanded; and it has happened to me when I have been on the
point of taking ship to be confronted by a number of claimants, each of
whom had procured an order empowering him either to arrest me or to
seize my effects. I used, therefore, on my way to the steamer, or it
might be the railway station, to march, attended by a couple of
"bondsmen" and a Judge. The "bondsmen" gave the necessary security, the
Judge signed his acceptance of the proffered guarantee, and I was then
at liberty to depart.
Once, as I have already shown, I had to suffer attachment of my receipts
at the hands of a body of "scalpers," who, when I had liberated the
money through the aid of two friendly "bondsmen" and a courteous Judge,
abandoned their claim; though when next year I returned to Frisco they
could, of course, had it not been absolutely groundless, have pressed
it before the proper tribunal.
Among other extraordinary claims made upon me immediately after the
affair of the "scalpers" was one for 400 gallons of eau de Cologne. Some
such quantity had, it was alleged, been ordered for fountains that were
to play in front of the Opera-house; but the dealers, in lieu of eau de
Cologne, had furnished me chiefly with water of the country. They swore,
however, that I really owed them the money they demanded, and an
attachment was duly granted.
It was through the treachery, then, of the dog-fearing Ravelli that our
misfortunes in Frisco were brought to something like a crisis. In
seizing the music in which the whole Company had an interest the
thoughtless tenor was, of course, injuring himself and preparing his own
discomfiture. The effect of his action was in any case to stop for a
time my departure. We had evacuated the city, and now found ourselves
blocked and isolated at the railway station. The railways would not have
us at any price but their own. The hotel keepers were by no means
anxious for our return, and some of the members of my Company had a
healthy horror of running up hotel bills they were unable to pay. This
may in part at least have been inspired by the following notice which,
or something to the same effect, may be found exhibited in most of the
Western hotels:--
* * * * *
_An Act to Protect Hotel and Boarding-house Keepers._
"Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the
State of Missouri as follows:--
"Section I.--Every person who shall obtain board or lodging in any hotel
or boarding-house by means of any statement or pretence, or shall fail
or refuse to pay therefor, shall be held to have obtained the same with
the intent to cheat and defraud such hotel or boarding-house keeper, and
shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanour, and upon conviction thereof
shall be punished by a fine not exceeding five hundred dollars, or by
imprisonment in the county gaol or city workhouse not exceeding six
months, or by both (such) fine and imprisonment.
"Section II.--It shall be the duty of every hotel and boarding-house
keeper in this State to post a printed copy of this Act in a conspicuous
place in each room of his or her hotel or boarding-house, and no
conviction shall be had under the foregoing section until it shall be
made to appear to the satisfaction of the Court that the provisions of
this section have been substantially complied with by the hotel or
boarding-house keeper making the complaint.
"Approved March 25th, 1885."
* * * * *
I had, counting principals, chorus, ballet, and orchestra, 160 persons
under my care, and by the terms of the hotel notice just reproduced the
penalties incurred by my Company, had they quartered themselves upon
innkeepers without possessing the means of paying their bills, would
have amounted in the gross to L16,000 in fines and eighty years in
periods of imprisonment. It was evidently better to bivouac in the open
than to run the chance of so crushing a punishment.
A deputation of the chorus waited upon me, saying that as their artistic
career seemed to be at an end, it would be as well for them to take to
the sale of bananas and ice creams in the streets; whilst others
proposed to start restaurants, or to blacken their faces and form
themselves into companies of Italian niggers.
Some of the female choristers wished to take engagements as cooks, and
one ancient dame who in her early youth had sold flowers on the banks of
the Arno thought it would be pretty and profitable to resume in Frisco
the occupation which she had pursued some thirty or forty years
previously at Florence.
