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OPERA CARAVAN
OPERA CARAVAN
Adventures of the Metropolitan on Tour
1883-1956
BY QUAINTANCE EATON
WITH A FOREWORD BY RUDOLF BING
Layout of Illustrations and Jacket Design
by Jean Morris
SPONSORED BY THE METROPOLITAN OPERA GUILD
FARRAR, STRAUS AND CUDAHY NEW YORK
1957
1957 ky The Metropolitan Opera Guild, Inc.
Library of Congress catalog card number; 57-7116
First Printing, 1957
Published simultaneously in Canada by
Ambassador Books, Ltd., Toronto
Manufactured in the United States of America
American Book-Stratford Press, Inc., New York
CONTENTS
ILLUSTRATIONS FOLLOWING PAGES 80, 144
Foreword by Rudolf Bing xi
Dedication vii
DRESS REHEARSAL xiii
PART I. ABBEY'S ADVENTURES
1. Overture 1
2. "Ritorna Vincitor!" 3
3. "Guerra! Guerra!" 8
4. "La Calunnia" 13
5. Deluge and Denouement 15
PART II. WESTWARD Ho-Yo-To-Ho!
1. Damrosch Dares 21
2. Stepchild 27
3. Ring around the Circuit 33
PART!!!, INTERLUDE WITH SWEET ADELINA 39
PART IV. FABULOUS 'NINETTES THE GREAT GAMBLE
1. First Poker Hand: Full House 47
2. Second Poker Hand: Straight, Ace High 56
3. The Queen of Hearts Takes All Tricks 64
4. Chicago Takes a Chance 69
PART V, GRAU'S BARNSTORMERS
1. Outpost on the Missouri River 79
2. Through the Golden Gate .,.,..... 84
S.Marathon ';.'' 1 '.'...',...... 92
vi CONTENTS
PART VI. CONRIED: MAN OF THE THEATRE
1. Steel Loses to the Iron Will 101
2. The Guileless Fool Who Made a Fortune 107
3. Loge Brings Down the House 113
4. The Stars Remain 124
PART VII. GATTI'S QUARTER-CENTURY
1. The Merry War: A Tale of Seven Cities 131
2. Old Faithful Flirts with a Rival 137
3. Southern Comfort 143
4. "Itattani in Parigi" 152
5. New Dimensions and Old Friends 156
PART VIII. EDWARD JOHNSON: AMBASSADOR-AT-LARGE
1. From Pampas to Campus 165
2. Once Again, Coast-to-Coast 171
PART IX. RUDOLF BING : OLD BORDERS, NEW FRIENDS 179
METROPOLITAN OPERA TOUR CASTS 1883-18841955-1956 187
Tour Chronology by Cities * 38 ( )
Index .... 391
OPERA CARAVAN
This boo\ is dedicated
to the wonderful people in fifty-six cities
who made it -possible
To begin at home, my profound gratitude to The Metropolitan Opera
Guild, which boldly commissioned the project. To Richard P. Leach, di-
rector of the Guild, and to Mary Ellis Peltz, editor of Opera News, who un-
failingly offered encouragement, the one with wise counsel, the other with
vast knowledge and keen editorial eye. To Mrs. August Belmont, whose
enthusiasm was a constant inspiration.
The Metropolitan administration freely cooperated in allowing the author
to join "Opera Caravan, 1955" ^ or a glimpse of the enchantment of the road.
In addition to those people named in the text (omitted from these credits
for lack of space), rny thanks to Anne Gordon and Louis Snyder, of the
press department; Irene Barry and Winifred Short, patient guardians of the
trunk lines; and Reginald S. Tonry, House manager, who made tour pro-
grams available.
"Operation Magic Carpet," a six-month flying tour of thirty-five cities,
was materially aided by John Mezzatesta of Columbia Artists Management,
while Manila O'Neal acted as friendly pilot driving through New York
and into Canada,
Without a hundred others, Opera Caravan could not have taken to the
road. Charles Menees of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Michael Canepa of
San Francisco, and Manuel Aguilar, Jr., of Mexico, D.F., collected vital
material Unpublished notes or manuscripts came from William Glasgow
Bruce Carson of St. Louis, Mrs. Louis Shouse of Kansas City, Edward Alex-
ander Parsons of New Orleans, Helen Tvrdy of Omaha, and Maria de
Scgurola of Beverly Hills, Theses on local opera and theatre history were
made available by Eldin Burton (Atlanta), Robert P. Nesbitt (Syracuse),,
and Donald Z. Woods (Minneapolis) .
Old programs were shared by dozens of collectors, from Mrs. Bert H.
Printz of Youngstown, Ohio, to Mrs. Peter B. Nelson of Kamloops, British
Columbia. Among helpful members of the National Council of the Metro-
politan Opera Association were Mrs. John Wells Heard of San Antonio, Mrs.
Allen G. Oliphant of Tulsa, Elsie L Sweeney of Columbus, Ind., Mrs. Fred-
erick R. Weyerhaeuser of St. Paul, and Robert H. Tannahill of Detroit. In
New York, Mrs, Norris Darrell and Marguerite Wiekersham were unfail-
ingly helpful
"In the order of their appearance/* scores of other individuals provided in-
formation or hospitality! Virginia Polak, Mildred C. Busby, Blanche C.
Haas, Mrs. W. Wailes Thomas, Mr. and Mrs. Richard Glass, Mrs. Phinizy
Vll
viii DEDICATION
Calhoun, Mrs. William A. Parker, Mrs. Henry P. Johnston, Mrs. L. K.
Thompson, Mr. and Mrs. Floyd S. Chalmers, Mr. and Mrs. Richard John-
ston, J. Herman Thuman, Mrs. Mary Leighton, Mrs. Jesse Hawkins,
Richard Wangerin, Ernst C. Krohn, Louise Mercer, Muriel Francis, Lionel
Adams, Mrs. Edward B. Ludwig, Albert Voss, Mrs. James A. Lewis, Mrs.
Bartram Kelley, Mrs. Ben Foster, Rosalie Talbott, Howard Skinner, Mrs.
Carl Livingston, James Schwabacher, Wanda Krasofif, Dorothy Hutten-
back, Alice Taylor, Mrs. Edmund Gale, Mrs. Robert Machamer, Naomi
Reynolds, Mrs. Frank A. Johnson, Helen Black, Blanche Lederman, Mr.
and Mrs. Ronald A. Dougan, Mr. and Mrs. A. Beverly Barksdale, Mr. and
Mrs. Gordon Saunders, William Martin, William Benswanger, John S.
Edwards, Harold Mason, Hugh Miller, Mr, and Mrs. Henry S. Drinker,
Irene Kahn, Sam Berkman, Elizabeth Howry, Marie Bourbeau and Murray
R. Chlpman.
For "services beyond the call of duty" in libraries from coast to coast I
cite Philip Miller and his staff (music) and Archibald De Wees (reference)
of New York; John W. Bonner of the University of Georgia; Mrs, Jacob
Plaut (Cincinnati), James Cleghorn (San Francisco), Barbara Penyak
(Cleveland), Irene Millen (Pittsburgh), Bernice Larrabee (Philadelphia),
and Daniel J. Koury (Boston), as well as Harold Spivacke and Paul L
Berry of the Library of Congress, and Charles van Ravenswaay of Missouri's
Historical Society. Also Mrs. Philip Miller, Sirvart Poladian, Mrs. Fanny
Spearman, Josephine Cleveland, Mary Davant, Wendell Arnote, Mason Tol-
man, Dorothy Brown, Mae Walton, Ruth Wanatabe, Berna Bergholtz,
Ellen Kenny, Charlotte Shockley, Alice P. Hook, Mabel Sprong, Carey
Bliss, Ina Aulis, Louise Wells, Leah Riedesel, Mrs. Gladys Wilson, Robert E.
Hoag, Wallace Harmer, Bess Finn, Elizabeth Ohr, Kurt Myers, Geraldinc
Rowley, James Dixon, Fred Lane, Alberta Kneeland, Zolt&n Haraszti, Stan-
ley Weinberg, Ethelyn Aldrich, Doris E. Cook and Charles W. Crosby*
Newspaper offices were uniformly cordial; radio and television stations
helped to publicize the project; music critics, past and present, showed lively
interest. Many contemporary writers appear in the narrative; others especially
helpful include Edgar S. Van Olinda of the Albany Times-Union, Charlotte
Phelan of the Houston Post, Marjory M. Fisher of the San Francisco News,
Cyrus Durgin of the Boston Globe, and Warren Story Smith, formerly of
the Boston Post.
The roll of scribes also includes Sam Kahn, Bea S. Parker, Louise N.
Ahrens, Harry Martin, Sydney Dalton, Harold Henderson, Keith Marvin,
Emma Van Wormer, William Fleming, Kenneth Gill, Thcodolinda Boris,
Harvey Southgate, Marshall F. Bryant, Arthur Darack, Eleanor Bell, Fred-
erick Yeiser, William Mootz, Dwight Anderson, Thomas B, Sherman,
Francis A. Klein, Ed Brooks, Gerald Ashford, Ann Holmes, Jack Frederick
Kilpatrick, Maurice da Venna, Alexander Fried, Alfred Frankenstein, Coa-
rad B. Harrison, Alex Murphree, Emmy Brady Rogers, Clyde Neibarger,
Genevieve Robertson, Helen Mary Hayes, Martin W. Bush, Roger Dettmer,
Walter Monfried, Edward P. Halline, Julian Seaman, J. Fred Lisrfclt, Ralph
DEDICATION ix
Lewando, Donald Steinfirst, Paul Hume, H. Earle Johnson and Carl E.
Lindstrom.
During the collation o the statistical material and the writing of the text,
the valuable assistance of Donald H. White proved essential. I am also in-
debted to Fred V. Grunfeld and Mary Jane Matz for necessary pruning, and
to Gerald Fitzgerald for preparing the index. All photographs are from the
files of the Publications Department of The Metropolitan Opera Guild unless
otherwise specified.
Last, and lovingly, I dedicate Opera Caravan to Julie and Alec Templeton,
who provided in their Connecticut home an ideal refuge for the writer.
QUAINTANCE EATON
New Yor\
November, 1956
FOREWORD
One fine Saturday evening in April, the famous gold curtain comes down
at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York for a last time: another
season has become history. But no sooner has silence fallen on the old
Broadway theatre than our orchestra tunes up, come Monday, in some other
city: another Metropolitan tour is under way.
I am often asked how I feel about going on tour after the strenuous
months of the New York season. By April we have grown so tired that we
can hardly keep our eyes open after eleven. But once the tour starts, with all
those delectable midnight suppers, we manage to feel chipper and gay until
morning.
This is by way of saying that the tour is one of the most cherished events
in our operatic lives. It is wonderful to feel the excitement and sense the
affection generated by the Metropolitan in all those far-flung cities.
The fabulous cavalcade, history relates, started in the very first season. We
constantly encounter citizens with keen memories who leave us in no doubt
as to how long they have supported the Metropolitan. They tell us how
Caruso did this and Pinza that; how the most thrilling pages of operatic
history were written, if we but knew it, in their particular bailiwick.
In order to reveal the full story, much of it for the first time, The Metro-
politan Opera Guild had the excellent idea of asking an experienced and
enthusiastic journalist, Quaintance Eaton, to do the job. A splendid thought!
I have made up my mind to read the book from beginning to end, but I also
plan to consult the record of each city before visiting it again. Fair warning:
next time I may know even more fantastic stories than the local citizenry!
So may you!
RUDOLF BING
XI
DRESS REHEARSAL
On the Fortieth Street side of the huge stage, which echoed to shouts of
"Gangway!" "Watch it!" "Coming out!" and the hurrying footfalls of heav-
ily laden men, falling scenery flats slapped the dust into whirlwinds. Battens
and groundcloths and platforms were being taken down the ramps to the
street to be loaded on the trucks under the supervision of Johnnie Flood, at
his post for twenty years.
Louis Edson, young master mechanic, moved about, presiding over the
dismantling of Fledermaus, the last show to be packed for travel His father,
Ralph, wearing the largest and gaudiest in his collection of caps to celebrate
his eleventh tour as "p r P" master, helped a crew store the properties in
variegated boxes, hampers, chests and crates.
Jennie Cervini, wardrobe mistress, tucked away the last flounce of Adele's
saucy ball dress as Rose Calamari bent her shoulder under a dozen hangers
holding costumes to be packed. Rosina Cassamassa scurried away for a fresh
load and May Cervini, Jennie's sister-in-law, pasted Fledermaus labels on the
tall chests marked "SL (Solo Lady) ."
On the other side of the House, Jennie's brother Angelo locked a trunk
stenciled with the notice, "Wanted Every Day Place on Stage," while Wil-
liam H. Zauder darted into the men's dressing rooms, collecting wigs.
Rudolph Kuntner finished stowing away a jungle of electrical parapher-
nalia in 150 assorted rust-colored boxes. Herman Krawitz, administrator of
stage departments, checked his master records.
At last the loaded truck drove off to the railroad yards with Harold Hyde
at the same wheel his father swung before him.
In his office on the Thirty-ninth Street side, Frank Paola mulled over a
hundred details. Although his work of routing the tour and assigning Pull-
man space and tickets to every member of the company had long been ac-
complished, the musical secretary and company manager concentrated like
a general before battle.
Content that these experts had the job well in hand, Rudolf Bing and his
administrative assistants went home for a few hours' sleep. Mr. Bing, Max
Rudolf and Francis Robinson, who had planned all the booking and reper-
tory, would be on the special train when it pulled out of Grand Central
Station Monday morning. So would Henry A. Fischer, assistant comptroller,
Harry G. Schumer, librarian, and Florence Guarino, secretary extraordinaire
to the administrators. Only Assistant Managers John Gutman and Reginald
Allen would remain behind with the regular staff to keep them company
for the next seven weeks.
The Metropolitan Opera, on the eve of its sixty-eighth national tour, re-
mained true to its slogan, "Take everything along but the Opera House."
Francis Robinson, who adds public relations to administrative duties, has
xiii
xiv DRESS REHEARSAL
described the yearly migration as "the biggest thing that moves except the
circus."
It was never simple to get the show on the road. But current logistics of
moving a troupe of 325, with scenery for sixteen operas, 400 trunks and 150
musical instruments, in two special passenger trains with nineteen sleepers,
plus the baggage train of twenty-nine cars, through the network of American
and Canadian railroads to reach sixteen cities in twelve states, would have
confounded the masterminds of earlier days.
The resourcefulness of the expert showman has always been a must on
tour* Trains can always be late. Bugs can always lodge in delicate throats
and upset an entire opera schedule. Difficulties magnify thousandfold away
from home base.
America's most famous and most durable opera company has been a
"traipsin' woman'* throughout sixty-seven of its first seventy-two years. Of
the seven so-called "German" seasons, 1884-85 through 1890-91, Manager
Edmund C. Stanton and Conductors Anton Seidl and Walter Damrosch evi-
dently kept their flock close to home in three 1886-87, 1887-88 and 1890-91.
No resident company played in the season 1892-93 after the fire in the House,
and none called the Metropolitan its home in 1897-98, In those five seasons
the "provinces" had to be content with tourists under other banners, or with
none*
How can one define what constituted a touring "Metropolitan Opera Com-
pany"? In earlier days, the traveling unit may have been called Henry E.
Abbey's Italian Grand Opera, Maurice Grau's Italian Grand Opera, or merely
Italian Grand Opera "under the direction of" one of these impresarios who
leased the theatre. But the words "from the Metropolitan Opera House" were
invariably appended.
In the German years, the wording was also varied : German Grand Opera,
Grand German Opera or Damrosch's Grand Opera, again with the designa-
tion "from the Metropolitan Opera House.'*
The word "Metropolitan" first appears in an official title in Heinrich
Conried's regime, still with the impresario's name prefixed. Only with Giulio
Gatti-Casazza's advent in 1908 did the magic brevet, "Metropolitan Opera
Company," emerge for the performing groups at home and abroad.
From the beginning, nevertheless, all safaris from the House were in fact
if not in title Metropolitan Opera companies, and only once did a troupe
go out without home sanction. Edmund C. Stanton, in his first year as
manager, disapproved a proposed tour, but the "insurgents" were essentially
Metropolitan and therefore belong in the record.
No documentation of tours in the German era can be found in New York.
Official tour programs are missing altogether until 1898-99, and are incom-
plete until 1917.
Abbey's exploits may be spied in a crumbling ledger known in the comp-
troller's office as "The Bible." On long, narrow pages the fortunes of Mary
Anderson, Lily Langtry, Lillian Russell and other Abbey protdgfo are
totted up in flowing script filling the years when the manager was exiled
DRESS REHEARSAL x
from the Metropolitan. The opera account resumes when he returned in 1891
and continues with Maurice Grau's record and on to the present.
No similar accounting has come to light for Stanton's incumbency in the
House. If Damrosch stored away any memorabilia o the four tours that
have been certified in those seven years, the malevolent god Loge had the
last word. A warehouse fire destroyed all these records.
After Abbey's fiasco in 1883-84, the American impresario kept Italian opera
alive with a company headed by Adelina Patti. Its activities do not properly
come under the aegis of the Metropolitan, although Abbey twice rented the
House from Stanton for a short spring season. But because he was so soon
to take up the managerial reins again, the most spectacular of his tours- that
of 1889-90, when Patti, Tamagno and Nordica dedicated the Chicago Audi-
torium and journeyed to Mexicois embraced in Metropolitan records as
a courtesy.
Mexican data for this pilgrimage are difficult to verify because the most im-
portant newspaper of the day, Monitor Republicano, published only brief,
incomplete accounts of the performances. In Paris, too, where the company
paid its only visit outside our borders in 1910, reporting was more impres-
sionistic than inclusive.
Two neighbors that are not generally considered as "touring cities" are
included if for no other reason than their absence from all other accountings.
Brooklyn, although a borough of Greater New York, is not a part of the
Metropolitan's local annals. Furthermore the Metropolitan began its visits
there when Brooklyn was still an independent city. Philadelphia in the early
days constituted a part of the spring tour, before the practice of performances
during the season was adopted.
City by city the scroll unwinds. Metropolitan tour history is sometimes hid-
den in huge, dusty, unwieldy bound volumes of newspapers that shred at
the touch, leaving a pitiful fall of saffron confetti around the chair of the
careful researcher. Sometimes neat small rolls of microfilm in the nation's
libraries yield operatic secrets that are all but forgotten.
The cities that have played host to our illustrious and resilient lyric com-
pany fifty-one in the United States, two in Canada and one in Europe
(Paris) are inextricably bound into its history, even though their names
have not all survived in today's route book.
Travel patterns shift and change. Halls once suitable for the dazzling
panoply of grand opera fall into decrepitude; new halls are built in other
towns. Zealous individuals die; others beckon from other longitudes. New
companies spring up in the tour's path and absorb local attention; the Metro-
politan goes where it is needed more urgently.
And always, packed in the wardrobe trunks, in the scenery cars, in the
Pullmans with their cargo of specially blessed human beings, goes that in-
definable ingredient, glamor immemorial handmaiden and inseparable
traveling companion of grand opera.
Part I
ABBEY'S ADVENTURERS
1. OVERTURE
"The house was crowded as one rarely sees it. ... The performance was
noteworthy in several ways, first and foremost for a real orchestra, upwards of
seventy. . . .
"Vianesi conducted with skill and authority. But we cannot congratulate
him on finding a bass tuba part in the score of Faust, the most serious blemish
in the orchestra. . . . The too, too ambitious person who played, or rather
snorted, on the instrument was getting his or Abbey's full money's worth.
Let him go play on the Common. . . ."
Thus the Boston Evening Transcript's William Foster Apthorp welcomed
the "Company from the Metropolitan Opera House" in its first appearance
away from home.
The scene was the Boston Theatre; the date: December 26, 1883. The
opera was Faust, which had opened the new house in New York on October
22 and would enjoy a similar privilege several times on the tour.
The impresario was Henry Eugene Abbey, whose motto, "When in doubt,
take to the road," christened the long trail.
This man, "a traveler equaled by no theatrical manager living," as the
New Yor^ Times characterized him, dreamed that El Dorado lay just around
the corner in the theatres and "Op'ry Houses" of the country.
Tht necessity of applying his formula to opera on a grand scale arose at
the end of his first season as lessee of the Metropolitan Opera House. In two
brilliant months at the new theatre, Abbey had staged opera in a more
elaborate style than New York had ever witnessed, but the $1,000 allowed
by the stockholders for each performance had melted away in the consum-
ing demands of stage designers, costumers and high-salaried singers. The
distraught manager was forced to dig cruelly into the layer of profit secreted
by his previous forays with Bernhardt, Booth and Irving.
As 1883 drew to a close, contracts with his costly artists still remained un-
fulfilled. Abbey must give opera somewhere, and the New York vein was
running out. The conclusion was obvious. Packing up his galaxy, he steamed
off in the "railroad cars" to recoup his losses on the circuit that had seldom
failed him,
1
^ OPERA CARAVAN
When the directors of the new temple of lyric art at Thirty-ninth Street
and Broadway beckoned Henry Abbey to the most challenging job in the
American entertainment world, he was thirty-seven. Associated with him
were great names in the theatre and the two reigning prima donnas, Adelina
Patti and Christine Nilsson, although he had temporarily lost Patti to his
archrival, Colonel James H. Mapleson.
Abbey ^had stepped in to rescue Patti midway in her 1881-82 tour, her first
in America since girlhood. He immediately halved the $10 ticket price that
had been urged by her Italian agent, Franchi. Nobody wanted to pay $10 to
hear anybody sing, according to H. E. Krehbiel, New Yor{ Tribune critic.
Abbey also persuaded the diva to include operatic excerpts on her concert
programs, and arranged a short opera season in New York. Hastily pre-
pared, these performances fell short of success, so that Patti was receptive to
Mupleson's advances that autumn. The colonel's prize was dearly won, for
Abbey forced the bidding to the. unprecedented figure of $5,000 for each
performance by the u divine Adelina."
Was it the link with Patti and Nilsson that prompted James A, Roosevelt
and the directors of the Metropolitan Opera House Company to choose a
man of theatrical stamp to head their operatic enterprise? Abbey's only other
musical qualification was a boyhood struggle with a cornet in a school band,
his only contact with opera, the management of a summer troupe in his
home town, Akron, Ohio.
Experienced opera gencralissimi came as scarce then as now, and candidates
were quickly exhausted. Mapleson was bound by the New York Academy of
Music, with which the Metropolitan had just broken; the London impresario,
Ernest Gye, was a favorite contender until the New York directors decided
against any possibility of domination by Covent Garden. The honor fell to
Abbey.
He controlled the only artists who might dethrone Patti, now Maplcson's
queen, and Etelka Gcrstcr, Maplcson's princess. Abbey's dynasty began with
the sovereign Christine Nilsson and Marcella Scmbrich, heiress apparent.
Recognizing his own limitations, Abbey wisely engaged as second-in-
command the experienced Maurice Grau, who had piloted several of his
Uncle Jacob's opera companies, and also managed a French light opera
troupe starring the beguiling Airnee. Abbey was inclined to be short with
gentlemen of the press, who found him "reserved in manner and difficult
of approach/' Grau, on the other hand, was invariably amiable to news*
paper men and believed in winning them over to his side.
Abbey Impressed the Metropolitan directors by the very habits that were to
ruin him: the "large purposes and princely generosity " attributed to him by
Music and Drama, a contemporary journal,
^ No matter how prudent the counsel of John B. Schoeffel, Abbey's partner
since 1876, and Maurice Grau, whom he took into active partnership after
his first year in grand opera, Abbey never throttled his impulse toward
largesse.
^ Gnu provided the successes, it was said, Abbey provided the losses and
Schocftel did the grumbling.
ABBEY'S ADVENTURERS 3
Animated by a genuine ambition to- revitalize Italian opera, which seemed
to be fading into a Victorian "decline;' Abbey was determined to equip his
musical company with the same finesse he had bestowed on his theatrical
troupes.
Alone in the field outside New York, he might have restored his own bank-
roll to health and administered a necessary transfusion to Italian opera. But
the wily Mapleson beleaguered him every step of the way.
War between the two, beginning with skirmishes over Patti's contracts,
had assumed the status of a pitched battle as Mapleson, from his stronghold
in the New York Academy of Music, fought Abbey, performance by per-
formance, from the simultaneous opening nights of the two houses. Now
the conflict spread to half a dozen fronts.
2. "RITORNA VINCITOR! 3
Leaving three New York subscription performances dangling uncon-
summated, the manager led the first Metropolitan caravan forth on the day
after Christmas to display its glittering wares in the capital of New England
culture. Logically Boston was Abbey's first port of call. Four years previously
he and his partner, John B, Schoeffel 3 had obtained a long lease on Beethoven
Hall, ripped out its interior and reopened it as the new Boston Park Theatre.
Its stage could not, however* accommodate an operatic invasion of 250, so
Abbey was obliged to rent Eugene Tompkim* Boston Theatre, which had
housed visiting opera troupes for thirty years.
Mapleson had played the Boston Theatre regularly since his first tour in
1878, but his eagerness to anticipate Abbey had forced him into the less com-
modious Globe the week before the Metropolitan company arrived.
Curiosity brought out a huge first-night audience for Faust in the mellow
old theatre. Unhappily, The Hub was not to see such a crowd again during
the two- week engagement.
Abbey's conservative repertory could hardly have accounted for public
indifference although it did provoke a critical outbreak. After the visit was
three days spent, a Boston newspaper asked : "When will managers learn to
turn the barrel over and give the old favorites a rest for a change?"
Abbey might have answered, "Never!" in defense of the operas that had
Induced the critic's ennui They were Verdi's 11 Trovatore and Donizetti's
Lutia di L&mmermoor, which had been pointed to the warehouse from time
to time by critics of two decades, always to emerge fresh and appealing
to less blas6 audiences,
A glance at what Abbey had in store Mignon, La Sonnambula, La
Tmviata, II Barbicrc di Siviglia, Lohengrin, Martha and Carmen and with
only La Gioconda as an unknown quantity* suggests that the manager was
4 OPERA CARAVAN
obviously trying to "meet the desires of the great public." Like Mapleson
and others before and after him, he recognized the object of those desires-
the one immutable element of grand opera, the singing star.
This "magnificent and honorable gambler in stars/ 1 as Walter Damrosch
ungrudgingly termed Abbey, was the first to gather so large a galaxy under
one system and to design a national showcase for his attractions. It mattered
to no one but Mapleson that the peerless cast for Faust was almost entirely
pirated from the Academy treasure house, for Abbey, like other entrepre-
neurs of the day, showed no hesitation in raiding the ranks of the opposition.
