Chapters of Opera Part 16

"Manru" had its original performance at the Court Opera in Dresden, on May 29, 1901. Before reaching New York it was given in Cracow, Lemberg, Zurich, and Cologne, and Mr. Bandrowski, whom Mr. Grau engaged to sing the t.i.tular part, had already sung it twenty times in Europe. Its production at the Metropolitan Opera House brought scenes of gladsome excitement. Hero wors.h.i.+pers had an opportunity to gratify their pa.s.sion in connection with a man who had filled a larger place in the public eye for a decade than any of his colleagues the world over; students were privileged to study a first work by an eminent musician, whose laurels had been won in a very different field; curiosity lovers had their penchant gratified to the full. The popular interest in the affair was disclosed by the fact that never before in the season had the audience at the Metropolitan been so numerous or brilliant; naturally the presence of the admired composer whetted interest and heightened enthusiasm. Long before the evening was over Mr. Paderewski was drawn from his secluded place in a parterre box by the plaudits of the audience, and compelled to acknowledge hearty appreciation of his achievement along with the artists who had made it possible. Despite the flaws which were easily found in the work, "Manru," the performance showed, is a remarkable first opera. There will scarcely ever be a critic who will say of it as one of the composers now set down as a cla.s.sic said of the first opera of a colleague, that first operas, like first litters of puppies, ought properly to be drowned. "Manru" has had its day, but it was brilliant while it lasted, and it is possible that now it is not dead, but only sleeping. The story, badly told in the libretto made after a Polish romance by a friend of the composer, Dr.

Nossig, has the charm of novelty, and beneath it there lies a potent dramatic principle. But more than the story, more than the picturesque costumes and stage furniture, there is a fascination about the music which grew with each hearing. Many of its characteristic details are based upon national idioms, but on the whole Mr. Paderewski wrote like an eclectic. He paid his tribute to the tendency which Wagner made dominant (where is the composer of the last thirty years who has not?) and, indeed, has been somewhat too frank in his acknowledgment of his indebtedness to that master in falling into his manner, and utilizing his devices whenever (as in the second act) there is a parallelism in situation; but he has, nevertheless, maintained an individual lyricism which proclaims him an ingenuous musician of the kind that the art never needed so much as it needs it now. As a national colorist Mr. Paderewski put new things upon the operatic palette.

"Manru" is not an opera to be disposed of with a hurried ultimatum on either book or music. From several points of view it not only invites, it clamors for discussion. The book is awkwardly constructed, and its language is at times amazingly silly; yet the fundamental idea is kept before the mind persistently and alluringly by the devices of the composer. A Gipsy who forsakes his wife and child because he cannot resist the seductions of a maid of his own race would ordinarily be a contemptible character, and nothing more; but in this case, despite the want of dramatic and literary skill in the libretto, Manru is presented as a tragic type who goes to merited destruction, indeed, but doing so nevertheless creates the impression that he is less the victim of individual pa.s.sion than of a fatality which is racial. I can easily fancy that the Polish novelist from whom the story was borrowed presented the psychological fact more eloquently than the librettist, but it is a question whether or not he did so more convincingly than Dr.

Nossig plus Mr. Paderewski. Mr. Leland (after Mr. Borrow the closest of literary students of the Gipsies) has pictured for us the Romany's love for roaming, and our sympathy with his propensity. We look wistfully at the s.h.i.+ps at sea, and wonder what quaint mysteries of life they hide; we watch the flight of birds and long to fly with them anywhere, over the world and into adventure. These emotions tell us how near we are to be affected or elected unto the Romany, who belong to out-of-doors and nature, like birds and bees. Centuries more than we think of have fas.h.i.+oned that disposition in the black-blooded people, and made it an irresistible impulse. Thus the poetical essence of Manru's character is accounted for, and the librettist has given it an expression which is not inept:

With longings wild my soul is fill'd, Spring's voices shout within me; Each fiber in my soul is thrill'd With feelings that would win me.

In bush and brake The buds awake, Of nature's joy the woods partake, And bear me helpless, spent, along Where freedom lives far from the throng; Thus pours the mountain torrent wild, That stubborn rocks would check; Thus rolls the molten lava stream, Dispersing havoc dire, supreme, Enfolding, whelming all in wreck!