All these chorus singers seemed to have a trade of some kind to depend
upon. In Italy they had been choristers only by night, and in the day
time had followed the various callings to which now in their difficult
position they desired to return. All I was asked for by my choristers
was permission to consider themselves free, and in a few cases a little
money with which to buy wheelbarrows. I adjured them, however, to remain
faithful to me, and soon persuaded them that if they stuck to the
colours all would yet be right. For forty-eight hours they remained
encamped outside the theatre. Fortunately they were in a climate as
beautiful as that of their native land; and with a little macaroni,
which they cooked in the open air, a little Californian wine, which
costs next to nothing, and a little tobacco they managed to get on.
_From the "Morning Call."_
"The scene outside the Grand Opera-house looked very much like Act 3
from _Carmen_--about 100 antique and picturesque members of Mapleson's
chorus and ballet, male and female, were sitting or lying on their
baggage where they had passed the night. As these light-hearted and
light-pursed children of sunny Italy lay basking in the sun they helped
the hours to pass by card playing, cigarette smoking, and the exercise
of other international vices. One could notice that there was a sort of
expectant fear amongst them seldom seen in people of their class."
What above all annoyed them was that they were not allowed to go to
their trunks, an embargo having been laid not only on my music, but on
the whole of the Company's baggage. One of them, Mdme. Isia, wished to
get something out of her box, but she was warned off by the Sheriff, who
at once drew his revolver.
The Oakland steamer was ready to carry us across the bay to the railway
station as soon as we should be free to depart. But there were
formalities still to go through and positive obstacles to overcome. At
last my anxious choristers, looking everywhere for some sign, saw me
driving towards them in a buggy with the Sheriff's officer. I bore in my
hand a significant bit of blue paper which I waved like a flag as I
approached them. They responded with a ringing cheer. They understood me
and knew that they were saved.
How, it will be asked, did the Company lose its popularity with the
American public to such an extent as to be unable to perform with any
profitable result? In the first place several of the singers had fallen
ill, and though the various maladies by which they were affected could
not by any foresight on my part have been prevented, the public, while
recognizing that fact, ended at last by losing faith in a Company whose
leading members were invalids.
One of the St. Louis papers had given at the time a detailed account of
the illnesses from which so many members of my Company were suffering.
"An astonishing amount of sickness," said the writer, "has seriously
interfered with the success of the Italian Opera. Fohstroem and Dotti
sang during the engagement, but both complained of colds and
sore-throats, and claimed that their singing was not near as good as it
usually is. Minnie Hauk had a cold and stayed all the week in St. Paul.
Mdlle. Bauermeister could not sing on account of bronchitis. Signor
Belasco was compelled to have several teeth pulled out, and complained
of swollen gums. Mdme. Nordica was sick, without going into particulars.
Signor Rigo was sick after the same fashion. Signor Sapio was attacked
by quinsy at Chicago, and returned to New York. Signor Arditi, the
musical conductor, was confined to his bed with pneumonia. Mdme.
Lablache had a bad cold and appeared with difficulty. Many of the
costumes failed to appear because Signor Belasco, the armourer, was
taken sick en route, and held the keys of the trunks."
The illness from which so many of the members of my Company were
suffering might, in part at least, be accounted for by their reckless
gaiety at St. Paul. The winter festival was in full swing, and the
ice-palace and tobogganing had charms for my vocalists, which they were
unable to resist. They went sliding down the hill several times every
day. The ladies would come home with their clinging garments thoroughly
wet. They caught cold as a matter of course, and the sport they had had
sliding down hill took several thousand dollars out of my pocket.
Minnie Hauk was nearly crazy on tobogganing; so was Nordica. Signori
Sapio and Rigo tried heroically to keep up with the ladies in this
sport, and were afterwards threatened with consumption as a reward for
their gallant efforts.
But it was above all the conflict between Ravelli and Minnie Hauk in
_Carmen_ that did us harm, for the details of the affair soon got known
and were at once reproduced in all the papers. It has been seen that Mr.
von Wartegg found it necessary to bring Ravelli before the police
magistrate and get him bound over on a very heavy penalty to keep the
peace towards Mdme. von Wartegg, otherwise Mdme. Minnie Hauk; and the
case, as a matter of course, was fully reported.
