The popularity of opera among fashionable people in this city varies
inversely as the intelligibility of the language in which it is sung.
To illustrate! The Italian opera is fashionable, though not one in ten
of the people composing an average audience understand a word that is
said or sung. The French opera is less fashionable, but perhaps
one-third of the audience can understand the less ingenious of the
indelicate jokes. The English opera is not fashionable, but every one
can understand every word that Miss RICHINGS or Miss HERSEE pronounces.
These facts undoubtedly stand in the relation of cause and effect.
Wherefore the axiom with which this column begins.
To be sure, the words of an opera are a matter of very little
consequence, the music speaking as plainly as the clearest of Saxon
sentences. But the fashionable public knows less of music than it knows
of languages, and would be quite capable of mistaking "_Gran Dio_" for a
comic song, and "_Libiamo_" for a lover's lamentation, were not the
translated libretto of _Traviata_ at hand to supply them and the critics
of the minor papers, with the cue for the display of appropriate
emotion. Singers, especially, understand the full force of the above
stated axiom. Hence, those who are deficient in voice avoid the English
stage. Miss KELLOGG, for example, never attempted English opera, because
she knew that people who had heard ROSE HERSEE or CAROLINE RICHINGS
would laugh at her claim to be "the greatest living Prima Donna," should
she compete with those birds of English song. Wherefore, she wisely
confined herself to the Italian stage, sure of pleasing a public that
knows nothing of music, but is confident that a lady who enjoys the
friendship of Madison avenue must be a great singer. PAREPA, on the
contrary, turned from the Italian to the English stage,--but then PAREPA
had a voice.
How many years is it since CAROLINE RICHINGS first sung in English
opera? It is an ungallant question, but the answer would be still more
ungallant were it not that Miss RICHINGS is an artist; and with artists
the crown of youth never loses the brightness of its laurel leaves. At
any rate, she has sung long enough to compel the recognition of her
claims to our gratitude and admiration. She is not faultless in her
method, but she differs from other great American prime donne in the
important particular of possessing voice enough to fill an auditorium
larger than the average minstrel hall.
At present she is filling NIBLO'S GARDEN with her voice and its
admirers. We go to hear her. PALMER and ZIMMERMANN, clad in velvet and
fine linen, flit gorgeously about the lobby, and are mistaken, by rural
visitors, for JIM FISK and HORACE GREELEY--concerning whom the tradition
prevails in rural districts that they are clothed in a style materially
different from that affected by King Solomon at the period of his
greatest glory. We find our seats, and mentally remarking that NIBLO'S
is the one theatre in this city from which it would be possible to
escape with whole bones and coat in case of fire, we await with
contented minds the lifting of the curtain.
In time the opera begins, and a select company of young men who are
standing in the rear of the audience improve every possible opportunity
for breaking into rapturous applause. Their zeal occasionally outruns
their discretion, and they finally ruin the attempt of Miss RICHINGS to
execute a florid cadenza at the end of one of her arias. An intelligent
usher is therefore detailed to curse them into a comprehension of their
duties, after which they applaud with a discretion which produces almost
exactly the effect of spontaneous enthusiasm.
Remarks a young lady near us, who is dressed with much wealth of
contrasting colors:--"This isn't half so nice as the Italian opera. Miss
RICHINGS can't dress half so nicely as Miss KELLOGG, and then you don't
see any fashionable people here. The DAVIDS, the ABRAHAMS, the AARONS,
the NOAHS, that handsome Mr. JACOBS, and that delightful Mr. MOSES,--all
these elegant young men with beautiful eyes and curly hair that dress in
velvet coats and diamond studs--there isn't one of them here. Our best
society never goes to any opera but the real Italian opera."
LIGHT-HAIRED YOUNG MAN.--"But, my dear, it seems to me that your best
society must consist chiefly of Jews--judging from the names you
mention."
YOUNG LADY.--"Well, what if it does? They are rich, are they not? What
more could you want?"
LIGHT-HAIRED YOUNG MAN.--"What, indeed! But the music is just as good as
it would be if the fashionable Israelites were here,--isn't it?"
SHE.--"The music as good! Why, Charles, everybody knows that the Italian
opera music is perfectly lovely. This is only English, you know."
HE.--"It is precisely the same. Here the _Somnmabula_ is sung with
English instead of Italian words. That doesn't alter a single note."
SHE.--"You are too ridiculous! The idea of attempting to make me believe
that this is just like the Italian Opera! Don't you suppose I knows
anything about music?"
OLD GENTLEMAN.--"I heard CAROLINE RICHINGS sing in 1808,--I think it was.
I tell you she sings better now tan she did then, but the stupid public
never appreciated her. I recollect saying to KEAN--not CHARLES, you
know, but _the_ KEAN--that I knew a young lady that would be a splendid
singer some of these days--meaning CAROLINE, of course. 'Well, sir,'
says KEAN, 'what of it; you can't drink her, can you?' Gad! he was the
best man for repartee I ever knew. To give you an instance; one night
KEAN and I, and old SMITH,--you don't remember old SMITH, I presume; he
played old men at the Boston Theatre sixty years ago; I never met a
jollier fellow,--I remember his saying one night when JUNICS BOOTH was
playing--let me see, what was the play; it wasn't the _Apostate_, I
hardly think, for--"
Here the orchestra mercifully strikes up, and the big drum drums the
garrulous monologue of the veteran theatrical observer. We have another
act of the opera, sung far better than any opera has been sung at the
Academy for years. Pretty ROSE HERSEE--when have we had a voice as pure,
or a manner as charming as hers?--sings in this act, and her tones so
closely resemble those of NILSSON in their exquisite purity, that we
wonder how she has escaped the abuse of that "independent critical
journal," the _Season_, until we notice a middle-aged gentleman sleeping
quietly with a copy of the _Season_ on his lap, and remember that at
NIBLO'S GARDEN the proprietor of the independent critical journal is
permitted to distribute his mental soothing syrup, while at STEINWAY
HALL a rival sheet is the only admitted programme.
And I say--still thinking of NILSSON--to an experienced
theatre-goer,--"Why does WATSON abuse NILSSON?"
And he answers, with the contemptuous, but obviously honest
inquiry--"Who's WATSON?"
Really appalled by the suggestion that there exists a man with soul and
things so completely dead as not to have heard of the great WATSON, I
change my question and ask him: "Why does the _Season_ abuse NILSSON?"
HE.--"The _Season_, my young friend, is a programme paper that is
circulated gratuitously and depends for support upon its advertizing
patronage. A few managers permit it to be circulated in their theatres;
the remaining managers will not admit it. Among the latter are Mr.
WALLACK, and MAX STRAKOSCH. Consequently, the _Season_ abuses WALLACK'S
Theatre and NILSSON'S concerts--asserting that Mr. WALLACK has a
wretched company, and that Miss NILSSON has no voice. The _Season_ is
also a comic paper, and its best joke is its assertion that it is an
'independent critical journal.'"