appearance in the part, I was perplexed to find an excuse for its almost
unanimous acclamation, and I sought in my mind for extraneous reasons.
There was, for example, the conducting of the score by Mr. Toscanini,
but that, like Mme. Farrar's interpretation of the Spanish gypsy, never
found exceptional favour in my ears. Mr. Caruso's appearance in the
opera could not be taken into consideration, because he had frequently
sung in it before at the Metropolitan Opera House without awakening any
great amount of enthusiasm. In fact, except as Des Grieux, this Italian
tenor has never been popularly accepted in French opera in New York. But
_Carmen_ had long been out of the repertoire, and _Carmen_ is an opera
people like to hear. The magic of the names of Caruso, Farrar, and
Toscanini may have lured auditors and critics into imagining they had
heard a more effective performance than was vouchsafed them. Personally
I could not compare the revival favourably with the wonderful Manhattan
Opera House _Carmen_, which at its best enlisted the services of Mme.
Bressler-Gianoli, the best Carmen save one that I have ever heard,
Charles Dalmores, Maurice Renaud, Pauline Donalda, Charles Gilibert,
Emma Trentini, and Daddi; Cleofonte Campanini conducting.
At first, to be sure, there was no offensive over-laying of detail in
Mme. Farrar's interpretation. It was not cautiously traditional, but
there was no evidence that the singer was striving to stray from the
sure paths. The music lies well in Mme. Farrar's voice, better than that
of any other part I have heard her sing, unless it be Charlotte in
_Werther_, and the music, all of it, went well, including the habanera,
the seguidilla, the quintet, and the marvellous _Oui, je t'aime,
Escamillo_ of the last act. Her well-planned, lively dance after the
gypsy song at the beginning of the second act drew a burst of applause
for music usually permitted to go unrewarded. Her exit in the first act
was effective, and her scene with Jose in the second act was excellently
carried through. The card scene, as she acted it, meant very little. No
strain was put upon the nerves. There was little suggestion here. The
entrance of Escamillo and Carmen in an old victoria in the last act was
a stroke of genius on somebody's part. I wonder if this was Mme.
Farrar's idea.
But somehow, during this performance, one didn't feel there. It was no
more the banks of the Guadalquivir than it was the banks of the Hudson.
_Carmen_ as transcribed by Bizet and Meilhac and Halevy becomes
indisputably French in certain particulars; to say that the heroine
should be Spanish is not to understand the truth; Maria Gay's
interpretation has taught us that, if nothing else has. But atmosphere
is demanded, and that Mme. Farrar did not give us, at least she did not
give it to me. In the beginning the interpretation made on me the effect
of routine,--the sort of performance one can see in any first-rate
European opera house,--and later, when the realistic bits were added,
the distortion offended me, for French opera always demands a certain
elegance of its interpreters; a quality which Mme. Farrar has exposed to
us in two other French roles.
Her Manon is really an adorable creature. I have never seen Mary Garden
in this part, but I have seen many French singers, and to me Mme. Farrar
transcends them all. A very beautiful and moving performance she gives,
quite in keeping with the atmosphere of the opera. Her adieu to the
little table and her farewell to Des Grieux in the desert always start a
lump in my throat.
Her Charlotte (a role, I believe, cordially detested by Mme. Farrar, and
one which she refuses to sing) is to me an even more moving conception.
This sentimental opera of Massenet's has never been appreciated in
America at its true value, although it is one of the most frequently
represented works at the Paris Opera-Comique. When it was first
introduced here by Emma Eames and Jean de Rezske, it found little
favour, and later Mme. Farrar and Edmond Clement were unable to arouse
interest in it (it was in _Werther_, at the New Theatre, that Alma Gluck
made her operatic debut, in the role of Sophie). But Geraldine Farrar as
the hesitating heroine of the tragic and sentimental romance made the
part very real, as real in its way as Henry James's "Portrait of a
Lady," and as moving. The whole third act she carried through in an
amazingly pathetic key, and she always sang _Les Larmes_ as if her heart
were really breaking.
