Memoirs of an American Prima Donna Part 8

There isn't a bit of sn.o.bbishness about Kellogg's opinions [he wrote]. For a woman who has sung everywhere, she retains a very wholesome opinion of her own country. She always seems to me to be trying to win two imperishable chaplets, one of which is for her country. So you see we have got to take our little flags and wave them whether it is the correct thing or not. And, so far as I am concerned, I think it is the correct thing.... She has this tremendous advantage that, when she declares in print that America can produce its own singers, she is quite capable of going afterwards upon the stage and proving it!

CHAPTER VIII

MARGUERITE

Mme. Miolan-Carvalho created Marguerite in Paris, at the Theatre Lyrique. In London Patti and t.i.tjiens had both sung it before we put it on in America,--Adelina at Covent Garden and t.i.tjiens at Her Majesty's Opera House, where I was destined to sing it later. Except for these productions of _Faust_ across the sea, that opera was still an unexplored field. I had absolutely nothing to guide me, nothing to help me, when I began work on it. I, who had been schooled and trained in "traditions" and their observances since I had first begun to study, found myself confronted with conditions that had as yet no traditions. I had to make them for myself.

Maretzek secured the score during the winter of '62-'63 and then spoke to me about the music. I worked at the part off and on for nine months, even while I was singing other parts and taking my summer vacation. But when the season opened in the autumn of 1863, the performance was postponed because a certain reaction had set in on the part of the public. People were beginning to want some sort of distraction and relaxation from the horrors and anxieties of war, and now began to come again to hear the old favourites. So Maretzek wanted to wait and put off his new sensation until he really needed it as a drawing card.

Then came the news that Anschutz, the German manager, was about to bring a German company to the Terrace Garden in New York with a fine _repertoire_ of grand opera, including _Faust_. Of course this settled the question. Maretzek hurried the new opera into final rehearsal and it was produced at The Academy of Music on November 25, 1863, when I was very little more than twenty years old.

Before I myself say anything about _Faust_, in which I was soon to appear, I want to quote the views of a leading newspaper of New York after I had appeared.

A brilliant audience a.s.sembled last night. The opera was _Faust_.

Such an audience ought, in figurative language, "to raise the roof off" with applause. But with the clumsily written, uninspired melodies that the solo singers have to declaim there was the least possible applause. And this is not the fault of the vocalists, for they tried their best. We except to this charge of dullness the dramatic love scene where the tolerably broad business concludes the act. With these facts plain to everyone present we cannot comprehend the announcement of the success of _Faust_!

Who was it said "the world goes round with revolutions"? It is a great truth, whoever said it. Every new step in art, in progress along any line, has cost something and has been fought for. Nothing fresh or good has ever come into existence without a convulsion of the old, dried-up forms. Beethoven was a revolutionist when he threw aside established musical forms with the _Ninth Symphony_; Wagner was a revolutionist when he contrived impossible intervals of the eleventh and the thirteenth, and called them for the first time dissonant harmonies; so, also, was Gounod when he departed from all accepted operatic forms and inst.i.tutions in _Faust_.

You who have heard _Cari fior_ upon the hand-organs in the street, and have whistled the _Soldiers' Chorus_ while you were in school; who have even grown to regard the opera of _Faust_ as old-fas.h.i.+oned and of light weight, must re-focus your gla.s.s a bit and look at Gounod's masterpiece from the point of view of nearly fifty years ago! It was just as startling, just as strange, just as antagonistic to our established musical habit as Strauss and Debussy and Dukas are to some persons to-day. What is new must always be strange, and what is strange must, except to a few adventurous souls, prove to be disturbing and, hence, disagreeable. People say "it is different, therefore it must be wrong."

Even as battle, murder, and sudden death are upsetting to our lives, so Gounod's bold harmonies, sweeping airs, and curious orchestration were upsetting to the public ears.

