Chapter III: Part 3

The book offers exceptional opportunities for excursions into imitative music such as Richard Strauss, to name one composer, would take delight in expanding into pages of detail, as many of the diverting incidents of Andersen’s tale are carried over into the drama. In the first act, for example, the courtiers mistake the croaking of frogs and the lowing of cattle for the song of the bird; in the second act the ladies of the court fill their mouths with water and gargle in an attempt to imitate the nightingale’s trill. These distractions do not serve to steer Strawinsky from his direct course. He notices them, of course, but in the briefest and most concise manner.

The score of _The Nightingale_ calls for a large orchestra, although for a continent use of it. The list of instruments includes wood-winds by threes, with a piccolo, clarinet, bass clarinet, and double-bassoon, three trombones, tuba, and two cornets besides the usual two trumpets; two harps, two glockenspiels, a celesta, a pianoforte (this part is very important), and the whole of the usual percussion, to which are added small antique cymbals. The parts of the nightingale and the fisherman are also sung from the orchestra pit.

The work was begun in 1909 (this date is disputed) and completed in 1914, when it received its first hearing in Paris in May. Strawinsky seems to have found difficulty in composing it. “I can write,” he is reported to have said, “music to words, viz., songs; or music to action, viz., ballets. But the coöperation of music, words, and action is a thing that daily becomes more inadmissible to my mind. And even should I finish _The Nightingale_, I do not think I shall ever attempt to write another work of that kind.”

Igor Strawinsky was born June 17 (June 5, Russian style), 1882, at Oranienbaum, near Petrograd. This date has been in dispute, and various authors have disagreed about it. My authority is Mr. Strawinsky himself. He was the son of a court-singer and was destined to study law. But, working assiduously with a pupil of Rubinstein, he became a remarkable pianist from the age of nine. He encountered Rimsky-Korsakow at Heidelberg in 1902 (when he was 20), and that Russian composer had a great influence on his career, although very little on his musical style. During this period Strawinsky attended concerts, visited museums, and delved in literature. Everything in the world of art is said to have awakened his curiosity. In 1903 he wrote the _allegro_ of a sonata for the piano, of which the _andante_, _scherzo_ and _finale_ were completed the following year. Rimsky-Korsakow had accepted him as a pupil, and while the young man alarmed the older composer to some extent, he secretly predicted great success for the only one of his pupils who showed revolutionary tendencies. Strawinsky says that the composer of _Sheherazade_ struggled valiantly with himself at this period in an effort not to restrict what might be beautiful in his pupil’s anarchic methods, at the same time wishing to preserve his own ideals. In 1905-6 Strawinsky worked at orchestration, and during this period, as an exercise, he orchestrated his master’s opera, _Pan Voyevode_, from the piano score. Subsequently his work was corrected by comparison with Rimsky-Korsakow’s own scoring, recently completed. This might have been a dangerous exercise for a “sedulous ape,” but Strawinsky was not that. He also orchestrated marches of Schubert and sonatas of Beethoven. His friends at this time were the group surrounding Rimsky-Korsakow, Chaliapine, César Cui, Glazunow, and Blumenfeld, the _chef d’orchestre_. Strawinsky was married January 11, 1906.

Soon after his marriage he terminated his symphony in E flat (1905-7). It was performed in 1907, and was published later by Jurgenson. A song with orchestral accompaniment, _Le Faune et la Bergère_, dates from this period (1906), and in 1908 he completed his _Scherzo Fantastique_, which was inspired by a reading of Maeterlinck’s “Life of the Bee.” This has been played in Paris. Edward Burlingham Hill says of it: “In its long passages for staccato strings, divided into melodic phrases for wood-wind instruments and in fanciful figures for wind instruments, celesta, and harps, one can imagine the sinuous and yielding swaying of bees, iridescent with color, and pulsing with life.” I do not think this work has been played in America. New York has not heard it. He set two poems of Gorodetzki to music in 1908. When Rimsky-Korsakow’s daughter married Maximilien Steinberg in 1908, Strawinsky sent _Fireworks_ as a wedding present, but before the post had delivered the gift the older composer was dead. As a tribute to his master’s memory Strawinsky composed the _Chant Funèbre_, performed at the Belaïeff concerts. _Fireworks_ has been played in New York both by the Russian and the New York Philharmonic Societies. Four piano études, written in the summer of 1908, have stood on my piano for some time. They are interesting. Vuillermoz says that Strawinsky began _The Nightingale_ in this year; Calvocoressi’s date is 1910; the programme at the first performance gave the date as 1909.

About this time an incident occurred which considerably changed the young composer’s outlook, and which brought him to the attention of a larger world. He was “discovered” by the director of the Russian Ballet, Serge de Diaghilew, and commissioned to write a ballet on a Russian folk-story scenario fashioned by Michel Fokine. Leon Bakst and Golovine, the painters, completed the collaboration. The work, _The Firebird_, was terminated May 18, 1910, and produced three weeks later. The first sketches for this ballet must have been written before the death of Rimsky-Korsakow, if we are to believe a very delightful story told somewhere by Calvocoressi. On hearing Strawinsky play some bars of _The Firebird_, the older composer is quoted as saying: “Look here, stop playing that horrid thing; otherwise I might begin to enjoy it!” The production of _The Firebird_ established the composer’s reputation in Paris, and the very impressionists whose methods he has dubbed “hypocritical” were among the first to sign themselves his admirers. Of these Maurice Ravel was the leader. _Petrouchka_ was completed just a year later (May 26, 1911), and its production by the Russian Ballet gave his fame a firm hold with the public. His third choreographic drama, _The Sacrifice to the Spring_, followed in 1913, and his opera, _The Nightingale_, in 1914. Several songs, including _Le petit Myosotis_ and _Le Pigeon_, are other products of recent years.[A]