What a charming figure she was in Wolf-Ferrari's pretty operas, _Le
Donne Curiose_ and _Suzannen's Geheimness_! And she sang the lovely
measures with the Mozartean purity which at her best she had learned
from Lilli Lehmann. Her Zerlina and her Cherubino were delightful
impersonations, invested with vast roguery, although in both parts she
was a trifle self-conscious, especially in her assumption of
awkwardness. Her Elisabeth, sung in New York but seldom, though she
has recently appeared in this role with the Chicago Opera Company, was
noble in conception and execution, and her Goosegirl one of the most
fascinating pictures in the operatic gallery of our generation. Her
Mignon was successful in a measure, perhaps not an entirely credible
figure. Her Nedda was very good.
[Illustration: GERALDINE FARRAR AS LOUISE IN _JULIEN_
_from a photograph by White (1914)_]
Her Louise in _Julien_ was so fine dramatically, especially in the
Montmartre episode, as to make one wish that she could sing the real
Louise in the opera of that name. Once, however, at a performance of
Charpentier's earlier work at the Manhattan Opera House, she told me
that she would never, never do so. She has been known to change her
mind. Her Ariane, I think, was her most complete failure. It is a part
which requires plasticity and nobility of gesture and interpretation of
a kind with which her style is utterly at variance. And yet I doubt if
Mme. Farrar had ever sung a part to which she had given more
consideration. It was for this opera, in fact, that she worked out a
special method of vocal speech, half-sung, half-spoken, which enabled
her to deliver the text more clearly.
Whether Mme. Farrar will undergo further artistic development I very
much doubt. She tells us in her autobiography that she can study
nothing in any systematic way, and it is only through very sincere study
and submission to well-intended restraint that she might develop still
further into the artist who might conceivably leave a more considerable
imprint on the music drama of her time. It is to be doubted if Mme.
Farrar cares for these supreme laurels; her success with her
public--which is pretty much all the public--is so complete in its way
that she may be entirely satisfied with that by no means to be despised
triumph. Once (in 1910) she gave an indication to me that this might be
so, in the following words:
"Emma Calve was frequently harshly criticized, but when she sang the
opera house was crowded. It was because she gave her personality to the
public. Very frequently there are singers who give most excellent
interpretations, who are highly praised, and whom nobody goes to see.
Now in the last analysis there are two things which I do. I try to be
true to myself and my own conception of the dramatic fitness of things
on the stage, and I try to please my audiences. To do that you must
mercilessly reveal your personality. There is no other way. In my humble
way I am an actress who happens to be appearing in opera. I sacrifice
tonal beauty to dramatic fitness every time I think it is necessary for
an effect, and I shall continue to do it. I leave mere singing to the
warblers. I am more interested in acting myself."
There is much that is sound sense in these remarks, but it is a pity
that Mme. Farrar carries her theories out literally. To me, and to many
another, there is something a little sad in the acceptance of easily won
victory. If she would, Mme. Farrar might improve her singing and acting
in certain roles in which she has already appeared, and she might
enlarge her repertoire to include more of the roles which have a deeper
significance in operatic and musical history. At present her activity is
too consistent to allow time for much reflection. It would afford me the
greatest pleasure to learn that this singer had decided to retire for a
few months to devote herself to study and introspection, so that she
might return to the stage with a new and brighter fire and a more
lasting message.
_Farrar fara--forse._
_July 14, 1916._
Mary Garden
"_Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose._"
Gertrude Stein.
The influence of Ibsen on our stage has been most subtle. The dramas of
the sly Norwegian are infrequently performed, but almost all the plays
of the epoch bear his mark. And he has done away with the actor, for
nowadays emotions are considered rude on the stage. Our best playwrights
have striven for an intellectual monotone. So it happens that for the
Henry Irvings, the Sarah Bernhardts, and the Edwin Booths of a younger
generation we must turn to the operatic stage, and there we find them:
Maurice Renaud, Olive Fremstad--and Mary Garden.
