MARGUERITE
Mme. Miolan-Carvalho created Marguerite in Paris, at the Theatre
Lyrique. In London Patti and Titjiens had both sung it before we put it
on in America,--Adelina at Covent Garden and Titjiens at Her Majesty's
Opera House, where I was destined to sing it later. Except for these
productions of _Faust_ across the sea, that opera was still an
unexplored field. I had absolutely nothing to guide me, nothing to help
me, when I began work on it. I, who had been schooled and trained in
"traditions" and their observances since I had first begun to study,
found myself confronted with conditions that had as yet no traditions. I
had to make them for myself.
Maretzek secured the score during the winter of '62-'63 and then spoke
to me about the music. I worked at the part off and on for nine months,
even while I was singing other parts and taking my summer vacation. But
when the season opened in the autumn of 1863, the performance was
postponed because a certain reaction had set in on the part of the
public. People were beginning to want some sort of distraction and
relaxation from the horrors and anxieties of war, and now began to come
again to hear the old favourites. So Maretzek wanted to wait and put off
his new sensation until he really needed it as a drawing card.
Then came the news that Anschutz, the German manager, was about to bring
a German company to the Terrace Garden in New York with a fine
_repertoire_ of grand opera, including _Faust_. Of course this settled
the question. Maretzek hurried the new opera into final rehearsal and it
was produced at The Academy of Music on November 25, 1863, when I was
very little more than twenty years old.
Before I myself say anything about _Faust_, in which I was soon to
appear, I want to quote the views of a leading newspaper of New York
after I had appeared.
A brilliant audience assembled last night. The opera was _Faust_.
Such an audience ought, in figurative language, "to raise the roof
off" with applause. But with the clumsily written, uninspired
melodies that the solo singers have to declaim there was the least
possible applause. And this is not the fault of the vocalists, for
they tried their best. We except to this charge of dullness the
dramatic love scene where the tolerably broad business concludes
the act. With these facts plain to everyone present we cannot
comprehend the announcement of the success of _Faust_!
Who was it said "the world goes round with revolutions"? It is a great
truth, whoever said it. Every new step in art, in progress along any
line, has cost something and has been fought for. Nothing fresh or good
has ever come into existence without a convulsion of the old, dried-up
forms. Beethoven was a revolutionist when he threw aside established
musical forms with the _Ninth Symphony_; Wagner was a revolutionist when
he contrived impossible intervals of the eleventh and the thirteenth,
and called them for the first time dissonant harmonies; so, also, was
Gounod when he departed from all accepted operatic forms and
institutions in _Faust_.
You who have heard _Cari fior_ upon the hand-organs in the street, and
have whistled the _Soldiers' Chorus_ while you were in school; who have
even grown to regard the opera of _Faust_ as old-fashioned and of light
weight, must re-focus your glass a bit and look at Gounod's masterpiece
from the point of view of nearly fifty years ago! It was just as
startling, just as strange, just as antagonistic to our established
musical habit as Strauss and Debussy and Dukas are to some persons
to-day. What is new must always be strange, and what is strange must,
except to a few adventurous souls, prove to be disturbing and, hence,
disagreeable. People say "it is different, therefore it must be wrong."
Even as battle, murder, and sudden death are upsetting to our lives, so
Gounod's bold harmonies, sweeping airs, and curious orchestration were
upsetting to the public ears.
Not the public alone, either. Though from the first I was attracted and
fascinated by the "new music," it puzzled me vastly. Also, I found it
very difficult to sing. I, who had been accustomed to Linda and Gilda
and Martha, felt utterly at sea when I tried to sing what at that time
seemed to me the remarkable intervals of this strange, new, operatic
heroine, Marguerite. In the simple Italian school one knew approximately
what was ahead. A _recitative_ was a fairly elementary affair. An _aria_
had no unexpected cadences, led to no striking nor unusual effects. But
in _Faust_ the musical intelligence had an entirely new task and was
exercised quite differently from in anything that had gone before. This
sequence of notes was a new and unlearned language to me, which I had to
master before I could find freedom or ease. But when once mastered, how
the music enchanted me; how it satisfied a thirst that had never been
satisfied by Donizetti or Bellini! Musically, I loved the part of
Marguerite--and I still love it. Dramatically, I confess to some
impatience over the imbecility of the girl. From the first I summarily
apostrophised her to myself as "a little fool!"