Thus flies the pollen on the breeze To meet its floral love; The song, outgus.h.i.+ng from the soul, Thus seeks the starry vault above.

Is it a curse?

There is no other life for me.

'Tis written in the book of fate: Thy race must ev'ry pledge abate And wander, rove eternally!

But why? and where?

I know it not,-- I needs must fare!

But such a life is lawless, it creates infidelity, nourishes incontinence; its seeming freedom is but slavery to pa.s.sion, and this, too, the poet proclaims in Manru's confession that faithfulness is impossible to one to whom each new beauty offers irresistible allurement, and whose heart must remain unstable as his habitation.

Into the music of Manru's songs, which tell of these things, Mr.

Paderewski has poured such pa.s.sionate emotional expression as makes them convincing, and he has done more. Music is the language of the emotions, and the Gipsies are an emotional folk. The people of Hungary have permitted the Gipsies to make their music for them so long, and have mixed the Romany and Magyar bloods so persistently, that in music Gipsy and Hungarian have become practically identical terms. It was a Hungarian gentleman who said: "When I hear the 'Rakoczy' I feel as if I must go to war to conquer the whole world. My fingers convulsively twitch to seize a pistol, a sword, or bludgeon, or whatever weapon may be at hand; I must clutch it, and march forward." It is because of this spirit, scarcely overstated in this story, that the Austrian Government, fearful of the influence of the "Rakoczy" during periods of political excitement, has several times prohibited its performance on public occasions, and confiscated the copies found in the music shops. Mr.

Paderewski makes admirable use of this pa.s.sion as a dramatic motive.

When neither the pleadings of his tribal companions nor the seductive artifices of Asa suffice to break down Manru's sense of duty to his wife and child, the catastrophe is wrought by the music of a gipsy fiddler.

As the subject of the opera has to do with the conflict between Christian and Pagan, Galician and Gipsy, so the music takes its color now from the folk-song and dance of Mr. Paderewski's own people, and anon from the Gipsies who frequent the mountainous scenes in which the opera plays. The use of an Oriental interval, beloved of Poles and Gipsies, characterizes the melos of the first act; the rhythm of a peasant dance inspires the ballet, which is not an idle divertiss.e.m.e.nt, but an integral element of the play, and Gipsy fiddle and cimbalom lend color and character to the music which tempts Manru to forget his duty.

The contest in Manru's soul has musical delineation in an extended orchestral introduction to the last act, in which Gipsy and Polish music are at war, while clouds and moon struggle for the mastery in the stage panorama.

The season 1902-03 may be said to have been eventful only in its tragic outcome, of which I have already spoken--Mr. Grau's physical collapse.

There was a painful and most unexpected echo a few weeks after the doors of the opera house had been closed for the summer vacation in the death of Mr. Frank W. Sanger, who had been acting as a.s.sociate manager with Mr. Grau, and who had been largely instrumental in persuading Mr. Grau to abandon work and seek health in France. The season covered seventeen weeks, and comprised sixty-eight subscription nights, seventeen subscription matinees, seventeen popular Sat.u.r.day nights, and six extra performances--ninety-one performances in all. Promises of a serial performance of the chief works of Verdi and Mozart had to be abandoned, partly on account of the illness of Mme. Eames. Only one new opera was brought forward, and that under circ.u.mstances which reflected no credit on the inst.i.tution or its management, the opera (Miss Ethel Smyth's "Der Wald") not being worth the labor, except, perhaps, because it was the work of a woman, and the circ.u.mstances that private influences, and not public service, had prompted the production being too obvious to invite confidence in the opera. Simply for the sake of the integrity of the record mention is made that the production took place on March 11, 1903, that Alfred Hertz conducted, and that Mme. Gadski, Mme. Reuss-Belce, Georg Anthes, Mr. Bispham, Mr. Bla.s.s, and Mr. Muhlmann were concerned in the performance. The newcomers in Mr. Grau's forces were Mme.