His prizes were Italo Campanini, the most admired Faust of the time;
Sofia Scalchi, a Siebel unrivaled; Giuseppe del Puente, who was willing
to pay 15,000 francs (about $3,000) to abrogate his Mapleson contract;
Franco Novara, the bass whose real name was Frank Nash, and Mme. Emily
Lablache, who, though legally prevented from singing on New York's open-
ing night, proved to Bostonians that she "lacked nothing of perfection."
The five joined Nilsson, who shone unquestioned as the world standard
for Marguerite, having created the part when Gounod revised his master-
piece for the Paris Opera in 1869.
Nilsson's vogue in America had barely dipped from its zenith. She had
returned two years previously after a long absence, beginning her concerts
in The Hub; then "gave her attention to the spokes such as New York,
Cincinnati and other outlying provinces," as a Boston correspondent con-
descendingly remarked.
She had always been a favorite, "especially with the ladies, because of the
purity of her character and the tragedy that brought her marriage to a close."
Her first husband, Auguste Rouzeaud, had died on February 22, 1882, "from
insanity, caused by mental worry over business reverses," as Lahee put it in
his Famous Singers.
Auguste Charles Leonard Francois Vianesi, Abbey's chief conductor, had
functioned under Mapleson's standard as early as 1858, when he was paid
eight pounds a month in London*
Fondness for the singers, all well liked in Boston, inspired enthusiasm for
Faust, but it remained for a new star in Lucia di Lammermoor to sweep
the proper Bostonians into what for them constituted a "frenzy."
Praxide Marcellina Kochanska, as Marcella Sernbrich was known in her
native Poland, darted into Metropolitan history like a humming bird. Her
effect on Boston was instantaneous.
Audiences in that discriminating city have always been hard to please,
both by temperament and taste. The Lucia enthusiasts on Abbey's second
night recognized the soprano's quality from the start, cheering before she
finished her first aria.
"Even the most jaded experienced a new sensation," confessed the Tnw-
script's critic, Apthorp, who wondered "that a voice having the peculiar
vibratory, nervous quality custom has taught us to believe is absolutely es-
sential in singers who hope to command our emotions, should also be so
flexible, so clear and so true,"
Now that Boston had spoken, a new princess was crowned* It seemed a
ABBEY'S ADVENTURERS r
little late in the day, and a little ungenerous, to proclaim that the queen
could do some wrong. Though the Globe critic still thought Nilsson an ideal
Lisa and found her Gioconda magnificent, Apthorp's dissatisfaction with her
elementary sins" and "self-conscious" acting amounted to Use majeste:
"Nilsson has so much innate power and personal magnetism that she can-
not but be great at moments. She has an incomparable physique, superb
voice, admirable carriage and habitual intensity of facial expression ... but
she has faults. ... In rising above the rudiments, she has left the rudiments
almost completely out of sight. ... Her acting continually slights the ABC's.
. . . Shut your eyes and you hear a completely beautiful interpretation. Open
them and you see 100 departures from the truth."
Nor did the beloved Scalchi she of "a dozen voices, each in a different
register"-~escape entirely unscathed, for her Siebel was questioned seriously,
one of the few derogatory comments she ever received on this role. Apthorp
said peevishly :
"The music is too high for her and a coarseness of accent marred other-
wise fine singing in the Flower Song/ 1
He was almost alone in resisting the lure of the shapely limbs whose tights
seemed worn more becomingly than those of any other female on the stage.
Del Puente, the handsome, curly-haired Spaniard, retained his place as
Boston's preferred baritone. After he was replaced on New Year's Eve as
Germont by Achille Augier, a bass whose fortes lay among the Zunigas, the
Ferrandos and the Raimondos, and whose fortes were practically inaudible,
the Globe declared bluntly that Del Puente's illness was only temporary,
fortunately for the patrons of the lyric season.
One singer who pleased everybody was the stern-lipped but sweet-voiced
Alwina Valleria, another recruit from Mapleson's ranks. This Baltimore girl,
who changed her name from Schoening to make her debut in Russia, was
the first American to sing on the Metropolitan stage.
Aside from Sembrich, newcomers found no green pastures though
Roberto Stagno had every right to regard Boston as the one oasis in a
desert full of gritty encounters with the American press. Then Apthorp
spoiled his compliments with a final barb: "His Lionel was a triumph aside
from his customary exasperating tremolo."
Giuseppe Kaschmann, after singing the Count di Luna, was taken to task
for the same fault: "A vicious style . . aptly described as a * wobble.!'"
Giovanni Mirabella, a bass with a "powerful voice and good method/' made
his first appearance as Don Basilio in Barbiere.
Carmen, with which Abbey closed his Boston season, had not yet been
given in New York. Thus Boston had the first opportunity to enjoy Zelia
Trebelli's phenomenal voice, a rich contralto. Her Card Scene was "stronger
than any in memory," in the Globe's opinion, although she did not quite
dispel memories of Minnie Hauk's witchery.
Mme. Trebclli was regarded as a debutante throughout Abbey's tour, al-
though listed with Mapleson's first American company in 1878. She had,
indeed, sung under the colonel's management as early as 1862. A slim, dark
Parisieaae, Mme. Trebelli, nee Gilbert, evolved her stage name in a manner
6 OPERA CARAVAN
presaging advertising slogans of today. She spelled it backward, then
Italianized the result.
Sophisticated as Boston claimed to be about its opera (it had enjoyed all
the wayfarers from Grisi to Kellogg), Abbey introduced one feature that
astonished and delighted the cognoscenti.
This was the orchestra, the largest ever to travel with an opera company.
Apthorp's esteem for it was tempered by the offending "snorts" of the bass
tuba, which, as he claimed, has no part in the Faust orchestra, though a
proper denizen of the stage band.
Boston carefully weighed the merits of Abbey's two conductors. Vianesi's
mastery was unquestioned, though the Transcript deplored his impetuosity.
The young assistant, Cleofonte Campanini, was already beginning to show
the talent that later made him a commanding figure.
In the pit for La Sonnambula, "that delightful idyl . . . of . , , Bellini's
genius," the youth of twenty-four received many warmly approving glances
across the footlights from the tenor e prim a. Italo Campanini was said to be
responsible for his brother's engagement, and always sang more freely under
Cleofonte's baton.
In Sonnambula he relaxed the tension that often gripped him on the stage
and surprised everyone by his light comedy sense. The brothers were in high
fettle for Carmen as well Italo always acted with conviction, especially in
the last scene. This evening he surpassed himself, said the Globe, and
Cleofonte led the orchestra admirably.
Although his ledgers showed only three-fourths o what Abbey might
have expected from the fortnight, he gambled on another Boston visit and
signed for a week in March. Then he rounded up his songbirds for the trip
home.
Pausing only a few days in his travels, Abbey showed New York the
Carmen he had introduced in Boston, then added a Gioconda and a concert
to complete the subscription season. During the week he found time to treat
the "borough across the river" to three performances, which did not finan-
cially justify the hauls across the new Brooklyn Bridge, though they estab-
lished the Brooklyn Academy o Music as an outpost for Metropolitan visits.
Then the entire company reembarked on January 14, not to return until
March, with Philadelphia as their first objective. In the next five days Abbey
laid the pattern of a lifetime habit for Philadelphia, which already thought
proudly of itself as an "opera town." Whatever company went out from the
Metropolitan in the years to follow Italian, German or polylingual it was
certain to visit "Old Faithful."
The momentousness of the first invasion was recognized only in retrospect
"All Philadelphia knew about Abbey was the advertisements in the news-
papers," according to a local historian, John Curtis. As late as January x, the
Quaker City felt scarcely a tremor of anticipation. The advertisements did
not even appear every day as the engagement drew near* Several times only
one line, "Next Week, Abbey Grand Opera," was squeezed in at the bottom
of the Chestnut Street Opera House announcement of its current road show,
Jos. K, Emmett in Unser Fritz.
Mapleson, however, daily proclaimed in bold type that Mme, Patti would
ABBEY'S ADVENT URERS 7
sing her first Aida in Philadelphia, and Mme. Gerster her first Adina in
L'Elisir d'Amore, opening just two days after Abbey's departure. The
colonel had secured the only suitable auditorium,, Philadelphia's already
venerable Academy of Music, where his December engagement had already
distracted attention from the new company.
The Metropolitan's repertory was not announced until January 10, and no
casts were published. To learn "who sings who," the customer was obliged
to call at the box office, a miscalculation hardly guaranteed to stimulate the
largest possible interest.
Still the word spread, at least to the newspapers. The Evening Bulletin re-
porter advanced the theory that this would be the musical event of the season.
Sales were said to be the largest ever recorded for grand opera in the city.
In the days when the visitors proceeded at their own risk, impresarios de-
pended on the good will of newspapers to stimulate patronage by advance
trurnpetings.
Abbey's first night seemed to bear out the oracles. The old Chestnut Street
Opera House was jammed, "Hundreds were huddled together in a dense and
codfused mass, about ten out of a hundred of those that stood up being able
to see the stage," the Inquirer reported. "No such throng has been seen in
Philadelphia for years" another remark regularly dusted off for use on
every gala occasion, revealing that memory is short and civic pride is long.
Again, the opera was Faust. The next day, rosy prognostications had
faded into the cool comment that Philadelphia had seen better performances.
"But never a more brilliant, enthusiastic, sympathetic audience," repeated
the loyal scribe.
Had Sembrich been at her best, this Philadelphia story might have had
a happy ending. But the prima donna became suddenly ill after the second
act of Lucia. Both Traviata arid Barbtere> scheduled for her, had to be can-
celed* The Don Giovanni that replaced Earbiere provoked unkind remarks
from the Bulletin:
"Kaschmann is one of the dullest lady-killers ever, and Trebelli looked old
enough to be Zerlina's grandmother." At forty-six the fact that she sang
Zcrlina at all speaks for hex courage and versatility. The part was transposed
for her deep voice,
The remainder o the week held few attractions for Philadelphians. In
Trovatore, the Metropolitan thunders proved too Jovian for the small house,
but the press blamed the conductor for the noise. When the company re-
turned to the spacious Academy, Vianesi's refined ways with the orchestra
became apparent for the first time.
La Gioaonda commanded an audience comparable to that which crowded
Faust, With Ponchielli's tunes, the "exceedingly graceful groupings" of the
ballet and the delectable ballerina, Malvina Cavalazzi, the outlook brightened,
but Martha and Carmen let the box office down sharply.
C. Hi Matthews, treasurer of the company, reflected that pitifully few
customer^ enjoyed Trebelli's 'Voluptuous but wily and cold-hearted" Carmen,
and, sadly totaling the Philadelphia ledger column in red, inscribed the head
of a new page :
"Chicago."
OPERA CARAVAN
3. "GUERRA! GUERRA!'
In Chicago, omens were favorable for Abbey and the two-week season o
his "cosmopolitan operatic army." Marching into the arena a week ahead o
Mapleson, he counted on winning the allegiance of Chicago opera lovers be-
fore his enemy arrived for what was to be their first head-on collision outside
of New York.
Abbey's local reputation was enhanced by the success of Henry Irving, who
was then playing a brilliant season in the Loop, and whose prestige caused
Chicago to look kindly upon the actor's manager.
"Irving theatre parties are sure to be followed by Abbey opera parties,"
the Tribune remarked ingenuously. "Society will consider it a duty to shine
at Haverly's Theatre as long as the subtle influence of Abbey continues.
"Mapleson, on the other hand, is supported by the prestige of Patti's name
and the charm which an extraordinarily expensive amusement possesses for
a large class of persons."
Opera was a costly pastime for the average citizen even then. Both man-
agers were asking $42 for subscriptions to twelve performances, but Mapleson
promoted single seats for "Patti Nights" to $6, "Gerster Nights" to $5, while
Abbey maintained a top price of $4 throughout, except for a "Grand Com-
bination" of Nilsson and Sembrich.
Abbey desperately wanted to believe the usual promise of "the grandest and
most brilliant season ever," held out by the Tribune on the day of the open-
ing. The comfortable remark of next day's Inter-Ocean that it had been "an
elegant evening," combined with the equally comfortable box office of $5500,
supported him.
The Tribune found no fault with the musical performance. Nilsson's Mar-
guerite was still irresistible, and Victor Capoul, substituting for Campanim,
surprised everyone by the excellence o his Faust. His voice belonged to the
past, but he still cherished a reputation as "the most ardent and fascinating
lover known to opera in America." Scalchi sang gloriously in the seldom-
heard third-act Romanza, restored at some performances.
The flaw in the picture was visual The Inter-Ocean's casual comment that
the scenery was tawdry passed unheard in the volley of the Tribune's
invective.
Abbey had been betrayed by his own high standards, A few days later in
Cincinnati, where he had gone to supervise the advance sale, he was still
talking publicly about success in Chicago, but dropped a clue to his real state
of mind in an interview with a Cincinnati Enquirer reporter :
"True, they have been giving us fits about the mounting o the plays
f Abbey still thought in theatrical terms], but it is not our fault. In all Chi-
cago there does not exist an opera house. In my company are eighty choristers,
twenty-two ballet dancers, twenty-five in the military band, besides the supers,
ABBEY'S ADVENTURERS 9
so that there may be 150 to 250 performers on stage at one time. You cannot
do this in Chicago.
"So tonight thirty of my singers, twelve of my ballet and twenty of my mili-
tary band are walking the streets of Chicago with nothing to do. I could not
employ my own sets, but had to be content with stock scenery. Cincinnati is
the only place we can mount the Metropolitan scenery."
As this interview was published on January 29, the opera in Chicago to
which Abbey referred must have been La Sonnambula. The previous eve-
ning, La Gioconda had been credited with a tout ensemble the strongest and
most effective of any. Only ten coryphees in the Dance of the Hours would
have been unthinkable!
Like many another thrifty road manager of the century, Abbey counted
on local theatres to supply the fittings for his conventional operas, even
though at home the warehouse was crammed with his new settings. He was
prepared with elaborate investitures for La Gioconda, Don Giovanni, Mig-
non, Robert le Diable and Mefistofele, but none of these could be made to
fit the stage of Haverly's Theatre in Chicago.
The Tribune remained petulant about mi$e-en-scene throughout the fort-
night. Its critic, first and most vigorous of contemporary reviewers, was
George Putnam Upton, a hardy perennial who flourished for sixty years. In
the light of his knowledge of the circumstances, his surprise at Abbey's
"neglect of this important factor of scenery" seems overdone; his violence at
the "un worthiness," "outrageous shabbiness" and "clumsiness" suggests an
aftermath of disappointed expectations.
It would have been a waste of money to surround Sembrich with gorgeous
trappings in the second night's opera, for the audience, meager as it was,
could see and hear nothing but the Lucia. It comported itself, according to
Upton, in a vociferous manner totally unlike Chicago.
"Without exception, this is the most pronounced and spontaneous success
ever achieved by a newcomer , . , Center's voice is more wonderful, with
a flute-like roundness the other lacks; [Emma] Abbott's natural gifts are not
below Scmbrich's; Litta is in some points superior; Patti, Nilsson and Al-
bam most impressive and musical. But Sembrich captivates not only the mere
senses but appeals also to the highest feeling. ... It is the musician, not only
the singer, who predominates in her."
Faust had satisfied the ear if not the eye, and Sembrich's succes fou had gal-
vanized the press to a missionary effort that often helped populate the house
for her next appearance. Chicago, however, was anticipating Lohengrin
with the eagerness of a child!
Nine years before, on January 21, Albani, Carpi, Gary and Del Puente had
introduced the opera to Chicago, and in 1879 Eugenie Pappenheim and
Charles R. Adams enacted the Elsa and Lohengrin of Freyer's German Opera
Company. Since then, Italian troupes had pre-empted the calendar and
snubbed the Swan Knight. Chicago showed its eagerness to renew the
acquaintance by buying $5,217 worth of tickets for Abbey's performance on
January 23.
The crowd buzzed with excitement as it filled the theatre that night, Dis-
10 OPERA CARAVAN
mal weather had kept no one at home. Full dress was the rule in spite of the
threat of pneumonia noted by the press:
"For a man, only a width of four-ply linen and a square foot of silk under-
shirt lie between the bare breast and icy blasts. Women, with bare heads,
bare arms, bare necks and occasionally bare bosoms, apparently do not suffer
as much. We just cannot understand it."
Thus bravely began the night that was destined to be a turning point in
Abbey's Chicago fortunes. A notice in the program begging indulgence for
Campanini and Novara aroused a murmur of consternation as programs
rustled open, but the euphoria of the crowd persisted. Even the scenery did
not offend the Tribune, for Upton conceded that the first act brought its
magic picture, "brilliantly costumed, highly colored, the Herald in dazzling
armor*"
This happy state of affairs lasted about one minute. The chorus dropped
below key; no two bars were correct, the critic insisted, and, warming to his
task:
"A worse butchery cannot be imagined . , . [Vianesi] let the orchestra
players go on in hand-organ style with no attempt at shading. In La Scala or
other Italian theatres, the chorus and orchestra would be mobbed if they
dared to treat a popular work in the same brutal manner."
Upton spluttered on, performing "a duty no critic can shirk." He savagely
demanded that Abbey admit frankly he was unable to secure a chorus and
orchestra capable of doing justice to Wagner's work. He even berated
Nilsson and the other singers for not forcing Abbey to abandon Lohengrin
when its inadequacies were first revealed.
Eventually he wrote the spleen out of his system and calmed down enough
to give Nilsson her due as an artist. By the time he reached the climax of
the evening, Upton was for treating it tolerantly, even humorously.
"When sweet words of love were issuing from Elsa's lips * . . and Lohen-
grin sat down beside her, the couch tipped. The situation was so irresistibly
ridiculous that Nilsson lost her composure and burst out laughing. Then she
regained it and the scene carried through in grand style.**
Campanini, who had been singing fairly well in spite of his indisposition,
was unnerved by the episode and the unabashed snickers from the audience,
He refused to go on, and the final scene was omitted.
The Tribune put it astringently at the end of the week:
"Campanini was a very sick Lohengrin, indeed. The public is indebted
that he prevented the finale from being murdered*"
Abbey never recovered ground in Chicago. The performances were termed
listless, and the shadow of approaching battle fell over the incumbents all
too soon. The morning after Lohengrin, Abbey's ruffled spirits were scarcely
soothed when he read that the crowd at Maplesoa f s advance sale had be-
come almost unmanageable.
At the end of the week, Abbey felt something close to despair. Only two
out of seven operas were in the black. Don Giovanni had been criticized as
"mediocre** except for the women. Sembrich's Rosina had attracted a repre-
sentative but comparatively unremunerative audience. The orchestra was
ABBEY'S ADVENTURERS jj
splendid, if one account was to be believed; it broke down in Barbim,
claimed another. Evidence that something untoward had happened was
provided by a letter from Vianesi to the Tribune, protesting that the contre-
temps was not his fault; an artist had changed key and the orchestra had to
wait for him to get back on it.
Rossini's Stabat Mater at the Sunday night concert had further depressed
the management and singers. The Inter-Ocean critic said flatly that it was a
question whether any worse performance of the work had ever been given
in Chicago. Furthermore, the two feminine soloists, Emmy Fursch-Madi and
Trebelli -though the former's singing was "glorious and inspired" offended
by their gay rnodishness. (Fursch-Madi, a plump, bright-eyed little French-
woman, had joined Mapleson's American company in 1882 after singing
with him several seasons in England. Her defection to Abbey further em-
bittered the colonel.)
"It is the custom to be attired in black," the fussy arbiter of fashion and art
complained. "Fursch-Madi was adorned with an abundance of artificial
violets, which robbed her toilet of the required effect. Trebelli was in a
princesse robe of cream-colored silk, the skirt pleated with light red silk."
Mapleson, meanwhile, was having his own troubles, The news broke in
Chicago on January 25 in a front-page headline :
"OPERA SENSATION! Gerster Becomes Enraged at Baltimore's Marked
Preference for Patti. Leaves for New York after Stormy Interview with
Colonel Mapleson."
The colonel, acting promptly with the assistance of a railroad official, tele-
graphed Gerster's train and the express from New York to stop at Wilming-
ton as they passed each other. Gerster could, if her resolve had softened, re-
turn at once.
She had, indeed, repented her hasty action, and gladly boarded the express
to Baltimore. But before the train got under way, she saw the detested Patti
in the only drawing room. Offended at the necessity of once more playing
second fiddle, Gerster resumed her tantrum and her flight
The grievance of the junior goddess embraced both personal jealousy and
a very real sense o injustice at not being regularly paid. Mapleson had
promised her $1,000 a performance; she had sung sixteen, but received only
$6,000,
Her husband, Dr. Gardini, called on Mapleson to demand his wife's back
salary. Mapleson turned him down in his own inimitable manner:
"Not a penny, dear boy; that wretch Franchi has taken it all every cent-
for Patti. We make no money the Gerster nights, and if I don't pay Patti she
will stop. Then we shall have a jolly time and all starve together."
Gardini changed his ground o attack, the Chicago account continued,
and asked for a private car for Gerster, similar to the boudoir car, with its
silver ornaments, velvet carpets and bathrooms that Mapleson was reputedly
building for Patti, at a cost of $60,000. Mapleson again evaded, giving as an
excuse the glass-blowers' strike.
Abbey could smile ironically as he remembered that the luxurious private
12 OPERA CARAVAN
car was one of the Inducements he had held out to Patti to return to him.
Now Mapleson was paying.
On Monday night, January 28, the combat was squarely joined. Abbey led
with La Gioconda, his only new opera; Mapleson resorted to a quasi-novelty
of his own, Crispin o e la Comare (The Cobbler and the Fairy), which had
not been heard since the final days of Crosby's Opera House before the fire,
when Minnie Hauk sang it "in a glad mood."
Abbey's protagonists were formidable: Nilsson, Fursch-Madi, Scalchi,
Stagno, Del Puente, Novara; Mapleson's campaigners seemed less a brigade
than a comet, its incandescent head the Queen of Song.
Chicago was stirred to its depths. The Inter-Ocean commented breath-
lessly:
"Our condition of mind is not unlike bewilderment at being confronted by
the most famed of the world's sopranos. . . . The occasion was a triumph
of music over every other consideration."
Gioconda' s attractiveness as a stage piece ranked high, but "its musical
effects failed to excite any furor of applause. Nilsson did not partake of that
deep and soulful earnestness she can stimulate so well. . . . Stagno occa-
sionally congratulated himself by holding favorite notes, but his triumph was
not sustained by the unfeeling public.'*
Honors in the second attempt went to Mapleson. Gerster had repented
her "huff" and had returned to Chicago, where she was well loved. The
disagreeable weather was courteously cited as an excuse for the f rightcningly
low attendance at Sembrich's La Sonnamhula.
The third round brought a rally for both sides, although Mapleson's
entry, Les Huguenots, could be said to have the edge on Abbey's Mignon,
calling forth "Chicago's flower of fashion and cream of chivalry" to revel in
the bedazzlement of Patti and Gerster in the same cast. The diva's acting
had developed "wonderful strength and intensity."
Mapleson brought up fresh troops in La Favorita to meet Sembrich's La
Traviata, which played before a corporal's guard. Even Mapleson's second
team in Linda di Chamounix prevailed over the satanic Meyerbecrian,
Robert le Diable, whom Abbey was forced to throw into the fray as a substi-
tute for Le Prophhe* This was Abbey's lowest box office for an opera in
Chicago : a scant $1,015.
When the fierce tournament ended, both weary contenders had won, both
had lost Patti had been wildly acclaimed as a matter of course, and Gerster's
welcome was only slightly less effusive; still the pleasure afforded by great
artists did not atone for the weakness of Maplesoa's ensembles* Abbey had
taught that lesson.
But his own company was top-heavy with expensive artists, and, in the
Tribune's view, "the development of the musical taste, the musical educa-
tion of the American people, has not gained a farthing.
"It is about time," continued the censorious critic, "that an earnest protest
were entered against the policy of using great names as a cover for shabbily
mounted and carelessly produced worn-out operas,"
Not only were the impresarios finding life treacherous and difficult, but
ABBEY'S ADVENTURERS 13
seven prima donnas spent that week in Chicago under exceptional tension.
The top hierarchy in both companies was quartered in the same hotel. The
ladies, in fact, occupied the same corridor. Mesdames Patti, Gerster, Nilsson,
Fursch-Madi, Sembrich, Trebelli and Scalchi were near neighbors for better
or worse. No one dared plead illness that week.
4. "LA CALUNNIA"
"Both Abbey and Mapleson are losing money, but Abbey has the worst of
the battle. He pays no attention but keeps on giving the country better opera
than it ever had before. ... It will cost fully $30,000 to give seven per-
formances here, and the local manager estimates the advance sale at only
$8,000."
John W. Norton, lessee of the Olympic Theatre in St. Louis, was the au-
thority for these figures, published in the Globe-Democrat on February 3,
the day before the Metropolitan's first engagement in Missouri. He had con-
tracted for the appearances of both rival companies, Mapleson being ex-
pected on February 18.
Mapleson's advance juggling of repertory irritated Norton and confused
the subscribers, but although the colonel remained culpable in this matter
throughout his career, he never again matched his 1882 record of six opera
substitutions in one evening.
Abbey was equally guilty of shifting his repertory before the St. Louis sea-
son began. Taking advantage of "opening night fever," he passed over Faust
and Luda as possible gambits and eventually settled on Trovatore.
Trebelli, Valleria and Kaschmann did their best, but Abbey lost his first-
night gamble. Wretched weather and the absence of first-line stars kept his
audience at home. The house was about two-thirds full, and described as "a
wilderness of vacancy upstairs," by the Post-Dispatch.
"Society crowded the Nilsson nights and gave Sembrich the cold shoulder,
and so missed the best of the season," the Globe-Democrat concluded.
Sembrich's limited audiences had ceded her a total victory; still St. Louis
was proud of discovering another heroine for itself. A replacement became
necessary for Fursch-Madi, who had contracted an illness in Chicago but
had not dared to give way to it. She succumbed at last on the eve of the
Gioconda performance in St. Louis.
The day of several "covers" for one role was far in the future, and Abbey
and Grau sought frantically for a Laura. At last, with some misgivings, they
decided to give young Louise Lablache the assignment. Beyond replacing
her mother as Marthe in Faust at the historic New York opening, she had
been limited to concerts and participation in the Carmen smugglers' quintet,
Because she was barely eighteen, her mother's formal consent was necessary.
14 OPERA CARAVAN
Emily freely gave it. Then, all through the performance, the devoted mother
stood in the wings, mouthing the words at Louise, calling out directions, even
singing along with her daughter.