Stupidity is really the keynote of Marguerite's character. She was not
quite a peasant--she and her brother owned their house, showing that
they belonged to the stolid, sound, sheltered burgher class. On the
other hand, she explicitly states to Faust that she is "not a lady and
needs no escort." In short, she was the ideal victim and was selected as
such by Mephistopheles who, whatever else he may have been, was a judge
of character. Marguerite was an easy dupe. She was entirely without
resisting power. She was dull, and sweet, and open to flattery. She
liked pretty things, with no more discrimination or taste than other
girls. She was a well-brought-up but uneducated young person of an
ignorant age and of a stupid class, and innocent to the verge of idiocy.
I used to try and suggest the peasant blood in Marguerite by little
shynesses and awkwardnesses. After the first meeting with Faust I would
slyly stop and glance back at him with girlish curiosity to see what he
looked like. People found this "business" very pretty and convincing,
but I understand that I did not give the typically Teutonic bourgeois
impression as well as Federici, a German soprano who was heard in
America after me. She was of the class of Gretchen, and doubtless found
it easier to act like a peasant unused to having fine gentlemen speak to
her, than I did.
There was very little general enthusiasm before the production of
_Faust_. There were so few American musicians then that no one knew nor
cared about the music. Neither was the poem so well read as it was
later. The public went to the opera houses to hear popular singers and
familiar airs. They had not the slightest interest in a new opera from
an artistic standpoint.
I had never been allowed to read Goethe's poem until I began to study
Marguerite. But even my careful mother was obliged to admit that I would
have to familiarise myself with the character before I interpreted it.
It is doubtful, even then, if I entered fully into the emotional and
psychological grasp of the _role_. All that part of it was with me
entirely mental. I could seize the complete mental possibilities of a
character and work them out intelligently long before I had any
emotional comprehension of them. As a case in point, when I sang Gilda I
gave a perfectly logical presentation of the character, but I am very
sure that I had not the least notion of what the latter part of
_Rigoletto_ meant. Fear, grief, love, courage,--these were emotions that
I could accept and with which I could work; but I was still too immature
to have much conception of the great sex complications that underlay the
opera that I sang so peacefully. And I dare say that one reason why I
played Marguerite so well was because I was so ridiculously innocent
myself.
Most of the Marguerites whom I have seen make her too sophisticated, too
complicated. The moment they get off the beaten path, they go to
extremes like Calve and Farrar. It is very pleasant to be original and
daring in a part, but anything original or daring in connection with
Marguerite is a little like mixing red pepper with vanilla _blanc
mange_. Nilsson, even, was too--shall I say, _knowing_? It seems the
only word that fits my meaning. Nilsson was much the most attractive of
all the Marguerites I have ever seen, yet she was altogether too
sophisticated for the character and for the period, although to-day I
suppose she would be considered quite mild. Lucca was an absolute little
devil in the part. She was, also, one of the Marguerites who wore black
hair. As for Patti--I have a picture of Adelina as Marguerite in which
she looks like Satan's own daughter, a young and feminine Mephistopheles
to the life. Once I heard _Faust_ in the Segundo Teatro of Naples with
Alice Neilson, and thought she gave a charming performance. She was
greatly helped by not having to wear a wig. A wig, however becoming, and
no matter how well put on, does certainly do something strange to the
expression of a woman's face. This was what I had to have--a wig--and it
was one of the most dreadful difficulties in my preparations for the
great new part.
[Illustration: =Clara Louise Kellogg as Marguerite, 1865=
From a photograph by Sarony]
A wig may sound like a simple requirement. But I wonder if anybody has
any idea how difficult it was to get a good wig in those days. Nobody in
America knew how to make one. There was no blond hair over here and none
could be procured, none being for sale. The poor affair worn by Mme.
Carvalho as Marguerite, illustrates what was then considered a
sufficient wig equipment. It is hardly necessary to add that to my
truth-loving soul no effort was too great to obtain an effect that
should be an improvement on this sort of thing. My own hair was so dark
as to look almost black behind the footlights, and in my mind there was
no doubt that Marguerite must be a blond. To-day _prime donne_ besides
Lucca justify the use of their own dark locks--notably Mme. Eames and
Miss Farrar--but I cannot help suspecting that this comes chiefly from a
wish to be original, to be _different_ at all costs. There is no real
question but that the young German peasant was fair to the flaxen point.
Yet, though I knew how she should be, I found it was simpler as a theory
than as a fact. I tried powders--light brown powder, yellow powder,
finally, gold powder. The latter was little, I imagine, but brass
filings, and it gave the best effect of all my early experiments,
looking, so long as it stayed on my hair, very burnished and sunny.