It is astonishing to learn that _The Nightingale_ was begun so early in the composer’s career, but it is still more astonishing to discover that the first sketches of _The Sacrifice to the Spring_ were written before _Petrouchka_ was conceived. That ballet, which achieved the great honor of being hissed in Paris (I have described the incident earlier in this article), is the work on which, with _The Nightingale_, rests his chief claim to being a composer with something new to say. The work differs from most of the mimed dramas given by the Russians in that it is practically without a fable. The scenes take place in barbaric Russia, long before the Christian era, and we are introduced to rites connected with the worship of the soil and the springtide; after a series of ritual dances, one of the younger maidens is chosen as a sacrifice to the spring, whereupon she spares her friends the trouble of killing her by dancing herself to death. This exceedingly angular dance, the expression of religious hysteria, marvelously conceived by Nijinsky and thrice marvelously carried out by Mlle. Piltz, was one of the causes for the outbreaks at the early performances of the ballet.

The lack of a fable, the early and uncertain setting of the action, offered Strawinsky an opportunity which he seized with avidity. The music is not descriptive, it is rhythmical. All rhythms are beaten into the ears, one after another, and sometimes with complexities which seem decidedly unrhythmic on paper, but when carried out in performance assume a regularity of beat which a simple four-four time could not equal. H. E. Krehbiel, in his valuable book, “Afro-American Folksongs,” describes the tremendous effect made on him by the intricate rhythms (which he tried in vain to note down) of the musicians of African tribes at the World’s Fair in Chicago. The rhythmic effect of _The Sacrifice to the Spring_ is as powerful and complex. It is interesting to remember, in this connection, that the ancient Greeks accorded rhythm a higher place than either melody or harmony. Strawinsky describes the dawn of a spring morning in a few measures at the beginning of the prelude (here, it must be admitted, there is a startling reminder of _l’Après-midi d’un Faune_), and then he settles down to the business, and art, of providing material for dances. This he has done with consummate effect. In many cases his chord-formations could not be described in academic terms; the instruments employed add to the strangeness of the sounds. I remember one passage in which the entire corps of dancers is engaged in shivering, trembling from head to toe, to music which trembles also. It makes my flesh creep even to think of it again. At the beginning of the ballet the adolescents pound the earth with their feet, while a little old woman runs in and out between their legs, to the reiterated beat of a chord of F flat, A flat, C flat, F flat; G, B flat, D flat, and E flat, all in the bass (begin from below and read in order), while an occasional flute or a piccolo screams its way in high treble. Try this on your piano. “He has had recourse,” writes Edward Burlingham Hill, “to a violently revolutionary style which is difficult to reduce to a systematic analysis. Chords employing minor and major triads simultaneously in different octaves, figures in double thirds, strange aggregations of notes that can hardly be described as chords, even with critical license, are the ingredients of this unusual style.” M. Montagu-Nathan, in his “Short History of Russian Music,” says: “In criticising the work, the mistake was made of suggesting that Strawinsky’s music had gone back to an elemental stage in an endeavor to provide an appropriate setting for the pre-historic. In reality, of course, the movement was forward, in that music was used in a sphere to which it had hitherto been strange. That is progress. A composer who sets ‘The Creation’ to living music is just as progressive as another who takes ‘The Last Judgment’ as his theme.”

Strawinsky seems to meet his problems according to their nature with an inevitable sense of the fitness of things. He has set, in _Petrouchka_, a story of the Russian fair; the leading characters are puppets; the period, 1830. The music is realistic in tone, in some instances intentionally vulgar. It has been pointed out that the themes of the nurses’ dance, the dance of the _cochers_, and the Russian dance in the first scene, are founded on Russian folk-tunes. There is all through the piece an implied tone of a village carnival; the accordion and hurdy-gurdy are never very far away, in suggestion at least. The dancer, personified by Mme. Karsavina, trips her lightest measures to the fanfare of a cornet, and Petrouchka sobs out his heart to the empty sky to the screaming of a piccolo. There are tunes, real tunes, the piece abounds in them, and the whole is wrapped in an atmosphere of realism and truth which gives music the tone of originality. Incidentally, there is a triangle solo in the score.

M. Montagu-Nathan says: “The carnival music is a sheer joy, and the incidents making a demand upon music as a descriptive medium have been treated not merely with marvelous skill but with unfailing instinct for the true satiric touch. _Petrouchka_ is, in fact, the musical presentment of Russian fantastic humor in the second generation. There is none of the heavy scoring once thought necessary to reveal the humorous possibilities of some particular situation; Strawinsky lives in a world which has learned to take things for granted, and his method is elliptical. This perception of proportion in humor is one of the surest indications of refinement, and _Petrouchka_ not only testifies to the composer’s possession of this quality, but provides an assurance that he has a technical equipment which can hardly betray him.”

The fable is one of love and hate in that fanciful domain in which we become aware of the existence of a soul hitherto considered absent from such a corporeal habitation. Among the mingled crowd of merry-makers and mountebanks at the carnival is a showman, practiced in the black arts. In his booth he exposes his animated dolls: the dancer, flanked by Petrouchka, the simple fool, and the fierce Moor. The three enact a tragedy of jealousy which terminates in the “shedding of Petrouchka’s vital sawdust.”

_The Firebird_ stirred another cell in the imagination of this young Russian giant. Again he is dealing with a Russian folk-tale, but it is a fairy story this time, not a vulgar story of country life; he has manipulated his orchestra into a thousand gorgeous colors to illustrate it. The instruments revolve their tones kaleidoscopically, reflecting the myriad hues with which Golovine and Bakst have invested the scene. The rhythms are exotic; the harmonies and the melodies of the utmost brilliancy. One of the dances of the Firebird has a haunting melancholy about it which seems to have been wafted from the steppes.