When Fursch-Madi remained ill the next day, one of the Lablaches was
called on to meet an even more severe test. Whether Emily or Louise was
chosen to sing Donna Anna is not clear, but it seems likely that the mother
assumed this task. Versatile and obliging, the contralto had come to the
rescue in a similar emergency years before, as Luigi Arditi relates in his
memoirs.
Extravagant clothes were Emily's weakness. When she stepped into the
earlier Don Giovanni performance, she wore her own costly dress. As her
scenes 1 with Don Ottavio progressed, she felt grave anxiety for the fate of
her gown, for Brignoli, the tenor, afflicted his colleagues with his habit of
constant expectoration. During the trio of the maskers, Emily was heard to
say:
"Voyons , mon cher ami, ne pourriez-vous pas, itne fois par hazard, cracker
stir la robe de Donna Elvira?"
All through the week, while sober colleagues wrote judicious estimates of
the performances, the mischievous Globe-Democrat "Notes" distilled drops
of venom for visitors and natives alike,
Campanim, the favorite target in St. Louis as he had been in Chicago, must
have smarted under the unfair treatment He would have been justified in
launching a dozen libel suits, for no Globe-Democrat issue went without at
least one thrust at his weakest points. Several shafts were directed at what
Krehbicl had euphcmized as the tenor's "careless way of life."
The Midwest had not yet acquired that respect for "the noble ruin" that
Philip Hale of Boston, in writing about Campanini, claimed was "of more
value from an artistic standpoint than a new, cheap and cockney villa,
freshly and hideously painted."
Abbey's other tenore robusto, Stagno, got off lightly with a bare mention
in "Notes" of his collection of swords and a phonetic pronunciation of his
name, but Signor Stagi, who was substituted for Capoul in Barbiere, re-
ceived his critical baptism here as
"... a second tenor, with a voice of poor quality, whose abominable
efforts at acting nearly ruined the performance. He was a member of the
orchestra before and had . . . better get under the stage again or get a hand
organ and a monkey or an old hat to catch nickels in."
Comment on Abbey's solvency struck a tender nerve: "Abbey may loie
money but he seems to pay salaries. Scalchi bought $1,000 worth o diamonds.
. . . Traveling expenses for several voiceless wives and husbands of prima
donne are laid out by Abbey, , , He f urnishs every piece of wardrobe* One
man is paid to look after 300 wigs. 1 '
And perhaps the most ironic "Note" of all:
"Ticket speculation is a lost art this season***
Abbey often complained that it cost him $7,000 every time he raised the
curtain. If this were true, not one audience so far on his tour had paid its
way* Only seven out of forty-five had realized more than $5,000 ia chc box
ABBEY'S ADVENTURERS 15
office. St. Louis requited him least, with an average of a petty $2,333 for each
performance.
Turning his back on his losses, Abbey rested all his hopes on Cincinnati.
5. DELUGE AND DENOUEMENT
Unlike other cities where theatre managers controlled production and sales
for Abbey's huge aggregation, Cincinnati offered a well organized civic
committee, and a $50,000 guarantee. It also boasted a high degree of culture. A
present-day historian, Alvin F. Harlow, has called attention in his Serene
Cincinnatians to the "striking parallel between Cincinnati and the Renais-
sance, in that each developed a remarkable culture amidst dirt, disorder and
public corruption."
When Abbey took up his stand early in 1884, the city was yet to go through
its worst crime wave, which followed on the heels of the epochal flood.
Cincinnati's artistic element remained undaunted by both phenomena.
Grau, always the suave propagandist, complimented local taste by remarking
that "Cincinnati numbers more lovers of classical music in her population
than many cities twice her size."
Singing societies had flourished since 1816; the Cincinnati Conservatory
was founded in 1867; an orchestra had existed for twelve years when Grau
presented his bouquet. The festival idea that took firm hold in many places
had its American genesis in the Ohio city.
Music Hall, with its auditorium of graceful proportions and remarkable
acoustics, has been the Cincinnati May Festival's home since 1878 and also
housed the Opera Festivals produced by Colonel Mapleson's company under
the sponsorship of the Cincinnati College of Music. It was the scene of almost
every Metropolitan Opera visit, and still continues its useful life. Reuben R.
Springer, banker, contributed half of its total cost of $405,000.
Popular demand for Patti in 1882 forced Mapleson to introduce his hated
rival, Abbey, into the Cincinnati operatic scene, a fateful move for both
men* Mapleson stole Patti from Abbey, but Abbey confiscated the Cincinnati
Opera Festival. The colonel did not admit defeat until the flood of 1884
undermined the foundations of both operatic castles.
Baleful weather had been a continuous deterrent to the health and affluence
of Abbey's company: a severe snowstorm in Philadelphia; sleet-burdened
winds in Chicago; drenching rains in St. Louis, For several days before the
advent of the travelers, Cincinnatians had been reading the ominous head-
lines spotting the front page of the Enquirer:
"WASTEFUL WATERS: La Belle Riviere on Its Annual Big Tear
THE MAD RIVER . . . STILL SURGING," and, on February 10, the one
"GLOOM ! " in fat, black type.
16 OPERA CARAVAN
The impact of these laconic bulletins on the opera adventurers must have
been shattering.
We can almost see the two men reading the newspaper by the pale gas-
light flickering in their temporary office in Music Hall that dreary morning:
Grau, darkly-bearded, haggard after his overnight trip from St. Louis, his
forehead carved by a frown of worry ; Abbey, naturally pale, his large black
eyes shadowed by strain, his habitually drooping black mustache concealing
the firm set of his mouth, yet still sanguine, looking for the miracle.
He must have thought the miracle had arrived as he picked his way
through the small print of the Enquirer. Though the distress of the upper
Ohio Valley monopolized the first three pages, galvanic news exploded on
the fourth:
"MAPLESON'S BREAK! Colonel Abruptly Cancels Cincinnati Contract.
Gives No Reason for Extraordinary Conduct. Henck and Fennessy Thunder-
struck by Queer Move. What Will Be the Outcome ?"
Henck and Fennessy, who controlled a new opera house, had gone to con-
siderable expense in the colonel's behalf, paying out nearly $3,000 for adver-
tising, tickets and fixtures, which included a gas machine and additional
electric lights for use in the impending emergency.
Music Hall had also been readied for any contingency by linking its gas
system to the City Hospital supply. If that failed, no real harm done: Cin-
cinnati would have its first electric light festival. "The main hall now has
seven electric lights," the Enquirer marveled, "and eighteen locomotive
headlights are available for corridors and the stage entrance."
From comparatively dry Chicago, Mapleson offered to organize a "grand
benefit for the flood sufferers," but even this gesture could not placate the
Cincinnati public, in whose eyes, the Enquirer decreed, "Mapleson will be
eternally damned."
The situation still held perils for Abbey, even without his rival. The flood
had amputated out-of-town sales, vital to the success of any operatic stand.
Though faced with the prospect of a limited public, Abbey's gambling blood
was aroused. He prepared to carry out his Cincinnati commitments with
every resource at his command.
Flood superseded Festival in the city's attention all during the engage-
ment, as was to be expected. Even the review of the first-night Faust was
relegated to an inner page in the Enquirer, The audience, unwontedly sober
in dress, filled Music Hall's 3,000 seats. Faces looked pale in the "uneven
illumination" of the auditorium, murky with smoke from the incandescent
lamps.
In the midst of his description of the unusual scene s the reporter found
space to pronounce an astonishing verdict on the opera: "Faust affords little
to catch the popular ear, but much to awaken thought and delight.*'
Nilsson was "the same brilliant, fascinating woman . the ill-natured
remark that she is growing in flesh has no foundation in fact." The "short,
curly and stylish silver-gray hair, parted on the side/* that St. Louis had ad-
mired, also won Cincinnati's approval "It was the opposite o masculinity,"
Campanini was appreciated at last: "Some have said the tenor is dead, but
Cincinnati atmosphere must agree with him. 1 *
ABBEY'S ADVENTURERS 17
Most of the audience left before the fifth act of Le Prophete on February
12. "If this thing goes on, we shall have an opera like a Chinese play, which
begins on Monday and winds up on Saturday."
The Times-Star reviewed the Prophete scenery and little else, with some
justification. Investiture for the Meyerbeer "novelty," comprising six set
pieces, ten wings and six full dropsAbbey's "heaviest show" had been
constructed and painted in Cincinnati by Charles Fox, Abbey's scenic artist.
It would be shipped back to New York to be seen for the first time on March
21 in the spring season.
On February 13, the flood peak was reached: 70 feet 9% inches. Sembrich
added Cincinnati to her chaplet of conquered cities. The only adverse com-
ment on her Lucia was an indulgent one:
"The diva sacrificed truth to display and appeared in the rugged forest at-
tired in a gorgeous dress with a long train which must have suffered among
the rocks, while its brilliancy would have drawn the attention of Henry Ash-
ton and the chorus of hunters to the forbidden tryst she was so anxious to
conceal. But then, nothing is absurd in opera."
La Gioconda brought the festival peak, reminding the critic of one of the
"old time nights." Nilsson, Fursch-Madi, Scalchi and Campanini were all
on the stage; the electric lights behaved; the audience gleamed with cloaks
and headdresses "or better still, no headdress but the graceful one nature
gave our common mother."
Now the flood waters were abating. On February 18, the Times-Star's
dramatic headline was "ARARAT." The Enquirer flung a banner across four
columns: "SINGING FOR CHARITY." Abbey had organized a benefit
of his own.
Hundreds whp could not go to the operas, and many who ordinarily would
not permit themselves to attend Sunday entertainments but made an excep-
tion in so good a cause, were rewarded by a program of sixteen numbers.
All the prima donnas collected money during intermission. Nilsson, "in a
walking dress of plain black, but blazing with diamonds," kissed a child;
the audience loved it. She kissed another, and still another, who "covered
her mouth and sat with hanging head as though afraid the essence would
evaporate."
For a climax, the entire company assembled on the stage to sing the finale
from Lohengrin: three or four stars for each leading role, a chorus of 150
and full military band and orchestra.
To hear Scalchi, Lablache and Trebelli, with their different timbres, aim-
ing in unison at Ortrud's half-dozen high A's, should have been worth the
$6,250.30 raised.
The final burst of enthusiasm was expended on February 19, when Sem~
brich's sleepwalking Amina generated such excitement that "if it does not
stop soon, Cincinnati music circles will be guilty of something extravagant."
Unfortunately for Abbey, "it stopped" all too soon. As flood headlines at last
disappeared from the front pages, interest in the festival began a decrescendo,
never to rise again. Even Mefistofele and Hamlet, given for the first time on
tour, failed to stir Cincinnati, and only Martha called out an audience of
paying proportions.
18 OPERA CARAVAN
The engagement came too late. It was a radical mistake to place the festi-
val in flood jeopardy. Two weeks had proved too long, even for Cincinnati's
educated public. Fortunately, the college had a surplus to meet the deficit.
"But will there be another festival ?" the Enquirer asked.
The answer was, "No." M. E. Ingalls, president of the committee, con-
sulted his board and decided to ring down the curtain.
Cincinnati would play host in the next few years to opera Italian, Ger-
man and English but not again on a guarantee basis. The Times-Star had
put a brave face on the inadequate advance sales by claiming that more lati-
tude remained for single sales, and so "all the better for a 'people's opera.' "
"Very well," said the Festival Committee in effect, "let the people have it."
The Enquirer pronounced the decisive epitaph:
"Italian opera does not pay and cannot be made to pay in America!"
If cordiality could have saved the day, Washington would have redeemed
the entire tour for Abbey, especially after a performance of Don Giovanni
which, according to the Post, "those present hardly hope to witness again-"
Scalchi had to repeat all her solos, indeed, nearly every concerted number;
Kaschmann was praised for his engaging abandon and easy gallantry,
Giovanni Mirabella, who had been cited in Chicago as the only newcomer of
value except Sembrich, earned another line he could paste in his scrapbook as
a Leporello of "rare power and capital comedy."
Still, Washington's public thought the ticket prices too high, and did not
respond generously to four performances, so Abbey took advantage of an
invitation from Baltimore. Cutting the week short in the capital, he led the
company north to Baltimore's Academy of MusSic, only to meet another dis-
appointment.
Sembrich created the usual furor, but only Nilsson brought out an audi-
ence. Backstage flurries disturbed the smooth surface of the engagement, ac-
cording to the Sun.
"Scalchi took herself away to New York with her costumes, saying that
she had a reputation in Baltimore and was not going to sing any such
picayune role as Siebel." A rather unlikely excuse in view of the number of:
times she had sung it elsewhere, Louise Lablachc was called on once again.
Sembrich, owing to a misunderstanding about transportation, was said to
have sent Abbey a card reading: "At last my disappointments and annoyances
in this country are at an end. I am done- 1 sing no more here/*
"She will have to be pacified," the Sun prophesied darkly,
Abbey evidently mollified his princess, for she reappeared in Boston "as
charming, unaffected and gloriously endowed vocally as ever," according to
the Globe, which welcomed the company on its return in March-
Aside from Don Giovanni and Barbicre, Sembrich's two triumphs, Bos-
ton received Abbey's return coolly. The critics who had demanded novelties
now spoke slightingly of Hamla and Le PropMte* The excision o Bertha's
suicide scene in the latter provoked the Glob$ to wrath: "The knife was put
in [the work] and turned in a scarcely skillful manner, the edges Icfc being
exceedingly ragged/* Mefistofffle was "memorable" but poorly attended;
Robert le Diabk drew even less.
ABBEY'S ADVENTURERS 19
Deeply disturbed, Abbey tried yet once more, signing a contract with
Nixon and Zimmerman for a return week in Philadelphia. In the congenial
surroundings of the Academy of Music, the operas took on a new sheen for
the critical hearers, but after the initial Les Huguenots, given for the only
time on the road, business fell off alarmingly.
Robert earned the sad distinction of the lowest record on tour: $700.72.
Prophete was little better; Romeo et Juliette, which Abbey never gave at the
Metropolitan although he announced it three times, was played by Sembrich
and Campanini for a scattering of patrons and a few enthusiastic critics.
Abbey's debts by now were estimated at half a million dollars; SchoefH
later confided to Krehbiel that the figure was $600,000. His offer to continue
with the Metropolitan without salary if the directors would pay his losses
was, understandably, refused. Not only were his profits from other ventures
sacrificed to this reckoning of one season, but Abbey mortgaged his future.
As late as January 18, 1888, the Musical Courier was to comment:
"Last Tuesday was a red-letter day for H. E. Abbey. In the afternoon he
wiped out the last $2,000 of the debt he incurred in his disastrous first
season. , . ."
Abbey might have lived to be an octogenarian, magnate o a chain of
theatres from Boston to Omaha, if he had not become fatally addicted to
grand opera. Even after his first failure, he did not abstain from the heady
brew, particularly lethal to impresarios of the nineteenth century, which was
to kill him at fifty, with a "hemorrhage of the stomach."
When the American manager returned to the Metropolitan in 1891, his
timing was improved, his experience deepened and his partnership with
Grau solidified. Of Abbey's first adventurers, only seven were to tour again
with the Metropolitan during his lifetime Campanini, Capoul, Del Puente,
Novara, Scalchi, Kaschmann and Vianesi.
Meanwhile, the Metropolitan turned its back on Italian opera and entered
on an experiment that was to reshape the tastes of the entire nation.
Part II
WESTWARD HO-YO-TO-HO!
1. DAMROSCH DARES
Damrosch's "German Grand Opera company from the Metropolitan Opera
House" nearly missed its first engagement out of town. The audience in
Chicago's Columbia Theatre waited, gossiping and laughing, that night of
February 23, 1885. An hour had gone by since the doors had opened, but the
good-natured crowd was behaving as if it were all a lark. They had come
to hear Tannhauser, and hear Tannhauser they would, if it took all night.
Most people had seen the notices posted beside the paintings of Romeo,
Juliet and Francesca da Rimini in the lobby, handsomely printed placards
that read:
"On account of a snow blockade which may retard the company, the au-
dience is asked to excuse a possible delay in the raising of the curtain."
One "well-informed" person circulated the story that the company had
wanted to save $200 by taking the West Shore Railroad instead of the New
York Central. This, unhappily, was the case.
Many times since his departure from New York on Saturday night, twenty-
three-year-old Walter Damrosch had repented the decision to bring the Ger-
man Company to its first tour engagement by a railroad that he admitted
was a "rather lame rival of the New York Central."
All trains were delayed by "terrific snows" in upstate New York and the
Midwest, but the opera special carried an extra jinx in its "palace cars."
Even before the company reached Albany, heavy drifts had overwhelmed the
two coaches, four sleepers, two baggage cars and diner. After many weary
hours they were shoveled out. Then couplings broke; cars had to be chained
together. The "worst wreck since 1883 when the road was opened" held up
the troubadours outside of Canajoharie. They crawled into Buffalo; dropped
one Pullman in Detroit; finally limped into Chicago one half -hour past
the advertised curtain time.
Shortly before 9 o'clock the doors from the lobby were thrown open and
into the auditorium and down the aisle hurried a man and a woman. Heads
craned, voices lifted from whispers to audible comments as the portly,
heavily-clad woman was recognized as Amalia Materna. Close behind her
came Damrosch.
21
22 OPERA CARAVAN
"It was [Manager] William J. Davis' idea," Damrosch said later, "to give
ocular demonstration of our presence." The stunt produced the desired effect.
Carrying their traveling bags, the famous singer and the young conductor
mounted the stage, where they bowed in response to a ripple of applause and
laughter, then disappeared behind the curtain,
A few moments later, a familiar figure appeared. Chicago's sociable Mayor
Harrison asked patience for the troupe, which had been forty-nine hours on
the road. Their diner had long since run out of warm food. Though hungry,
they had hurried directly to the theatre from the station.
The gallery proposed three cheers for the mayor; the parquet hissed them
down.
"The more refined and elegant were surprised, by no means pleasantly, to
find the mayor thrust into conspicuous notice as apologist," criticized the
Inter-Ocean. The Tribune's acid comment: "He didn't mention the $200."
At 10 o'clock Damrosch raised his baton. Perhaps for the first (and last)
time in Chicago operatic history, an Overture was heard from the beginning;
latecomers had long since become old settlers and everyone was in his seat.
After another wait of twenty minutes, the curtain went up at exactly 10:30,
Three hours later, the patrons were still seated and still enthusiastic. Ma-
terna, returning to a city where she had triumphed in concert, won a genuine
ovation as Elisabeth. Anton Schott was an admirable Tannhauser, Anna
Slach a pleasing and artistic Venus and Adolf Robinson was hailed as the
"singer of the evening," in the part of Wolfram. The crowd demanded the
"Evening Star" three times.
The fear expressed in a dispatch to the New Yor^ Times that the contre-
temps might affect the success of the entire engagement seemed unfounded.
Approval for the gallantry of the company outweighed the charge of in-
experience and parsimony leveled at Damrosch. The Potter Palmers, John T.
Lester, Sam W. Allerton, O. W. Potter and Marshall Field were in their
boxes. All turned out well that had started badly.
Walter Damrosch, beginning a long career before the public, betrayed his
naivete by spreading the word of a possible return before his two weeks
were sold out; in Chicago.
Walter had been learning fast all through that fateful time- On February
15, the sudden tragic death of his father from pneumonia brought on by
overwork and exposure, had precipitated a professional and personal crisis
for the Damrosch family just when affairs seemed to be moving smoothly*
New York had accepted the new Teutonic features so carefully molded on
the Metropolitan's countenance by Abbey's successor, Leopold Damrosch*
No doubt all of the opera's box-holders did not understand or enjoy the
"music of the future," but they appreciated a regime that asked only a frac-
tion o the subsidy poured into the Italian operas. Houses were full nightly
and newspaper reviewers were cordial, especially the Tribune** Krchbiel,
who constituted himself the evangel of the new musical religion,
Leopold Damrosch's appointment in August, 1884, astonished a public
conditioned to believing that opera was an untranslatable Italian word*
Negotiations with Ernest Gyc had once again broken down, possibly be-
WESTWARD Ho-Yo-To-Ho ! 23
cause the Londoner was married to a prima donna for whom he would ex-
pect preferential treatment, Even for Emma Albani, the illustrious lady in
question, the New York stockholders were reluctant to dispossess Christine
Nilsson at least until it became apparent that the Metropolitan would no
longer shelter Italian opera.
Damrosch offered ready-made orchestral and choral forces in his New
York Symphony and Oratorio Society, singers marked with competence
rather than high price tags and a repertory that had as its nucleus the neg-
lected works of the Bayreuth genius. Satisfied that the Metropolitan Opera
House would be kept alight for a second season, and trusting to their new
shepherd to cope with Mapleson's annual threat, the directors signed the con-
tract that was to bring seven years of German opera to the Metropolitan.
Out of the turmoil resulting from the elder Damrosch's untimely death,
one clear course eventually emerged. Rejecting an unseemly bid for leader-
ship by the tenor Anton Schott, which split the company into two factions,
the board voted to allow Walter Damrosch to carry on his father's mission.
He had proved himself a capable conductor in the final days of his father's
illness, when he had taken over the performances of Tannhauser on Feb-
ruary 11, Wal\ure on February 12 and Prophets, on February 14. An assist-
ant, John Lund, finished the season, and was available to alternate with the
young man on the road. The dates in the western cities would be filled. The
New York papers mentioned several possibilities for the touring company;
these narrowed down to three; Chicago, Cincinnati and Boston.
The German "non-star" policy was wisely timed by Damrosch, the Chi-
cago Tribune admitted. Such care for ensemble, such "masterly interpreta-
tion of an instrumental score," had truly never before been witnessed in
Chicago, Damrosch's orchestra, even when augmented to fifty-six for
W allure, fell short of Abbey's seventy-five, but the rich scores of Wagner,
Weber and Beethoven may have accounted for the impression of fullness.
^ "What seemed to have contributed most to the success was the orchestra-
tion [sic], which appeared the more wonderful as young Mr. Damrosch was
called to the conductor's choir [sic] so sadly and suddenly," according to a
dispatch from Chicago in the news columns of the "New Yor% Times for
March 15,
One or two die-hards missed "that pure sweet tone that forms the leading
element among artists of the Italian school. It is difficult for some to accept
the declamatory German style," the Chicago Tribune confessed.
New York believed that Chicago was seeing Tannhauser for the first time,
but the Chicago Tribune vouched for an earlier performance by Leonard
Grover's German Opera Company in Crosby's Opera House in 1865. After
twenty years Chicago revisited the Wartburg Valley with pleasure, but the
extraordinary excitements of an opening night usurped the critics' attention;
Tannhauser stepped unchallenged into the fortnight's repertory.
Chicago boasted the out-of-town premiere of Die Wall^ure on March 10,
and two repetitions, which prompted the Tribune (Upton still holding the
reins) to proclaim: "Wagner is a genius, everyone knows. W allure may
become as popular as Lohengrin and Tannhauser. After the second perform-
24
OPERA CARAVAN
ance people hummed the love motive but it needs singers with large voices,
an extended and perfect orchestra ... the cost will limit it ... it will not
hold the stage except at intervals."
Upton preferred to pass lightly over the Wai tyre scenery and the Inter-
Ocean excused it while approving the lighting effects and deploring the
introduction of a real horse.
For Preischiitz, stock scenery produced the inevitable anachronism: a
libelous portrait of Mayor Harrison in the seventeenth century interior, al-
though the mechanical devices of flitting bats, winking owls and slithering
serpents were well contrived.'*
The Cincinnati Enquirer, presumably reflecting the tastes of a large Ger-
man population, predicted :
"At last the Dream of the Faithful is realized." But next night it was
obvious that the Teutonic influence was not powerful enough after all. A
note of surrender crept in :
"Lohengrin was universally acceptable to open the season in a city the in-
habitants of which, though essentially musical, are still prone, as Berlioz
once wrote of a specific class, to 'hunt for a tune.' "
Cincinnati was not put to the ultimate test with Wd\ure. Tannhauser
marked the limit to what her audiences were asked to accept. The opera's
"near-perfect stage representation" insured its success.
The city had never enjoyed opera before when "all parts were so well
rendered . . . when there was no indecision and the attack was prompt and
the harmony well preserved.*'
Boston, too, took its chief pleasure in the qualities of ensemble stressed by
the new company. Stars there might be Materna, Brandt, Slach, Schott
and Robinson were illustrious enough for any opera house; but these five
and all the others behaved like members of a stock company, accustomed to
pull together.
Their acting was "pure delight" to Apthorp, who, however, could not
speak "so sweepingly of singers ... a sound vocal method is rare with
Germans."
Tannhauser was admitted to the list of works Boston termed "unhack-
neyed," Fidelia, Orfeo and L^ fuhe among them; yet of more moment than
the music itself was the presence in the cast of Charles R. Adams, the cele-
brated American tenor, who carried on a distinguished teaching career in
Boston, Rejoining Materna in an opera they had often sung together in
Vienna, he exemplified his own precepts when he "never lost his grip on a
phrase, never miscalculated breath, never blurred musical rhythm."
"One thing must be beat into the heads of singers and the public, too
[the Transcript continued] Wagner's voice parts must he sung, must not
be shouted or screamed, . . , From the first note in Rienzi to the last in
Parsifal, this is of primary importance."
Apthorp had been aroused two nights previously by the first performance
in Boston of the mighty first segment of the Trilogy. "Die W allure sur-
passed even sanguine expectations! . . a red-letter night! An example of
WESTWARD Ho-Yo-To-Ho ! 25
how vigorous, sincere and well-directed artistic effort can overcome im-
perfect material conditions."
Certain details of mise-en-scene were judged superior to New York. The
firelight and sword business was artistic and intelligent, Fricka no longer
appeared in a "ridiculous little go-cartpardon, a goat chariot!" and Sieg-
mund's death had been stripped of its ludicrousness. The closing fire scene
"hung fire" and had been more effective in the Metropolitan. The Valkyries,
who had displayed a "lamentable lack of time" in Chicago, kept on beat and
pitch in Boston.
All of the singers won glowing words from Apthorp, with a special ac-
colade to Materna for "1,000 delicate touches." Her Brunnhilde "lost none
of sublimity by being taken on a plane of purely human emotion and pathos."
The whole performance added up to an "aggregation of fine details, sur-
passingly good in totality. It was grand!"
Chicago and Cincinnati at least were spared blunders in stage manage-
ment. In the Ohio city, Damrosch availed himself of Henck's new Grand
Opera House shunned by Mapleson the year before. But gremlins joined the
stage crews in Boston.