Reuss-Belce, Georg Anthes, Emil Gerhauser, Aloys Burgstaller, and the conductor of the German operas, Mr. Hertz, who, like Mr. Burgstaller, has remained ever since, and they were all active agents in promoting the sensational feature of the first season of the administration which succeeded Mr. Grau's. I have tabulated the performances which took place in the subscription seasons under Mr. Grau as follows:

THE GRAU PERIOD, 1898-1903

Operas 1898-1899 *1899-1900 1900-1901 1901-1902 1902-1903

"Tannhauser," .............. 6 5 4 2 4 "Il Barbiere" .............. 4 4 0 0 3 "Romeo et Juliette" ........ 6 5 4 3 2 "La Traviata" .............. 2 2 0 1 4 "Die Walkure" .............. 4 6 3 3 3 "Siegfried" ................ 1 2 1 1 3 "Nozze di Figaro" .......... 3 4 0 2 1 "Carmen" ................... 2 11 0 7 3 "Lohengrin" ................ 7 7 6 4 7 "Faust" .................... 7 9 5 5 7 "Tristan und Isolde" ....... 5 3 4 3 4 "Don Giovanni" ............. 4 1 1 0 1 "Ada" ..................... 3 5 3 5 7 "Les Huguenots" ............ 4 2 3 3 3 "Das Rheingold" ............ 1 2 1 1 2 "Gotterdammerung" .......... 1 2 2 2 2 "Martha" ................... 1 0 0 0 0 "L'Africaine" .............. 1 1 1 0 0 "Rigoletto" ................ 1 1 1 0 1 "Le Prophete" .............. 2 2 0 0 1 + "Ero e Leandro" .......... 2 0 0 0 2 "Lucia di Lammermoor" ...... 1 2 2 0 0 "Il Trovatore" ............. 0 3 0 0 1 "Der Fliegende Hollander" .. 0 3 1 0 0 "Mignon" ................... 0 1 0 0 0 "Don Pasquale" ............. 0 3 0 1 1 "Cavalleria Rusticana" ..... 0 6 3 4 1 "Pagliacci" ................ 0 1 0 1 6 "Die Meistersinger" ........ 0 4 2 1 2 "Die l.u.s.tigen Weiber" ...... 0 1 0 0 0 "Fidelio" .................. 0 1 1 0 0 "The Magic Flute" .......... 0 5 0 3 2 "La Boheme" ................ 0 0 5 0 3 "Mefistofele" .............. 0 0 2 0 0 "Le Cid" ................... 0 0 3 2 0 + "Tosca" .................. 0 0 3 3 4 + "Salammbo" ............... 0 0 2 0 0 "Fille du Regiment" ........ 0 0 0 3 6 + "Messaline" .............. 0 0 0 3 0 "Otello" ................... 0 0 0 3 3 + "Manru" .................. 0 0 0 3 0 "Ernani" ................... 0 0 0 0 3 "Un Ballo in Maschera" ..... 0 0 0 0 1 + "Der Wald" ............... 0 0 0 0 2

* Performances in the supplementary season included.

+ Novelties.

Ma.s.senet's "Manon" had two performances with Saville and Van Dyck in the season 1898-'99; but both were outside the subscription.

CHAPTER XXI

HEINRICH CONRIED AND "PARSIFAL"

A prologue dealing with other things may with propriety accompany this chapter, which is concerned with the history of the Metropolitan Opera House under the administration of Mr. Heinrich Conried. It is called for by the visit which Pietro Mascagni made to the United States in the fall of 1902. Signor Mascagni came to America under a contract with Mittenthal Brothers, theatrical managers, whose activities had never appreciably touched the American metropolis nor the kind of entertainment which they sought to purvey. These things are mentioned thus early in the story so that light may be had from the beginning on the artistic side of the most sensational fiasco ever made by an artist of great distinction in the United States. The contract, which was negotiated by an agent of the Mittenthals in Italy, was for fifteen weeks, during which time Signor Mascagni obligated himself to produce and himself conduct not more than eight performances of opera or concerts a week. For his personal services he was to receive $60,000, in weekly payments of $4,000, with advances before leaving Italy and on arriving in New York. The contract called for performances of "Iris,"

"Cavalleria Rusticana," "Zanetto," and "Ratcliff" by a company of singers and instrumentalists to be approved by Signor Mascagni. The composer was hailed with gladness on his arrival by his countrymen, and his appearance and the three operas which were unknown to the American public were awaited with most amiable and eager curiosity. The first performance took place in the Metropolitan Opera House on October 8, 1902, and was devoted to "Zanetto" and "Cavalleria Rusticana," both conducted by the composer. There was a large audience and much noisy demonstration on the part of the Italian contingent, but the unfamiliar work proved disappointing and the performance of "Cavalleria" so rough that all the advantages which it derived from Mascagni's admirable conducting failed to atone for its crudities. There were three representations at the Metropolitan Opera House the first week, all devoted to the same works, and one at the Academy of Music in Brooklyn.