There is nothing casual about the art of Mary Garden. Her achievements
on the lyric stage are not the result of happy accident. Each detail of
her impersonations, indeed, is a carefully studied and selected effect,
chosen after a review of possible alternatives. Occasionally, after a
trial, Miss Garden even rejects the instinctive. This does not mean that
there is no feeling behind her performances. The deep burning flame of
poetic imagination illuminates and warms into life the conception
wrought in the study chamber. Nothing is left to chance, and it is
seldom, and always for some good reason, that this artist permits
herself to alter particulars of a characterization during the course of
a representation.
I have watched her many times in the same role without detecting any
great variance in the arrangement of details, and almost as many times I
have been blinded by the force of her magnetic imaginative power,
without which no interpreter can hope to become an artist. This, it
seems to me, is the highest form of stage art; certainly it is the form
which on the whole is the most successful in exposing the intention of
author and composer, although occasionally a Geraldine Farrar or a
Salvini will make it apparent that the inspiration of the moment also
has its value. However, I cannot believe that the true artist often
experiments in public. He conceives in seclusion and exposes his
conception, completely realized, breathed into, so to speak, on the
stage. When he first studies a character it is his duty to feel the
emotions of that character, and later he must project these across the
footlights into the hearts of his audience; but he cannot be expected to
feel these emotions every night. He must _remember_ how he felt them
before. And sometimes even this ideal interpreter makes mistakes.
Neither instinct nor intelligence--not even genius--can compass every
range.
Miss Garden's career has been closely identified with the French lyric
stage and, in at least two operas, she has been the principal
interpreter--and a material factor in their success--of works which have
left their mark on the epoch, stepping-stones in the musical brook. The
roles in which she has most nearly approached the ideal are perhaps
Melisande, Jean (_Le Jongleur de Notre Dame_), Sapho, Thais, Louise,
Marguerite (in Gounod's _Faust_), Chrysis (in _Aphrodite_), and Monna
Vanna. I cannot speak personally of her Tosca, her Orlanda, her Manon,
her Violetta, or her Cherubin (in Massenet's opera of the same name). I
do not care for her Carmen as a whole, and to my mind her interpretation
of Salome lacks the inevitable quality which stamped Olive Fremstad's
performance. In certain respects she realizes the characters and sings
the music of Juliet and Ophelie, but this is _vieux jeu_ for her, and I
do not think she has effaced the memory of Emma Eames in the one and
Emma Calve in the other of these roles. She was somewhat vague and not
altogether satisfactory (this may be ascribed to the paltriness of the
parts) as Prince Charmant in _Cendrillon, la belle_ Dulcinee in _Don
Quichotte_, and Griselidis. On the other hand, in _Natoma_--her only
appearance thus far in opera in English--she made a much more important
contribution to the lyric stage than either author or composer.
Mary Garden was born in Scotland, but her family came to this country
when she was very young, and she grew up in the vicinity of Chicago. She
may therefore be adjudged at least as much an American singer as Olive
Fremstad. She studied in France, however, and this fortuitous
circumstance accounts for the fact that all her great roles are French,
and for the most part modern French. Her two Italian roles, Violetta and
Tosca, she sings in French, although I believe she has made attempts to
sing Puccini's opera in the original tongue. Her other ventures afield
have included Salome, sung in French, and Natoma, sung in English. Her
pronunciation of French on the stage has always aroused comment, some of
it jocular. Her accent is strongly American, a matter which her very
clear enunciation does not leave in doubt. However, it is a question in
my mind if Miss Garden did not weigh well the charm of this accent and
its probable effect on French auditors. You will remember that Helena
Modjeska spoke English with a decided accent, as do Fritzi Scheff, Alia
Nazimova, and Mitzi Hajos in our own day; you may also realize that to
the public, which includes yourself, this is no inconsiderable part of
their charm. Parisians do not take pleasure in hearing their language
spoken by a German, but they have never had any objection--quite the
contrary--to an English or American accent on their stage, although I do
not believe this general preference has ever been allowed to affect
performances at the Comedie Francaise, except when _l'Anglais tel qu'on
le parle_ is on the _affiches_. At least it is certain that Miss Garden
speaks French quite as easily as--perhaps more easily than--she does
English, and many of the eccentricities of her stage speech are not
noticeable in private life.