In the first Tannhauser on April 7, Apthorp reported an "odd hitch in
the transformation scene: Venus (Slach) stood faithfully over the trap, but
it did not work, so she had to walk off up the valley and get back to Horsel-
berg as best she could. I fear she never did. When the transformation curtain
rose we still saw her, not in the bowels of the mountain, but again in the
valley. Poor goddess! Tramping about alone like a vagrant through Thu-
ringia!"
Damrosch relates in his autobiography that while he was conducting the
"beautiful monotony of the last E major chords of the Fire Charm" at the
second evening performance of W allure, he noticed the grass mat under
Brurmhilde (Materna) had actually caught fire. Quick and discreet action
on the part of a Boston fireman, who poured water from his bucket on the
burning turf, prevented a more serious emergency. Damrosch, already
showing his talent for capitalizing on the moment, insisted that the fireman
share a curtain call.
Just before the final matinee, also Wal\ure, the orchestra went on strike.
In another attempt to cut corners on the expense sheet, Damrosch had en-
gaged steamship passage back to New York on the Fall River Line. The
men balked, and demanded rail transportation for the return trip. Dam-
rosch threatened to get along with two pianos. Fortunately for the sensi-
bilities of the Wal\ure audience, the strikers yielded.
Damrosch rehearsed and performed two operas for the first time on the
road. Neither saw the light in New York under the German regime.
La Dame Blanche was first produced by the Metropolitan company in
Chicago on March 12, and provided for one critic "a melodious bagatelle . . .
pleasing and successful variation from the [heretofore] heavy caliber." A
Metropolitan audience heard it first in 1903-04.
Boston felt flattered to hear the first German performance in America,
and the only performance of the season, of Orfeo ed Euridice on April ix.
26 OJERA CARAVAN
Damrosch had planned the premiere of the Gluck work in Chicago., but had
substituted Fidelia. One o the artistic successes of the season, Orfeo did not
seem "grand," but its "direct simplicity, pure melody and beauty of dramatic
expression went straight to people's hearts."
The only faults lay in the realm of the visual conception, which, for a
"scenic opera,'* was insignificant. The critic chafed at the absence of choric
dances, and at the "ill-judged costumes of the Furies and Blessed Spirits'*
who "looked like charity-school inhabitants."
With few worries about heavy scenes to transport in his two baggage cars,
Damrosch could give single performances here and there, rigging them out
of stock. Three in Chicago undoubtedly wore borrowed finstyGuillaume
Tell (still known by its French title though it was, of course, sung in
German) ; Masanietto (called by the name of its hero instead of La Muette dc
Portia The Dumb Girl of Portia as Auber's opera had been known at
the Metropolitan), and Don Giovanni.
Hardly an opera escaped the tailor on the road. Wagner's Valhalla-like
lengths inevitably came under the shears, not only W allure but Tannhauser
as well Apthorp mentioned that Materna sang a "somewhat cut" prayer, that
Tannhauser's first reply to Wolfram was never heard, and that the last
Pilgrim's Chorus was omitted entirely, so that "poor Tannhauser got beyond
the powers of salvation after all."
Lying helpless under the knife, Meyerbeer's operas were whittled down
each season. Le Prophdte was a favorite victim. Under Abbey's management,
the Boston Globe had complained; now the Transcript took up the crusade
against Damrosch.
"Of course, Le Proph^tc must be cut," Apthorp ceded. "It is a perfect
sea-serpent in length, and would last till nearly breakfast time* . . * But in
music, nothing suffers by not being given at all; music suffers by being given
piecemeal. Cut out the whole skating scene and ballet, cut out Fidis* O
gffbt but cut whole numbers. If Walter Damrosch wishes to leave an
immortal name ... the opportunity is ready for him let him revise the
abominable system of cutting." That Damrosch did not heed this good ad-
vice was apparent throughout his touring career, but; Apthorp admitted
later, "it was probably not Damrosch's fault. No doubt the cuts were already
traditional." On the other hand, Cincinnati heartily approved the shrinkage
in Prophte; the Enquirer registered only one objection; the opera was still
too long.
The German opera singers probably set a record for endurance and forti-
tude in the course of forty-two performances. On the distaff side, Anna Slach
performed twenty-nine times in leading roles, and once five days in sequence,
On February 28 she sang Venus at the matinee and Marzelline in Fidelio in
the evening.
Appearing twice in the same day was almost a commonplace for Josef:
Staudigl, son of a famous father by the same name and himself also a "nobly
expressive 57 bass by Apthorp's standards, To follow King Henry in Lohengrin
by the Hermit in Frdschutz t as he twice did, was perhaps not too strenuous*
but even for a strong voice and constitution Wotan in the afternoon and
WESTWARD HoYo-ToHo ! 27
Leporello at night is something o a marathon. His list o twenty-nine ap-
pearances matches Slach's,
Next in the endurance contest came Marianne Brandt, with twenty-seven
performances. She never sang more than three days in succession, but one
of these was a matinee day, and Brandt made her own record by singing
three roles within twenty-four hours : Fricka and Gerhilde in W allure and
Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni. Another day she paired Ortrud and Leonore
in Fidclio. The passion and malignance of her Ortrud, the consummate
vocalisrn of her Fides, the tragic force of her portrayals proved her truly
great, a "real chanteuse," said Apthorp.
Nor was the first tenor spared arduous duties. Anton Schott, determined
to make up for earlier fractious behavior by performing faithfully and ad-
mirably "he had come down off his high horse," Boston was told was
called on twenty-five times, although usually with a day between appearances,
Adolf Robinson owed his lesser record of nineteen performances to at
least two indispositions which added to Staudigl's total These and the replace-
ment of Huguenots by Fiddio in Chicago because of Materna's illness apr
parently completed the list of major substitutions. Considerable crowing
arose in the ranks of adherents to the new German regime, who delighted
in pointing out the fallibility of the Italians under similar circumstances.
The prima donna of the company, if Materna may be so designated, re*-
strained herself from more than seventeen performances, at intervals of from
one to three days. Almost two weeks elapsed between Elisabeths in Cincin-
nati and Boston, during which she may have given a concert or two.
In spite of a few inadequacies and compromises, the company won its way
irito the good books of the three cities. Chicago gave it full marks for the
best Wagner presentations ever seen there, Cincinnati considered that with'
out pretensions it was quite as good as the Opera Festival and Boston re*
marked that it possessed more artistic grit than any troupe in years,
Walter Damrosch enjoyed his first sample of operatic life on the road
He had won "golden opinions" in Cincinnati, in addition to a description in
one of the dailies as "a manly man, whose splendid physique and earnest
blue eyes and frank countenance combine to form a pleasant picture." Chi-
cago had forgiven him his informal arrival and Boston's bouquet contained
few thorns.
2. STEPCHILD
"It is now definitely settled that the greater part of the Metropolitan Opera
House artists and orchestra will go on a tournie" the Musical Courier re-
ported in February, 1886. <c The Metropolitan Opera House management
wish it to be understood that they are in no wise connected with this affair,
28 OPERA CARAVAN
the financial arrangements of which are backed by Messrs. Rice, Friend and
Bijoux, while management will be in the experienced hands of Mr. Herman
Grau. Adolf Neuendorf! will conduct. Lehmann, Brandt and Stritt have
positively declined. . . ."
Against the handicap of disavowal by the Opera House, Herman Grau, an
uncle of the better known Maurice, set out to keep his first engagement on
March 15 with sixteen solo singers, a chorus of fifty and orchestra of fifty-five.
His original ambitious blueprint of a coast-to-coast tournSc & la Mapleson
shrank until only four cities remained on his itinerary: Chicago, St. Louis,
Cincinnati and Cleveland. Advance reports indicated that sympathy rested
with his venture, rather than with the restrictive home management that had
branded him a wildcatter.
Grau's German wayfarers stand unique in Metropolitan history, for never
again would a road company be disowned by the House and allowed to
entrain with an outsider.
Responsibility for the decision fell on Edmund C. Stanton, an elegant
young man who enjoyed the favor of the directors as the relative of a mem-
ber and as recording secretary to the board. With their decision to extend the
life of a German regime for another season, he had been thrust into the
managerial post. He was thirty-one, and confessed in a Philadelphia inter-
view that he "did not know one side of the stage from another, or a wing
from a fly,"
By consensus the "most gentlemanly manager 5 ' the Metropolitan ever
knew, Stanton has perhaps been described most clearly if not entirely
without malice by Walter Damrosch in his memoirs :
"Tall, good-looking, with gentle brown eyes, always well groomed, o
kindly disposition and most perfect and courtly manners, which indeed
never failed him and which were about all he had left at the end of seven
years' incumbency at which time German opera crumbled to dust as a
natural result of his curious ignorance and incompetency in matters operatic."
Lilli Lehmann's opinion, quoted in Chicago, lends itself to various in-
terpretations:
"Stanton is a gentleman all over. . * . He loves and understands art and
is at the same time a merchant and worth three million/'
Fraukin Lehmann, who liked to take charge of affairs herself if not
satisfied that all was going smoothly, remembered that Stanton, in that pro*
union era, "shook all the wings in his white gloves" to see if the scenery the
prima donna had set in place with her own hands would hold solidly*
Stanton's repugnance to touring was probably engendered by a Philadel-
phia visit which is said to have lost $15,000 for the stockholders more than
half of the total deficit for the season. Only Philadelphia received this ac-
colade a Christmas present o a two-week engagement by Stanton's entire
company.
The choice of the holiday fortnight militated against a representative
attendance; patrons were "scattered like righteous citizens of Sodom" in the
expanses of the Academy of Music for the majority of the performances. At
WESTWARD Ho-Yo-To-Ho! 29
a top price of $2.50, Stanton failed to make expenses by half, and the taste
of defeat embittered his view of the world outside New York.
Five of the six operas already heard at home were wrapped in the gift
package; Die Konigin von Saba, too ponderous to move, stayed behind. The
premiere of Die Walfyure, the sumptuous art of Lilli Lehmann and the
mastery of Seidl overshadowed all other gratifications for Philadelphia's
public and press.
Seidl's advent marked a new standard of musical perfection for the young
company; his inability to tour deprived the nation for a few years of the
finished performances that enriched New York and Philadelphia.
Lehmann, introduced to Philadelphia as to New York in Carmen, seemed
different from all others in that "she both acted and sang," but her full mag-
nificence was apparent only in Wal^iire. Her Briinnhilde seemed to the
Press "worthy of the goddess in Keats' Hyperion"
Albert Stritt, one of several important singers who abstained from the
western tour, was never to return to the Metropolitan; hence Philadelphia
enjoyed his only tour performances.
When Grau proposed a tour it was in Stanton's power to forbid the artists
from following, as the New Yor\ Times carefully pointed out. The principal
and almost the only objection was the fear that the tour would not heap
credit on the Opera House. Not only were artistic values at stake, but
financial security, since in an unauthorized company salaries might not be
paid regularly and artists might be left stranded!
"To preclude such a possibility it is stipulated in contracts that two weeks'
salaries are to be paid before the company leaves New York and after that
the salaries will be paid in advance each week. As none of the singers has
been heard anywhere in this country except in Philadelphia, where the brief
season did not prove as remunerative as had been hoped, it will readily be
seen that Mr. Grau is taking a good many chances."
Taking chances was any impresario's daily lot. Herman Grau was brought
up in the proper atmosphere. With his brother, Jacob (the popular J. Grau
of many opera troupes), he managed the Stadt Theatre on the Bowery and
was associated with the Castle Square Opera Company and Terrace Garden.
In appearance he did not resemble his famous nephew, Maurice; Herman
moved more slowly, wore a heavy mustache and spade beard, and looked at
the world through soft, kindly eyes.
Stanton's opposition did not cease with the withholding of a blessing,
although the New Yorl^ Times charitably stated that he did not attempt to
throw any obstacles in Grau's way. The Chicago News told another story.
This paper was authority for the statement that Stanton threatened to "give
the cold shoulder next year to any artists who went with Grau," No re-
prisals were forthcoming, however, but "spiteful little paragraphs" were cir-
culated, tending to injure Grau's prestige by disclaiming connection with the
Metropolitan Opera House.
"The public need not take this into account," the reporter assured his
readers. "The company is not equal in splendor to New York, of course.
Only two operas can be called elaborate Rienzi and Die Konigin von Saba.
30 OPERA CARAVAN
But even the others are splendid in comparison to slipshod Italian operas."
Further reassurance was offered by Theodore Habelmann, the stage man-
ager, who brought news that the company would leave New York earlier
so that the perplexing delay o the previous year should not be repeated.
Fourteen o the Metropolitan's singers had agreed to join the impresario,
including Max Alvary, the tall, graceful tenor who had made his Metro-
politan debut with Lilli Lehmann in Carmen, and Eloi Sylva, whose "glori-
ous tenor voice and marvelous staying powers" had aroused the admiration of
Anton Seidl, the Metropolitan's new musical director.
Lehmann, who had stirred New York in successive appearances, par-
ticularly with her first Wal\iire Briinnhilde, declined to share the venture.
In her place Grau counted on Marie Kramer-Wiedl, wife of the tenor August
Kramer, the first to sing Goldmark's Queen of Shcba, and on Auguste
Seidl-Kraus, who had prefixed her husband's distinguished name to her own.
Frau Seidl had been a member of Leopold Damrosch's company, but had
not accompanied Walter on tour,
Seidl could diplomatically plead European engagements as a reason for
not heading Grau's insurgents. Neuendorf!, an admirable veteran of German
opera, known favorably in Boston and New York for two decades, replaced
him. Grau was also pleased to engage Georgine von Januschowsky, Ncuetv-
dorffs wife, who would be invited to the Metropolitan the following year-
Two additional married couples added a domestic note to the touriftg
company. Frau Staudigl, whose husband Josef remained the stalwart among
bass-baritones, came to Grau's assistance although she had never before sung
in America, while Otto and Frau Kemlitz, both on the home roster, joined
the expedition.
Emil Fischer had to omit his famous Hans Sachs on the road, for Master-
linger posed insoluble problems of transportation, but brought his noble
voice and art to Wotan, King Henry, the Landgraf and even Mcphistoph&cs.
Adolf Robinson, whose "large, flowing voice, manly and powerful,'* had
captured Chicago and the other two cities on Damrosch*s route, promised to
be an equally potent drawing card.
In Chicago the Tribune became a partisan of the company and remained
staunch to the cad. Rienzi indicated "the hand of genius" with a cast "strong
enough for any stage," The second performance was termed without quali-
fication "the most complete and satisfactory of any grand opera in Chicago,
not excepting the Tannhausvr last year." L&hcagrin showed Wagner "for the
first time in a true light** Faust offered "agreeable relief from the seriousness
o Wagner," Die Konigin von Saba proved most brilliant of all*
The Inter-Ocean looked at the whole affair with distaste* Its reviewer dis-
missed Rtenzi as "about as near a Metropolitan production as a crayon draw-
ing is co a portrait*" The brilliance of The Queen of Sheba arose from the
scenery, "which reflects most creditably upon the generosity of the house
management/* The opera's "antiquated style of recitatives, cavatina$ and
concerted finales recalls Aidtt and UAfrictdne. . , * The last act shows about
the same relative weakness as Manon, the latest novelty presented by Maple-
WESTWARD Ho-Yo-To-Ho ! 31
son." His final judgment: "This company is to the Metropolitan as a gas
burner to electric light."
Grau was apparently fortunate to be able to produce Goldmark's opera at
all Rumors of an injunction against him continued to circulate until after
the first performance. Three subsequent hearings supplied Chicago with a
hoard of memories that would suffice for a good many years. When Walter
Damrosch escorted Sheba's Queen to the Chicago stage again in 1890, she
ranked lowest in popularity among opera heroines.
Grau's report card at the end of the fortnight bore an "F" for financial loss.
Mary Anderson, the American actress, traveling under Abbey's management,,
and Mapleson, who had paraded his company through the Columbia Theatre
in February, had drained Chicago's pockets.
Still, an "E" for effort and an "A" for artistry were freely granted Grau.
Marshall Field headed a committee that organized a benefit for the company,
which took the form of an extra perforaiance of Rienzi on Saturday night,
March 27.
Audiences had increased slowly during the last few days, and a third week
might have turned the wheel in Grau's favor. But he was due in St. Louis
on Monday.
This year no impudences from "Notes" pricked at the German singers'
sensibilities, for the Globe-Democrat's columnist confined himself (or herself)
to innocuous tracery of society's complicated patterns. Music criticism was
also emasculated; an exponent of the "moonlight and roses" school had taken
over.
"Beside the stately marches and grand choral effects of Tht Queen of
Sheba, Goldmark has run a thread of soft, delicate and insidious music that
seems to sigh through moonlit gardens and thrill the silver waters that
ripple" on and on and on.
Unfortunately these raptures did not serve to entice an audience of fashion
or even of numbers after opening night. The Post-Dispatch attributed
the shortage to fear. "The popular impression is that German music, par-
ticularly Wagner, is too heavy. The bulk of the audience was German. The
Americans avoided the Olympic Theatre."
Tannhauser, indeed, had proved a "test of endurance, not only for the
tenor but people in the audience" and the Globe-Democrat oracle as well
Lohengrin was rewarded with the largest crowd of the week, because of
the presence in its cast of a home-town girl. The event of the evening was
the presentation of a huge floral tribute, six feet high, tagged "Our Carrie,"
to the Ortrud, Carrie Goldsticker. Impressionable scribes failed to state how
the lady sang.
For a final extra performance of Fiddio, Grau moved from the Olympic
to the Grand Opera House, Next day, a small paragraph noted that the
house had been full and that "tonight, Lizzie May Ulmer appears in Dad's
Girl"
German opera still failed to cut deeply into St. Louis' consciousness, so
Grau, like Abbey before him, set his sights hopefully on Cincinnati, The
warm approbation of the city must have soothed and pleased the company.
22 OPERA CARAVAN
Who could fail to respond to such praise as Die Konigin von Saba elicited
from the Commercial Gazette?
"A performance of such magnificence and splendor, so gratifying in every
respect, with such magic of spectacular exhibition, has never been equaled in
this city."
The Enquirer counted Cincinnati "heavily in debt to the enterprise and
skill of the company, which paved the way to a wider dissemination of pres-
ent-day knowledge/' Even the swollen Ohio River, flooding its banks again
at opera time, did not perturb the company's spirits.
One additional triumph lay in store, in a city honored for the first time by
a Metropolitan incursion. Grand opera visitors to Cleveland had been few
and scattered; now the metropolis looked eagerly toward a future in which
the lyric theatre would become a leading citizen. Spokesmen ventured to
hope that even at a $3 top, the Opera House would be flatteringly populated
for the Germans' four performances which would cost Grau $8,000 to
produce.
Once again the enthusiasm of the votaries failed to stimulate the ticket-
buying public, though the newspapers suffered from hypertension all week.
Almost every review blared with the opening announcement:
"Never before in Cleveland . . . 1"
Rienzi? "Memorable! Nothing like it ever heard here!"
Queen of Sheba? "Splendid! Gave entire satisfaction!
Lohengrin? "A rare treat to all able to appreciate the highest reaches in the
art of music and poetry combined!"
Because Tannhauser fell on a Saturday night after the Lohengrin matinee,
reporters had no extravagant adjectives left. The opera "was very much civ
joyedj and everybody was equal to the demands."
The Plain Dealer reporter roamed happily among the unintentional de-
lights of the performances, witnessing an unusual scene backstage. Supers
had become a nuisance by crowding on a bench near the first right en-
trance. To get rid of them, an electrician had fixed an electric battery under
the seat. They learned their lesson. But on Saturday;
"Ncuendorff, weary of so much Wagner, went: backstage to rest fin inter-
mission]. The fatal beach was convenient, He dropped down. In another
second he was sailing in the direction of the flies, pronouncing the name of
one of Wagner's operas. Those in authority say it was Cofferdam mertm$
Someone finally quieted his ruffled temper. The above accounts for the un-
usually long wait between the first and second acts.* 1
Grau's German singers returned to New York, several of them to rejoin
the Metropolitan next season. By the time the Metropolitan company again
took to the road, Wagner would be a deity and Seidl his acknowledged
prophet in America.
Mapleson's dynasty had collapsed at last. Even the indestructible colonel
had succumbed to a disastrous season* Patti had absented herself. Sick* re-
bellious or capricious prima donnas of both sexes bedeviled him on the road;
he scraped up money here to pay debts there; the Academy of Music directors
WESTWARD Ho-Yo-To-Ho ! 33
made activity so difficult for him that he was forced to give up; London had
severed connections.
The entrepreneur, still jaunty but shaken, evaded process servers by
journeying to his steamer on a health officers' tug. How sharp a contrast from
the tugs following his ship up the bay in other years with a band of music
to serenade the colonel as he sat in his flower-crammed stateroom! He would
try once more in 1896, but his reputation would have been less tarnished if
the health officers had seen him off for good!
3. RING AROUND THE CIRCUIT
In his fourth season as manager of the Metropolitan Opera., Edmund C.
Stanton changed his mind. Fie could no longer ignore the call of the road
and the demands for the new music which had incited New York to wild
enthusiasm. The reports had percolated as far as St. Louis that even tenors
had been hugged and kissed by strangers, so great was the furor over Wag-
ner's music dramas in the metropolis.
Walter Darnrosch had been invited in 1887 to bring the singers to Chicago
for a week's performances of Die Konigin von Saba, but could not assemble
the double cast imperative for nightly performances. Other bids had been
pressing but Stanton had remained obdurate.
Only three important itinerant organizations had materialized during his
tenure: Abbey's, which had fallen out of action in 1888-89 because Patti
was touring South America; the American (later National) Opera Company,
an elaborate concoction of Jeanette Thurber's which, despite the wealthy
singer's beneficence, was soon to come to grief through alleged rascally
management, and a troupe headed by Italo and Cleofonte Campanini, who
had introduced Verdi's Oullo to America the previous year.
Now Stanton decided it was time to take the Metropolitan touring again,
and under its own management. Five cities were to hear the entire Tetralogy
for the first time. Each reacted in a highly individual manner.
Philadelphia admitted only a budding acquaintance with the later Wagner
and humbly awaited its dispensation. Boston's Transcript published an edi-
torial on "Wagner's Great Theme," interpreting the Master to himself:
"The Ring is not based on the German Nibelungenlied. . . . Wagner de-
cided that the pure soul of humanity was to be found in the realm o myth
aloae. He was somewhat influenced by Schopenhauer , . . yet commentators
will probably try to unravel philosophic mysteries of which the author had
not the least concept*"
Milwaukee, chosen for its large German population as well as its proximity
to Chicago, sent a request sponsored by numbers of prominent citizens that
Goffer 'dummerung not be given on Good Friday. The opera was transferred
34 OPERA CARAVAN
to Saturday night. Attendance at other performances during Holy Week
was condoned on the ground that Wagner "cannot be placed under an
* Amusement' heading, side by side with farces and comedies; it is therefore
appropriate for the Holy Season."
Chicago, even after long indoctrination by Theodore Thomas, displayed
a touch of apprehension in the face of "A Whole Wagner Week."
St, Louis, whose reviewers had received Lohengrin and Tannhaus&r in
1886 with more gush than gumption, now prepared for Dcr Ring des Nibe-
lungen with proper seriousness. The Spectator, a weekly 9 observed that
"Browning and Wagner are for educated tastes, and for each a special kind
of education is needed."
Such education lay opportunely at hand in the guise of "illustrated 5 * lectures
on the Ring dramas by a member of the company. The irrepressible Walter
Damrosch, if he was not allowed to conduct more than a few performances
of the beloved music, could at least talk about it. He consented eagerly to act
as harbinger for the Nibelungs, Gibichungs and Valhalla-ites, and thus
opened new vistas for America and a new career for himself.
In Milwaukee he donated a "specimen lecture" to an invited audience as
an inducement to attend the series. The Sentinel reporter, who evidently did
not take the bait, nevertheless admired the sample ;
''Although sketchy, it was hugely entertaining and instructive, and brought
out with much force the sublime poetry that pervades the works of the great
composer,"
Anton Seidl freed himself of European commitments in order to tour, and
the effulgent Lilli Lehmaim agreed to sing Brunnhilde to Max Alvary's
young Siegfried if her own bridegroom of a year, Paul Kalisch, might fall
heir to the Cotter dammerung heroes. Alvary possessed his share of temper
and capriciousness in spite of the gallantry and gentlemanly bearing that had
so impressed Chicago in 1886, and a feud sprang up between him and the
Junoesque soprano with her husband as bone of contention, which titillated
the public in several western cities.
Twenty-seven singers of the company, exactly the number Abbey had
gathered under his wing for flight, undertook the missionary trip. To these
Stanton added three; a heroic tenor named Jager to replace Julius Pcrotti; a
soprano variously named Triloff or Baumann-Triloff to sing an occasional
Briinnhilde in place of Fanny Moran-GIden, and a comprimario, Heinrich
Bartels, for the single role of Zora in Di* Meistersinger. The orchestra num-
bered sixty, still shy of Abbey's record.
The appellation "entire Ring* as applied to the truncated versions of the
time was a misnomer, and yet no one questioned the feasibility-'-cvcn the
desirability of radical cuts* Following New York's lead, although he would
have resented the imputation, even Apthorp approved the mutilation of
Cofferdam merung.
Shorn of five characters, the "twilight of the gods" fell earlier and more
economically in those days. Not for ten years was the country to glimpse a
Norn, Waltrautc or Alberich in the final strophe of the cycle*
Though the Chicago Tribune critic regretted the absence of Waltraute, he
WESTWARD Ho-Yo-To-Ho ! 35
did not miss the three fateful sisters : "The whole idea of the Norns is charm-
ingly poetic but difficult in presenting the ideal of thread in material form,
even though golden. Even in Bayreuth it seemed commonplace, and must
always distract from the effect."
Alberich, too, represented no loss to an Inter-Ocean writer. The scene with
Hagen was called "sinister and bloodcurdling happily omitted."
Seidl, though he deplored the elision o a single measure, fell In with the
requirements of the period and contented himself with giving orchestral
"accompaniments" that had never been equaled in the memories of the five
cities. He allowed himself only one indulgence: "some of the Norn music" as
a prelude to Gotterdarnmerung, at least in Boston.
The extent of mayhem committed on Siegfried varied from place to place.
Erda appears in the Philadelphia cast but nowhere else. The bear was "ex-
cellent" in Boston; non-existent in Chicago "just as well, as it adds nothing
to the drama and under ordinary circumstances could only be tiresome,"
Other excisions, not catalogued, telescoped the Chicago performance until it
ended at u o'clock.
Many daily paper scribes showed themselves unable to cope with the in-
tricacies of Wagner's musical structures, though they struggled manfully
with what one Chicagoan called "lieb motives," and chromatic sequences.