Not the public alone, either. Though from the first I was attracted and fascinated by the "new music," it puzzled me vastly. Also, I found it very difficult to sing. I, who had been accustomed to Linda and Gilda and Martha, felt utterly at sea when I tried to sing what at that time seemed to me the remarkable intervals of this strange, new, operatic heroine, Marguerite. In the simple Italian school one knew approximately what was ahead. A _recitative_ was a fairly elementary affair. An _aria_ had no unexpected cadences, led to no striking nor unusual effects. But in _Faust_ the musical intelligence had an entirely new task and was exercised quite differently from in anything that had gone before. This sequence of notes was a new and unlearned language to me, which I had to master before I could find freedom or ease. But when once mastered, how the music enchanted me; how it satisfied a thirst that had never been satisfied by Donizetti or Bellini! Musically, I loved the part of Marguerite--and I still love it. Dramatically, I confess to some impatience over the imbecility of the girl. From the first I summarily apostrophised her to myself as "a little fool!"

Stupidity is really the keynote of Marguerite's character. She was not quite a peasant--she and her brother owned their house, showing that they belonged to the stolid, sound, sheltered burgher cla.s.s. On the other hand, she explicitly states to Faust that she is "not a lady and needs no escort." In short, she was the ideal victim and was selected as such by Mephistopheles who, whatever else he may have been, was a judge of character. Marguerite was an easy dupe. She was entirely without resisting power. She was dull, and sweet, and open to flattery. She liked pretty things, with no more discrimination or taste than other girls. She was a well-brought-up but uneducated young person of an ignorant age and of a stupid cla.s.s, and innocent to the verge of idiocy.

I used to try and suggest the peasant blood in Marguerite by little shynesses and awkwardnesses. After the first meeting with Faust I would slyly stop and glance back at him with girlish curiosity to see what he looked like. People found this "business" very pretty and convincing, but I understand that I did not give the typically Teutonic bourgeois impression as well as Federici, a German soprano who was heard in America after me. She was of the cla.s.s of Gretchen, and doubtless found it easier to act like a peasant unused to having fine gentlemen speak to her, than I did.

There was very little general enthusiasm before the production of _Faust_. There were so few American musicians then that no one knew nor cared about the music. Neither was the poem so well read as it was later. The public went to the opera houses to hear popular singers and familiar airs. They had not the slightest interest in a new opera from an artistic standpoint.

I had never been allowed to read Goethe's poem until I began to study Marguerite. But even my careful mother was obliged to admit that I would have to familiarise myself with the character before I interpreted it.

It is doubtful, even then, if I entered fully into the emotional and psychological grasp of the _role_. All that part of it was with me entirely mental. I could seize the complete mental possibilities of a character and work them out intelligently long before I had any emotional comprehension of them. As a case in point, when I sang Gilda I gave a perfectly logical presentation of the character, but I am very sure that I had not the least notion of what the latter part of _Rigoletto_ meant. Fear, grief, love, courage,--these were emotions that I could accept and with which I could work; but I was still too immature to have much conception of the great s.e.x complications that underlay the opera that I sang so peacefully. And I dare say that one reason why I played Marguerite so well was because I was so ridiculously innocent myself.

Most of the Marguerites whom I have seen make her too sophisticated, too complicated. The moment they get off the beaten path, they go to extremes like Calve and Farrar. It is very pleasant to be original and daring in a part, but anything original or daring in connection with Marguerite is a little like mixing red pepper with vanilla _blanc mange_. Nilsson, even, was too--shall I say, _knowing_? It seems the only word that fits my meaning. Nilsson was much the most attractive of all the Marguerites I have ever seen, yet she was altogether too sophisticated for the character and for the period, although to-day I suppose she would be considered quite mild. Lucca was an absolute little devil in the part. She was, also, one of the Marguerites who wore black hair. As for Patti--I have a picture of Adelina as Marguerite in which she looks like Satan's own daughter, a young and feminine Mephistopheles to the life. Once I heard _Faust_ in the Segundo Teatro of Naples with Alice Neilson, and thought she gave a charming performance. She was greatly helped by not having to wear a wig. A wig, however becoming, and no matter how well put on, does certainly do something strange to the expression of a woman's face. This was what I had to have--a wig--and it was one of the most dreadful difficulties in my preparations for the great new part.