The Firebird in the beginning of the action falls a prey to the young Prince Ivan; as the price of her freedom she offers him one of her plumes, which he accepts while she flies away into the soft blue shadows of the night. Dawn breaks, and Ivan finds himself in front of a magic castle, from the gates of which troop out a group of white-robed maidens. They indicate by means of their leader, Tsarevna, with whom Ivan at once falls in love, that he must not venture inside, but as soon as they have left him he rashly pushes back the great gate in front of him. There is a crash and in a moment out rushes pell-mell a huddled mass of slaves, dancers, men in armor, and buffoons, who surround him and drive him dizzy with their chatter. The uproar works up to a _crescendo_ of frenzy when the monstrous figure of Kostchei, the Immortal, the lord of the castle, stalks out to quell the din. Kostchei has already turned others into stone, but over Ivan he has no power; the Firebird’s plume protects him, and on his brandishing it before the terror-stricken god the bird herself appears. At first she makes the crowd dance; then she lulls them to sleep and shows Ivan where the egg containing Kostchei’s soul is concealed. He brings it out and smashes it. The old god crumbles to pieces, the stones are brought to life, and the lovers’ hands are joined. The character of Kostchei is an important one in Russian folk-lore; he is the subject of an opera by Rimsky-Korsakow. Ralston, in his “Russian Folk-Tales,” thus describes him: “Kostchei is merely one of the many incarnations of the dark spirit.... Sometimes he is described as altogether serpent-like in form; sometimes he seems to be of a mixed nature, partly human and partly ophidian; but in some stories he is apparently framed after the fashion of a man.... He is called ‘immortal’ or ‘deathless’ because of his superiority to the ordinary laws of existence.... Sometimes his ‘death’--that is, the object with which his life is indisputably connected--does not exist within his body.” It may be seen that in almost every instance Strawinsky has followed the lead of the “Five” in choosing material closely associated with Russian folk-lore.

There came a reaction after the foundation of the Russian national school by the “Five” (Cui, Borodine, Rimsky-Korsakow, Balakirew and Moussorgsky), and the result of foreign influence was felt. These composers had worked, as most of the Russian novelists have worked, with a sense of the soil from which they had sprung; their compositions are redolent with the mode and manner of folk-music. They chose, in most instances, Russian subjects for their operas. Moussorgsky in particular effected a tremendous revolution in style, developing a manner in which ornamentation and affectation played no part; a tense simplicity and sincerity marked all his music, which never asked alms of conventional rules of composition. (I am willing to say this quite in the face of Mr. Runciman, who recently stated in the “Saturday Review” that there were only two Russian compositions of any importance, a symphony by Borodine and Tschaikowsky’s fourth symphony. “Any other two pieces of Russian music are as alike as two mushrooms.”) Rubinstein and Tschaikowsky were the leaders of the opposition, whose music is more akin to that of other nations. They actually succeeded, for a number of years, in establishing themselves in England, France, and America as the representative Russian composers. And naturally their immediate success was greater, even in their own country, where individuals were trying to free themselves from the curse of their birthright, struggling up from the soil; culture was growing. John Reed tells a wonderful story of a Serbian peasant who, having assimilated some culture (in Serbia _Kultur_ is about twenty years old), was reminded by the fields of Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony. So the Russians, learning French, were a thousand times more impressed with _salon_ music than they were with the work of their more national composers. Moussorgsky, of course, has only recently been dragged out of his retirement, even now in somewhat modified form. (Neither of his operas is produced as he wrote it; he died leaving the orchestration of _La Khovanchina_ unfinished; Rimsky-Korsakow reorchestrated _Boris_--a needless task, perhaps a desecration; he also wrote a good deal of the orchestration of _La Khovanchina_; the work was completed by Maurice Ravel and Strawinsky in a more reverent spirit.) Strawinsky is the new giant upon whom has fallen the mantle of Russian nationalism. His work is based, primarily, on the work of the “Five,” all of whom are dead. That he reminds one occasionally of the modern Frenchmen only means that they, too, have learned their lessons from Borodine and Moussorgsky; Debussy’s debt to Moussorgsky has frequently been acknowledged; it is obvious if one compares _Pelléas et Mélisande_ with _Boris Godunow_. Strawinsky’s love of Oriental color is possibly an inheritance from his master, Rimsky-Korsakow.

This young Russian has appeared in an epoch in which the ambition of most composers seems to be to dream, to write their symbolic visions in terms of the mist, to harmonize the imperceptible. Strawinsky sweeps away this vague atmosphere with one gesture; his idea of movement is Dionysian; he overwhelms us with his speed. One critic has referred to him as the “whirling dervish of his art.” His gifts to future composers are his conciseness, his development of the complexities of rhythm, and his invention of chord-formation. His use of dissonance is an art in itself. Richard Strauss has employed dissonance in obvious development of Richard Wagner’s polyphonic and chromatic style. Pushed to its furthest, his system is one of inversion. With Strawinsky the use of dissonance is invention itself. He improvises new chords, while Strauss is taking recognized chords apart to make something else of them. So this new figure stands for something in advance of what has already been expressed. He is, perhaps, the most vital of the modern forces in the music world.