What could the public think of an Opera Company in which the tenor was
always threatening to murder the prima donna, while the prima donna's
husband found himself forced to take up a position at one of the wings
bearing a revolver with which he proposed to shoot the tenor the moment
he showed the slightest intention of approaching the personage for whom
he is supposed to entertain an ungovernable passion? "Don Jose" was,
according to the opera, madly in love with "Carmen." But it was an
understood thing between the singers impersonating these two characters
that they were to keep at a respectful distance one from the other.
Ravelli was afraid of Minnie Hauk's throttling him while engaged in the
emission of a high B flat; and Minnie Hauk, on her side, dreaded the
murderous knife with which Ravelli again and again had threatened her.
Love-making looks, under such conditions, a little unreal. "I adore you;
but I will not allow you under pretence of embracing me to pinch my
throat!"
"If you don't keep at a respectful distance I will stab you!"
Such contradictions between words and gestures, between the music of the
singers and their general demeanour towards one another, could not
satisfy even the least discriminating of audiences; and the American
public, if appreciative, is also critical.
With some of my singers ill in bed, others quarrelling and fighting
among themselves on the public stage, my Company got the credit of being
entirely disorganized, and at every fresh city we visited our receipts
became smaller and smaller. The expenditure meanwhile in salaries,
travelling expenses, law costs, and hotel bills was something enormous.
The end of it all was that at San Francisco we found ourselves defeated
and compelled to seek safety in flight.
We did our best at one final performance to get in a little money with
which to begin the retreat; and I must frankly admit that the
hotel-keepers on whom the various members of my Company were at this
time quartered did their very best to push the sale of tickets, for in
that alone lay their hope of getting their bills paid.
It has been seen that at one time I was threatened with a complete
break-up: my forces seemed on the point of dispersing.
I succeeded, however, in keeping the Company together with the exception
only of Ravelli, Cherubini, and Mdlle. Devigne, who afterwards started
to give representations on their own account, and soon found themselves
in a worse plight than even their former associates who had the loyalty
and the sense to remain with me. After much aimless rambling they
turned their heads towards New York, which, in the course of two months,
they contrived by almost superhuman efforts to reach.
Before leaving, Ravelli, as I have shown, dealt me a treacherous blow by
getting an embargo laid on my music as if to secure him payment of money
due, but which was proved not to be owing as soon as the matter was
brought before the Court. That there may be no mistake on this point I
will here give exact reproductions of Ravelli's claim as set forth in
due legal form, and of my reply thereto. Apart from the substance of the
case, it will interest the reader to see that an American brief bears
but little resemblance to the ponderous document known by that name in
England. An American lawyer sets forth in plain direct language what in
England would be concealed beneath a mass of puzzling and almost
unintelligible verbiage. I may add that law papers in America are not
pen-written but type-written, being thus made clear not only to the
mind, but also to the eye. In America a lawyer arrives in Court with a
few type-written papers in the breast-pocket of his coat. In England he
would be attended by an unhappy boy groaning beneath the weight of a
whole mass of scribbled paper divided into numerous parcels, each one
tied up with red tape.
I will now give the documents in the case of Ravelli against Mapleson,
which, after being heard, was dismissed, but which, in spite of the
admirable rapidity of American law proceedings, caused me several days'
delay, and, as a result, incalculable losses; for apart from the sudden
rise in the railway rates I missed engagements at several important
cities along my line of march.
"_Superior Court City and County of San Francisco_,
_State of California_.
"LUIGI RAVELLI, Plaintiff, v. J. H. MAPLESON,
Defendant.
"_Complaint._
"Plaintiff above named complains of defendant above named, and for cause
of action alleges:
"That between the 4th day of February 1886, and the 4th day of April
1886 the Plaintiff rendered services to the defendant at said
defendant's special instance and request, in the capacity of an Opera
singer.
"That for said services the said defendant promised to pay plaintiff a
salary at the rate of twenty-four hundred dollars per month.