But--it turned my scalp green! This was probably the verdigris from the
brass filings in the stuff. I was frightened enough to dispense entirely
with the whole gold and green effect; after which I experimented with
all the available wigs, in spite of a popular prejudice against them as
immovable. They were in general composed of hemp rope with about as much
look about them of real hair as--Mme. Carvalho's! I had, finally, to
wait until I could get a wig made in Europe and have it imported. When
it came at last, it was a beauty--although my hair troubles were not
entirely over even then. I had so much hair of my own that all the
braiding and pinning in the world would not eliminate it entirely, and
it had a tendency to stick out in lumps over my head even under the wig,
giving me some remarkable bumps of phrenological development. I will say
that we put it on pretty well in spite of all difficulties, my mother at
last achieving a way of brushing the hair of the wig into my own hair
and combining the two in such a way as to let the real hair act as a
padding and lining to the artificial braids. The result was very good,
but it was, I am inclined to believe, more trouble than it was worth.
Wigs were so rare and, as a rule, so ugly in those days that my big,
blond perruque, that cost nearly $200 (the hair was sold by weight),
caused the greatest sensation. People not infrequently came behind the
scenes and begged to be allowed to examine it. Artists were not nearly
so sacred nor so safe from the public then. Now, it would be impossible
for a stranger to penetrate to a _prima donna's_ dressing-room or hotel
apartment; but we were constantly assailed by the admiring, the critical
and, above all, the curious.
Of course I did not know what to wear. My old friend Ella Porter was in
Paris at the time and went to see Carvalho in Marguerite, especially on
my account, and sent me rough drawings of her costumes. I did not like
them very well. I next studied von Kaulbach's pictures and those of
other German illustrators, and finally decided on the dress. First, I
chose for the opening act a simple blue and brown frock, such as an
upper-class peasant might wear. Everyone said it ought to be white,
which struck me as singularly out of place. German girls don't wear
frocks that have to be constantly washed. Not even now do they, and I am
certain they had even less laundry work in the period of the story. It
was said that a white gown in the first act would symbolise innocence.
In the face of all comment and suggestion, however, I wore the blue
dress trimmed with brown and it looked very well. Another one of my
points was that I did not try to make Marguerite angelically beautiful.
There is no reason to suppose that she was even particularly pretty.
"Henceforth," says Mephisto to the rejuvenated Faustus, "you will greet
a Helen in every wench you meet!"
In the church scene I wore grey and, at first, a different shade of
grey in the last act; but I changed this eventually to white because
white looked better when the angels were carrying me up to heaven.
As for the cut of the dresses, I seem to have been the first person to
wear a bodice that fitted below the waist line like a corset. No living
mortal in America had ever seen such a thing and it became almost as
much of a curiosity as my wonderful golden wig. The theatre costumier
was horrified. She had never cared for my innovations in the way of
costuming, and her tradition-loving Latin soul was shocked to the core
by the new and dreadful make-up I proposed to wear as Marguerite.
"I make for Grisi," she declared indignantly, "and I _nevair_ see like
dat!"
Well, I worked and struggled and slaved over every detail. No one else
did. There was no great effort made to have good scenic effects. The
lighting was absurd, and I had to fight for my pot of daisies in the
garden scene. The jewel box I provided myself, and the jewels. I
felt--O, how deeply I felt--that everything in my life, every note I had
sung, every day I had worked, had been merely preparation for this great
and lovely opera.
Colonel Stebbins, who was anxious, said to Maretzek:
"Don't you think she had better have a German coach in the part?"
Maretzek, who had been watching me closely all along, shook his head.
"Let her alone," he said. "Let her do it her own way."
So the great night came around.
There was no public excitement before the production. People knew
nothing about the new opera. On the first night of _Faust_ there was a
good house because, frankly, the public liked me! Nevertheless, in spite
of "me," the house was a little inanimate. The audience felt doubtful.
It was one thing to warm up an old and popular piece; but something
untried was very different! The public had none of the present-day
chivalry toward the first "try-out" of an opera.
Mazzoleni of the cheese addiction was Faust, and on that first night he
had eaten even more than usual. In fact, he was still eating cheese when
the curtain went up and munched cheese at intervals all through the
laboratory scene. He was a big Italian with a voice as big as himself
and was, in a measure, one of Max Maretzek's "finds." "The Magnificent"
had taken an opera company to Havana when first the war slump came in
operatic affairs, and had made with it a huge success and a wide
reputation. Mazzoleni was one of the leading tenors of that company. He
sang Faust admirably, but dressed it in an atrocious fashion, looking
like a cross between a Jewish rabbi and a Prussian _gene d'arme_. Of
course, he gave no idea of the true age of Faust--the experienced,
mature point of view showing through the outward bloom of his artificial
youth. Very few Fausts do give this; and Mazzoleni suggested it rather
less than most of them. But the public was not enlightened enough to
realise the lack.