_August 6, 1915._

Here is the complete bibliography of Strawinsky’s works (the list
has been revised and edited by the composer himself): Symphony in
E flat, op. 1, 1905-1907 (Jurgenson); _Le Faune et la Bergère_,
voice and orchestra, op. 2, 1907 (Belaïeff); _Scherzo Fantastique_
for orchestra, op. 3, 1907-8 (Jurgenson); _Fireworks_, for
orchestra, op. 4, 1908 (Schott); _Funeral Hymn_ for the death of
Rimsky-Korsakow, op. 5, 1908 (MS.); Four Études for the piano, op.
6, 1908 (Jurgenson); Two Melodies (words by Gorodetzski), voice
and piano, op. 7, 1908 (Jurgenson); _The Firebird_, “Conte dansé,”
1909-10 (Jurgenson); Two Melodies (words by Verlaine), voice and
piano, 1910 (Jurgenson); _Petrouchka_, burlesque scenes in four
tableaux, 1910-11 (Russischer Musik-Verlag); Two Melodies (words by
Balmont), for voice and piano, 1911 (Russischer Musik-Verlag); _Les
Roi des Étoiles_ (words by Balmont), for chorus and orchestra, 1911
(Russischer Musik-Verlag); _The Sacrifice to the Spring_, tableaux
of Pagan Russia, in two parts, 1911-13 (Russischer Musik-Verlag);
Three Melodies (Japanese poems), for voice and small orchestra,
1912, (Russischer Musik-Verlag); _Souvenir de ma Jeunesse_, three
children’s songs for voice and piano, 1913 (Russischer Musik-Verlag);
_The Nightingale_, opera in three acts, 1909-14 (Russischer
Musik-Verlag).

Recent works include three pieces for string quartet (MSS.), played
by the Flonzaley Quartet in New York, November 30, 1915; and a new
ballet in two parts, for the Russian Ballet, entitled _Les Noces
villageoises_.

Strawinsky has also orchestrated a melody of Beethoven, some of the
works of Grieg and Chopin, and the song of the Boyard Chaklovity from
_La Khovanchina_ of Moussorgsky. With the aid of notes left by the
composer he wrote the final chorus of _La Khovanchina_.

Massenet and Women

Massenet and Women

The name of Jules Massenet, spoken before his tomb, should evoke many memories besides the souvenirs of the delicate melodies he wrote--memories of beautiful and frail women, a long, exotic list, women whom he melodically created in his operas and women whom he selected to sing his heroines.

Xavier Leroux in his preface to the “Souvenirs,” in which Massenet carefully describes his life, calls him the _musicien de la femme_. His music is peculiarly feminine--“melodically, sentimentally, sensuously feminine,” says Philip Hale. “The Eve of Massenet is a Parisian _cocotte_. His Mary Magdalen is a _grande amoureuse_ even after her conversion; a true sister of Thaïs.”

Marie-Magdeleine, Eve, Salome, Manon, the fragrant, who suggested a flower girl in the _Boulevard des Capucines_; Chimène, inspired by the classic Corneille; Esclarmonde, in which the astonishing Sybil Sanderson rose to her fame; Charlotte, who, according to Thackeray, having seen Werther’s body “borne before her on a shutter, like a well-conducted person went on cutting bread and butter”; the eternal Thaïs, who at first failed to interest the jaded boulevards; the sanguinary Anita, the girl from Navarre; Sapho, who never, in the opera at least, was carried upstairs until Mary Garden portrayed her; Cinderella, the faithful Grisélidis, many times tempted; the Spanish dancer, l’Ensoleillad and Nina in the opera _Chérubin_; Ariane and her companions, Phèdre and Perséphone; Thérèse, Dulcinée, and the Queen Amahelly, all written for that “_grande tragédienne lyrique_,” Lucy Arbell: it would seem that every country and every period of history had been searched for a complete survey of feminism. And among the unproduced works which the composer left in a completed form is a _Cléopâtre_!

And what a list of women has sung these parts! Women whom Massenet wholly or partly adored; women for whom he dropped precious dots of ink on paper, instead of buying them pearls in the Rue de la Paix; women for whom, in some instances, he preserved his scores for years. For Massenet was never hasty. He never gave a score to an unworthy interpreter. In this connection it is only necessary to remember that _Amadis_, completed in 1890, and _Panurge_, completed in 1910, are not yet produced (1912).

Women reciprocated his love. Louis Schneider, in his biography of the composer, puts it thus: “A woman is like a child; she gives instinctively to the person who loves her. This explains why his incessant glorification of woman made all women like him.”

And so, linked indissolubly with the name of Massenet, we may recall the names of those who helped him to build his fame as the feminist composer, those who “created” in the theatre the atmosphere he had devised for his characters. Five names stand out in prominent relief: the charming Marie Heilbronn, the ill-fated Sybil Sanderson, Emma Calvé, Mary Garden, and Lucy Arbell. But there are countless others: Marie Renard, who “created” Charlotte and first sang Manon in Vienna; Marie Delna, who brought _Werther_ to Paris; Lina Cavalieri, the first Ensoleillad in _Chérubin_, who afterwards introduced Thaïs and Manon to Italy, and later brought back Thaïs to the répertoire of the Paris Opéra; Lucienne Bréval, who was the first Ariane and Grisélidis; Marguerite Carré, the first Nina in _Chérubin_ and who assisted in the revival of _Sapho_ at the Opéra-Comique; Mlle. Kousnezoff, the Fausta in _Roma_; Mme. Duvivier, Salome at Brussels; Mme. Fidès-Devriès, Salome at Paris; Pauline Viardot, the sister of the great Malibran, who sang Marie-Magdeleine as an oratorio at the Odéon, April 11, 1873; Lina Pacary, who sang one season at New Orleans, who was the first to sing the Magdeleine in operatic form; Julia Guiraudon, the first Cendrillon; Aino Ackté, the first Vierge; Joséphine de Reszke, sister of two famous singers, who “created” the leading feminine rôle in _Le Roi de Lahore_; and Mme. Galli-Marié, the first Carmen, who honored the first performance of _Don César de Bazan_. But the list is interminable. What names does it not include? What beautiful woman with a voice of the past three decades does not receive a few words of gratitude in the “Souvenirs”?

Of all the women, however, who have sung the Massenet rôles the one most particularly identified with the composer was Sybil Sanderson, the beautiful California girl, whose career was as short as it was brilliant. Massenet met her at a dinner given by an American friend. She came with her mother, described by the composer as being almost as beautiful as her daughter. After dinner Miss Sanderson asked the composer if he would hear her sing. He consented affably, as was his custom--never was there a more gentle man!--and seated himself at the piano.