"That said defendant has not paid the said salary or any part thereof,
and no part of the same has been paid, and plaintiff has often demanded
payment thereof.
"Wherefore plaintiff demands judgment against the defendant for the sum
of forty-eight hundred dollars and costs of suit and interest.
"FRANK & EISNER & REGENSBURGER,
"Attorneys for Plaintiff."
_"State of California, City and County of San
Francisco._
"LUIGI RAVELLI being duly sworn says that he is the Plaintiff in the
above entitled action. That he has heard read the foregoing complaint
and knows the contents thereof. That the same is true of his own
knowledge except as to the matters therein stated on his information and
belief and as to those matters he believes the same to be true.
"LUIGI RAVELLI
"Sworn to before me this 10th day of April 1886.
"SAMUEL HERINGHIE,
"Dep. Co. Clerk."
In reply to the above my attorney and friend, the invincible General W.
H. L. Barnes, put in the following "answer and cross complaint":--
"_In the Superior Court of the State of California in
and for the City and County of San Francisco._
"LUIGI RAVELLI, Plaintiff, v. J. H. MAPLESON,
Defendant.
"Now comes J. H. Mapleson defendant in the above entitled action by W.
H. L. Barnes his attorney and for answer to the complaint of Luigi
Ravelli the plaintiff in the above entitled action respectfully shows to
the Court and alleges as follows:
"The defendant denies that between the 4th day of February A.D. 1886
and the 4th day of April 1886 or between any other dates plaintiff
rendered services to the defendant at defendant's special instance or
request or otherwise in the capacity of an opera singer or otherwise
except as hereinafter stated.
"Defendant denies that for said alleged services or otherwise or at all
this defendant promised to pay plaintiff the salary of twenty-four
hundred dollars per month or any sum except as is hereinafter stated.
"Defendant admits that he has not paid the said plaintiff for his
alleged services since the 4th day of February A.D. 1886; but he denies
that the same or any part thereof is due to plaintiff from the
defendant.
"And further answering the defendant alleges and shows to the Court as
follows:
"That heretofore to wit on or about the 22nd day of July A.D. 1885 at
the City of London, England, the plaintiff Luigi Ravelli and this
defendant made and entered into a contract in writing in and by which it
was agreed substantially as follows:--
"1st: That said Ravelli engaged as primo tenore assoluto for
performances in Great Britain, Ireland, and the United States with the
defendant, said engagement to begin at the commencement of the season
about the 1st of November A.D. 1885 and to close at the end of the
American season, the salary of said plaintiff to be twenty-four hundred
dollars per month payable monthly. The said Ravelli agreed to sing in
Concerts as well as in Operas, but not to sing either in public nor in
private houses in the Kingdom of Great Britain, Ireland, or the United
States during 1885-6 without the written permission of the defendant.
The said plaintiff also agreed in and by said contract to conform
himself to the ordinary rules of the Theatre, and to appear for
rehearsals, representations, and concerts at the place and at the
precise time indicated by the official call, and in case the said
plaintiff should violate said undertaking, the defendant had the right
to deduct a week's salary from the compensation of the plaintiff, or at
his option to entirely cancel the said agreement as by said contract now
in the possession of the defendant, and ready to be produced as the
Court may direct, reference being thereunto had may fully and at large
appear.
"And the defendant further says that after the making of said contract,
said plaintiff commenced to render services as an Opera singer under
said contract, and so continued down to about the 8th day of February
1886 at which time this defendant was in the City of Chicago, State of
Illinois, and was then and there with his Opera Company engaged in
giving representations of Operas, and the like at the Columbia Theatre
in said City. That on the night of said day, and while the Opera Company
of this defendant was engaged in giving a representation of the Opera
known as _Carmen_ in which Madame Minnie Hauk assumed the _role_ of
'Carmen,' and the said Ravelli the _role_ of 'Don Jose,' the said
Ravelli while on the stage, and in the presence of the audience
violently assaulted said Madame Minnie Hauk and threatened then and
there to take her life, and shouted at her the most violently insulting
epithets and language; that his conduct caused said Madame Minnie Hauk
to become violently ill, and she so continued, and from time to time was
unable to perform, thereby compelling this defendant to change the
operas he had proposed and advertised to give, causing great public
disappointment, and great pecuniary loss to this defendant.