Meanwhile promises of "Iris" and "Ratcliff" were held out, and work was done most energetically to prepare the former for performance.

Rehearsals were held day and night and the Sat.u.r.day evening performance abandoned to that end. "Ratcliff" was never reached, but "Iris" was given on October 16th with the following cast, which deserves to go on record since it was the first representation of the opera in the United States.

Iris .......................................... Marie Farneti Osaka ..................................... Pietro Schiavazzi Kyoto ..................................... Virgilio Bellatti Il Cieco ................................ Francesco Navarrini Una Guecha ................................. Dora de Fillippe Un Mercianola ............................... Pasquali Blasio Un Cencianola ............................ Bernardino Landino

I shall not tell the story of "Iris," which five years after was adopted into the repertory of the Metropolitan Opera House, it seemed for the purpose of giving Mme. Eames an opportunity to contend with Miss Geraldine Farrar in the field of j.a.panese opera; but the opera calls for some comment. Why "Iris"? It might be easier to answer the question if it were put in the negative: Why not "Iris"? The name is pretty.

It suggests roseate skies, bows of promise, flowery fields, messages swiftly borne and full of portent. The name invites to music and to radiant raiment, and it serves its purpose. Mascagni and his librettist do not seem to have been able to find a term with which to define their creation. They call it simply "Iris"; not a "dramma per musica," as the Florentine inventors of the opera did their art-form; nor a "melodramma"

nor a "tragedia per musica"; nor an "opera in musica," of which the conventional and generic "opera" is the abbreviation; nor even a "dramma lirico," which is the term chosen by Verdi for his "Falstaff" and Puccini for his "Manon Lescaut." In truth, "Iris" is none of these. It begins as an allegory, grows into a play, and ends again in allegory, beginning and end, indeed, being the same, poetically and musically.

Signor Illica went to Sar Peladan and d'Annunzio for his sources, but placed the scene of "Iris" in j.a.pan, the land of flowers, and so achieved the privilege of making it a dalliance with pseudo-philosophic symbols and gorgeous garments. Now, symbolism is poor dramatic matter, but it can furnish forth moody food for music, and "Sky robes spun of Iris woof" appear still more radiant to the eye when the ear, too, is enlisted. Grossness and purulence stain the dramatic element in the piece, but when all is over pictures and music have done their work of mitigation, and out of the feculent mire there arises a picture of poetic beauty, a vision of suffering and triumphant innocency which pleads movingly for a pardoning embrace.

There are many effective bits of expressive writing in the score of "Iris," but most of them are fugitive and aim at coloring a word, a phrase, or at best a temporary situation. There is little flow of natural, fervent melody. What the composer accomplished with tune, characteristic but fluent, eloquent yet sustained, in "Cavalleria Rusticana," he tries to achieve in "Iris" with violent, disjointed s.h.i.+fting of keys and splashes of instrumental color. In this he is seldom successful, for he is not a master of orchestral writing, that technical facility which nearly all the young musicians have in the same degree that all pianists have finger technic. His orchestral stream is muddy; his effects generally cra.s.s and empty of euphony. He throws the din of outlandish instruments of percussion, a battery of gongs, big and little, drums and cymbals, into his score without achieving local color.

Once only does he utilize it so as to catch the ears and stir the fancy of the listeners--in the beginning of the second act, where there is a murmur of real j.a.panese melody. As a rule, however, Signor Mascagni seems to have been careless in the matter of local color, properly so, perhaps, for, strictly speaking, local color in the lyric drama is for comedy with its petty limitations, not for tragedy with its appeal to large and universal pa.s.sions. Yet it was in the lighter scenes, the scenes of comedy, like the marionette show; the scenes of mild pathos, like the monologues of Iris, in which the music helped Signorina Farneti, with her gentle face, mobile, expressive and more than comely, and her graceful, intelligent action, to present a really captivating figure of sweet innocence walking unscathed through searing fires of wickedness and vice, and the scenes of mere accessory decoration, like that of the laundresses, the mousme in the first act, with its purling figure borrowed from "Les Huguenots" and its unnecessarily uncanny col legno effect conveyed from "L'Africaine," that the music seemed most effective. "Zanetto" is nothing more than an operatic sketch in one act. In its original shape, as it came from the pen of Francois Coppee, under the t.i.tle "Le Pa.s.sant," the story is a gracious and graceful idyl.