Biachi was Mephistopheles. He was very good and sang the _Calf of Gold_
splendidly. Yet that solo, oddly enough, never "caught on" with our
houses. Biachi was one of the few artists of my day who gave real
thought and attention to the question of costuming. He took his general
scheme of dress from _Robert le Diable_ and improved on it, and looked
very well indeed. The woman he afterwards married was our contralto, a
Miss Sulzer, an American, who made an excellent Siebel and considered
her work seriously.
At first everyone was stunned by the new treatment. In ordinary,
accepted operatic form there were certain things to be
expected;--_recitatives_, _andantes_, _arias_, choruses--all neatly laid
out according to rule. In this everything was new, startling,
overthrowing all traditions. About the middle of the evening some of my
friends came behind the scenes to my dressing-room with blank faces.
"Heavens, Louise," they exclaimed, "what do you do in this opera anyway?
Everyone in the front of the house is asking 'where's the _prima
donna_?'"
Indeed, an opera in which the heroine has nothing to do until the third
act might well have startled a public accustomed to the old Italian
forms. However, I assured everyone:
"Don't worry. You'll get more than enough of me before the end of the
evening!"
The house was not much stirred until the love scene. That was
breathless. We felt more and more that we were beginning to "get them."
There were no modern effects of lighting; but a calcium was thrown on me
as I stood by the window, and I sang my very, very best. As Mazzoleni
came up to the window and the curtain went down there was a dead
silence.
Not a hand for ten seconds. Ten seconds is a long time when one is
waiting on the stage. Time and the clock itself seemed to stop as we
stood there motionless and breathless. Maretzek had time to get through
the little orchestra door and up on the stage before the applause came.
We were standing as though paralysed, waiting. We saw Maretzek's pale,
anxious face. The silence held a second longer; then--
The house came down. The thunders echoed and beat about our wondering
ears.
"Success!" gasped Maretzek, "success--success--_success_!"
Yet read what the critics said about it. The musicians picked it to
pieces, of course, and so did the critics, much as the German reviewers
did Wagner's music dramas. The public came, however, packing the houses
to more than their capacity. People paid seven and eight dollars a seat
to hear that opera, an unheard-of thing in those days when two and three
dollars were considered a very fair price for any entertainment.
Furthermore, only the women occupied the seats on the _Faust_ nights. I
speak in a general way, for there were exceptions. As a rule, however,
this was so, while the men stood up in regiments at the back of the
house. We gave twenty-seven performances of _Faust_ in one season; seven
performances in Boston in four weeks; and I could not help the welcome
knowledge that, in addition to the success of the opera itself, I had
scored a big, personal triumph.
[Illustration: =Clara Louise Kellogg as Marguerite, 1864=
From a silhouette by Ida Waugh]
As I have mentioned, we took wicked liberties with the operas, such as
introducing the _Star Spangled Banner_ and similar patriotic songs into
the middle of Italian scores. I have even seen a highly tragic act of
_Poliuto_ put in between the light and cheery scenes of _Martha_; and I
have myself sung the _Venzano_ waltz at the end of this same _Martha_,
although the real quartette that is supposed to close the opera is much
more beautiful, and the _Clara Louise Polka_ as a finish for _Linda di
Chamounix_! The _Clara Louise Polka_ was written for me by my old
master, Muzio, and I never thought much of it. Nothing could give
anyone so clear an idea of the universal acceptance of this custom of
interpolation as the following criticism, printed during our second
season:
"The production of _Faust_ last evening by the Maretzek troupe was
excellent indeed. But why, O why, the eternal _Soldiers' Chorus_? Why
this everlasting, tedious march, _when there are so many excellent band
pieces on the market that would fit the occasion better_?"
As a rule the public were quite satisfied with this chorus. It was
whistled and sung all over the country and never failed to get eager
applause. But no part of the opera ever went so well as the _Salve
dimora_ and the love scene. All the latter part of the garden act went
splendidly although nearly everyone was, or professed to be, shocked by
the frankness of the window episode that closes it. It is a pity those
simple-souled audiences could not have lived to see Miss Geraldine
Farrar draw Faust with her into the house at the fall of the curtain!
There is, indeed, a place for all things. _Faust_ is not the place for
that sort of suggestiveness. It is a question, incidentally, whether any
stage production is; but the argument of that is outside our present
point.
Dear Longfellow came to see the first performance of _Faust_; and the
next day he wrote a charming letter about it to Mr. James T. Fields of
Boston. Said he:
"The Margaret was beautiful. She reminded me of Dryden's lines:
"'So pois'd, so gently she descends from high,
It seems a soft dismission from the sky.'"