“You will excuse me,” she added, “if I do not sing your music. That would be too audacious.”

She ended by doing something very much more audacious: she sang the second air of the Queen of the Night from _The Magic Flute_.

The composer’s feelings may be adjudged from his remarks in his _Souvenirs_: “What a prodigious voice! Three octaves, either _forte_ or _pianissimo_!”

He did not waste any time. His publisher was urging him to set a poem on a Byzantine subject, _Esclarmonde_, to music, and, with Sybil Sanderson in mind, he went to work directly on the score. _Esclarmonde_, in which Massenet pays his tribute to Wagner--the subject suggests _Parsifal_ and _Tristan und Isolde_, to say nothing of _Armide_--was produced at the Opéra-Comique during the Paris Exposition of 1889. It was given 101 times before Miss Sanderson went to Brussels.

Before her début Sybil Sanderson was scarcely known in Paris. It was rumored among artists that Massenet had written an opera for a fair Californian (she was the daughter of Judge S. W. Sanderson, of the Supreme Court) who was being trained by the master to play the title part, and some few had seen Massenet dining at a restaurant in the Rue Daunou with an American girl, accompanied by a lady who, judging from the likeness of the two, was probably her mother. Then came her début, and all Paris was talking about La Belle Sanderson, and the extraordinary range of her voice.

_Thaïs_, the famous opera of the monk and the Alexandrian courtesan, was also written for Miss Sanderson. While Massenet was composing it the singer was appearing three times a week at the Opéra-Comique in _Manon_. It was therefore for that theatre that _Thaïs_ was destined. However, Miss Sanderson, like many another artist before and since, moved by a sudden caprice, signed a contract with Gailhard to sing at the Opéra, without taking the trouble to inform Carvalho, then manager of the Opéra-Comique. Massenet did not hesitate. He wrote to Gailhard: “You have the artist; the work must follow her!”

_Thaïs_ was produced March 16, 1894--and failed! At that time the book was considered a trifle indelicate! Even Sybil Sanderson’s popularity could not save it. In 1898 the work was revived with Mme. Berthet in the title part. For this _reprise_ Massenet wrote a new scene in the oasis and the scene of the ballet, which have always been omitted in American representations, except in Boston. Lina Cavalieri sang the work in Paris in 1907. Since then it has never been long from the _affiches_ of the Opéra, while in America it has become one of the most popular of modern operas, thanks to Mary Garden, who made her American début in the title rôle, and subsequently prevented Lina Cavalieri from singing it in New York. While he was writing _Thaïs_ Massenet always kept a tiny figurine on his writing table. This had been made for him by Gérome, and served him as his present inspiration.

Here is the tribute that Massenet pays to Sybil Sanderson in his “Souvenirs”: “Sybil Sanderson!... It is only with poignant emotion that I recall this singer struck by pitiless Death, in her full beauty, in the glory of her talent. Ideal Manon at the Opéra-Comique; unforgettable Thaïs at the Opéra; these rôles identified themselves with her temperament, one of the most magnificently gifted that I have ever known. An invincible vocation called her to the theatre, there to become the ardent interpreter of many of my works; but also, for us, what joy to write operas and rôles for the artists who realize our dreams!...

“The silent crowd which pressed on the way of the cortège which led Sybil Sanderson to her last home was considerable. Over it a veil of sadness seemed to hang. Albert Carré and I followed the coffin. We walked directly behind what remained of her beauty, grace, and talent, and Carré, interpreting the feelings of the people about us, said:

“‘She was loved.’”

It is to the “Souvenirs” also that we must turn for a description of the selection of the first Manon. Mme. Carvalho sighed when she heard the music, and breathed the wish that she was twenty years younger, so that she might sing it. Characteristically, Massenet dedicated the score to her. He wanted Mme. Vaillant-Couturier, then singing an operetta of Lecocq’s at the Nouveautés, for the opera.

“She interested me greatly and, as I thought, bore an astonishing resemblance to a young florist of the Boulevard des Capucines. Without ever having spoken [it must be remembered that this book was written for Massenet’s grandchildren] to this delicious young girl, I was obsessed by the vision, and the thought of her was ever with me. This was indeed the Manon whom I had seen, whom I saw always before me as I worked.”

The manager of the Nouveautés would not let Mme. Vaillant-Couturier go, but while they were talking Massenet observed that Brasseur had his eyes on a pretty gray hat with roses, which was going up and down the foyer. The hat moved toward the composer.

“A débutant then no longer recognizes a débutante?”

It should be explained that Marie Heilbronn had appeared in Massenet’s first opera, _La Grand’ Tante_.

“Heilbronn!” I exclaimed.

“Herself.”

She reminded him of his first opera and the part she took in it, and in answer to his questions continued: “No, I am rich, and yet, shall I confess it? I wish to go back on the stage; I am haunted by the theatre. If I could only find a good rôle.” Massenet told her of _Manon_, and that night, at her insistence, he played the music through for her at her apartment in the Champs-Elysées. It was 4.30 in the morning when he was done. She had been moved to tears, and from time to time she would exclaim, “That is my life; it’s my life!”

In speaking of Heilbronn’s death after the eightieth odd performance of _Manon_ the composer says: “Ah, who will tell artists how faithful we are to their memories; how attached to them we are; the great grief which the day of separation brings us? I should prefer to stop performances rather than have the part sung by another.”