A woman of the world, sated and weary with a life of amours, meets a young singer, feels the sensations of a pure love pulsing in her veins and sends him out of her presence uncontaminated. Here are poetry and beauty; but not matter for three-quarters of an hour of a rambling musical dialogue, such as the librettists and composer of "Cavalleria Rusticana" have strained and tortured it into. A drawing-room sketch of fifteen minutes' duration might have been tolerable. To add to the dulness of the piece, Mascagni, actuated by a conceit which would have been dainty and effective in the brief sketch hinted at, wrote the instrumental parts for strings, harp, and an extremely sparing use of the wood-wind choir and horn. Harmonies there are of the strenuous kind, but they are desiccated; not one juicy chord is heard from beginning to end, and the vitality of the listening ear is exhausted long before the long-drawn thing has come to an end.

Signor Mascagni entered upon his second week with disaster staring him in the face, and before it was over it was plain to everyone that the enterprise was doomed to monumental failure. The public after the first night became curiously apathetic. This apathy would have been justified had any considerable number of the city's habitual opera-patrons attended any of the performances. The welcome came from the Italians dwelling within the city's boundaries; the performances themselves could arouse no enthusiasm. The singers were on a level with the usual summer itinerants; the orchestra, made up partly of inexperienced men from Italy and non-union players from other cities, was unpardonably wretched. It was foolishly reckless in the composer to think that with such material as he had raked together in his native land and recruited here he could produce four of his operas within a week of his arrival in America. He must have known how incapable, inexperienced, and unripe the foreign contingent of his orchestra was. The energy with which he threw himself into the task of trying to repair his blunders won the sympathy of the members of the critical guild, though it did not wholly atone for his conscious or unconscious misconception of American conditions. It was not pleasant to think that he had so poor an opinion of American knowledge and taste in music that before coming he thought that anything would be good enough for this country. His experience in Italy ought to have made him something of a student of musical affairs in other countries than his own, and he was unquestionably sincere in his hope that the American tour would win for him and his music the sympathetic appreciation which his countrymen had begun to withhold from him.

Granting the sincerity of his desire to present himself fairly as a candidate for the good-will of the American people, it was inconceivable that he should have connived at or suffered such an inadequate preparation for the production of his works. Had he come to New York a month earlier than he did it would not have been a day too early.

After his New York fiasco Signor Mascagni went to Boston, where troubles continued to pile upon him till he was overwhelmed. He fell out with his managers, or they with him, and in a fortnight he was under arrest for breach of contract in failing to produce the four operas agreed upon.

He retorted with a countersuit for damages and attached theatrical properties in Worcester which the Mittenthals said did not belong to them, but to their brother. The scandal grew until it threatened to become a subject of international diplomacy, but in the end compromises were made and the composer departed to his own country in bodily if not spiritual peace. One achievement remained: the Musical Protective Union of New York had asked the federal authorities to deport the Italian instrumentalists under the Alien Labor Contract Law, and the Treasury Department at Was.h.i.+ngton decided in its wisdom that no matter how poor a musician a musician might be, he was not a laboring man, but an artist, and not subject to the law. Exit Mascagni.

On February 14, 1903, the directors of the Metropolitan Opera and Real Estate Company by a vote of seven to six adopted a resolution directing the executive committee "to negotiate with Mr. Heinrich Conried regarding the Metropolitan Opera House, with power to conclude a lease in case satisfactory terms can be arranged." This was the outcome of a long struggle between Mr. Conried and Mr. Walter Damrosch, a few other candidates for the position of director of the inst.i.tution making feeble and hopeless efforts to gain a position which all the world knew had, after many vicissitudes, brought fortune to Mr. Grau. The public seemed opera-mad and the element of uncertainty eliminated from the enterprise.