These novices tended to a coloratura style such as "This wondrous piece of
music writing [The Ride of the Valkyries] o'ershadows and outleaps similar
compositions akin to Titians* [sic] play with pygmies."
The pundits confidently aired their analyses and dissertations well in ad-
vance of the performances, along with properly reverent blueprints of the
plots. This left the staging and performances as review material
Rheingold offered uncommonly meaty stuff for descriptive pens. Its swim-
ming Rhinemaidens, Nibelheim caves and rainbow bridge aroused universal
curiosity and Interest. Philadelphia found the staging clumsy, but Boston and
Chicago compared it favorably to Munich and Bayreuth respectively. In
Boston "the gauze curtain that simulated water acted as a terrible sordino
00 the Rhine daughters/' however, "Even knowing the music by heart,"
wrote Apthorp complacently, "it was impossible to grasp the melodic out-
lines."
The river maidens were strapped to a Wheel, rising and falling as the music
flowed and ebbed, according to the Chicago Tribune newsman, who added a
bit of criticism to his account:
"Who else but Wagner could write music which could be sung by girls
borne head downward across the stage?"
Less attention had been paid to the tour scenery for the three later music-
dramas, which had been longer in the Metropolitans repertory.
"W allure's scenic effects are the chaff of Wagner's wheat," Apthofp re-
marked scornfully, while the Boston Globe's Howard Malcolm Tucker
spoke of "contemptible magic lantern images."
Siegfried, new to all of the cities, created the keenest appreciation, "Its sig-
nal departure from all pre-established custom is almost audacious," Apthorp
opined, marveling at "its simplicity of plot, paucity of incident, and almost
36
OPERA CARAVAN
total lack of dramatic interest. Hardly ever more than two people appear on
stage at the same time." And, regretfully, "There is no love-making."
Gdttcrddmmerttngs trappings disillusioned a Chicago girl reporter for the
Tribune, who may have written the first "back-stage' 5 chronicle in the annals
of opera. This is what "Nora Marks" observed in the wings:
"Kalisch seemed mild and trivial in spite of his warlike accouterments. He
smiled, and his rosy face beamed with good nature and idle interest in a lady
who wore street costume and braved dragons and spells* . . . Lehmann, like
a goddess in her dressing room, rose and swept her majestic figure across to
Siegfried. After she had gone, he pulled his mustaches and skipped airily
across to the Rhinemaidens, a modest Siegfried calculated to slay other than
dragons. He flashed a German witticism, laid a detaining hand on the waist
of one maiden and passed a caressing hand over the hair of another. He
joked. What a comedian!
"Hagen [Emil Fischer] came off the stage in a rage, then wheezed over
[to talk]. His Canton flannel draperies, in classical folds held by a safety pin,
were redolent of cigar smoke. His wig looked like Nebuchadnezzar after his
vow was fulfilled. The vassals strolled around in coffee sacks.
"The Rhinemaidens explained their costumes bodices of net, brass or steel
[breast] plates, skirts of gauze with a fringe of muslin grasses at the waist,
artificial flowers on shoulders. Falling water was simulated by streamers of
tinsel, and water plants rode in their hair."
The jibes at Kalisch further evidenced Chicago's absorption with the
Lehmann-Alvary conflict. The Tribune published interviews with both the
disputants, loaded in favor of Alvary.
Lehmann arrived a day later than "the charming tenor with whom she
is at odds." Confronted with Alvary 's alleged statement that Kalisch "can-
not sing," the prima donna, "womanlike, declared she had nothing to say
and proceeded to score Alvary unmercifully.
"'Oh, he talk, talk, talk. ... I will tell now. Chicago shall hear them
sing, both, and see. ... I never quarrel before mit no one.' "
It was fortunate that the two were thrown together only in Siegfried, for,
fine artists though they were, a trace of dissension might have seeped into
their performances. Indeed, Apthorp accused Alvary of lacking a "certain
emotional energy'* in the scene with Briinnhilde, but this may have been
only another example of his gaucherie in love scenes.
Though continually at odds, Lehmann and Alvary lent the highest distinc-
tion to the season. If Alvary had sung no role but Loge, his reputation would
have remained forever lofty.
"Loge to the life, the whole Loge and nothing but Loge," Apthorp
cheered, citing "that bright, sly face, now and then tartened by a little sar-
donic fold around the mouth, usually full of laughing good humor Loge,
like Becky Sharp, is a good-natured schemer and really enjoys seeing people
make fools of themselves."
Alvary commanded such respect in Boston that a lesser tenor, Jager, was
withdrawn from a Meistmingcr cast to make room for the favorite.
Lchmann's Briinnhilde in W allure was spoken of as "her crowning tri-
WESTWARD Ho-Yo-To-Ho! 37
umph"; yet her Gotterddmmerung Valkyrie "surpassed everything she has
ever done." She was "magnificent," she was "grand"; it was "difficult to
praise her too highly." If only her adored spouse could have lived up to her
advance billing, she might have been a thoroughly happy woman.
Kalisch, however, impressed few reviewers as the ideal Heldentenor. Only
Philadelphia tendered unqualified praise for him while St. Louis spoke of his
"verve and fire" in G otter dammerung. Boston enjoyed his Siegmund chiefly
because his wife played opposite him. As Sieglinde, she was a "wonderful
revelation of dramatic truth and power. 5 ' It was the teamwork that counted.
"Not often does one see a couple who know so well how to play into each
other's hands, both in acting and singing." Otherwise, the tenor was rated
as fair.
Lehmann never became accustomed to singing at matinees, harnessing her
mood to the "sober afternoon period that worked contrary to all the charm
of an evening performance." She was called on for none during this tour. But
other discomforts plagued her. Each town offered a different Grane here
a pony, there a drayhorse, as she recounts in her memoirs. Rats gnawed the
feathers on the Valkyries' helmets.
Kalisch, on Siegfried's bier one night, whispered in agony to her that he
was afire with itching and begged her to scratch. Surreptitiously, whenever
she could spare a moment in the Immolation Scene, Briinnhilde applied a
soothing finger to her spouse's epidermis. The exterminator was sent for the
next day to fumigate the fur covering of the bier.
Though other singers tended to be shadowed by the two avowed leaders,
their achievements were not less real. Memories remained in Chicago of
Fischer's Hagen, "grim, dark and repellent," and his "stately, dignified and
resonant Wotan"; of Beck's powerful Alberich; of Modlinger's superb
Beckmesser; of Traubmann's polished Elisabeth.
Boston would not soon forget Sedlmayer's capital Mime; Kaschowska's
"delicious little Eva" and her Sieglinde of "excellent acting and singing, with
an artistic devotion and painstaking truth of perception and beauty of effect"
The premiere of Die Meistersinger lost nothing of luster by the close as-
sociation with the mighty Ring on the contrary, its utterly surprising and
adorable music came closest to the heart of the public. Apthorp again may be
spokesman:
"The music and text are alike admirable. Wagner here is not only strong
and skillful, but also thoroughly genial and charming. Sachs is the finest
instance of a true gentleman in all opera."
This time the company had traveled not only under the benison of the
New York House, but also with the good wishes of the chatelaine of Bay-
reuth. Seidl happily published in advance of the Chicago visit a letter from
Cosima herself, hoping that the Trilogy (it was still the fashion to regard
Rheingold as a mere prologue, in Bayreuth tradition) would be as successful
in the west as in the east.
"America is a great field for his work," Wagner's widow wrote. "It must
not be misunderstood or half understood. I do not think it can fail to grow."
But by the most generous estimates, it appeared that Wagner's time had
38 OPERA CARAVAN
not yet come in our outlying cities. The music dramas made slow headway
against public apathy in spite of critical hullabaloo and cult-like devotion.
Stanton had succeeded in obtaining guarantees in Chicago and St. Louis
and a special subscription in Philadelphia, The St. Louis Spectator declared
at the end o the engagement that the Exposition director (the opera played
for the first time in the huge Exposition Music Hall) took the risk up to
about $18,000 and "it looks like a deficiency." On a guarantee of $36,000 for
two weeks in Chicago, a loss of $6,000 was expected, the journal added.
The St, Louis Republic added that George Mills of the Exposition had
worked hard but taken in only about $17,500 and would lose the balance.
Before the engagement was one day old, large advertisements assured the
public of reduced seat prices, and the Republic repented its original pro-
nouncement that all four Ring operas must be seen if the full benefit were to
accrue to the novice.
Milwaukee (sponsor, if any, unknown) lost $4,000; Chicago's loss was esti-
mated at only $2,500.
Once again Stanton let discouragement overwhelm him. Although he gave
permission for Damrosch to take the company to Chicago and Boston the
following season, there was no attempt at a widespread tour. Furthermore,
Wagner counted for only one-sixth of the repertory, and a single performance
of Walf(ure in Chicago represented the Ring. The repertory was in fact a
potpourri, the Tribune commented.
"It looks as if the managers were in a panic and prepared to make conces-
sions to the ghosts of Italian opera, If so, it is one of the surest methods of
reviving Italian opera/'
The Tribune**w&$ right. Italian opera pranced back into the scene as though
it had never been reported dead.
Part Hi
INTERLUDE WITH SWEET ADELINA
Adelina Patti, the greatest singer o them all, never became a member of
the company at the Metropolitan Opera House although she sang there
occasionally. In 1887, when her manager, Henry E. Abbey, rented the premises
to show her off in New York, she braved the vast stage and formidable au-
dience chamber. In 1892 she accepted an invitation as honored guest in a
supplementary spring season after Abbey had returned to the stewardship
of the House he had inaugurated in 1883.
And the diva made one tour with a company that belongs, if only by
courtesy, in the Metropolitan's history books. In December 1889, when she
was approaching forty-seven, Abbey lured her back to this continent for her
first tourn&e in three seasons.
By then Patti's "farewell" tours had become classic. A Brooklyn Eagle stat-
istician estimated that she had made her "last appearance** twenty-seven
times; her "positively last appearance" nine times; had "permanently retired
from the stage" seven times; had "retired to spend her days in her castle"
three times and is "now getting ready to take another hack at the public and
retire again."
The Divine Adelina had enchanted audiences since 1850. In a career un-
paralleled in musical annals, she would continue to arouse the public's delight
increasingly mixed with disillusion until 1906: an incredible span of fifty-
six years.
Perhaps the strongest appeal of this unforgettable prima donna for the
public lay in that indefinable element, personality. Patti very well knew what
people wanted: colorful incident and plenty of it. Her jewels, her three mar-
riages, two to noblemen, with a distinguished tenor between, her castle, her
private railroad car, the wardrobe that dazzled on stage and off, her black-
eyed beauty and trim figure she lacked no attribute to commend her to
the heart of the world.
In 1886-87 Abbey had persuaded Patti to leave Craig-y-Nos, her halcyon
castle retreat in Walts, under the pretext of an "official" farewell to America.
She had willingly spent the intervening years under his management, twice
journeying to South America, where the word "farewell" was presumably
never mentioned. By now, surely, the singer would have liked to see it ex-
punged from the language.
Patti needed no further excuse for the excursion in 1889-90 than her own
professional spirit, which constantly reasserted itself. The ineffable sound f
thousands of hands beating together in adulation never lost its power to
39
40 OPERA CARAVAN
intoxicate her. Her treasury could always stand replenishment, since the
prima donna's tastes in living, dress and entertainment were as regal as her
mastery of her art.
Abbey offered additional bait on a three-pronged hook: an invitation to
dedicate Chicago's magnificent new Auditorium, and incidentally to earn
several thousand dollars for a single song; another chance to visit San Fran-
cisco, where a "Patti epidemic" recurred annually; and the opportunity to
sing opera in Mexico, where she had been tumultuously received in the
concert tour of 1887.
Patti could not resist. She was content to trust herself to Abbey again,
especially remembering several wild seasons with Colonel James H. Maple-
son, the most talkative, temperamental and flamboyant impresario of the
nineteenth century.
Whatever Abbey's magic, the diva was bewitched into reducing her fees
for the 1889-90 tour. Celebrated around the globe for her exaction of $5,000
payable in advance every time she set foot on a stage, plus a percentage of
the box office over $7,500, Patti graciously lowered her basic fee to $3,500. Still,
her share of the 1890 tour was estimated at $160,000.
If Patti could only have sung every night, the claim of her biographer
Herman Klein that she invariably brought profit to her managers might have
held water. But the dainty diva bestowed her benisons only when she pleased,
and she pleased only thrice weekly at a maximum, leaving hiatuses known
as "off nights."
Klein rather high-handedly maintained that managers incurred losses "be-
cause they were so foolish as to persist in charging the same high prices
when inferior artists sang."
Abbey's 1890 caravan of twelve cars seems like a toy train beside today's
behemoths. Yet it was the wonder of the 'nineties, with four baggage cars
containing "wardrobes" for eighteen operas (scenery remained chiefly a
local affair); a diner; Pullmans; "tourist" sleepers and a coach. Bringing up
smartly in caboose position rolled the elaborate home on wheels that bore
the name "Adelina Patti."
The diva had traveled for several years in luxurious seclusion, though
hardly in total solitude. Indeed, she required an entourage of a dozen or so,
all of whose fares constituted am obligation of the management including
a personal chef.
At the head of the retinue marched Madame's second husband, the hand-
some, mustachioed Ernest Nicolini, himself a singer of some repute in Lon-
don and his native Paris. America had admired him as a skilled tenor and a
polished actor with strong reservations about an incurable vibrato until
the suspicion arose that with Patti it was a case of "love me love my consort.'*
Her package deal soon met strong objections in spite of its bargain value at
$4,500 for the pair.
When the "Adelina Patti" was new and first attached to Mapleson's train,
the specially built car had opened provincial eyes wide with excitement and
curiosity. The company arrived in Omaha, Nebraska, one bright April night
in 1884 on the eve of a Lucia performance.
INTERLUDE WITH SWEET ADELINA 41
The presence in their midst of an aviary of gilded songbirds in Mann
Boudoir cars exotically labeled "La Traviata" "Sonnambula" and above
all the $65,000 traveling palace named for the peerless diva left a lasting im-
pression on many Omaha citizens, among them a representative of the Bee,
who noted every public detail of that sojourn.
The diva invited a party to supper in her car and left the blinds open so
that the crowd on the station platform could watch every mouthful.
"The curtains are of heavy damask silk," explained the reporter, "the walls
and ceiling of gilded leather tapestry, the lamps of rolled gold. A grand piano
of carved wood cost $2,500. Ship springs cause it to remain constantly
balanced,
"Two valuable pictures from the easels of famous Italian artists [un-
named] are worth $2,000. All appliances for eating, cooking and the toilette
are present/'
Such opulence filled the lay beholder with awe and at least one prima
donna with the pangs of envy, according to the company's conductor, Luigi
Arditi, who credited Lillian Nordica, the rising young American soprano,
with a smoldering anger at Patti's privileges, and quoted Abbey's comment:
"She can have an entire train if she will pay for it."
The presence of Nordica in Abbey's troupe provided an example of the
impresario's belief that the "star system" should penetrate as deeply into his
roster as the budget would permit. Klein's deprecating term, "inferior
artists" had no place in Abbey's vocabulary.
Patti's pennant fluttered supreme, but on pinnacles slightly below her
eminence the manager placed three powerful attractions.
Francesco Tamagno, the stalwart tenor who had created the title role in
Verdi's Qtello two years before, boasted a trumpet voice which was said to
cause shivers in human spines and chandeliers alike. Emma Albani, a
Canadian who had Italianized her girlhood home, Albany, for a stage name,
once elicited Queen Victoria's tears (later crystallized into a diamond keep-
sake) by her soulful rendition of The Blue Bells of Scotland. Married to
Covent Garden's former impresario, Ernest Gye, she often visited her native
continent as a musical tourist. Both Albani and Tamagno would later spend
a single season apiece as members of the resident Metropolitan Opera
Company.
Abbey's third additional magnet, Lillian Nordica, had been making her
way from "Down-East Maine" through Europe and America with the
steadiness and willingness to learn that impelled her ever upward toward a
brilliant career. Before Abbey engaged her, the soprano had won plaudits
from French, Italian, Russian and British audiences and had completed sev-
eral American sorties with Mapleson, in Italian roks exclusively. Her first
appearance at the Metropolitan came at the end of this 1890 tour in Abbey's
"rented" spring season; she would become a regular in 1893. Her later in-
cursion into Wagnerian realms was responsible for her most impressive
victories.
One of the four names was emblazoned on every bill: Patti with nine
florid heroines, among them Lucia, Violetta, Rosina and Lakm; Tamagno
42 OPERA CARAVAN
with seven roles Including the touted Otello; Albani with Marguerite and
Otello's Desdemona ("in which I am always at my best/' she admitted) , and
Nordica, who was limited chiefly to Aida, Trovatore and Ajricalne.
This company had tapped a rich vein of tenors. In addition to Tamagno,
Luigi Ravelli and Enrico Vicini stood ready to sing lyric roles, or even to
substitute for the lion on occasion. Ravelli had acted the "bad boy" of
Mapleson's troupes., but Abbey gently tamed him to good behavior or at
least kept any ruckuses out of the newspapers.
Additional valueand startling contrastlay in Maria Pettigiani, a light
soprano^ "neatly nimble in florid work," and the uncomely but powerful
contralto, Guerrina Fabbri, who struck various reviewers as ideal for "trouser"
roles the pages in Huguenots and Romeo et Juliette a great Azucena in
Trovatore but not feminine enough for Nancy in Martha.
An American rose, blossoming a trifle more sweetly under a foreign no-
menclature, Giulia Valda, nee Julia Wheelock, claimed to be the only other
American citizen except Nordica, who had been born Lilly Norton.
Musical director of the company, the genial, sharp-eyed, indefatigable
Luigi Arditi was already a veteran with American experience since 1853. He
combined shrewdness with a warm heart, was called by his colleagues "the
pleasantest of men, frank, lighthearted, happy as a boy,"
Audiences recognized him immediately by the "glorious bald knob so dear
to their hearts." The diminutive Arditi fell in love with a Richmond girl
appropriately named Virginia; Mrs. Arditi accompanied her husband on all
his tours.
Rounding up his flock with such dependables as Del Pucnte,, Marcassa,
Castelmary, Novara and Vanni, Abbey sallied forth to Chicago.
A suspicion of Nordica J s grievance must have trickled through to the
press. One of Patti's champions, feeling that the American prima donna was
giving herself airs, declared:
"Patti is bringing her voice and Nordica her wardrobe,"
This seemed unfair on both counts; vocally to Nordica, sartorially to
Patti. Although it was rumored that Nordica had spent 2^000 at Worth's in
Paris, the diva outstripped or rather, outdrcssed her without half trying,
Patti always traveled with an average of orty~our stage trunks containing
principal robes, each described as a masterpiece. Her three robes dc style for
Traviata alone cost ; 1,000*
She arrived in Chicago with four new gowns for RomSo et Jtdiette~-they
could hardly be called costumes, as Patti's stage accouterment was designed
less to show the character of a role than to enhance Patti's own charms*
For the Capulet ball she donned white satin with pink ribbons and pearls;
for the secret marriage, gray and pink satin (the pink a shade so new that
no name had yet been found for it) The bedroom scene called for a white
gauze tunic over deep blue. Juliet died in her wedding gown, white satin
embroidered with silver, orange blossoms and diamonds*
Only Chicago witnessed these confections, for Romto received no further
representation on the tour. Patti must have felt grievous disappointment,
Aot only for the immobilization of the delectable wardrobe, but also because
INTERLUDE WITH SWEET ADELINA 43
she had taken a drastic step expressly to appear as Juliette. The headlines
soon found her out.
"Patti is a Blonde 1" they shrieked.
The diva's raven tresses, indeed, glowed many shades brighter, although
"auburn" perhaps described the degree with accuracy. In the days before
ladies of the theatre and elsewhere changed hair tints at the drop of a whim,
Patti's metamorphosis was revolutionary.
Chicago waited in the throes of a delicious delirium to set both the presi-
dent of the United States and the world's favorite prima donna on the stage
of its "Parthenon of modern civilization," as one newspaper termed the new
quarter-billion Auditorium.
The great dedication night of December 9, 1889, passed "in a blaze of
glory*" Eight thousand persons crowded in somehoWi and 30,000 milled about
in the streets until midnight. The stage was cleared of scenery and 1,000
fortunate seatholders, tier above tier, looked out at the vast multitude in the
auditorium.
"In such a place," the Chicago Times reverently breathed, "the heroes and
the triumphs of all ages must come into a new existence for the gratification
and elevation of modern society."
On this high plane the ceremony proceeded, Orations from local digni-
taries reached a climax: the introduction of the president of the United States.
Fittingly, Benjamin Harrison laid his tribute at the feet of the Muse and her
acolyte, the diva:
"Only the voice of the immortal singer can bring from these arches those
echoes which will tell us the true purpose of their construction."
Patti was led forth in the midst of a tumult. Her gown of richest white
brocade, with black satin stripes, was trimmed with steel spangles and the
corsage looped and gemmed with pearls and diamonds. The blending of
black and white delicately albeit sumptuously signified a "second mourn-
ing" for the singer's sister, Carlotta, who had died in June.
The ensuing moments were captured for posterity by a sensitive writer
for the Herald:
"The mellow notes of a flute carne with delicious sweetness. A harp, played
by a woman's hand, joined in. . . . Then came the song, beginning so faintly
yet so clearly that it sounded like die warble of a bird concealed among the
flowers on the stage. . . Afterward, there was only a blushing, bright-eyed
woman* bowiag with crossed arms,"
People rose to their feet, shouting and waving handkerchiefs. Patti was
not to be let off merely with Home Sweet Home after all. Graciously, she
sang Eckert's Echo Song, Now the applause assumed the fierceness of a
tornado, said the Herald, but the diva's contribution was ended. For brevity
and costliness it probably set an all-tirne record.
The three weeks in Chicago brought gratifying moments to other leading
singers, as well.
Tamagno emerged as a "king among tenors," a "name to coajure with ."
Purity and lyric sweetness were not at his command but "audiences sat half-
44 OPERA CARAVAN
bewildered at the notes hurled from his deep, prodigious chest like missiles
from a catapult."
Tamagno took his honors modestly. An extremely pleasant and cheerful
man, according to Mrs. Arditi, the tenor showed courtesy even on the stage,
subordinating himself when not in the limelight. Large of frame, with a
short neck, a round head covered with brown curly hair, he turned a good-
natured face to the world.
Tamagno was far from naive, however, in business matters. Marcus Mayer,
Abbey's advance man, looked up the tenor in South America on Patti's advice.
"He didn't exactly want the earth, but just about all there was on the
surface," Mayer commented wryly. "Yet when the contract was finally
signed, he was perfectly content and gave no more trouble."
Over a complex of railroads the special train headed south on January 5,
its destination Mexico.
Just after crossing the border, the train was held up by a wrecked bridge
at Torreon. The' passengers discovered to their horror that an engine and
"goods" train had gone down with the bridge.
"It might have been our fate," said Mrs. Arditi. "Everybody is so
thankful for the lucky escape there has been no grumbling."
The accident delayed the arrival and opening by one day; the eager
Mexicans could hardly wait. A local ruling prescribed that a portion of the
house must be saved for single sales, but Mayer got a dispensation from his
friend the governor; the embargo was raised and practically every seat was
sold in advance. Several fanatical opera lovers pawned their jewelry to buy
tickets.
Forgotten was the scandal of 1887, when a man representing himself as
Marcus Mayer sold tickets for Patti in advance and absconded with the
proceeds.
The first-night house for Semiramidc displayed "such wealth, dresses and
diamonds, such a galaxy of beauty and such an appreciative though exacting
audience as one seldom sees," wrote Virginia Arditi. "I heard of a lady who
positively paid ^30 for a box and ^14 for two seats in the gallery for her
maid and her husband's valet!
"It is a perfect paradise of a place," exclaimed the conductor's wife. "The
hotel, formerly a convent, was built around a garden of orange trees. * * .
Before our arrival the best rooms were denuded to add to the elegance of
Patti's apartments. As a special compliment to the company in general every
servant was ordered to have a bath" a directive that suggests the habitual
level of local cleanliness.
Every one of the singers became indisposed at one juncture or another,
possibly from the contagion that seemed to pervade the air. An epidemic of
la grippe did not keep people at home; they merely joined in the music with
robust sneezes and melancholy coughs. Tamagno's high notes elicited sym-
pathetic wails from auditors and sneezes and barks punctuated Patti's arias.
This audience possessed something even more frightening than germs* It
proved "more exigent than even the Italians, et c'est tout dire" wrote Mrs.
Arditi. "At the first Faust, Ravelli, not in good voice, was simply hissed.
INTERLUDE WITH SWEET ADELINA ' 45
Novara, the Mephistopheles, never had a hand the whole evening, and
Albani, the Marguerite, was only applauded when she sang alone a novel
experience for the artists. The audience very soon lets them know when they
sing out o tune."
Estimates varied about the final "take" in this rich season. Mayer let it be
known that the company left with $225,000 in gold for fifteen scheduled and
six extra performances. The "bible" in the Metropolitan's offices shows
something less for a total: 1187,071, and in Mexican currency. But whatever
the profit to the management, the singers went away happy, as Albani,
quoted later in the New Yor{ Tribune, admitted after a little preliminary
grumbling :
"We have been roasted in Mexico, drenched to the skin in San Francisco,
frozen to death in the western cities. We spent six days in the cars without
stopping from Chicago to Mexico. It was simply horrid.
"But three weeks in Mexico were ample compensation for all discomfort.
Mexicans do not see good opera very often and will cheerfully pay $12 a
ticket and live on bread and water."
In 1890 A.bbey barely missed the worst weather blockade in northern
California history. All traffic in and out of San Francisco lay paralyzed by
landslides, washouts and heavy snows. The city suffered isolation for seven-
teen days. On January 31, only ten days before Abbey's first curtain, the
blockade loosened, but the damage already had been done to San Francisco's
zest for opera,
Patti, however, found the city as lovable and almost as loving as before.
The crank who threw the bomb on stage behind her in 1887 had long been
incarcerated or had at least disappeared.
The diva could hardly have failed to relish this tour. She showed herself at
each appearance "plus Patti quc jamais" as the San Francisco Examiner said
quaintly. "Even the Philistines got their money's worth and honestly en-
joyed themselves. The house for Semiramide was not only filled, but with
the right people/' a reference to the painful "tiers of solemn vacancy" that
had greeted Tamagno the night before.
Denver, Omaha and Louisville maintained the chorus of paeans at full
strength.