[Ill.u.s.tration: =Clara Louise Kellogg as Marguerite, 1865=

From a photograph by Sarony]

A wig may sound like a simple requirement. But I wonder if anybody has any idea how difficult it was to get a good wig in those days. n.o.body in America knew how to make one. There was no blond hair over here and none could be procured, none being for sale. The poor affair worn by Mme.

Carvalho as Marguerite, ill.u.s.trates what was then considered a sufficient wig equipment. It is hardly necessary to add that to my truth-loving soul no effort was too great to obtain an effect that should be an improvement on this sort of thing. My own hair was so dark as to look almost black behind the footlights, and in my mind there was no doubt that Marguerite must be a blond. To-day _prime donne_ besides Lucca justify the use of their own dark locks--notably Mme. Eames and Miss Farrar--but I cannot help suspecting that this comes chiefly from a wish to be original, to be _different_ at all costs. There is no real question but that the young German peasant was fair to the flaxen point.

Yet, though I knew how she should be, I found it was simpler as a theory than as a fact. I tried powders--light brown powder, yellow powder, finally, gold powder. The latter was little, I imagine, but bra.s.s filings, and it gave the best effect of all my early experiments, looking, so long as it stayed on my hair, very burnished and sunny.

But--it turned my scalp green! This was probably the verdigris from the bra.s.s filings in the stuff. I was frightened enough to dispense entirely with the whole gold and green effect; after which I experimented with all the available wigs, in spite of a popular prejudice against them as immovable. They were in general composed of hemp rope with about as much look about them of real hair as--Mme. Carvalho's! I had, finally, to wait until I could get a wig made in Europe and have it imported. When it came at last, it was a beauty--although my hair troubles were not entirely over even then. I had so much hair of my own that all the braiding and pinning in the world would not eliminate it entirely, and it had a tendency to stick out in lumps over my head even under the wig, giving me some remarkable b.u.mps of phrenological development. I will say that we put it on pretty well in spite of all difficulties, my mother at last achieving a way of brus.h.i.+ng the hair of the wig into my own hair and combining the two in such a way as to let the real hair act as a padding and lining to the artificial braids. The result was very good, but it was, I am inclined to believe, more trouble than it was worth.

Wigs were so rare and, as a rule, so ugly in those days that my big, blond perruque, that cost nearly $200 (the hair was sold by weight), caused the greatest sensation. People not infrequently came behind the scenes and begged to be allowed to examine it. Artists were not nearly so sacred nor so safe from the public then. Now, it would be impossible for a stranger to penetrate to a _prima donna's_ dressing-room or hotel apartment; but we were constantly a.s.sailed by the admiring, the critical and, above all, the curious.

Of course I did not know what to wear. My old friend Ella Porter was in Paris at the time and went to see Carvalho in Marguerite, especially on my account, and sent me rough drawings of her costumes. I did not like them very well. I next studied von Kaulbach's pictures and those of other German ill.u.s.trators, and finally decided on the dress. First, I chose for the opening act a simple blue and brown frock, such as an upper-cla.s.s peasant might wear. Everyone said it ought to be white, which struck me as singularly out of place. German girls don't wear frocks that have to be constantly washed. Not even now do they, and I am certain they had even less laundry work in the period of the story. It was said that a white gown in the first act would symbolise innocence.

In the face of all comment and suggestion, however, I wore the blue dress trimmed with brown and it looked very well. Another one of my points was that I did not try to make Marguerite angelically beautiful.

There is no reason to suppose that she was even particularly pretty.

"Henceforth," says Mephisto to the rejuvenated Faustus, "you will greet a Helen in every wench you meet!"

In the church scene I wore grey and, at first, a different shade of grey in the last act; but I changed this eventually to white because white looked better when the angels were carrying me up to heaven.