Mr. Conried had been an actor in Austria, had come as such to New York, and worked himself up to the position of manager of a small German theater in Irving Place. He had also managed comic operetta companies, English and German, in the Casino and elsewhere, and acted as stage manager for other entrepreneurs. For a year or two his theater had enjoyed something of a vogue among native Americans with a knowledge of the German tongue, and Mr. Conried had fostered a belief in his high artistic purposes by presenting German plays at some of the universities. He became known outside the German circle by these means, and won a valuable champions.h.i.+p in a considerable portion of the press.

In the management of grand opera he had no experience, and no more knowledge than the ordinary theatrical man. But there was no doubt about his energy and business skill, though this latter quality was questioned in the end by such an administration as left his stockholders without returns, though the receipts of the inst.i.tution were greater than they had ever been in history. He had no difficulty in organizing a company, which was called the Heinrich Conried Opera Company, on the lines laid down by Mr. Grau, and acquiring the property of the Maurice Grau Opera Company, which, having made large dividends for five years, sold to its successor at an extremely handsome figure. Mr. Conried began his administration with many protestations of artistic virtue and made a beginning which aroused high expectations. To these promises and their fulfillment I shall recur in a resume of the l.u.s.trum during which Mr.

Conried was operatic consul. Also I shall relate the story of the princ.i.p.al incidents of his consuls.h.i.+p, but for much of the historical detail shall refer the reader to the table of performances covering the five years. The new operas produced within the period were but few.

Some of them are scarcely worth noting even in a bald record of events; others have been so extensively discussed within so recent a period that they may be pa.s.sed over without much ado here.

Mr. Conried succeeded to a machine in perfect working order, the good-will of the public, agreements with nearly all the artists who were popular favorites, an obligation with the directors of the opera-house company to remodel the stage, and a contract with Enrico Caruso. Mr.

Grau had also negotiated with Felix Mottl, had "signed" Miss Fremstad, and was holding Miss Farrar, in a sense his protegee, in reserve till she should "ripen" for America. The acquisition of Caruso was perhaps Mr. Conried's greatest a.s.set financially, though it led to a reactionary policy touching the opera itself which, however pleasing to the boxholders, nevertheless cost the inst.i.tution a loss of artistic prestige. I emphasize the fact that Mr. Conried acquired the contract with Signor Caruso from Mr. Grau because from that day to this careless newspaper writers, taking their cues from artful interviews put forth by Mr. Conried, have glorified the astuteness of the new manager in starting his enterprise with a discovery of the greatest tenor of his day. Many were the stories which were told, the most picturesque being that Mr. Conried, burdened with the responsibility of recruiting a company, had shrewdly gone among the humble Italians of New York and by questioning them had learned that the name of the greatest singer alive was Caruso. Confirmed in his decision by his bootblack, he had then gone to Europe and engaged the wonder. Caruso's reputation was made some years before he came to America, and Mr. Grau had negotiated with him at least a year before he got his signature on a contract for New York. Let the story stand as characteristic of many that enlivened the newspapers during the Conried period. A dozen of the singers who were continuously employed throughout the Conried period had already established themselves in public favor when his regime opened. They were Mme.

Sembrich, Mme. Eames (who was absent during his first year), Mme.