Nordica's presence made up for the shortcomings of Trovatore in the
Omaha Coliseum which, in spite of strenuous carpentering and masking,
still showed all too plainly its everyday use as a skating rink. Signs pro-
claimed: "No one allowed on the floor only skates," and the chill of the
ice still pervaded the air. Waiting while the orchestra "dawdled about in
picturesque commonplaceness," the audience of 5,000 shivered in coats and
mufflers and wondered if the kctdedrummcr's antics were part of the show.
But when Nordica appeared all troubles were forgotten, and the barnlike
hall, with its glaring light and uncomfortable temperature, took on life, color
and interest. "Her charming face and manner won the hearts of hundreds.
. . , Her costumes by Worth offset any deficiencies. She dared to wear red
hair and a pink gown and dared to look pretty with the daring combination."
Denver and Louisville also supplied weather problems: in Colorado the
46 OPERA CARAVAN
audience sat In overcoats and ear muffs for "Faust en Frappe"; while in
Kentucky a sudden cold spell reduced the audience for O^rf/o^-but not the
enthusiasm for Albani and Tamagno.
Abbey would have been wiser not to have returned to Chicago for an
extra series. The fickle public was already looking forward to the advent of
Walter Damrosch and the German troupe from the Metropolitan (although
their audiences shrank as usual after initial curiosity had been satisfied) and
not even Patti could inflame Chicago's spring lethargy.
One week in Boston remained before Abbey hurled his challenge at New
York Passing over the Boston Theatre, traditional home for opera, Abbey
engaged Mechanics Hall, a cavernous auditorium which housed conventions
and exhibitions. Because the Hall would hold 7,000 it was Abbey's choice for
the next few seasons, although Grau returned to the Boston Theatre in 1899,
Boston's critics without exception despised Mechanics Hall.
"The seats are as penitential as ever/' wrote Louis C. Elson in the
Advertiser*
"Those who sat in the gallery should have had spyglasses and ear trumpets,"
said the Globe man.
To the redoubtable Philip Hale, who had recently come to Boston from
Albany and who would enrich the Hub's critical scene until 1934, "Me-
chanics Institute proved singularly well arranged for the exhibition of steam
ploughs and fertilizers but not a place for opera."
Unhappily calling in his bte noir> Wagner, as a frame of reference, Mr*
Hale admitted that "Patti is still the greatest singer, pure and simple, of the
world, I confess that a scale by her is more pleasing than a half-hour of
gutteral declamation emitted from the steam clouds in the face of an or-
chestral storm."
The critic knew how to appreciate a supreme artist, even if she had
passed her prime, and stressed his predilection for "noble ruins" in 1893,
after she had sung in the world premiere of Gabriella.
Of the final tour in 1903-04, even though Patti was ill but once and carried
home a nugget of $250,000, the kindest comment is silence.
Part IV
FABULOUS 'NINETIES-
THE GREAT GAMBLE
1. FIRST POKER HAND: FULL HOUSE,
KINGS AND QUEENS
"He swept into view in a swan-drawn boat, tall and fair as a Viking, the
light playing on his shining armor . . . with a rarely fine physique, broad-
shouldered and commanding, and a face strong yet fair, manly yet mild. . . .
A strange audience in a strange land hailed him as king of the night."
On November 9, 1891, in Chicago's Auditorium, the American reign of
Jean de Reszke began, and with it the Metropolitan Opera's fabulous 'nine-
ties, the era that most accurately, perhaps, deserves to be called the "Metropoli-
tan's Golden Age." Even those who maintain that a golden age always lies
just twenty years ago sigh with nostalgia for the galaxy that Abbey and Grau
summoned up on their return to the Metropolitan.
The peerless De Reszkes, the quintet of prima donnas most intimately as-
sociated with them Eames, Calve, Melba, Nordica, Lehmann Maurel in
a half-dozen inimitable characterizations, Tamagno with his trumpet tones,
Schumann-Heink in the full-voiced glory of maturity, Sembrich, Plangon,
Lassalle, Alvarez, Van Dyck, Scotti. . . .
And of the men, the greatest by acclamation was Jean de Reszke. For a
brief but unforgettable period he dominated the operatic realm.
Now that Patti was following Lind and Nilsson into the realm of legend,
grand opera devotees restlessly sought a new object for their affections.
They found it in the "parfit" Knight of the Grail, the "ideal" Raoul (in
Huguenots), the "greatest Faust of all," and at the height of his achievement,
a Tristan and a Siegfried who proved that Wagner's formidable "declama-
tions" could be sung.
A "pleasant, slightly balding gentleman, whose portrait is the pride and
peril of Parisian boudoirs," Jean won America by the same qualities that had
enslaved Europe. He wrought havoc on American womanhood; the term
"matinee idol" might have been coined for him. He sustained his reputation
as the most romantic lover on the operatic stage, particularly as the "hand-
47
48 OPERA CARAVAN
some, stalwart Romeo, gentle in love, fierce in fight." Victor Capoul had
blithely worn this mantle twenty years before; one of the ironies of operatic
fate placed him as the Tybalt to Jean's Romeo in the Polish singer's first
American season. Capoul-Tybalt in truth lay "here slain."
Not only the romantic gentleman and the polished singer who mastered all
vocal shortcomings, Jean was the finest artist of the generation, a genuine
friend to his colleagues and a man of principle and character "the only
one of his kind," Lilli Lehmann believed.
As Lohengrin's "lieber Schwan" had borne the new hero to Chicago's stage
on November 9, 1891, so the Monsalvat dove drew Jean de Reszke off the
same stage in the same opera on April 27, 1901. The audience raised a storm;
they would hardly let Jean and Nordica, his Elsa, out of sight between cur-
tain calls. Thus Jean said farewell to America, except for a gala at the Metro-
politan on April 29, in which he sang an act from Tristan. He had come
full circle as America's most beloved knight-errant.
Between those two swan-boat excursions lay splendid, songful years for the
Metropolitan. Now, despite all disclaimers, the "star system" rose to its
zenith. The management might protest that "ensemble" constituted their
goal, but Abbey's idea of ensemble still was to cram all the first-rank singers
he could obtain into his casts. Constellations rather than single stars made
the operatic firmament glorious.
Abbey's "powerful coterie of principals selected from the flower of foreign
vocal celebrities" amazed Chicago and ten other cities that were exposed to
the galaxy. During the eight seasons that the Metropolitan company func-
tioned in Jean's epoch (one of them without him), the public interest and
personal and artistic satisfaction kept the nucleus together: Eames, Calve,
Melba, Nordica, Lehrnann.
In his reign on tour, Jean most often acknowledged as his queens three
of the five Eames, Melba and Nordica. A single Raclames to Lehmann's
Aida ia 1891 in Chicago and one Tristan to her Isolde in Boston in 1899
formed the extent of his partnership with the dramatic Lilli; he sang Calves
Don Jose only twice, her Faust three times in the spring of 1897.
Chicago also took to its bosom a hero of another stamp: Jean's younger
brother Edouard.
"He stepped down from the bus [that had met the train], a full head and
shoulders above the men and women who followed* His little brown hat;
sat on his bushy hair like a chimneypot and around his giant's throat a rare
seal collar was tucked against the raw Chicago wind. His right arm, with
the elbow at his valet's crown, held a folded comforter with silk liming and
tied with satin knots.
"His stride was so wide that two steps took him into the hotel vestibule;
and, bending his frame over the book, he wrote in the big generous ham! of
a man who never orders pints'Edouard de Reszke.' "
Jean's younger brother suited Chicago's bold, expansive nature down to the
last ounce of his gargantuan bulk, which was attached to his $ix*foot-two
frame by many years of joyous feeding. His generosity, his roaring geniality,
his jokes, his sheer strength (he could lift with his head the ijo-pound Jean
FABULOUS 'NINETIES -THE GREAT GAMBLE 49
Lassalle who clasped hands around that "giant throat") all fitted Chicago's
idea of a personality. On the stage, other qualities emerged.
From King Henry's first note, the audience sat up in wonder and delight
at his impressive and impersonal dignity. His triumph as Count Rudolph in
Sonnambula was enhanced by Friar Laurence in Romeo and St. Bris in
Huguenots; his Mephisto seemed the apotheosis o deviltry, if outwardly "a
gentleman and a jolly good fellow." This role, given Edouard by "God
and Gounod," remained a favorite for years, growing mellower rather than
more evil, until it became difficult to tell villain from hero.
Jean's first queen, Emma Eames, made her American debut with the
brothers at the same Chicago performance of Lohengrin. Her beauty struck
the eye of the beholder with a lasting impact. "Slender but not thin," as one
account described her, "her small throat as round as the Venus of Milo's, her
perfect oval face, with high, proud-spirited features, eyes large and somewhat
hard, nose with delicate broad nostrils."
"Every patriotic and art-loving subject has reason to be proud of this young
uncrowned Queen of Song," the Chicago Inter-Ocean chauvinistically pro-
claimed. "She is a handsome and dignified type of genuine American woman-
hood, winsomely appealing to the imagination through higher faculties than
mere lyric brilliance, domineering sentiment or childlike simplicity."
The friendly relationship between the prima donna and the De Reszkes
showed plainly in an interview in Louisville, where the company played
three performances in the midst of their first Chicago season. "The brothers
always occupy the same room and continually sing to each other . . . and
they have a French valet [a lifelong servitor and secretary, Louis Vachet]
whose only charge is to assist them. . . . They praise each other but never
hesitate to speak of faults." Jean took the Courier-Journal reporter to see
Eames, "humming the drinking song from Lucrezia Borgia along the way.
"It was at once apparent that the tenor is a great favorite of the prima
donna's. She said: *I persuaded him to come to America. They will go wild
over you, I told him, and they have. The De Reszkes call me their god-
daughter because I made my debut with them. We always sing together and
I like Jean's acting.' "
Julian Story, the singer's artist husband, was present during the interview
but contributed nothing, although her beauty inspired his most subtle talents
as a painter and as designer of her costumes,
A Brooklyn Eagle writer quoted Balzac as saying that "God knows his
angels oa earth by the inflections of their voices. If ever a woman with a
Yankee voice succeeds in passing for an angel, Eames can do it." And Jean
himself 'remarked, according to his biographer, Clara Leiser, that he "always
liked to sing with Emma Eames; there was always the odor of violets about
her,"
De Reszke joined Melba only a few times in their first season together,
singing Rom6o to her Juliette in New York and Faust to her Marguerite in
Boston, Chicago and St. Louis.
The Australian arrived in Chicago in 1894 clad in "a tan and brown serge
traveling costume trimmed with cream lace and a shade of brown velvet that
50 OPERA CARAVAN
exactly matched her eyes. She wore a broad-brimmed hat covered with black
ostrich tips curled down over masses of jet black hair. Like all prima donnas,
Melba has a pet a ferocious looking Mexican beetle which lay snugly cud-
dled up under the lace at Madame's $10,000 throat.
" f Oh> my!' she exclaimed, 'he's going down my back!' She pulled at the
chain which held the beetle, 'The gentleman said he wouldn't bite.' The crea-
ture looked like a circus elephant, all dressed up in a suit of red, white and
blue. Evidently Melba was in terror of the little monster."
The prima donna was never seen hatless off stage. Even on stage, singers
invariably appeared in full street costume at rehearsals. An Inter-Ocean
reporter expressed his astonishment at the Chicago* rehearsal for Lohengrin
in 1891, when "Eames wore gloves and a great fur boa even though the stage
setting showed full summertime, and the De Reszkes worked earnestly in
tall silk hats."
Melba's triumph in Chicago was as complete and instantaneous as Senv
brich's in 1884. "Gifted by nature/' the Inter-Ocean rhapsodized, "with a
graceful personality, queenly figure, arms perfect in proportion, head well
poised on dimpled shoulders, expressive eyes, well chiseled features,, strong
but sensitive mouth . . , her histrionic powers are limited, not much beyond
the conventional, but the mesmerism is magic in her voice . . . simply phe-
nomenal in its purity, . . . We have here a new goddess of song! 1 *
When the diva at last began to show histrionic ambitions, in a Famt per-
formance of 1896, Hale pounced on her with acerbity:
"Her Marguerite is a more sharply defined creature than before. Yet I
prefer the staid and drab coloring of the earlier performance to false vivacity
and deliberate acting. Her withdrawal after meeting Faust reminded one of
Galatea, frolicsome Galatea, who hid herself that she might be found. Her
recollection of the 'noble gentlemen' was almost flippantly amorous; her
joy at the casket of jewels not so much girlish glee of surprise as the ex-
perienced recognition and acknowledgment of a valuable gift. . . . Now
it is artificiality instead of the not indispensable atmosphere of virginal in-
nocence. At the beginning she was ready to fall into Faust's arms [ with |
no need of demoniac aid."
The breezy Australian entered fully into Jean dc Reszke's orbit and ac-
knowledged the tenor to be one of the strongest influences in her development.
"He was a god," she wrote in Melodies and Memories, "not only in his voice
* . . but in his appearance, his acting, his every movement So utterly won-
derful was he that . . . when I found myself singing Lohengrin with him
without a rehearsal, I burst into tears in the last act and thanked my stars
that my singing role for the evening was practically finished. . , Never
has there been an artist like him,"
A playful conversation between the two artists during an intermission in
Faust was recorded by the Chicago News in 1896, Melba gravely demanded ;
"Jean, do you think we are in love?"
The big, handsome Pole laughed gallantly and, according to ihe reporter,
said in delightful English:
"I do not think it at all; it is my life sentence/' Turning to the interviewer
FABULOUS 'NINETIES THE GREAT GAMBLE 51
he continued: "Melba is my pet Marguerite we have become so satisfied one
with the other that there is a sort of Faust bond uniting us at least once a
week, don't you see?"
Nordica's progress toward greatness achieved acknowledgment every-
where except from Boston's Hale. Chicago expressed astonished delight at
seeing "the majestic Nordica carrying Susanna [in Figaro} with piquancy
and grace, demureness and daintiness a trifle too dignified, perhaps, but
thoroughly consistent with high art"; compared her singing in L'Africame
to "jewels of song that outshone the rich barbaric accompaniment" and com-
plimented her on "total forgetfulness of husbanding her resources"; found
her "artistically nonchalant" in the assignment, wildly improbable at that ad-
vanced stage of her development, of Philine, and gave her Wagnerian roles
full marks, particularly after her initiation at Bayreuth in 1894.
Chicago always cherished a soft spot for Lohengrin, and accounted the
performance of March 20, 1895, one of the triumphs of the season. Nordica
revealed "fullness of meaning, with new gestures properly conceived and
placed. The growing of the girl's character to womanhood was evenly and
sincerely done."
"She kneeled often," marveled the Elite, "and made a graceful recovery of
her upright position without use of either hand."
Philip Hale, however, remained captious. "She is self-conscious and her
Valentine does not touch the heart," he said of a performance of Huguenots
in 1894. "Although nature gave her an advantageous face and figure, she has
not made the most of her gifts. Her make-up was bad and she moves in
lines, not curves." Her Philine "was a promise rather than a well-defined,
wholly satisfactory result."
Another Huguenots brought Hale's admission that Nordica perhaps im-
proved in action, "not so much in what she now does as in the abandonment
of what she formerly did. She evidently has been coached," he judged.
In 1899 she finally won from Hale the admission that her Elsa showed
genuine merit. But her Donna Elvira seemed "a cardboard figure." Nordica
must have thought despairingly that she would have to start all over again to
win a crumb from Hale. He paid scant attention to her first Isolde, being
absorbed in the perplexing discovery that he did not much care for Tristan
well sung after all
As her substantial figure became more matronly, Nordica determined to
exercise. She and several other prima donnas turned to cycling, whose vogue
had mounted to the proportions of a rage.
"There is nothing like a bike for enjoyment," Nordica is quoted as saying.
"I first tried to ride ten days ago."
For the new sport Nordica wore a brown, rather short skirt, with an Eton
jacket, blue shirt with white collar, a red turban with black ostrich plumes.
Scalchi's costume was black serge, noted the Post-Dispatch.
Nordica's poodle, Turk, accompanied her on the ride, as on other occa-
sions. The previous year, St. Louis had been made aware of opera singers'
penchant for pets. William G. B. Carson, in his entertaining history, St.
Louis Goes to the Of era, admitted that local hotels "were not enthusiastic
52 OPERA CARAVAN
when it came to canine guests. The Southern and the Planter's remained
coldly adamant, but the smaller St. Nicholas relented, and thither went
those stars who would not part with their pets.
"To put foot within the recessed portals [of the St. Nicholas] is to be re-
minded of a New York bench show, with an Italian opera accompaniment."
In Chicago one year prima donna and pet checked in at the Auditorium
Annex (the hotel, now the Congress, that was connected by underground
passage with the Auditorium itself) in a whirlwind of temperament.
Nordica's poodle, observed a Herald reporter, led the procession, a "lank,
close-shorn dog with plenty of hair over its eyes and tail and none where
most was needed. ... It dashed past the startled porter and his law against
dogs and babies. Three men with pointed whiskers went in pursuit. A
motherly woman gasped Tierrot!' This was Nordica, the tragic Valentine
of Huguenots,
"Nordica started by complaining. This is a diva's right. , . . She flounced
down in a big chair and vowed that she would sleep there before going to
the ninth floor.
"Jean de Reszke, with the graciousness of a knight, offered to surrender
his rooms . . . she refused. . . * Edouard de Reszke appeared. His beer had
not come and the gas log he hated it at best was not consuming half the
gas. Couldn't it be taken away ?
" 'Turn it out,' mildly suggested the little man who was trying to book
three stars at once.
"Nordica had her way and was settled on the parlor floor with the Polish
brothers. A new watch of clerks came on duty. About eight, the queenly
Melba and her court appeared. She liked a high place,
"No man or woman on earth demands so much richness as opera stars.
They want the best, as soon as they feel sure they know what the best is."
Few shadows of the discord that was to part Jean and Nordica two years
later hung over the friends as they received the press. Nordica displayed a
fan embroidered with the name "Elsa" in diamonds, the gift of Cosima
Wagner. Jean, not his usual tactful self, castigated the theatres in Phila-
delphia, Baltimore and Washington and vowed, according to the Tribune,
that he never would sing in them again. (He repented the next season.)
"There are only a few theatres fit to sing in," he cried. "The dirt and filth
are an absolute disgrace. Little, cramped dressing rooms arc hardly more than
cupboards. There is no place to wash one's hands. And the dust! If one moved
on stage, a cloud arose and one swallowed a throatful of microbes*"
Nordica chimed in: "Yes, and my white gown you ruined! He had to
*wipe up the stage with me' in Washington/* she told the reporter. "It is
beyond belief that such things exist in the nation's capital.'*
Baltimore's offending stage was Harris' Academy of Music, which the
company would abandon after another season for Music Hall, a remodeled
concert hall. Washington's was the Grand Opera House, which Grau con-
tinued to patronize until 1900, Philadelphia's, of course ? was the famous
Academy of Music.
Jean was a chief victim in this spring of 1895 *hat incapacitated a half-
FABULOUS 'NINETIES THE GREAT GAMBLE 53
dozen stars. Boston suffered most from the germ that swept through the
ranks, operas being changed five times in the course of three weeks and many
substitutions marring the perfection of the casts. Patrons were said to be up
in arms. The Chicago Tribune championed the Boston cause with fervor
and urged an organization against the "exactions and small but exasperating
tyrannies of opera impresarios."
Abbey and Grau could not be held to blame for their singers' delicate
throats. Jean was always terrified of illness; this season set his worst record
on the road. For most of his cancellations, substitutions of other tenors could
be made, but Boston lost a Lohengrin and Chicago a Meister 'singer because of
the tenor's indisposition.
The Chicago Herald resumed: "The De Reszkes are the most popular in
the company because fame and genius and homage have not turned their
heads. Each knew a dozen men in the lobby and each was as demonstrative
as foreigners always are until they become Americanized. Edouard puts his
arms about men callers, then looks down upon their heads. Jean is full of
words and bustles around where Edouard stamps and strides."
Willy Schiitz, whose sister was married to Edouard, joined the group. He
acted as secretary, general buffer and liaison with the press for the brothers.
"Not very strong above the eyes," as James Huneker described him, Willy
bulked large in physique, not ashamed to stand beside the six-foot-two
Edouard, the six-foot Jean and the equally mountainous Lassalle.
It was undoubtedly Willy who carried the tidings to Jean that his fiancee
had been insulted in a Chicago paper, arousing the chivalrous Jean almost to
the point of challenging the reporter. Willy had exaggerated. Jean calmed
down when he read the report, for it contained nothing more than the
gossip which had surrounded Jean for six years. "He has been engaged for
seven years," the Tribune wrote, and quoted Jean as saying that his long-
time sweetheart was finally to obtain her divorce. This was 1896; when Jean
returned to America in the fall, he was a married man.
Jean Lassalle, the third member o the trio, towering over six feet, weigh-
ing over two hundred pounds, with a chest measurement of fifty and one-half
inches, joined the brothers in America for only three seasons, touring Boston,
Philadelphia and Brooklyn in 1891-92 and adding five other cities in 1893-94
and 1896-97,
His remarkable Valentin, his exciting Don Giovanni and his artistic but
necessarily un-Gerrnan Sachs and Telramund pleased the cognoscenti, and
the impressionable element in Chicago's audience gasped at the sight of his
tawny-tinted physique clad in the comparatively scanty costume of Nelusko.
Like the brothers, Lassalle cherished a fondness for sports and for horses;
he was also proficient in the murderous French version of boxing and
wrestling known as la savate. One Chicago admirer of the De Reszkes thought
Lassalle grouchy by comparison in 1897.
The trio could always find amusement in its own company on the road,
and from its suite would issue gargantuan roars of laughter. A picture of
the three lounging at ease was drawn in the Musical Courier in the 'nineties:
"Bandying jests . . . someone hums, and instantly the room is flooded with
54 OPERA CARAVAN
tone, the Great Trio from William Tell, perhaps. Jean sings C sharp with-
out effort. Then that rapturous breakdown known as the can-can is indulged
in by one of the partners and suddenly a fierce description about the psychic
possibilities of Hamlet arises and is ended only by a call for fresh beverages.
"These big fellows are men, men. They play billiards, run, wrestle, swim,
smoke [Jean gave up cigars, but enjoyed a mild cigarette which the manu-
facturer named after him] and possibly swear, too."
When they tried their voices in their rooms, the walls shook. Once, com-
ing from Boston where Jean had been ill, "he hummed tunes from Manon
in the wholesome Chicago atmosphere, and by the time he had reached Faust
and Qtello was using notes that had their origin deep in his chest. Edouard
put his foot on the loud pedal and hit the keys with sledge hammer blows,
yet above all the noise rang Jean's voice, as distinct as a tug whistle on a
rainy night."
That Jean reverted to Otcllo for practice throws an interesting light on his
preferences, for he considered the Verdi role his most difficult, according to
an unusually informative interview in the Chicago Tribune in 1895, and
sang it only once on tour.
"Both Otello and Don Jose are contrary to my nature," he was quoted as
saying. "Naturalism is disagreeable to me. To die spluttering and spitting
oh, no! It is the stage, not the hospital, where I work. 5 *
He liked any role he could act and sing. For this reason he rarely appeared
in concert and never with pleasure.
"To stand still in dress suit and sing never!"
After his intensive study of Tristan, and on the eve of singing the exigent
role in Chicago, he offered this advice:
"Always learn the words of the libretto fully. Afterward learn the music
absolutely as the composer has written it, without a single change except
when it is impossible for your voice, for that is the honesty o art/*
He gave as much consideration to the details of character building as to
its elemental structure. His most trying moment came during the prepara-
tion for the young Siegfried. Should he shave his beloved mustache?
The great controversy, "to beard or not to beard," had raged for years. As
early as 1887 the Boston Globe had asked: "Should singers and speakers
wear smoothly shaven faces? Hair around the mouth tends to impair the
utterance in song and speech as projected from the mouth. Most lawyers,
ministers and orators are clean shaven; actors, too, as a rule. But foreign
singers to a man are hairy about the mouth,"
"Singers' hirsute excrescences" continued to annoy the newspaper writers;
the Chicago Sun-Herald took both men and women to task in 1892. "While
Jean de Reszke assumes the same wig and beard as Lohengrin, Faust and
Romeo, Eames makes a mistake in the opposite direction by wearing her
own natural hair as Elsa."
The writer chided little Martapoura for wearing "a beard half as long as
himself making him look like a Rip Van Winkle dwarf instead of Mer-
curic." Brooklyn approved the mustache worn by the tenor Mauguiere in
the second act of Carmen, "Jose had time to grow it in jail'*
FABULOUS 'NINETIES THE GREAT GAMBLE 55
Jean had spent hours in fasting and prayer before shaving off the hair
that had served to mask his "large, sensuous mouth." Not until an hour
before the New York performance was the decision made, and then only
after his valet had snipped off the adornment bit by bit until the point of
no return was reached. In 1900-01 Jean's single performance of each Siegfried
in New York hardly justified the sacrifice, and so both appeared hirsute.
Chicago complained bitterly that the tenor refused to sing there in 1898-
99, when he ventured no farther afield than Boston, Philadelphia, Wash-
ington and Pittsburgh.
In the following year, his total absence from these shores brought a realiza-
tion of how much he might be missed. Then, when he returned in 1900-01,
five cities shared a scant ten performances among them.
Only New York was treated to the amazing spectacle of the fifty-two-year-
old tenor ranging masterfully through the best of his repertory, piling one
triumph atop another. There was no Romeo, no Siegfried, and more im-
portant, no Gotterddmrnerung Siegfried for the road.
Melba, "the pet Marguerite," and Nordica, Jean's first Isolde and faithful
Valentine and Elsa, matched their heroines to his heroes as before. This
final season also saw Jean in partnership with three new prima donnas.
Seemingly the most incongruous was the pert Fritzi Scheff, who in her
first season at the Metropolitan filled the part of Eva in the two Meister-
singer performances on tour (Gadski had sung it in the House). Pittsburgh
took particular pleasure in the gay, pretty singer, hailing her Musetta as the
season's sensation. A hint of her future appeared in the Dispatch:
"If Scheff ever becomes alight opera star, this country will enjoy an artist
who will revive the favor of Aimee."
Lucienne Breval played opposite Jean in his only two Philadelphia ap-
pearances, UAjricainc and L<? Cid, This stately soprano, handsome in mien
and rich in voice, sang little outside of New York in her two seasons with
the Metropolitan.
A new Wagnerian heroine arose on the horizon the season before Jean's
return, singing Isolde (to Van Dyck's Tristan), the first two- Briinnhildes,
Elsa and Elisabeth, as well as Valentine and Beethoven's Leonore. Milka
Ternina seemed headed for the highest peaks of achievement, but after only
four seasons contracted a facial paralysis, said to have been brought on by a
cold caught while mountain-climbing.