"And the defendant further says that from about the 8th day of February
1885 to and until the 20th of February 1885 plaintiff refused to perform
any of the parts set down for him to sing, or to attend rehearsals, or
to obey calls as they were sent to him, and generally conducted himself
in a brutal and insubordinate manner. That on the 20th of February at
said City of Chicago this defendant with great difficulty persuaded him
to act and sing in the part of 'Arturo' in the Opera of _I Puritani_,
but before said last named day, he had been regularly and formally
notified and called to the rehearsals of the Opera of _Mignon_, and to
rehearse, and sing the part of 'Guglielmo,' and he refused so to do, and
tore up the calls, or notices sent to him therefor, and threw them in
the face of defendant's messenger. The said Ravelli was announced to
the public to sing the _role_ of said 'Guglielmo' in said opera of
_Mignon_ in all advertisements and notices for the 19th day of February
A.D. 1885, but wholly refused and neglected so to do, and also neglected
and refused to appear and sing in the _role_ of 'Don Jose' in _Carmen_,
announced in bills and advertised for February 20th, 1885.
"That after this defendant had as aforesaid persuaded said Luigi Ravelli
to sing in the part of _I Puritani_, he continued to sing until the 13th
March, at which time this defendant was with his Company at the City of
Denver, in the Territory of Colorado, at which time and place he again
without reason or excuse neglected and refused to sing in a public
concert advertised and given in said City by this defendant.
"That thereafter and until the 6th of April 1885 said Ravelli was
insubordinate, disrespectful, and self-willed in all his relations with
this defendant, and falsely pretended to be unable to sing with the
exception of two occasions, and on each of such occasions, without
permission of this defendant, and without notice, he wilfully omitted
the various principal airs and songs in the presence of the public who
had paid to hear him sing the same, thereby causing this defendant great
annoyance and loss by reason of the disappointment of the public, and
the ill-will of the public towards this defendant caused thereby. That
during the past four weeks during which this defendant has been with his
said Company in the City and County of San Francisco the said Ravelli
has repeatedly wilfully broken his contract, disappointed the public and
greatly injured this defendant in his enterprise in business. He has
sung only twice during all said period, and on his first appearance
wilfully and maliciously omitted to sing a principal part of the music
set down for him to sing, thereby disappointing the public, interrupting
and injuring the representation and inflicting great injury and loss on
this defendant.
"That on the 10th of April last the said Luigi Ravelli was duly called
to rehearsal, and to sing certain music selected by himself, and which
he had requested this defendant to insert in the Concert programme for
April 11th, but refused to rehearse or sing at said concert although
this defendant had caused to be prepared said music and the band parts
thereof to be written out, and arranged to suit the pleasure and caprice
of said plaintiff.
"That said Ravelli not only refused to sing, but then and there declared
he would sing no longer for this defendant, and falsely and maliciously
inserted advertisements and notices in certain of the public newspapers
of San Francisco, which notices and publications were greatly to the
injury of this defendant.
"That all of which doings of said plaintiff were in breach of his
contract with this defendant, and greatly to this defendant's damage,
and to his damage in the sum of five thousand dollars.
"And this defendant further says that he has repeatedly condoned the
violations by said plaintiff of said contract with this defendant and
his violence and brutality towards persons of the Company other than
this defendant in the hope that he will ultimately come to his senses,
and behave himself as he should; but that all this defendant's
forbearance towards him has been of no effect, and has led only to
repeated and further violations of his contract.