Many of the great artists of the theatre have owed their first
opportunity to an accident; it was so with Mary Garden. She once told me
the story herself and I may be allowed to repeat it in her own words, as
I put them down shortly after:
"I became friends with Sybil Sanderson, who was singing in Paris then,
and one day when I was at her house Albert Carre, the director of the
Opera-Comique, came to call. I was sitting by the window as he entered,
and he said to Sybil, 'That woman has a profile; she would make a
charming Louise.' Charpentier's opera, I should explain, had not yet
been produced. 'She has a voice, too,' Sybil added. Well, M. Carre took
me to the theatre and listened while I sang airs from _Traviata_ and
_Manon_. Then he gave me the partition of _Louise_ and told me to go
home and study it. I had the role in my head in fifteen days. This was
in March, and M. Carre engaged me to sing at his theatre beginning in
October.... One spring day, however, when I was feeling particularly
depressed over the death of a dog that had been run over by an omnibus,
M. Carre came to me in great excitement; Mme. Rioton, the singer cast
for the part, was ill, and he asked me if I thought I could sing Louise.
I said 'Certainly,' in the same tone with which I would have accepted an
invitation to dinner. It was only bluff; I had never rehearsed the part
with orchestra, but it was my chance, and I was determined to take
advantage of it. Besides, I had studied the music so carefully that I
could have sung it note for note if the orchestra had played _The
Star-Spangled Banner_ simultaneously.
"Evening came and found me in the theatre. Mme. Rioton had recovered
sufficiently to sing; she appeared during the first two acts, and then
succumbed immediately before the air, _Depuis le Jour_, which opens the
third act. I was in my dressing-room when M. Carre sent for me. He told
me that an announcement had been made before the curtain that I would
be substituted for Mme. Rioton. I learned afterwards that Andre
Messager, who was directing the orchestra, had strongly advised against
taking this step; he thought the experiment was too dangerous, and urged
that the people in the house should be given their money back. The
audience, you may be sure, was none too pleased at the prospect of
having to listen to a Mlle. Garden of whom they had never heard. Will
you believe me when I tell you that I was never less nervous?... I must
have succeeded, for I sang Louise over two hundred times at the
Opera-Comique after that. The year was 1900, and I had made my debut on
Friday, April 13!"
I have no contemporary criticisms of this event at hand, but one of my
most valued souvenirs is a photograph of the charming interpreter as she
appeared in the role of Louise at the beginning of her career. However,
in one of Gauthier-Villars's compilations of his musical criticisms,
which he signed "L'Ouvreuse" ("La Ronde des Blanches"), I discovered the
following, dated February 21, 1901, a detail of a review of Gabriel
Pierne's opera, _La Fille de Tabarin_: "Mlle. Garden a une aimable
figure, une voix aimable, et un petit reste d'accent exotique, aimable
aussi."
Of the composer of _Louise_ Miss Garden had many interesting things to
say in after years: "The opera is an expression of Charpentier's own
life," she told me one day. "It is the opera of Montmartre, and he was
the King of Montmartre, a real bohemian, to whom money and fame meant
nothing. He was satisfied if he had enough to pay _consommations_ for
himself and his friends at the Rat Mort. He had won the _Prix de Rome_
before _Louise_ was produced, but he remained poor. He lived in a dirty
little garret up on the _butte_, and while he was writing this realistic
picture of his own life he was slowly starving to death. Andre Messager
knew him and tried to give him money, but he wouldn't accept it. He was
very proud. Messager was obliged to carry up milk in bottles, with a
loaf of bread, and say that he wanted to lunch with him, in order to get
Charpentier to take nourishment.