Tall and majestic in appearance, the Croatian singer gave the impression
of beauty though her features were heavy and plain. She was America's first
Tosca, introducing Puccini's masterpiece in Jean's last season. Only Boston
and Pittsburgh heard the two in Tristan.
The still unregenerate Hale spent most of his column in a diatribe against
Tristan's "illogical and silly libretto," scoffing at the potion scene, which to
him suggested that a "sharp attack of colic" had overtaken the lovers. He
remarked sarcastically that Jean was evidently indisposed: "he chopped
phrases into little bits . . . and saved himself to the extent of often being in-
audible." Ternina had already proved herself as "a great artist, an actress to
her finger tips."
56 OPERA CARAVAN
Pittsburgh was better pleased. De Reszke sang "easily and without strenu-
ous effort . . . and was all we expected. A deadly quietus was given any
reports that he is failing/'
Jean thus ended his career in America with a succession of richly varied
experiences and companions. As the Chicago Inter-Ocean repeated: "Bless-
ings brighten as they take their flight."
During the seven brief seasons he graced the American scene he sang only
116 performances in ten cities outside of New York. He never journeyed
farther west than St. Louis, and never appeared in Brooklyn.
When it came to replacing him, his roles were divided among four or five
tenors. The words "perfection" and "ideal" remained with him to the last:
Chicago said his Lohengrin had never been equaled. Thus Jean de Reszke
became the Metropolitan's first "indispensable man" unrivaled until a
certain chubby Neapolitan disembarked in 1903,
2. SECOND POKER HAND: STRAIGHT,
ACE HIGH
"He touches nothing he does not adorn . . . distinctly original, full of
genuine comedy, dashing and dextrous. . . ." "The singer may inspire the
fancy or captivate the senses; the actor carries one away upon a flood tide of
conviction. . . .'* "He is exceedingly handsome, with much of the mobile
richness of expression and dark intellectuality so appealing in Otis Skinner."
These Chicago encomiums described Victor Maurel, the one male opera
personage who had nothing to fear from "the French trio." Indeed this bari-
tone commanded Philip Male's attention almost to the exclusion of the DC
Reszkes and Lassalle during his Indian Summer in America. After the Otdlo
of February 26, 1895, Hale wrote :
"Maurel represents lago as the Demon of Perversity. To describe fully
. . . would be to give at length every detail of his business, every mocking
and sinister inflection; to dissect his marvelous mastery of the musical phrase;
to attempt to portray in words the changes of his extraordinarily mobile
face, to paint in words a wealth of gestures, none without meaning. . . , Yet
he convinces you that all this is spontaneous,"
The Boston premiere of Verdi's Palstaff on February 28, 1895, caught
Maurel with a sore throat which prohibited him from singing the great
soliloquy on honor as well as several pages of cantabile and the soliloquy
that opens Act II. Nevertheless Hale compared the work to Figaro and The
Barber. It will lead them, he decided, "because Verdi is a man of our own
day . . . and can build on the foundations of others. If Mozart were alive,
he might have written Falstaff!' The critic considered this a "risky judg-
FABULOUS 'NINETIES THE GREAT GAMBLE 57
merit," but then he had been forced to eat his prediction that The Flying
Dutchman would outlive the later music dramas.
Maurel's Amonasro was a triumph in make-up, "his face, walk, pose . , .
the savage King, with no trace of the gallant Don Giovanni, the devilish
lago, the toss-pot Falstaff, the shrewd Figaro."
Don Giovanni provided the singing actor with perhaps his greatest op-
portunity.
"The moment the light fell on his face, the libertine was revealed/' Hale
wrote, "not to be misunderstood by even the most unsuspicious virgin . . .
sensuous, wicked, yet splendid in a fashion; brilliant, alluring, seductive.
Such was his authority that even when he lowers himself (to beat Masetto)
nine women out of ten in the audience admire him. The tenth looks at him
earnestly and wishes she had known him."
The St. Louis Globe-Democrat oracle saw in a clouded crystal ball that
the music of Falstaff "was not rich in invention, but will be successful as
long as Maurel is around." The Post-Dispatch devoted eight column inches
to the description of his elaborate make-up, and the Republic recounted a
meeting between the famous singer and James J. Corbett. Maurel mistook
the boxer's profession and said proudly :
"I too haff kill my man."
Brooklyn, in homespun style, compared a criticism of the baritone's "quar-
rel with the pitch" to "seeing a fly on the barn without seeing the barn. 5 '
Chicago bowed deeply to the veteran singing actor and paid him many
compliments. He soon became an object of idolatry to the debutantes, who
did not seem to know that he had charmed their mothers twenty years before.
Amy Leslie, as usual, "scored a beat" with a personal interview on the sub-
ject of concert singing, similar in content to an earlier expression by Jean de
Reszke, but different in language, at least as filtered through Miss Leslie's
lively pen;
"To chant correctly always in the same voice, in the same toilet [te], with
the hands full of music and the soul fixed upon the gate money is not lyric art.
"The lyric artist must have security and the balance of a trapeze per-
former, the dramatic intensity of a tragedian and the . . - adaptability of an
archcomedian. Proper clothes are the least of an artist's necessities."
It is certain that this artist explored every resource of his mind and heart
toward creating his powerful delineation of lago before the time arrived to
costume the deceiver, yet even that final detail lacked nothing.
His hands were studies in graceful ease and physical perfection, the writer
added, "white and shapely ... of constant interest,"
Maurel possessed a sharp tongue always on call. Geraldine Farrar tells the
story that her teacher and mentor, Lilli Lehmann, once felt its cutting edge.
After a superb performance of Don Giovanni the baritone complimented his
stately, rather shapeless Donna Anna for her acting and singing in gracious
stanzas until she was blushing with pleasure. Then, sotto voce, he added:
"But for God's sake, burn those costumes!"
Another towering figure, Tamagno, the barrel-chested stentorian, re-
turned to "throw out ringing B flats and C's with the same ease as Sandow
58 OPERA CARAVAN
juggles fifty-pound dumbbells" in 1894-95, prompting the Brooklyn Eagle to
suggest: "as well criticize a cyclone for its ragged edges."
But the good-natured, buoyant, curly-haired young giant who had en-
deared himself to Patti and the Arditis five years before had disappeared, at
least in Chicago, where the tenor "seemed large and silent and somber." Per-
haps he felt a trifle lost in the rush of praise for the subtlety and distinc-
tion of Jean de Reszke or even for his own closest associate, MaureL
In opera, when the gods come in, the half-gods do not go, as in Emerson's
poem, but stay on and sing. Abbey's company in the 'nineties enjoyed the
presence of a dozen stellar bodies whose brilliance would have registered first
magnitude in any other skies.
"Room at the top" was the rule on the Metropolitan's roster from 1891 to
1900. At least six sopranos with aspirations in alt left their names for posterity,
Easily the most picturesque of these was the expatriate Californian, Sybil
Sanderson, petted by Paris, showered with jewels by Czar Alexander III, the
cause of a Belgian prince's suicide and the inspiration of three Massenet
operas and one by Saint-Saens*
When Abbey and Grau succumbed to her European reputation and en-
gaged her for 1894-95, it was for the display of her beauty, her "Eiffel
Tower notes" and her fortune of jewels in Manon, which had its first French
productions in New York> Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Baltimore, Washington
and Boston.
The voice that had enchanted Paris and St. Petersburg failed to touch many
of her compatriots., although Philadelphia declared that the singer was "the
incarnation of daintiness, both in voice and person," and Boston's Philip
Hale mentioned many tones "haunting in their sweetness" and praised her
"elegance, rare in these days of boisterous sopranos."
"Any more chic coquette would be difficult to imagine," the Washington
Post declared, while Baltimore gasped at her costumes, particularly a "mar-
velous creation of spangled pink mirror velvet, shaded into rich yellow in
motion."
If any provincial audience shared New York's distaste at Manon's Insistence
on wearing her jewels to the convent, no hint of displeasure appeared in the
press. Her severest critics resided in Chicago, where the papers gossiped of
her forthcoming marriage to Antonio Ttrry, a wealthy Cuban.
One of Sanderson's wedding gifts was the Chfiteau of Chenonceaux,
haunted by the ghosts of Diane de Poitiers and Catherine de M&Ucis. Terry's
generosity even ran to the engagement of the entire Op&ra Comique to sing
in his wife's bedroom when she was -convalescing from an Illness, The Optra
was Esdarmondc, like the equally forgotten Le Mage and the more enduring
Thais, composed by Massenet for his little American friend. Sanderson was
to take one more fling at America, barnstorming with Grau in 1901-02^ but
meanwhile she reveled in her luxurious, pampered life in Paris*
Another American soprano, Marie van Zandt, also paid one visit to her
homeland and returned to more congenial surroundings abroad. The daugh-
ter of Jennie van Zandt, a popular concert and opera singer, and the grand-
daughter -of the famous magician, Signot Blitz* Marie became "the spoiled
FABULOUS 'NINETIES THE GREAT GAMBLE 59
child of the Paris Opera Comique," according to Herman Klein, Delibes
wrote L,akm6 for her.
The scandal that forced her from the Paris stage in 1885 had blown over
by the time she came to America. She had been completely vindicated in
the charge that she had appeared on the stage intoxicated.
Van Zandt made her debut in Chicago in 1891, one of twelve newcomers in-
cluding the De Reszkes, Eames and the Ravogli sisters. As Amina in La
Sonnambula, "this dainty, delicate, captivating dreamer stepped at once into
the domain of high art, n said the Inter-Ocean.
Her deepest failure lay in the characterization, as well as vocalization, of
Mignon. The Chicago and Brooklyn performances of Thomas' opera offered
one of the strangest contrasts in operatic history: the slender, girlish Van
Zandt as Mignon, and the heroic, almost corpulent Lehmann as the giddy
Philine. It was hardly fair to the American, in spite of her physical ad-
vantages. Lehmann was the "life of the performance 5 * in Chicago and in
Brooklyn, although "she seemed as little fitting as a steam locomotive draw-
ing a horse car."
Boston heard La{mS with the original singer (as did Philadelphia) after
its February introduction in New York. Hale could find "not one drop of
human blood, not one throb of a racked heart in the book and music,'* but
considered Van Zandt's a performance of "singular fascination, savage in-
nocence, and with its touch of maidenly awkwardness."
Marie van Zandt ended her days as a Russian countess in the south of
France, after having recaptured the Parisian public in 1896.
Abbey's companies of the 'nineties were further enriched by American
lyric sopranos, at least three of whom gleaned critical honors. Sophie Traub-
mann, a diminutive, dark-haired beauty of the German years, made the
transition to Micaelas and Leonoras in the 'nineties. She still climbed the
tree to flute the Forest Bird's warning to Siegfried in 1897, her last touring
year.
Frances Saville, born in California of a Danish father named Simonsen
and a Parisian mother, lived a great deal in Australia (she was the aunt of
Frances Alda) and sang a great deal more in Europe. The comely soprano
toured only one season of her two with the Metropolitan, but left a lasting
impression in several cities as Marguerite, Mistress Ford and Micaela. Her
triumph in Tramata was complete, according to Chicago's critics. One called
her "petite, graceful, with features as clear-cut as a cameo.**
It was to be expected that Marie Engle, a Chicagoan, would win her
warmest ovations in her home town, where she was called "the poetical,
physical and spiritual embodiment of Micaela," and also allowed to sing
Juliette and Cherubino. But Boston found her "pleasing" even after Sembrich
as Marguerite in Les Huguenots,
Abbey tried to keep a plentiful supply of Micaelas on hand, for Calv
seemed to wear them out faster than Jos6s. In addition to the Americans, the
Swedish Sigrid Arnoldson, the French Clementine de Vere (wife of the
conductor Sapio who had toured with Patti), the Italian Maria Pettigiam and
the Polish Lola Beeth were pressed into service.
60 OPERA CARAVAN
Chicago admired De Vere's brilliant upper notes and mass of red curls. Of
Beeth's voice many things were said, but only one opinion was held on her
beauty, which Chicago described as "a physical and mental caste rare lent the
earth."
Arnoldson conquered hearts everywhere, although Chicago and Boston dis-
agreed over her adaptability to Cherubino's doublet and hose. Throughout
the tour of 1893-94, she earned the soubriquets "Pocket Venus," "Miniature
Nilsson" and even "Swedish Nightingale."
Dramatic heroines were more difficult to come by: Litvinne is remembered
for bulk rather than beauty (Hale commented that her Brunnhilde, after
"long fire-encircled sleep, shows the perilous consequences of abstaining from
exercise"); Libia Drog's voice "scatters as thin as a jet water-blown by the
wind"; Mira Heller's Carmen "for once was a dull logy woman"; Mme.
Basta-Tavary entered the roster in 1891-92, replacing Lehmann as Donna
Anna in Philadelphia, Boston and Brooklyn and singing Carmen for Giulia
Ravogli in New York.
Among lower voices, the field was open for Eugenia Mantelli to develop
as Ortrud, Amneris and Azucena; for Rosa Olitzka to score as Erda (al-
though she missed the mark as Carmen), and for Marie Brema to display
her powerful Ortrud and Brangaene.
Giulia Ravogli, of whose Orfeo great things had been expected, gave
America less intense pleasure than Europe had experienced in this and other
roles, although one Chicago critic compared her to Viardot, "her soul like a
star." She did not return after 1892.
Her sister Sophie, imported to sing Euridice to her Orfeo, proved at-
tractive enough to warrant Orfeo's pursuit.
Zelie de Lussan, whom Brooklyn claimed as its own, sang almost 800
Carmens, but very few of them in American cities. Her most popular role
at Covent Garden, the cigarette girl seemed merely coquettish and attractive
in 1895 after the searing impression of Calve.
The carefree Zelie tossed her blue-black, curly hair and remained un-
ruffled, displaying her svelte figure in the comedy roles that better suited
her: a dainty Zerlina, a bewitching Cherubmo.
Meanwhile, the popular Scalchi marched on undefeated, one of those for
whom all excuses are made, all justifications advanced. With what Philip
Hale called her "peculiar assortment of voices'* she earned a "Pax tccum,
Madame, and late may you return to heaven" in 1895, a year before she
retired.
"In [Urbaia's] imperishable maroon velvet and white satia rig worn for
twenty-five years without change of anything except waist measure, she still
rolls out those garrison notes from her stalwart chest, breaks systematically
when changing register, works as hard as a war horse and smiles at her ua-
tiring labors," Amy Leslie noted.
Scalchi sang her last performance on a Metropolitan tour in St. Louis oa
April 8, 1896, wearing the familiar tights of the Huguenots page,
"So grand a performance was never given under more auspicious cir-
cumstances/* the Post-Disfatch exclaimed.
FABULOUS 'NINETIES THE GREAT GAMBLE 61
"There is no danger the troupe can go to pieces," remarked the Chicago
Tribune in the critical season of 1896-97. "Bauermeister is back."
The indestructible Mathilde had come to America with Mapleson, had
joined Abbey in 1891 and was to act as the Metropolitan's mainstay until
1905, rising from secondary to major roles in any emergency.
"She has a cast-iron throat and no knowledge of nerves. She sings her own
repertory and the repertory of all other women; sings when it storms and
when it is pleasant. ... No jealousies torment her, no ambitions vex her
serene spirit. No escorts wait at the stage door, no ardent admirers persecute
her, no Chollies throw her roses. She is the sheet anchor of the Italian troupe.
. . . Grau's salvation lies in clinging to Bauermeister."
She sat up to study Alice in Falstaff because Eames was ill. "Catching
Mancinelli's eye, she dropped a curtsey, sang 'Rev~er-en-za!' and the or-
chestra laughed."
Bauermeister took some of Calve's high notes in St. Louis, when the
famous Carmen faltered; she replaced Lucille Hill as Susanna in Boston,
"again showing her versatility, memory, courage and good nature," Hale
said warmly. She even took over Zerlina and the Huguenots Marguerite in a
Boston crisis.
Marie van Cauteren, Bauermeister's closest companion on stage from 1894
to 1903 (except for one season when Maude Roudez sang the Mercedeses, the
Poussettes, the Countesses), never aspired to Mathilde's position. Although a
Chicago paper called her "popular and lovable ... she is a woman of
mystery. Nobody knows where she lives or goes."
In the 'nineties, tenors found themselves in even fiercer competition than
high sopranos. Of a dozen, all but Tamagno perforce gave gracious place to
De Reszke.
Fernando de Lucia, the bright-eyed, dapper little man with a spiked
mustache and a vibrato that was better liked in Europe than America, basked
in his brief day in Boston in 1894. ^ s v i ce "thrilled" Philip Hale, and his
passionate interpretation of Jose and Canio (he had created the Pagliacci
role for New York earlier in the season) stirred the Journal critic for its "re-
markable exhibition of natural temperament and dramatic skill. He is a
master of his resources . . . sang a marvelous Vesti la giubba , . . and in
his frenzy in the last act ... did not lose control."
Hale credited his only disappointment in De Lucia to the role of Wilhelm
Meister, in Mtgnon, (The writer always anathematized this and other anemic
roles or singers as "walking gentlemen.") The tenor's pictures were selling
like wildfire, the critic remarked in a chatty aside. "He has the hearts of
girls as well as the hands and voices of Boston's public."
But Boston and Philadelphia did not make a season for the proud tenor;
and he never returned,
Giuseppe Russitano gamely came back for more even after being placed
as "a general average Italian" on the road. He bore his cross as stand-in for
Jean with resignation, though he must have seethed at the Baltimore Sun's
remark that "he looked like Little Lord Fauntleroy beside the giant frame of
his Satanic friend" (Edouard "M^phistopheles" de Reszke).
g2 OPERA CARAVAN
Brooklyn developed a tolerance to Russitano that amounted almost to
fondness. A Trovatorc of 1894-95 "will go down in history," wrote the Eagle
critic, "as the night Russitano got two encores. How is not clear, but the little
man chirked up ... like a henpecked husband who finds he can run his
own house."
In a Brooklyn Cavalleria the following season, the tenor "padded his legs
into presentable shape and screwed his courage to the sticking point*"
Thomas Salignac, a spry little Frenchman, aroused the dislike of the San
Francisco Examiner in 1901 for his "reedy voice" and "nauseating nanny of
a tremolo." Other cities were kinder, if never effusive, and Salignac re-
mained as long as Grau.
Giuseppe Crcmonini promised more in 1895 than he realized in his three
seasons with the Metropolitan. Cremonini seemed "an Apollo" to Chicago,
while Washington called him "shapely, graceful, handsome, with the sweetest
and most satisfactory tenor in many years*"
Other tenors proved brief candles indeed, Antonio Ceppi, tall, manly and
prepossessing, lacked the voice to match his pulchritude. Albert Lubert,
though he sustained his European reputation in a Boston Carmen and a
Chicago Navarraise by the intensity of his acting, stayed for only one season*
Georges Mauguiere remained for three, acceptable only in amiable roles.
Hale amended his favorite expression to "standing gentleman" in describing
Mauguiere.
Among darker male voices the powerful and pervasive Edouard de Reszke
practically monopolized the bass repertory in all languages, from kings to
clowns. In his first seven seasons on tour, Edouard averaged eight roles and
once sang twelve.
His nearest rival, the handsome Pol Plangon, who entered the lists one year
after Edouardj immediately shared the roles of King Henry, Mephistophfltes
and Friar Laurence* Ramfis was also divided by the two giants; then
Edouard went on Into the buffo's arena, with Leporello and Don Basilic,
and into the realm of the Teutonic gods, kings and plain men with Matke^
the Wanderer^ Hagen and Daland*
Plarifoa remained in the 'nineties with the dignified elders of French and
Italian lineage. His only German role (sung in Italian when he first assumed
it) was the Landgraf in Tannhauser; his only god the Jupiter of Gounod's
Philemon tt Bauds, in which he was introduced both to New York and the
road
Planfon's noble art impressed the tour cities from the first; Philadelphia
thought him "every inch the lyric artist"; Chicago admired his commanding
presence, fine physique and the voice that "rang sonorous and true.*'
Hale went further to praise "the noble organ used ifi masterly manner,
His singing is full of nuancirung, the lower tones without a suspicion of
gargarismu No such singing has been heard from any bass in many a year. 5 *
By 1897, Chicago believed Edouard outranked in a favorite role. Plan^on's
M^phistoph<^l^s won new distinction for a grace> dash^ subtlety . - . impres-
sive make-up, sable costume and rich * * tonal value.*'
Other basses subsisted on crumbs dropped from the kingly feast. Occasion-
FABULOUS 'NINETIESTHE GREAT GAMBLE 63
ally Novara would fall heir to a Plunkett, Arimondi to a Marcel, Pringle to
a King Henry, Vinche to a Friar, Abrarnoff to a Ramfis, Devries to a
Mephistopheles. Jean Martapoura, a Belgian nobleman, "bluff and hearty, a
wee bit of a man," succeeded to a Nilakantha. Eugene Dufriche, who re-
mained active with the company as a singer until 1908 and then became a
stage director, once stepped into Count Almaviva's shoes, vacated by Edouard.
Agostino Carbone, a well-loved buffo, took over Leporeilo for Edouard on
a single occasion but usually busied himself with Masetto and the Bartolos
of Mozart and Rossini.
David Bispham's experience in the 'nineties hardly heralded his later tours.
The Quaker lad who owed his operatic career to the advice of a Ouija
board made, his out-of-town Metropolitan debut in Chicago, in the dismal
season following Abbey's death.
Lifting the veil of depression for a moment, the Chicago Trikune awarded
a wreath, to Bispham's excellent Kurvenal, noticed several welcome de-
partures from tradition in his Telramund and found his Alberich. impressive.
Hale was of the opinion that the bass-baritone overacted and oversang in
the Boston Martha of April 9. It was the first time Bispham had tried the
part; and his most distinguished predecessor in it had dropped dead on the
Metropolitan stage two months before.
Armand Castelmary, an old-time favorite, "admirable, venerated, his
force and fire preserved, not unkindly treated by the years," gave the road
much nostalgic pleasure before his dramatic death in 1897., His only out-of-
town appearance that year had been in Brooklyn on January 9, singing the
Duke of Verona. Chicago, expecting him with the company in February* was
shocked to hear that he had collapsed on the New York stage after Tristan's
roughhouse in Martha.
Baritones held their own in the 'nineties although Lassalle and Maurei cut
into their fattest repertory. Two veterans made brief reappearances. Giuseppe
del Puente, the "one and only Escamillo" for many fans of earlier days, sup-
ported Patti in her 1892 Traviatas in Boston and Philadelphia. Giuseppe
Kaschmann, who had shared baritone roles with Del Puente in the Metro-
politan's opening season, wa$ pressed into service again in 1895-96.
The merry Ancona, plump, round-faced, the upturned ends of his lux-
urious mustache quivering, gave the most value for Abbey's money be-
tween 1893 and 1897. To Chicago he seemed "well-dressed, radiant, full of
extravagant gestures and honeyed phrases." The baritone made a hit with
Tonio, commanded respect for his Valeatin aud repeated the, Alfio he had
created.
"So fond of society that his face is about as well known off stage as on,"
according to Detroit, the little man pursued his amiable way as Rigolctta,
Escamillo, Telramund,
In his second year Ancoaa began to notice that with Lassalk gone Maurel
waated a Rigoletto here, a Valentin there. Younger men were pressing hard
for other "Aacona roles." Maurizio Bensaude competed only one season,
but Giuseppe Campanari settled firmly aad outstayed Aacona by many years.
One of the mo$t genuiaely admired baritoaes of the early years, Campa-
64 OPERA CARAVAN
nari began his out-of-town duties as the Count di Luna, thought by Phila-
delphia to be merely picturesque, although Chicago noted the "beautiful
quality of tone ? his clarity and finish, his sympathetic quality and his taste."
Carnpanari had begun his career as a cellist in the Boston Symphony, and
carried his disciplined training over into the world of grease paint and
gestures.
His second major assignment was one that thirty years later brought
fame to Lawrence Tibbett Ford in Falstaff. His "powerfully passionate"
aria compelled a volley of applause in Chicago. In the first year of Ancona's
absence Carnpanari sang ten roles on tour. Spanning four managerial re-
gimes, he found, in his last year with the Metropolitan, only Scotti, Pini-
Corsi, Gadski and Schumann-Heink who had seen service in the 'nineties-
and none of them within four years of his initiation.
The names of other singers of the 'nineties grow fainter with the years.
Perhaps only Louisville will remember a Signor Gianini (or Giannini), said
to be the brother of the tenor who sang with Mapleson, for Louisville con-
sidered in 1891 that he had a "throat of velvet" while other cities found him
commonplace. Albany and Troy have reason to recall Sebastian MontarioU
who sang Romeo to Eames' Juliette in the one city and Elvino to Pemgiani's
Adina in the other, through a brief 1892 series in the midst of the New York
season. Albany may also recall Jane de Vigne, who sang Rosina in its original
mezzo key with Gianini as her Almaviva and Magini-Coletti as Figaro; and
Fernando Valero, the Raoul to the city's own prima donna, Emma Albani.
The excitement engendered by grand opera in the 'nineties heightened us
the new century drew near. Grau carried on with shrewd business acumen,
spreading the glory ever wider and much thinner. More than a dozen cities
from New England to Nashville, from Canada to Texas, awaited their first
taste of grand opera, Metropolitan style.
3. THE QUEEN OF HEARTS TAKES
ALL TRICKS
"She received women callers in bed. Her black hair * . curled about her
warm white neck and crisped over sheer ruffles of crepe on her robe de
chambre~-& dusky background for her round, pale face. The single vivid
color was the scarlet thread of her lips, bright as though carmine were
freshly laid on. Her black eyes glittered with traces of recent tears* A great
fur robe of white Persian lamb lay across her bed. In one plump hand she
held a scarlet-bound Flammarion novel, Urania, inscribed by the author on
the flyleaf. She was a study in black and white and scarlet."
This levie & la Bourbon, as carefully studied as a stage set, gave Chicago
its first intimate glimpse of one of the most fascinating prima donnas of the
FABULOUS 'NINETIES~~THE GREAT GAMBLE 65
Metropolitan's cross-country races. The Evening Post's girl columnist scooped
her male colleagues: they could report only from the auditorium or hotel
parlor the captivating personality of Emma Calve.
In her first year of travel with the company, Calve's progress resembled a
rising mercury. The warmth crept up through Philadelphia and Brooklyn
and rose several degrees in Boston, where Philip Hale found the new singer's
Carmen irresistible, even though she did not hesitate to twist a phrase and
change a rhythm to gain an effect.