Homer, and Messrs. Burgstaller, Dippel, Reiss, Muhlmann, Scotti, Van Rooy, Bla.s.s, Journet, Plancon, and Rossi. To these Mr. Conried a.s.sociated Caruso, Marion Weed, Olive Fremstad, Edyth Walker, Ernst Kraus (the tenor who had been a member of one of Mr. Damrosch's companies), Fran Naval, Giuseppe Campanari, Goritz, and a few people of minor importance. Miss Weed and Miss Fremstad and Messrs. Caruso and Goritz became fixtures in the inst.i.tution; Miss Walker remained three years; Herr Kraus and Herr Naval only one season. The second season witnessed the accession of Bella Alten, Mme. Senger-Bettaque (who dated back to the German regime), Mme. Eames (returned), Signora De Macchi (an Italian singer whose failure was so emphatic that her activity ended almost as soon as it began), Mme. Melba (for one season), Mme. Nordica (for two seasons), Josephine Jacoby (for the rest of the term), and a couple more inconsequential fillers-in. The third year brought Signorina Boninsegna (who I believe had a single appearance), Lina Cavalieri (who endured to the end), Geraldine Farrar (still with the company and bearer of high hopes on the part of opera lovers for the future), Bessie Abott (a winsome singer of extremely light caliber), Marie Mattfeld (an acquaintance of the Damrosch days), Mme. Schumann-Heink (returned for a single season), Marie Rappold, Mme. Kirkby-Lunn, Carl Burrian, Soubeyran and Rousseliere, tenors; Stracciari, barytone, and Chalmin and Navarini, ba.s.ses. The list of German dramatic sopranos was augmented in the last year by Mme. Morena and Mme. Leffler-Burkhardt, the tenors by Bonci (who had been brought to America the year before as opposition to Caruso by Mr. Hammerstein), Riccardo Martin (an American), George Lucas; the ba.s.ses by Theodore Chaliapine, a Russian, and a buffo, Barocchi. Among the engagements of the first season which gave rise to high hopes in serious and informed circles was that of Felix Mottl, as conductor of the German operas and Sunday night concerts (which it was announced were to be given a symphonic character and dignity), Anton Fuchs, of Munich, as stage manager, and Carl Lautenschlager, of the Prinz Regententheater, Munich, as stage mechanician, or technical director. These two men did notable work in "Parsifal," but in everything else found themselves so hampered by the prevailing conditions that after a year they retired to Germany, oppressed with a feeling something akin to humiliation. Likewise Herr Mottl, who made an effort in the line of symphony concerts on the first Sunday night of the season and then withdrew, to leave the field open to the old-fas.h.i.+oned popular operatic concert, which Mr. Conried commanded and the public unquestionably desired. His experiences in putting half-prepared operas on the stage also discouraged Herr Mottl, and he went through the season in a perfunctory manner and departed shaking the Metropolitan dust from his feet, and promptly installed his polished boots in the directors.h.i.+p of the Royal Court Theater at Munich.

The season opened on November 23, 1903, with "Rigoletto"; Mme. Sembrich reappeared as Gilda and Caruso effected his American debut as the Duke.

His success was instantaneous, though there was less enthusiasm expressed by far on that occasion than on his last appearance, five years later. In the interval admiration for a beautiful voice had grown into adoration of a singer--an adoration which even sustained him through a scandal which would have sent a man of equal eminence in any other profession into disgraceful retirement. The season compa.s.sed fifteen weeks, from November 23d to March 5th, within which period there were ninety-seven performances of twenty-seven works, counting in a ballet and a single scene from "Mefistofele," in which Mme. Calve, who joined Mr. Conried's forces after the season was two-thirds over, and yet managed to give four performances of "Carmen," helped to improve a trifle the pitiful showing made by the French contingent in the list.

The French element, which had become a brilliant factor in the Grau period, began to wane, and subsequently the German was eliminated as far as seemed practicable from the subscription seasons. The boxholders were exerting a reactionary influence, and Mr. Conried willingly yielded to them, since he could thus reserve certain sensational features for the extra nights at special prices and put money in his purse. This policy had a speedy and striking ill.u.s.tration in the production of Wagner's "Parsifal," which made Mr. Conried's first year memorable, or, as some thought, notorious. Certainly no theatrical incident before or since so set the world ringing as did the act which had been long in the mind of the new manager, and which was one of the first things which he announced his intention to do after he had secured the lease from the owners of the opera house. The announcement was first made unofficially in newspaper interviews, and confirmed in the official prospectus, which set down Christmas as the date of production. A protest--many protests, indeed--followed. Mme. Wagner's was accompanied with a threat of legal proceedings. The ground of her appeal to Mr. Conried was that to perform the drama which had been specifically reserved for performance in Bayreuth by the composer would be irreverent and illegal. To this Mr.

Conried made answer that inasmuch as "Parsifal" was not protected by law in the United States his performance would not be illegal, and that it was more irreverent to Wagner to prevent the many Americans who could not go to Bayreuth from hearing the work than to make it possible for them to hear it in America. Proceedings for an injunction were begun in the federal courts, but after hearing the arguments of counsel Judge Lacombe decided, on November 24, 1903, that the writ of injunction prayed for should not issue. The decision naturally caused a great commotion, especially in Germany, where the newspapers and the composers, conductors, and others who were strongly affiliated with Bayreuth manifested a disposition to hold the American people as a whole responsible, not only for a desecration of something more than sacrosanct, but of robbery also. The mildest term applied to Mr.