This in itself is beautiful, but read what he has to say of her successors:

“Some time afterward the Opéra-Comique disappeared in flames and _Manon_ was not performed for ten years. It was the dear and unique Sybil Sanderson that revived the work at the Opéra-Comique. She played at the two hundredth. A glory was reserved for me at the five hundredth when the part was taken by Mme. Marguerite Carré. Some months ago this captivating and exquisite artist was applauded the night of the seven hundred and fortieth performance. Let me be permitted to salute in passing the fine artists who have also taken the part: Mlles. Mary Garden, Geraldine Farar (so reads the book), Lina Cavalieri, Mme. Bréjean-Silver, Mlles. Courtney, Geneviève Vix, Mmes. Edwina and Nicot-Vauchelet--and how many other dear artists besides! They will pardon me if their names do not come at this moment to my grateful pen.”

Massenet wrote two operas for Emma Calvé, and she appeared in four other of his works. _La Navarraise_, London, June 20, 1894, and _Sapho_, Opéra-Comique, November 27, 1897, were written for her. She also sang Salome in _Hérodiade_, Chimène in _Le Cid_, and the leading feminine rôles in _Le Roi de Lahore_ and _Le Mage_.

Adolphe Jullien, the French critic, says somewhere: “Hors de Calvé pas de _Sapho_ possible, aux yeux du compositeur.” Yet when Marguerite Carré sang this work, founded on Daudet’s famous novel, at its _reprise_ at the Opéra-Comique in 1909, he wrote an entire new scene for her. Mary Garden was the American Sapho, and was adversely criticised for her forceful acting in the early parts of the play. Yet Jullien writes of Calvé:

“Mlle. Emma Calvé, c’est le cri général, joue et chante avec une ardeur presque excessive le personnage de Sapho, très-difficile à faire accepter à l’Opéra-Comique, en passant de la langueur la plus lascive à la violence la plus grossière, par example quand elle injurie ses anciens amants qui viennent de dévoiler son passé au malheureux Gaussin.”

Another Sapho was Georgette Leblanc, who also created some excitement with an exceedingly immodest conception of Thaïs.

Anita in _La Navarraise_ shares, along with Carmen and Santuzza, the honor of being one of the three rôles of her varied répertoire which Calvé was permitted to sing frequently in this country. It was not long ago that she appeared as Anita at the Manhattan Opera House, where she was succeeded in it by Mme. Gerville-Réache. The work is still in the répertoire of the Opéra-Comique (or was, before the war began).

Although Mary Garden has done more to establish Massenet’s reputation in this country than any other singer, and has sung many of his operas successfully in Europe, especially _Manon_ and _Thaïs_, Massenet wrote only one part especially for her, the title rôle of _Chérubin_. _Chérubin_ was produced at Monte Carlo, February 14, 1905. He is the same youngster immortalized by Beaumarchais and Mozart. He is but seventeen in the Frenchman’s opera, but his good looks and audacity make him a veritable Don Juan.

Schneider wrote of Mary Garden in the title part: “She is Chérubin himself, in flesh and bones; she was the joy and delight of the evening. By reason of her slenderness and agility, her easy and graceful manner, with her innocent airs of conquest and her naïve mien of vexation, she is truly the irresistible youth in whose presence all hearts surrender. And to think that M. de Croisset, only the day before, insisted that his Chérubin should not be played by a woman! His, perhaps, but not that of M. Massenet.”

It was Oscar Hammerstein’s idea that Mary Garden should perform another man’s part. Tired, it is said, of the continuous assertions to the effect that all his operas were written about women for women, Massenet wrote _Le Jongleur de Notre Dame_, in which the single female figure, that of the Virgin, does not sing a note. It is interesting to observe that this opera is dedicated to Mme. Massenet. It was produced February 18, 1902, at Monte Carlo. Paris heard it two years later. When Mr. Hammerstein decided to produce it in New York he asked Miss Garden if she would sing the part of the Juggler, hitherto in every instance sung by a man. She assented, and appeared in the rôle at the Manhattan, November 27, 1908. Her success in the rôle was immediate and continued.

Massenet, in the “Souvenirs,” speaks of the affair: “I was a little frightened, I admit, at the idea of the monk taking off his robes after the play to put on a smart gown from the Rue de la Paix. But before the triumph of the artist I bow and applaud.”

_Thaïs_ introduced Mary Garden to America, and it is in this rôle that she has achieved the greatest popular success of her career. She has sung it everywhere, from Paris to Brooklyn. She sang _Sapho_ three times in New York and _Grisélidis_ a few times.

“I sang the patient Griselda first at Aix-les-Bains,” she once told a reporter. “The King of Greece heard me, and said he didn’t think the part a suitable one for me. I wonder what he meant!”

Miss Garden has also sung Manon, and Prince Charmant in _Cendrillon_.

Massenet’s last inspiration was a contralto, Lucy Arbell, who fired his brain to many creations. She sang the rôle of Perséphone in _Ariane_. This goddess of the nether world appeared only in one act of this long opera, but into that act Massenet put the most popular air of the score, the air of the roses, “_Emmène ta sœur_.” After Ariane had been performed sixty times at the Paris Opéra, Massenet asked her how many times she had sung the part, thinking she would have forgotten.

“Sixty,” she answered.

“Wrong,” he replied, “for you have repeated the air of the roses every night. You have sung the part 120 times!”

The part of Dulcinée in _Don Quichotte_ was written for Lucy Arbell. She sang it both in Paris and Monte Carlo. It is said that before the first performance she spent considerable time learning to play the guitar, so that she could accompany her air in the fourth act herself. _Thérèse_, _Bacchus_ and _Roma_ all contain parts written with Lucy Arbell in mind. One cannot do better than close with the picture evoked by Massenet in describing the effect which the music of _Thérèse_ had on his interpreter when he first played it to her.