"Wherefore this defendant alleges that all and singular the said acts
and doings of said Ravelli have constituted, and are so many breaches of
his said contract with this defendant and that the same have been to the
damage of this defendant over and above the amount of salary to which
the said Ravelli would have been entitled had he properly conducted
himself in the respects aforesaid, the full sum of five thousand
dollars.
"Wherefore the defendant demands that the said complaint be dismissed,
and that he may have and recover of the plaintiff as damages for the
breach of his said contract with this defendant the sum of five thousand
dollars, together with the costs of the action and disbursements
incurred in defending this action.
"W. H. L. BARNES,
"Attorney for Defendant."
"_State of California, City and County of San Francisco_.
"J. H. MAPLESON being duly sworn deposes and says that he is the
defendant in the above entitled action, that he has read the foregoing
answer and cross-complaint and knows the contents thereof; that the same
is true of his own knowledge except as to those matters which are
therein stated on his own information and belief and that as to those
matters that he believes it to be true.
"J. H. MAPLESON.
"Subscribed and sworn to before me this 16th day of April A.D. 1886.
[Illustration: SEAL.]
"GEO. F. KNOX,
"Notary Public."
The suit having been promptly terminated in my favour (General Barnes
wins all his cases, even when they are not quite as good as mine was) I
had to pay a few dollars for law expenses, and the embargo on the music
and baggage was raised. But we could not start on our long journey with
something like ten dollars among the whole one hundred and sixty of us,
and I had still many difficulties to contend with before I could make a
start. In London or Paris I should have begun by parting with my
valuable jewellery, but this I could not do in an American city without
everyone getting at once to know of it. That jewellery cannot pass from
hand to hand without some reasonable proof of ownership being given is
undoubtedly an excellent thing, though it did not suit my particular
case. In England we are such lovers of liberty that a low-class
pawnbroker or a receiver of stolen goods is free to purchase or to
accept as a pledge whatever may be offered to him without asking
inconvenient questions, or troubling himself in any way as to how the
property came into the hands of the person anxious to dispose of it. In
America the vendor or pledger of any article of value must give his real
name and address, and at the same time brings as reference some
respectable person, whose name and address must also be given. This
reminds me (if for a few moments I may be allowed to depart from the
thread of my story) that in America spirits cannot legally be sold to
anyone under the age of fifteen, nor under any circumstances to women.
In England we are so wonderfully free that women and children may buy
penn'orths of gin at any public-house; and one enterprising publican is
said to have made a large fortune by establishing in his drink-den a
metal counter low enough to suit the convenience of small children.
I was obliged to leave a fifty-pound ring at one hotel as security for
the payment of a singer's bill, and, oddly enough, when this ring was
afterwards forwarded me in a registered letter to New York it was seized
at the moment of my opening the packet by a creditor, or rather a
claimant, who, for a pretended debt, had procured an attachment against
my effects; so that it was not until after I had gone through several
formalities that I could get it finally into my possession.
I remember a case in which an American manager, whose receipts had been
attached, made a point of putting the money, as it was paid at the
doors, into his pockets, which in a very short time were laden with
coin. To attach the money that a man carries in his pockets a special
order known as a "garnishee" is necessary; and the attachment of money
carried on the person cannot be obtained unless the bearer admits that
he has it about him, or can be proved on sworn evidence to have made
such an admission within the hearing of another person.
When an attachment has once been obtained the order of attachment can be
sent on by telegraph to be enforced, wherever the person against whom it
has been granted possesses property. On the other hand, as a
counterbalancing advantage, a manager may pledge his receipts by
telegraph, and one man may at any time send money to another by the same
means at quite a nominal charge. Deposit the money at a telegraph
office, and the clerk telegraphs to the office of the place where your
correspondent is staying that a sum equal in amount to the one deposited
is to be forthwith paid. Our post-office orders are issued at usurious
rates, and within limited hours. One cannot, however, but foresee the
day when we shall be reasonable enough in this, as in so many other
matters of practical life, to imitate the Americans.