Conried's act, which I am far from defending, was that it was "legalized theft." It was not that, because in civilized lands thievery cannot be made lawful. It was simply an appropriation of property for which the law, owing to the absence of a convention touching copyright and performing rights between Germany and the United States at the time, provided neither hindrance nor punishment. Under circ.u.mstances not at all favorable to success, had success been attainable (there was always something more than a suspicion that the proceedings were fomented by enemies of Mr. Conried in New York), Mme. Wagner tried by legal process to prevent the rape of the work, but the courts were powerless to interfere. Having pa.s.sed triumphantly through this ordeal, Mr. Conried found himself in the midst of another. A number of clergymen, some eminent in their calling and of unquestioned sincerity, others mere seekers after notoriety, attacked the work as sacrilegious. A pet.i.tion was addressed to the Mayor of the city asking that the license of the Metropolitan Opera House be revoked so far as the production of "Parsifal" was concerned. The pet.i.tion was not granted, but all the commotion, which lasted up to the day of the first performance, was, as the Germans say, but water for Conried's mill. He encouraged the controversy with all the art of an astute showman and secured for "Parsifal" such an advertis.e.m.e.nt as never opera or drama had in this world before.

Mr. Conried had concluded at the outset of his enterprise that "Parsifal" was too great a money-maker to be included in the regular subscription list of the season. He followed his general prospectus with a special one, in which he announced five performances of Wagner's festival drama on special dates, under special conditions, and at special prices. The first was set down for December 24; the prices for the stalls on the main floor, the first balcony, and the boxes which were at his disposal were doubled (orchestra stalls, $10), but seats in the upper balcony and the topmost gallery were sold at the regular price. The first performance took place on December 24th, the cast being as follows:

Kundry .................................... Milka Ternina Parsifal .............................. Alois Burgstaller Amfortas ................................. Anton Van Rooy Gurnemanz .................................. Robert Bla.s.s Klingsor ................................... Otto Gorlitz t.i.turel .................................. Marcel Journet First Esquire ................................ Miss Moran Second Esquire ............................ Miss Braendle Third Esquire .............................. Albert Reiss Fourth Esquire ............................... Mr. Harden First Knight .................................. Mr. Bayer Second Knight .............................. Mr. Muhlmann A Voice .................................... Louise Homer

Anton Fuchs and Carl Lautenschlager were in charge of the stage; Mr.

Hertz conducted. The first half of the season had been sacrificed to the production. As such things are done at Bayreuth and in the best theaters of Germany the preparations were inadequate, but the results achieved set many old visitors to the Wagnerian Mecca in amaze. So far as the mere spectacle was concerned Mr. Conried's production was an improvement on that of Bayreuth in most things except the light effects. All of Wagner's dramas show that the poet frequently dreamed of things which were beyond the capacity of the stage in his day--even the splendidly equipped stage of the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth. Later improvements in theatrical mechanics made their realization in more or less degree possible. The greatest advance disclosed by New York over Bayreuth was in the design and manipulation of the magical scenes of the second act. Such scenes as that between Parsifal and the Flower Maidens were doubtless in the imagination of Wagner, but he never saw their realization. Up to the time of which I am writing the Bayreuth pictures were exaggerated and garish. In New York every feature of the scene was beautiful in conception, harmonious in color, graceful in action, seductive as the composer intended it to be--as alluring to the eye as the music was fascinating to the ear. At a later performance Weingartner, conductor and composer, now director of the Royal Imperial Court Opera of Vienna, sat beside me. After the first act he spoke in terms generally complimentary about the performance, but criticized its spirit and execution in parts. When the scene of the magical garden was discovered and the floral maidens came rus.h.i.+ng in he leaned forward in his chair, and when the pretty bustle reached its height he could wait no longer to give voice to his admiration. "Ah!" he exclaimed in a whisper, "there's atmosphere! There's fragrance and grace!" The music of the drama was familiar to New Yorkers from many concert performances.