“At the first playing of the score to our _créatrice_, Lucy Arbell, artist that she was, stopped me as I was playing the final scene, where Thérèse, with a cry of fear, sees the terrible cart bearing her husband, André Thorel, to the scaffold, and screams, ‘_Vive le roi!_’ with all her force, so that she may be sure of joining her husband in his death. It was at this instant that our interpreter, greatly moved, stopped me and said, ‘I could never _sing_ that scene up to the end, because when I recognized my husband, who gave me his name, who saved Armand de Clerval, I should lose my voice. I ask you to let me _declaim_ the end of the piece.’ Great artists alone,” concludes Massenet, “have the gift of divining these instinctive movements.”

_October, 1912._

Stage Decoration as a Fine Art

Stage Decoration as a Fine Art

The question of the use of “scenery” on the stage is perpetually bobbing up, and as perpetually it remains an unsolved question. Specific instances of the dire harm that the decoration can do to a play may be observed in our theatres almost any week during the active season. To take an example, let us mention one of Mr. Sothern’s Shakespearean productions, which had already been cut to run within the time-limit, but which played from eight in the evening until midnight because the “elaborate” settings had to be changed frequently. The intermissions, as a result, occupied more of the spectators’ patience than the play. In another instance, a musical comedy went to pot on the first night because the stagehands could not handle the setting of the second act with enough expedition. As a result, they kept the curtain down for thirty minutes, a fatal length of time in a playhouse devoted to frivolity.

John Palmer, in that book, quotation from which is sheer delight, “The Future of the Theatre,” says that this is the age of the “naturalist” drama, and that as a result, when anyone tries to produce a “romantic” or “poetic” play, there is an attempt made to wrap up the shortcomings of the performance in elaborate upholstery.

“Why does the electrician or the costumier become so much more important in poetic than in naturalist drama? The electrician and costumier become more important as the author and actor become less competent of themselves to assert their intention. Naturalist authors and naturalist players are masters of their method. The poetic dramatists and players are not. Poetic drama has fallen upon evil times. The dramatist, being unequal to his burden, the artificers in light and hair and turpentine are invoked to help him sustain it. In the mid-twentieth-century outburst of poetic splendor, which will follow the foundation of our national theatre, it will soon be realized how the former degradation of the poetic drama was directly measured by the importance yielded thereby to the subordinate crafts. The quaint superstition of to-day that the limelight man is an important person in the raising of Cæsar’s ghost will disappear when poetic drama of the future is lifted to the level of the naturalist drama of to-day.

“Even to-day, when there comes an actor of genius who can present Shakespeare in the solid flesh, it is possible for the least reflective play-goer to realize how little it matters that the limelight is not of the latest and best quality, or that paint upon the scene is spread too thick. We have lately had opportunities, within a single year, of measuring Shakespeare as produced by Mr. Granville Barker against Shakespeare as acted by Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson. Compare for a moment Mr. Barker’s _Twelfth Night_ with Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson’s _Hamlet_. Mr. Barker’s _Twelfth Night_ had every advantage that a producer can bestow. Beautiful costumes against a decorative background, excellent music, an intelligent revival of the necessary apron, a very fair quality of acting, rising in a few instances to an extremely high level of accomplishment--all that the producer as fine-artist has been able to discover was tested and adapted for the occasion.

“‘Look here upon this picture, and on this.’

“Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson in his _Hamlet_ of 1913 seemed bent upon showing once for all that production matters not at all when great acting is toward. The Drury Lane _Hamlet_ of 1913 showed not only that the actor and his author require no artistic aid of theatrical haberdashers to make their effect, but also that the actor and his author, if they have as much genius between them as will cover a penny piece, can unite and play clean out of existence the ugliest daubs of the false cardboard naturalism of the late ‘nineties.’ In Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson’s _Hamlet_ was no borrowed grace of the producing fine-artist. Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson had not even the advantage of the poetic conventions to which his play was originally fitted. He made his dramatic appeal in spite of his conditions, rather than with their assistance. Yet everyone open to the appeal of Shakespeare had to declare that the total æsthetic effect of Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson’s _Hamlet_ infinitely outweighed the total æsthetic effect of Mr. Barker’s _Hamlet_.”

Now, this is the most specious kind of argument. Of course, genius, even unclothed genius, is at all times preferable to mediocrity decked in gauds, but genius properly caparisoned is only added to. If Forbes-Robertson’s interesting study of _Hamlet_ had been properly set, its effect would have been even more vivid.

Let us take, for instance, the case of the Russian dancers. Anna Pavlowa is generally regarded as the greatest of living women dancers. A similar place is assigned Waslav Nijinsky among the male dancers. And yet it cannot be said that Mlle. Pavlowa, with her mediocre (in most instances) scenic and choreographic accompaniments, makes the effect that Nijinsky does surrounded by the Bakst scenery and the elemental spontaneity of the superb Russian ballet. Mlle. Pavlowa’s genius creates the utmost enthusiasm; it awakens admiration on every hand; but it would be more compelling were it encased in the beauty which it suggests.

To take another example, let us regard the production of _Boris Godunow_ at the Metropolitan Opera House. Seldom, at this theatre, have more dramatic splendors been revealed than Adamo Didur showed us in the title part; and never has such adequate staging been seen there. The scenery and costumes, in fact, were all a part of the Russian equipment used in Paris a few seasons ago. Mme. Fremstad’s Brünnhilde in _Götterdämmerung_ is an even more indisputable proof of genius than Mr. Didur’s Boris (taking into account the Russian’s close following of his model, Feodor Chaliapine), but the setting of _Götterdämmerung_ at the Opera is so unimaginative, so unappealing, so unsuggestive, that one has to forget that before one can focus one’s attention on the compelling art of the singing actress.

Of late years the item of scenery has become more and more costly, more and more elaborate. What does it mean, after all, the kind of scenery we see? Who cares about the painted stumps of trees, the ridiculous apple blossoms and the pink drawing-rooms? A little simple staging would effect a much needed reform in the American Theatre, especially if it were coupled with a good play.