It was absolutely necessary for me at the last moment to part with a
certain amount of jewellery, and this I contrived to do without, I
hope, attracting too much attention. I was spared the annoyance of
seeing the details of each separate sale recorded in the newspapers.
I calculated that the losses caused to me by Ravelli's preposterous
conduct amounted to at least 10,000 dollars. At some of the cities along
the great line of railway, where I had engaged to give performances, I
was unable, having lost the dates that had been fixed, to get others;
and at one city, where the manager gave me another date, he stopped the
whole of the receipts; which he said were due to him as damages for the
injury done to him by not performing on the evening originally
appointed.
On the morning of our departure--our escape, I may say--from the city
where, a year before, we had been so prosperous, and whence I had borne
away not a small, but a very considerable fortune, I was awakened about
one o'clock in the morning by a Chinaman, a negro, and several Italian
choristers, all crying out for money. But I satisfied every claim before
I left; and I was more astonished than delighted to find myself
complimented on having done so by one of the San Francisco papers, in
which it was pointed out that I could easily have saved myself the
trouble and pain in which I had been involved by taking a ticket and
travelling eastward on my own account, leaving the Company to take care
of themselves in the Californian capital.
I was not in a position to give gratuities to all who, in my opinion,
deserved them. But John O'Molloy, the gasman of the Opera-house, had
stood by me manfully in all my troubles; and I could not leave without
making him a small present. In doing so I rendered the poor fellow a
truly tragic service; inasmuch as, for the sake of the twenty-five
dollar note which I gave him, he was the same evening robbed and
murdered.
On the whole, though in the midst of my difficulties I had been worried
a little by interviewers, the San Francisco papers gave me good words at
parting. One of them explained my pecuniary failure not by the scandal
which Ravelli's conduct had caused, but by my having played to popular
prices, instead of the exceptionally high ones which I had charged when
the year before Patti was singing for me, and receiving at the time
payment at the rate of L1,000 a night.
"Opera," said the journal in question, "is regarded as a luxury, to
enjoy which its votaries are willing to pay liberally. High prices are
its illusion, and when put down to current rates the romance of the
thing is destroyed. Mapleson did not appear to understand this, and his
deficiency of the knowledge has caused him to leave us almost a bankrupt
by his San Francisco venture. It is admitted on all hands that he had a
splendid troupe, but the fact of his performing to what are known as
popular prices, and complications arising with certain members of his
troupe, seem to deprive him of his usual success."
"By the way," said a writer in the paper called _Truth_, "I notice that
Mapleson is said to be indebted to Ravelli for 6,000 dollars, though an
artist notoriously never permits an impresario to owe him more than a
few performances. [It was proved in Court that I owed him nothing.] At
home, as everybody knows, in their own country they receive in about a
year as much as they are paid in a month in America, the streets of
which the average Italian singer imagines to be paved with gold coins.
As to the success or failure of the venture of the impresario they are
supremely indifferent, but pertinaciously continue to demand the utmost
farthing, no matter how badly things may be going. Lyric artists are, as
a rule, the most grossly ignorant people on all subjects, except their
own special art, and money. They are intensely conceited and abominably
selfish, and regard an impresario as their natural prey. The sums that
Ravelli has received from Mapleson in the last few years are beyond
question sufficient to maintain the tenor in comfort and luxury for the
rest of his life. Yet the moment he fails to receive his _quid pro quo_
he refuses to render his services, denouncing his manager as a swindler,
and abandons him at a moment when by loyalty and a little patience he
could have aided in relieving the ill-fortune which must inevitably be
anticipated in operatic affairs. Of course on general commercial
principles the labourer is worthy of his hire; but in operatic matters
the hire is, as a rule, so entirely out of proportion to the services
rendered, and the conditions of the enterprise so unlike any other
venture, that a little latitude certainly ought to be allowed."