"Meanwhile, little by little, _Louise_ was being slowly written.... Part
of it he wrote in the Rat Mort, part in his own little room, and part of
it in the Moulin de la Galette, one of the gayest of the Montmartre
dance halls. High up on the _butte_ the gaunt windmill sign waves its
arms; from the garden you can see all Paris. It is the view that you get
in the third act of _Louise_.... The production of his opera brought
Charpentier nearly half a million francs, but he spent it all on the
working-girls of Montmartre. He even established a conservatory, so that
those with talent might study without paying. And his mother, whom he
adored, had everything she wanted until she died.... He always wore the
artist costume, corduroy trousers, blouse, and flowing tie, even when he
came to the Opera-Comique in the evening. Money did not change his
habits. His kingdom extended over all Paris after the production of
_Louise_, but he still preferred his old friends in Montmartre to the
new ones his success had made for him, and he dissipated his strength
and talent. He was an adorable man; he would give his last sou to any
one who asked for it!
"To celebrate the fiftieth performance of _Louise_, M. Carre gave a
dinner in July, 1900. Most appropriately he did not choose the Cafe
Anglais or the Cafe de Paris for this occasion, but Charpentier's own
beloved Moulin de la Galette. It was at this dinner that the composer
gave the first sign of his physical decline. He had scarcely seated
himself at the table, surrounded by the great men and women of Paris,
before he fainted...."
The subsequent history of this composer of the lower world we all know
too well; how he journeyed south and lived in obscurity for years,
years which were embellished with sundry rumours relating to future
works, rumours which were finally crowned by the production of _Julien_
at the Opera-Comique--and subsequently at the Metropolitan Opera House
in New York. The failure of this opera was abysmal.
Louise is a role which Miss Garden has sung very frequently in America,
and, as she may be said to have contributed to Charpentier's fame and
popularity in Paris, she did as much for him here. This was the second
part in which she appeared in New York. The dynamics of the role are
finely wrought out, deeply felt; the characterization is extraordinarily
keen, although after the first act it never touches the heart. The
singing-actress conceives the character of the sewing-girl as hard and
brittle, and she does not play it for sympathy. She acts the final scene
with the father with the brilliant polish of a diamond cut in Amsterdam,
and with heartless brutality. Stroke after stroke she devotes to a
ruthless exposure of what she evidently considers to be the nature of
this futile drab. It is the scene in the play which evidently interests
her most, and it is the scene to which she has given her most careful
attention. In the first act, to be sure, she is _gamine_ and adorable
in her scenes with her father, and touchingly poignant in the despairing
cry which closes the act, _Paris_! In the next two acts she wisely
submerges herself in the general effect. She allows the sewing-girls to
make the most of their scene, and, after she has sung _Depuis le Jour_,
she gives the third act wholly into the keeping of the ballet, and the
interpreters of Julien and the mother.
There are other ways of singing and acting this role. Others have sung
and acted it, others will sing and act it, effectively. The abandoned
(almost aggressive) perversity of Miss Garden's performance has perhaps
not been equalled, but this role does not belong to her as completely as
do Thais and Melisande; no other interpreters will satisfy any one who
has seen her in these two parts.
Miss Garden made her American debut in Massenet's opera, _Thais_,
written, by the way, for Sybil Sanderson. The date was November 25,
1907. Previous to this time Miss Garden had never sung this opera in
Paris, but she had appeared in it during a summer season at one of the
French watering places. Since that night, nearly ten years ago, however,
it has become the most stable feature of her repertoire. She has sung it
frequently in Paris, and during the long tours undertaken by the
Chicago Opera Company this sentimental tale of the Alexandrian courtesan
and the hermit of the desert has startled the inhabitants of hamlets in
Iowa and California. It is a very brilliant scenic show, and is utterly
successful as a vehicle for the exploitation of the charms of a fragrant
personality. Miss Garden has found the part grateful; her very lovely
figure is particularly well suited to the allurements of Grecian
drapery, and the unwinding of her charms at the close of the first act
is an event calculated to stir the sluggish blood of a hardened
theatre-goer, let alone that of a Nebraska farmer. The play becomes the
more vivid as it is obvious that the retiary meshes with which she
ensnares Athanael are strong enough to entangle any of us.
Thais-become-nun--Evelyn Innes should have sung this character before
she became Sister Teresa--is in violent contrast to these opening
scenes, but the acts in the desert, as the Alexandrian strumpet wilts
before the aroused passion of the monk, are carried through with equal
skill by this artist who is an adept in her means of expression and
expressiveness.