As for the cut of the dresses, I seem to have been the first person to wear a bodice that fitted below the waist line like a corset. No living mortal in America had ever seen such a thing and it became almost as much of a curiosity as my wonderful golden wig. The theatre costumier was horrified. She had never cared for my innovations in the way of costuming, and her tradition-loving Latin soul was shocked to the core by the new and dreadful make-up I proposed to wear as Marguerite.

"I make for Grisi," she declared indignantly, "and I _nevair_ see like dat!"

Well, I worked and struggled and slaved over every detail. No one else did. There was no great effort made to have good scenic effects. The lighting was absurd, and I had to fight for my pot of daisies in the garden scene. The jewel box I provided myself, and the jewels. I felt--O, how deeply I felt--that everything in my life, every note I had sung, every day I had worked, had been merely preparation for this great and lovely opera.

Colonel Stebbins, who was anxious, said to Maretzek:

"Don't you think she had better have a German coach in the part?"

Maretzek, who had been watching me closely all along, shook his head.

"Let her alone," he said. "Let her do it her own way."

So the great night came around.

There was no public excitement before the production. People knew nothing about the new opera. On the first night of _Faust_ there was a good house because, frankly, the public liked me! Nevertheless, in spite of "me," the house was a little inanimate. The audience felt doubtful.

It was one thing to warm up an old and popular piece; but something untried was very different! The public had none of the present-day chivalry toward the first "try-out" of an opera.

Mazzoleni of the cheese addiction was Faust, and on that first night he had eaten even more than usual. In fact, he was still eating cheese when the curtain went up and munched cheese at intervals all through the laboratory scene. He was a big Italian with a voice as big as himself and was, in a measure, one of Max Maretzek's "finds." "The Magnificent"

had taken an opera company to Havana when first the war slump came in operatic affairs, and had made with it a huge success and a wide reputation. Mazzoleni was one of the leading tenors of that company. He sang Faust admirably, but dressed it in an atrocious fas.h.i.+on, looking like a cross between a Jewish rabbi and a Prussian _gene d'arme_. Of course, he gave no idea of the true age of Faust--the experienced, mature point of view showing through the outward bloom of his artificial youth. Very few Fausts do give this; and Mazzoleni suggested it rather less than most of them. But the public was not enlightened enough to realise the lack.

Biachi was Mephistopheles. He was very good and sang the _Calf of Gold_ splendidly. Yet that solo, oddly enough, never "caught on" with our houses. Biachi was one of the few artists of my day who gave real thought and attention to the question of costuming. He took his general scheme of dress from _Robert le Diable_ and improved on it, and looked very well indeed. The woman he afterwards married was our contralto, a Miss Sulzer, an American, who made an excellent Siebel and considered her work seriously.

At first everyone was stunned by the new treatment. In ordinary, accepted operatic form there were certain things to be expected;--_recitatives_, _andantes_, _arias_, choruses--all neatly laid out according to rule. In this everything was new, startling, overthrowing all traditions. About the middle of the evening some of my friends came behind the scenes to my dressing-room with blank faces.

"Heavens, Louise," they exclaimed, "what do you do in this opera anyway?

Everyone in the front of the house is asking 'where's the _prima donna_?'"

Indeed, an opera in which the heroine has nothing to do until the third act might well have startled a public accustomed to the old Italian forms. However, I a.s.sured everyone:

"Don't worry. You'll get more than enough of me before the end of the evening!"

The house was not much stirred until the love scene. That was breathless. We felt more and more that we were beginning to "get them."

There were no modern effects of lighting; but a calcium was thrown on me as I stood by the window, and I sang my very, very best. As Mazzoleni came up to the window and the curtain went down there was a dead silence.

Not a hand for ten seconds. Ten seconds is a long time when one is waiting on the stage. Time and the clock itself seemed to stop as we stood there motionless and breathless. Maretzek had time to get through the little orchestra door and up on the stage before the applause came.

We were standing as though paralysed, waiting. We saw Maretzek's pale, anxious face. The silence held a second longer; then--

The house came down. The thunders echoed and beat about our wondering ears.

"Success!" gasped Maretzek, "success--success--_success_!"