It is in Europe that attempts have been made at reform. Some of them have been successful. Gordon Craig has been accounted the inventor of many of the ideas that are prevalent at present, but like many other inventors, he neither had the practical ability, nor perhaps the desire, to put them into effect himself. Stanislawsky, Reinhardt, and even Bakst, have all learned something from him, and have turned his ideas to practical account.

At present Gordon Craig, ensconced in the Arena Goldoni in Florence, is said to be at the head of a great school which shall teach the art of the theatre. He is, to be sure, surrounded by a pack of boys with soulful eyes, who wear dirty-greens and call him “Master.” These he takes driving occasionally over the hills near Florence in no other vehicle than a coach and four. When this monumental anachronism passes through the Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele, or down the Via Tornabuoni with its crowd from _Patience_ seated aloft, the effect on the populace of Firenze La Bella can be only faintly imagined.

Occasionally someone tries to effect an entrance into the school over which this eccentric genius presides and for which he issues pronunciamentos and catalogues without number, to say nothing of advertisements, and articles in “The Mask,” and _affiches_ which are pasted on the high walls of the Italian and English towns. If the youth who is hardy enough to make the trial succeeds in reaching the great presence he may be deemed a lucky mortal. Mr. Craig observes each newcomer from carefully prepared peep-holes. One look convinces him whether the prospective student has talent for the arts or not; one look alone suffices. Once having made up his mind, nothing changes it.

Robert Jones tried to invade the domain of the Craig school last summer, but not once could he get near the Master; not once could he get any more information than that very vague sort which is included in the catalogue. Jones, sick of trying to get on in Florence, went to Germany and now is one of Reinhardt’s props and aids. (He has since done good work in New York.)

Another friend of mine who did not care to enter the school had more success. He attained the Craig presence.

“But how,” he asked, “do you intend to teach music without teachers?”

“Oh,” answered Mr. Craig quite simply, “we shall work away, driving nails into boards, or walking in the country, and when we feel like it we shall sing!”

And so the possessor of some of the best ideas that have come to the theatre in recent years ingeniously steps aside while others, with a view to their more practical use, apply them to their own purposes. (I need not refer to Adolphe Appia here. I leave his case for a separate discussion.)

In the first paragraph of this article I emphasized the practical value of simpler scenery for plays which require frequent or sudden changes; but, of course, the artistic side far outweighs that. The kind of scenery we see so much of in New York really deceives nobody. The moment a human being of three dimensions steps on the stage you have that human being posing against badly painted pictures. It is as if one should combine statuary and painting.

The intention in current stage decoration seems to be to intensify the lack of imagination on the part of the spectator. Each part of what is called the scenery of a play is so clearly defined that there is no opportunity for the communication of suggested feeling. The spectator sees at once that he is looking at an imitation of the place, scenery painted to look as much like the place as possible. As a consequence he has the feeling, after the first five minutes, if he has imagination, that he is not in the place at all. When the photographic accuracy wears away the lack of suggestion becomes appalling. The commonplace is scaled.

This is said, taking into account scenery which has scarcely any plastic features--such scenery, for instance, as is used to a great extent at the Metropolitan Opera House, where rocks and rills, woods, templed hills and marble halls are painted on flimsy drops. In palaces the architectural features are depicted in the same naïve way, using the word naïve in its worst sense. I believe that scenery like this is intended to represent the real thing just as much as a _papier-mâché_ mill which crushes the villain in a melodrama, and it succeeds just as much.

This art, I think, came from Italy. At least, most of the scenery that is painted in this fashion, or the inspiration for it, comes from there nowadays. May it not be possible that it is suggested to the scene-painter by the houses one sees in the small Italian towns, where windows with shutters often are painted on the façade? The fantasy of some of these windows is sublime. Occasionally, persons are painted looking out of them. Dogs sit on the sills; I have seen peacocks. In some instances the whole architecture is painted on the outside of the house--columns, balconies, and all. This is a familiar enough device in Italian churches, and I fancy many Catholic churches in America may show traces of the style.

Carl Hagemann of Germany tries to get away from this sort of thing, just as David Belasco has tried to in New York, by making his whole scene plastic, every object built separately inside of a sky drop which runs around from one proscenium arch to the other. If he uses a house or a tree or a bench, it is not painted on the drop. It is built. In the case of interiors his task is easier, of course.

This method of procedure has two distinct disadvantages. In the first place, it takes away all the charm of suggestion, which I think should play an important part in theatrical entertainment, and in the second place, it does away with the possibility of producing a play with more than one scene in each act, unless the producer happens to have a revolving stage in his theatre, an equipment, by the way, which every playhouse in New York should possess. Hagemann gave Goethe’s _Faust_, which has countless scenes, by means of a revolving stage. He has produced Shakespearean plays in this manner. Mr. Belasco has followed Hagemann’s method pretty closely in some of his recent productions. _The Auctioneer_ is a play, it seems to me, which needs this kind of scenery, if anything does. _A Good Little Devil_, on the other hand, would have benefited greatly by more imaginative treatment.

Gordon Craig, of course, would substitute suggestion for realism. He uses a combination of screens, occasional draperies, and little else, to gain his ends. The lighting is all from above; the natural lighting in this world. If your floors were made of glass under which were concealed hundreds of glaring electric lights, you would get the effect that footlights give on the stage.

It seems to me there are few romantic or poetic plays which would not be improved by Craig’s method of staging; and yet he has had little practical experience in putting on pieces. Sets of model scenes for _Hamlet_ and _Macbeth_ have been exhibited in London. I think Beerbohm Tree used adaptations of one of these at one time. Certainly Craig’s _Hamlet_ was seen at Stanislawsky’s Theatre in Moscow. It is highly probable that Isadora Duncan’s dancing background is a fancy of Gordon Craig’s. However, little of the practical work of this man has reached the public, except through his books, which are verbose and vague except in spots; and through his conversation, which is usually said to be unillumined even by flashes.