I found on my arrival at Chicago that one of the Chicago papers had, at
the beginning of my troubles, published the following telegram from its
correspondent at San Francisco:--
"Mapleson is fighting his last week of opera at San Francisco in the
teeth of dissensions, his first tenor having published a card to the
purport that Mapleson had not fulfilled his obligations with him, and
that he would not sing unless he published an announcement over his own
name. The _San Francisco Chronicle_, the leading paper, therefore calls
on all music lovers to rally in force for Mapleson's benefit on the
16th. The absurd prices Mapleson pays his operatic cut-throats makes the
opera business a ruinous one. Covered with trophies and a due proportion
of scars from his many campaigns, Mapleson will march his forces into
Chicago to-morrow, Sunday, bivouacing for the night at the Chicago
Opera-house, where his principal members will be heard in a sacred
concert.
"The different performances given, notwithstanding all these operatic
troubles, have been of that high standard which Mapleson alone has ever
presented to us. Mapleson remains with us another week. Such
performances as he has given are in but few places to be found. No Opera
Company existing to-day has a better troupe of singers. There appears to
exist a general impression among certain of the newspapers that Colonel
Mapleson is operatically dead, and entirely out of the hunt. By his
advent here, he proves to the public that he is still on deck."
My plan of retreat was well devised, and with a little good luck might
have been thoroughly successful. As it was, it at least enabled us,
without too much delay, to reach New York, and from New York to take
ship for Liverpool.
Unable to command the railroad in a direct way from Frisco to New York,
I determined to undertake a series of engagements at certain selected
points all along the line. If the first of these proved successful I
should be in a better position for my second encounter. It was certain
in any case that at each fresh city I should be able to levy
contributions; and with the money thus raised I could lay in a new stock
of provisions and continue my advance by rail in the direction of New
York, ready to stop at the first city whose population and resources
might make it worth my while to do so.
Going back a little I must here explain that before leaving San
Francisco, in order that Mdme. Minnie Hauk might be fresh for the
proposed performance at Omaha, I had sent her on two days in advance--a
distance of not more than 1,867 miles; whilst Mdme. Nordica was placed
at another strategical point 2,500 miles away, at Minneapolis. She had
to attend her sick mother, but was prepared to rejoin us when called
upon to do so. Mdlle. Alma Fohstroem, not having sufficiently recovered
from her late indisposition, was left behind at San Francisco, 2,400
miles from the scene of my next operations.
From Louisville, Kentucky, I telegraphed Mdme. Minnie Hauk to come on at
once to play _Carmen_ for the second night of our season; and she
arrived in good time. She sang the same evening.
Mdme. Nordica received orders to join us at Indianapolis, where she was
to appear in _La Traviata_, which she duly did the following Friday;
whilst Mdlle. Alma Fohstroem, now recovered, was brought on from San
Francisco to Cincinnati, a distance of some 2,500 miles, to perform in
_Lucia di Lammermoor_. She also arrived punctually, and sang the same
night.
I mention this small fact to show what can be accomplished with a little
discipline. The reason why Mdme. Minnie Hauk was sent on to Omaha
beforehand was in order that, by announcing her arrival in that city, I
might give confidence to the public, it having been reported that my
Company was broken up. Hence there was no booking; though had we
arrived punctually for the opera on the promised date, my receipts,
which I had already pledged to the Railway Company to get out of San
Francisco, would certainly have been not less than L500 or L600. Mdme.
Minnie Hauk, moreover, would have been saved a detour of some 2,400
miles.
Altogether I lost about L2,000, as I missed Omaha on the Friday,
Burlington on the Saturday, Chicago on the Sunday, and my first
performance in Louisville on the Monday.
Notwithstanding my all but insurmountable difficulties the performances
never stopped, an announced opera was never altered, and the whole of
the promised representations actually took place in each city; the press
notices, which I still preserve, being unanimous as to the excellence of
the representations.
I may mention that the travelling on these lines averages some 25 miles
an hour only, there being several very steep gradients on the road. In
some instances the train goes up over 3,000 feet in 57 miles, and down
again; whilst the height of several mountains traversed by the train
reaches from 7,000 to 8,000 feet.