Abbey and Grau wisely chose Carmen to launch the new season in Boston
and Chicago instead of Cavalleria in which Calve had made her debut in
New York and Philadelphia. Her first Chicago audience lacked numbers and
vitality until her witchery took hold. Then patrons and critics were caught
up in a frenzy that renewed itself every time she sang. Five Carmens and
three^ Santuzzas hardly assuaged the Chicago desire for Calve and more
Calvealthough the Spanish gypsy invariably commanded more attention
than the Sicilian peasant.
Calve seemed to be Carmen.
Perhaps Hale had not launched the famous saying that was to float after
Calve like a shadow, but he gave it the weight o his reputation:
"If she had not sung the role at all, she would have held the audience by
her dramatic art," he affirmed.
As the frantic heroine in Massenet's La Navarraise, she also showed her-
self to be a great lyric tragedienne. Comparisons to Olga Nethersole, a fiery
actress of the time, and even to Duse, were not considered out of place.
"Before she went to Italy," Hale noted further, "her acting was strictly
conventional. Now she is known chiefly as an instrument blown by the lips
of passion."
The Chicago Inter-Ocean set before its non-opera-going readers a descrip-
tion that should have propelled them toward the Auditorium box office:
"The winds over the Pyrenees must have given her something of a
Spanish sense. In personal appearance she fills the eye: tall, dignified, svelte,
sumptuous in figure . . , with a picturesque, graceful carriage, a trace of
Orientalism in her lithe movements. Her chin is as well defined as a Hebe's,
her features clean-cut and remarkably mobile, her mouth is small, with a
Cupid's bow in its curve. Her wonderful eyes, dark as night, fill with fine
fire, dilating with passionate intensity of emotion, furnishing a remarkable
range of expression to a beautiful and characteristic face. . . ."
"This is a true Carmen!" cried the Times writer. "The fire of genius blaz-
ing in her soul electrified and enthralled. She goes straight to nature . . .
the only creature, with hot-blooded, strong animal passion and no soul, that
Bizet could have meant. 1 *
Carmen's possible impact upon the morals of the community provided
fresh discussion among the literalists who viewed Violetta and Manon as
fallen women rather than singing actresses and who cringed at the dubious
Wagaerian relationships. Buffalo advanced a liberal point of view:
**A woman may be fond of admiration from the male sex and yet be
entirely correct morally."
66 OPERA CARAVAN
Philadelphia left judgment to a higheror lower power. "One almost
expected to see Mephisto come up a trap door and politely escort Carmen
below, to the accompaniment o red fire and a chorus of imps."
After several years, the Philadelphia North American believed her dance
to be "more chaste than formerly, yet with a curious touch that is hardly
agreeable ... she danced with her hands, a lithe, creepy sort of thing that
suggested snakes and subtlety."
The singer's kittenish ways amused her fans. She refused to learn English,
deeming three sentences sufficient: "Come in" . , . "How do you do?" . . .
"I love you." Later she took English lessons from Ellen Terry, but could
not rid herself of her French accent.
In especially seductive humor one year, she cajoled Sir Henry Irving into,
giving up his suite in the Chicago Auditorium Annex. The great man not
only vacated his rooms with courtesy but later paid a gallant call on her.
Even in plain dress, she fascinated a Chicago Evening Post reporter of a
later date. "She talks 1,000 words a minute, gives no one else a chance. She
talks with her hands, shoulders, fingers and the top of her head,"
Further peeps into the diva's private life titillated the nation as much as her
magnetism on stage. She told a Cincinnati reporter that Benjamin Constant
was painting her portrait on the ceiling of the Paris Opera Comique,
"Calve Has a Lover," the Chicago Mail proclaimed, "At seven dollars per
note, she talks and sings him love letters on recording cylinders. She literally
whispers soft nothings . . . 5-6>ooo miles away. He is an artist. She objects,
to writing letters. So, her kisses are preserved."
The end of this idyll was signalized in 1900 by a typical Sunday magazine
story in the San Francisco Examiner, concluding:
"Duse took to morphine, Calve took to flight."
During the six seasons in which she sang Carmen with the Metropolitan
on tour, Calve seldom received what critics believed adequate "support*"
This referred entirely to tenors, for Escamillos were plentiful and often stole
scenes from the accepted cynosure, to her irritation. She was once seen to
throw her fan petulantly on the table after Lassalle had responded twice to
the audience's demand for another chorus of the Toreador Song.
She could handle the undersized tenors often allotted her De Lucia,
Salignac, Saleza but critics could not understand "why a man of small
stature was always chosen for Calve to spend all evening trying to win," In
St. Louis, where Trilby headed the current bestseller list, Salignac was com*
pared to Little Billie, "How she loves that little shrimp!" one writer quoted*
The dissatisfaction mounted highest one evening in Chicago, "when the
greatest Don Jose of all [Jean de Reszke] sat in a box, while a pygmy
[LubertJ occupied the stage."
Chicago won the good fortune of seeing the only two performances on the
road of Jean and Emma as Jose and Carmen. The result was spectacular, al-
though Jean's fans claimed that he prompted her to higher flights than ever
before and Calve's champions,, among them the Herald, vowed that Jean
"was fired by a new inspiration, and superb as he always is, never achieved
a greater climax,"
FABULOUS 'NINETIES THE GREAT GAMBLE 67
Any Jose had to keep his wits about him or he soon became outplayed, for
Calve thought up new business for each performance. Even Jean found her a
"little trying," according to Leiser. She would run about, looking for pursuit,
or scatter one prop after another, hoping for a knightly retriever. Jean refused
the bait, in one case giving as a reason:
"Well, if she thought I was going to bend down and split my elegant
brand-new tights she had better think again."
Her most mischievous trick was to pop a rose Into his mouth just as he was
about to sing. This flower did not receive the same tender treatment as
Carmen's first-act offering.
Probably apocryphal is the tale circulated in California that Calve got up
and left the stage immediately after Jose stabbed her, whereupon the enraged
Jean rushed after her, broke down her dressing room door and dragged her
to the stage in a recumbent position. To have her ultimate revenge, she sang
his last measures with him.
Because of the limitations of her repertory to such humbly born damsels as
Carmen, Marguerite and Santuzza, Calve rarely had the excuse to dress up
on stage as a lady of fashion. This deprivation was more than the singer
could bear. One season she dressed for the party at Lillas Pastia's as if it were
Sherry's, in a contemporary Worth gown of conch-shell pink chiffon velvet
with huge festoons of French knots, a train and a Japanese shawl.
Her extravagant taste for ravishing haberdashery turned perforce to her
life off stage. In Boston she displayed her new wardrobe for a few friends,
among them a Globe reporter. One dinner gown of white moire had for
trimming a two-inch band of ermine around the skirt, a chiffon pleated
bodice and a bertha of duchesse lace, with acacia blossoms clustered on the
shoulder.
The imagination boggles at the vision of Calve on one of her free nights
sweeping through the theatres in Boston or Buffalo, St. Louis or Detroit,
trailing ermine under an opera cloak of white broadcloth lined with canary
satin, bordered with sable, and a shoulder cape of yellow velvet embroidered
in pearls* Nordica's cherry silk or Melba's collar of floor-length sable tails
could not compete with her.
Calve, the healthiest of mortals by her own account, suffered from one
disease after another according to the enterprising journals that always found
her good copy. Rheumatism in 1897, heart trouble in 1900, the dread cancer
in 1901. Grau denied all the rumors and Calve kept on singing- except when
she fell a prey to some minor ailment.
San Francisco surprisingly judged her Carmen as "not roses but violets."
New Haven's Journal Courier insisted that "her walk and manner, despite
perfect grace always, are those o a low bred woman. When she runs up
steps she goes heavily on the flat part of her feet . , in the last act her
fear is that of a dumb animal at bay, never an intellectual fear."
Dismissing the remainder of the cast as "accessories," Hartford's Times
compared Calv6 to "a sunbeam," "the cresting of a wave," "a heart-throb P
, * , and noted that catlike bearing of infinite grace and seductiveness . . .
68 OPERA CARAVAN
that sinuous movement of muscle and limb in short, this figure which in-
carnates all the graces Eve bequeathed to her daughters . . . the quintessence
of the sex as such."
Over the years, the role took on the gradual accretion of Calve's caprices.
In 1896 Philip Hale found her Boston impersonation "not so deliberately
boisterous or so aggressively athletic as it was two years ago. When she was
last here her singing in certain respects was disappointing ... a willful
maltreatment of music . . . but now she enchants and thrills as much by
her voice as by her rare dramatic art. She is discreet in the liberties she takes."
In 1897 she showed "remarkable strength and subtlety, though not as
diabolically powerful as wheri she first startled, amazed and triumphed."
In 1900: "In many respects [Carmen] is diametrically opposed to the
former embodiment, . . , Now a subtle creation of refined cunning, the
physical appeal not dominating. . . . She indulges herself in mental ex-
periments . . . we rub our eyes is it Calve?"
In 1902: "How far from the first revelation as a lyric tragedienne of singu-
lar charm, power and originality; nevertheless it is still interesting in many
ways, though pitched in a much lower key . . . more colloquial and * . .
suggesting a soubrette. . . . Spontaneity is now capaciousness; the original
plastic art now stiff."
By 1904, Calve's variations exasperated the critics.
"Calve dominated everything," remarked the Chicago Inter-Ocean, "Con-
ried has not curbed her characteristic independence, even if he cut her salary.
Her asides were numerous and rather plain, her rompings noticeable for
their vigor She laughed gleefully in the face of Mottl when she attempted
the high note at the end of the quintet and missed. ... It was quite a frolic,
Reiss, one of those devilish opera comedians, and Dufriche, like a boy out
of school , . , were evidently bent upon 'breaking up j Calve. She was
laughing before the number was finished and in the encore had a plain case
of - - giggles-
"Then Naval sang the Flower Song considerably off key, Zuniga tripped
over the doorsill and Calv giggled some more . . . in the last act [the tenor]
succeeded in so disarranging her black jet gown at the shoulder that for a
moment those within range breathed irregularly. . . . We arc sorry not to
be able to record Madame's exact words.'*
From the "firm, true and artistic touch" that the Chicago Herald at-
tributed to the diva ia 1894 to the Chronicle 9 s review of 1904 marks the pass-
ing of more than time:
"The star has risen above the work. She is the picture, the opera, the
frame. ... She magnifies her own part to the eclipse of the other principals,
chorus and even ballet. She has coarsened, to use no stronger term, an im-
personation once superbly artistic."
Grau's long tour of 1901-02 appeared to be a one-woman affair, although
several other equally distinguished ladies were aboard. A year later Calve's
irresistible force met the immovable body of Heinrich Conricd's will to
absolute power. After one stormy season she freed herself from the Metro-
politan to pursue her own devices, 10 that final clash of 1904, the Chicago
FABULOUS 'NINETIES THE GREAT GAMBLE 69
Tribune found her "clearly tired of the part. ... She is abusing her voice;
has robbed most tones of richness . . . and now resorts to tricks. . . . Mme.
Calve's Carmen is a thing of the past."
4. CHICAGO TAKES A CHANCE
"Chicago, Chicago, That Toddling Town."
(Song by Fred Fischer, 1922)
In 1892 Chicago came into its majority in a new incarnation, full-grown
at twenty-one. The "toddle" in the song title of 1922 named a waddling
dance step and not the uncertain groping of a youngster's feet. Chicago had
passed the toddling stage even before the fire, which in 1871 had drastically
changed the city's composition. The sprawling entity of stone and steel that
soon relentlessly began to force its boundaries mile after mile along the
shore and eventually encroached even into Lake Michigan itself bore little
resemblance to its rickety wooden ancestor.
It is conceivable to personify other cities, like ships, by the feminine pro-
nounbut never Chicago. Chicago is sinew and lust, tough fiber and daring
intellect. Even Chicago's beauty is all brawn.
At the end of two decades the city still ached with growing pains. Its rest-
less citizens sampled every newfangled invention. A horseless buggy terrified
strollers on Michigan Avenue. With direct telephone service to New York a
Chicagoan did business the way he liked fast. Steam-powered elevated
trains roared overhead on a web of trestles in "The Loop," dooming Chi-
cago's downtown streets to darkness and confusion.
Several tentacles of the city's expanding organism reached out for orna-
ments to cover and adorn the aggressively muscular body. These aesthetic
attributes attained their apotheosis in the new Auditorium, which opened
in 1889,
For 187 feet on Michigan Avenue, 161 on Wabash Street and 362 on Con-
gress Street, the huge ten-story Romanesque pile, designed by Louis Sullivan
and Dankmar Adler, bore witness to Chicago's ambition; its 240-foot, seven-
story tower, topped by a smaller rectangle two stories high, signaled to the
sky that Chicago's boundless daring had triumphed.
The marbled, stained-glass magnificence of the entrance, the vast lobby
with its mosaic floor, the bronze-balustered stairway all brought gasps of
admiration from the beholders. The rectangular ivory and gold audience
chamber, with its paintings by Charles Holloway, would seat 5,000, divided
among the main floor and boxes (x,8oo), the main balcony (1,700) and the
two upper galleries (750 each). Using the stage, at least 1,000 more could
be packed in.
70 OPERA CARAVAN
Best of all, in Chicago's fiercely democratic mind, the new theatre had been
built for "people/ 5 and not only box-holders. Patrons on all floors could en-
joy foyers and promenades (narrowing with each higher level, to be sure),
"finely furnished, each possessing all conveniences of cloak and retiring
rooms."
The stage itself kindled wonder and pride. Mechanical miracles behind
the curtain were made possible by a new scientific principle,
"It's all done by hydraulics," Chicago boasted.
Did an opera call for a mountain? a valley? a balcony? terraces rising
to a castle? a bridge? a sea undulating gently or stormily? a ship before a
gale utterly submerged and its crew with it? The Auditorium stage could
produce them all.
Invited to a preview, aldermen and commissioners clustered on the stage
platforms, apprehensive but game, and were raised and lowered in vertiginous
succession. No cases of seasickness were reported, however, until later in the
season, when a soprano succumbed to the rocking of a small boat in
L'Africaine.
Now Ferd W. Peck's skyscraper was a reality, one of the first of a genre
Chicago had recently developed. It had cost $2,700,000, with carrying
charges of about $200,000.
Until after the turn of the century a migrant lyric troupe took its chances
together with other road companies, vaudeville acts and minstrel shows. The
astronomical guarantees that the Metropolitan requires today before moving
a wig or a stick of greasepaint from the House had their nearest nineteenth
century counterpart in well organized auctions conducted in advance of tte
company's arrival.
Chicago's most famous auction preceded the opening o the Auditorium.
The Windy City's wealthiest men and their wives filled the lower floor of
Central Music Hall, reported the Times. Only evening dress was lacking to
make it a social event of prime order. On the stage sat Ferd Peck and
Marcus Mayer, Abbey's representative, with the experienced auctioneers,
Franklin H. Head and S. J. Reynolds.
"What am I offered for the first box?" the chant arose; and the bidding
was on. Otto Young mentioned $200 and was immediately silenced by
George M. Pullman's raise to $500.
"Why, that wouldn't pay for gilding the box/* Head chided the sleeping-
car magnate,
Columbus R. Cummings entered the fray; railroads and railroad cars went
at it hammer and tongs until Pullman quashed his opponent at $1,600.
All thirty-two boxes were snapped up. Adding $6,500 for premiums on
seats, the auction yielded $19,990, a figure approximating the cost of one
Metropolitan performance today.
The affair was dignified by the presence of many of "the old people*"
Beechers, Otises, Drakes, Pullmans, Blackstones, Adams' all names that
strike echoes from Chicago's present economy.
Hobart Chatfield Chatfield-Taylor, "a rich young man who writes news-
paper articles and draws horses equally well," according to the Ev&ning
FABULOUS 'NINETIES THE GREAT GAMBLE 71
News, selected Box 36. Everyone was there "but where was Potter Palmer ?"
The News reporter must have missed Palmer in the crowd, because on
Dedication Night the occupant of Box 37 shone radiantly in "Eiffel-red crepe>
with a round-cut corsage of velvet, a diamond necklace and hair-cluster, a
point4ace fan and a sonie-du-bal [opera cloak] of palest mauve with ostrich
boa Mrs. Potter Palmer."
By the middle o the decade, Chicago "joined the Metropolitan adventure
as an active partner rather than merely a compliant host. For a share of the
receipts (basically twenty-five percent) the Auditorium supplied scenery,
costumes (except those of the stars) and an 'orchestra no pick-up melange
of -stray musicians but the finely trained ensemble formed in 1891 by Theo-
dore Thomas. That peripatetic conductor had at last settled down to one
principal job with the classic remark:
"I would go to hell if they offered me a permanent orchestra."
The Chicago Orchestra played for the Metropolitan visitors until 1900
(except in 1895 when a tour of its own took it out of town), even accom-
panying the troupe to St. Louis, Louisville and Cincinnati. Its supremacy
was questioned only once. At the first rehearsal in 1897, Luigi Mancinelli
furiously denounced the men for sloppy discipline and threatened to send for
Che Metropolitan orchestra. He did not make good his threat and peace was
soon restored.
Abbey and Grau did not win every season. Oddly enough their receipts
were highest in the two years when Chicagoans were feeling the aftermath
of the panic of 1893 and the crippling Pullman strike of 1894. The spring
series of 1894 topped the decade's record for the Italian Grand Opera, and
in 1895, with all favorite singers safely on the roster except Emma Calv,
speculators still believed it worth while to wait in line to buy tickets for re-
sale at 100 percent profit.
"There must be money in spite of hard times," a reporter concluded,
Chicago society fancied that it had invented a new formula. Ward Mc-
Allister coined his famous appellation for New York's exclusive circle in 1892;
Chicago was soon remarking that "New York's 400 would have to give
way to Chicago's 40,000."
Even in 1894 the season sale amounted 'only to $13,200 and the average box
office for twenty-seven performances carne to about $6,800. This represented
the maximum Abbey could expect with liis ticket price of $3 for the best
seat. A fifty-cent increase in 1895 over local protests brought no addi-
tional revenue, for attendance dropped while costs rose.
The most expensive shows, Aida, Huguenots and Fau$t y each required
48,500 to mount; the cheapest, Lucia, came to $4,500. A glance at the salaries
Abbey paid his songbirds reveals the consequential item in his budget.
When Jean de Reszkt first came to America he received $10,000 per month
for eight performances, plus twenty-five percent of receipts over $5,000. This
average of $1,250 per performance was later raised to $1,500 and in 1901 was
said t be $2,500. His brother Edouard received $500 or $600 plus ten per-
ccatxt over $5^000. Nellie Melba, toegkicring at $1^000, rose to a par with Jean,
but without the percentage. Emma Eames was paid less at the begiiming, but
72 OPERA CARAVAN
soon commanded a $x,ooo fee. Emma Calve also came reasonably at first,
but her popularity ensured a higher cachet almost immediately. By 1896
each performance earned $1,500 for her.
In all Chicago Auditorium programs from 1889 until 1895 (when the re-
form presumably had been accomplished), appeared an adjuration to enjoy
the facilities for a social occasion:
"The audience, especially the ladies, are requested to leave their seats dur-
ing the intermission."
This innovation, which signalized a crack in the veneer of gentility favored
by the Victorian age, was the inspiration of Milward Adams, the tall, ener-
getic manager of the Auditorium. Physically a stalwart specimen, he never-
theless showed the strain of successive opera seasons.
"Adams allowed his whiskers to grow, and they came out gray," the
Evening Post sympathized.
Each season seemed more notable, more exciting than the one before, like
Sheherazade's tales, introducing "some glory that leaves its predecessors in
the shadow."
Exponent of "the biggest and the best," Chicago fittingly produced every-
thing to size: the largest and most modern opera house, the highest receipts,
the fullest newspaper coverage (with eleven dailies and innumerable special-
ized journals) and the juiciest scandals.
Amy Leslie, the one exception to anonymity among music critics in the
'nineties, believed in a press as free as a rotating lawn spray. After the turn
of the century Miss Leslie is said to have furnished an item for the other
gossip columns by eloping with a bellboy. Until the hunter became the
hunted, she filled a column in the Evening News with her highly personal
views. She displayed a surprising streak of primness in a stubborn crusade
against decolletage and took no part in a scandal that swept three prima
donnas into a vortex of dismay and indignation in 1894.
Eames and Calve under the same roof always posed a problem for the
temperament-regulators; danger lay inherent in the juxtaposition of the
New Englander's flinty reserve and the Frenchwoman's "smoldering vol-
cano." Grau juggled their mutual roles so that one would sing Santuxza and
Marguerite in the season the other was absent, but brought them together in
Carmen in 1893-94 each true to character: Eames the chaste, shy Micaela;
Calve* the tempestuous, lawless, full-blooded Carmen*
Perhaps the tension had been building through Calved first New York
season when Eames sang six times as Micaela. On tour Amoldson and
Pettigiani shared Micaelas, three and three alike, and each companioned
Calv^ once in Chicago. The third Carmen on March 26 and the fourth on
March 31 threw ice and fire together once more.
The lid blew off on April i, with a headline screaming from the Sunday
Times:
"LYRIC QUEENS WON'T DO! The fight between Eames and CaW
has barred at least Calve from society's drawing rooms [the story ran),
Eames calls Calve a 'creature how could society take her up?* Calve says
she'll slap Eames at their nextmeeting,"
FABULOUS 'NINETIESTHE GREAT GAMBLE 73
If the date aroused any suspicion that this was meant for an April Fool
hoax, the next few paragraphs dispelled it.
"Why look with benign not to say enthusiastic approbation on this turbu-
lent, vociferous, gum-chewing, highly painted Calve? This tiger lily, too
exotic to thrive in gardens of conventionality? Crested notes by discreet
footmen, great baskets of gorgeous roses and fragrant violets, suppers,
breakfasts, lunches, dinners, always with either French or Italian food. . . .
Society whispers that Calve eats with her knife. ... She snubs other prima
donnas except Melba, who is the friend of her bosom ... she talks and
laughs through others' solos. . . .
"With Melba, Calve leads the fast set. Two factions exist in the company
the De Reszkes, Arnoldson and her husband and Eames make up the 'decent'
set."
The exuberant Australian, who had confessed that Chicago air made her
"boisterous," now realized how she might be misinterpreted. She was ac-
cused in indelicate terms of choosing between two suitors with the result
that her singing in Rigoletto fell below par (the performance had approached
the nearest to failure of the season, it was true, and Melba's evident indisposi-
tion at the beginning gave the scandal-monger a peg on which to hang his
scurrilities). "But she forgave her rude lover, for he was in her box Thurs-
day." The attack concluded with the dark prophecy that "some divorces are
brewing."
The three outraged prima donnas sprang to the defense of their honor in
dignified letters of protest, which the Times printed in facsimile.
Calve called the account "calumnious and injurious"; Nordica complained
that the paper "used my name more freely than courtesy permits or truth
justifies; an insinuation so strong as to be an attack upon my moral qualities
which have never been questioned."
Melba wrote: "You have coupled my name with a man I do not even
know. ... I have been credited with an offense to my womanhood and art,
both of which I prize as any honest woman should. I ask full retraction."
The offending Times expressed "sincerest regrets that the article referred
to should have occasioned distress to the authors of these letters," and dis-
avowed the "slightest intention to inflict pain or do injustice. If unwar-
rantable inferences have been drawn from the publication there is further
occasion for regret which the Times greatly deplores."
The tone of this "apology" and the use of the words "unwarrantable in-
ferences" must have infuriated Melba, but she wisely dropped the matter and
it was soon forgotten except by the Dispatch, which reprinted the entire
Times article.
The friction between Calve and Eames continued. Grau threw them to-
gether once more as Carmen and Micaela in the New York Spring season.
The aftermath was reported in Chicago under the heading, "Calve Resigns."
"She snatched her hand from Eames in the curtain call . . . 'moulting'
combs, scarves, etcetera. . . . De Lucia [the Don Jose] picked up her scarf
and came back with it, but received such a fierce glance that he dropped it
and ran as if pursued by the bull."
74 OPERA CARAVAN
Melba, asked by the Evening Post columnist, The Matinee Girl, if the
trouble were over between her colleagues, "looked with straight, serene gaze,
and said in even tones : 'I have no idea. I do not know Madame Eames.' "
Calve did not come to Chicago again until 1896 when Eames was absent,
although the two prima donnas "made up" in New York when Eames
sang a token Micaela in the winter of 1896 and Calve insisted on giving her
all the flowers.
Calve and Eames did not sing in the same Metropolitan company in Chi-
cago until 1899. By then Eames was safe from any meeting with the more
limited Calve, being largely preoccupied with Wagner and Mozart operas.
Every season was spiced with at least one episode to set tongues wagging
and pens scribbling. Luigi Mancinelli, who enjoyed visiting "dime museums"
in his free hours, was arrested by two detectives who insisted that he was a
clever thief with a trick coat. The case of mistaken identity was straightened
out barely in time for the wrathy Italian conductor to assume his dress
clothes and hurry to the pit to conduct Faust.
During a performance of Romeo et Juliette in 1896 the lovers were inter-
rupted in the balcony scene by a "lunatic/ 1 who climbed over the footlights
onto the stage. Before he could be ejected, women had fainted, Melba was
conveyed in a near-hysterical state to her dressing room and the opera house
was in an uproar. Only Jean de Reszke kept his presence of mind, drawing
his sword and shouting for the curtain to be lowered.
The Herald turned the episode off neatly with the remark that "love has
turned many a man's head, but Romeo was never before played with a
crazy man in the balcony scene,"
Abbey's tragic death in the autumn of 1896 closed an era, although Grau
pursued an "all-star" policy of his own into the early century. The dissolu-
tion of the firm of Abbey, Schoeffel and Grau, following the season of
1895-96, was brought on by the ill luck of such theatrical figures as Lillian
Russell, Rejane, the French comedian Mounet-Sully ("a frost seldom
equaled") and even Btrnhardt, as much as any operatic loss. Grau, who
had grown increasingly responsible for Abbey's affairs, agreed to take over
the business by himself and refinanced his projects.
Grau's first independent year was shadowed from the start by the loss of
his partner and by prima donna vexations, chiefly Nordica's desertion in a
huff at the loss of the Siegfried Briinnhilde to Melba, an unlikely and un-
successful protagonist. The feckless Australian's "appetite exceeded capacity/*
as she was the first to admit, after her one and only experience of the
dramatic role, The strain proved too much for her, and she begged to be
relieved of her contract in January, after only one out-of-town appearance in
Brooklyn in the more congenial role of Juliette- Since Eames, too, refused
to tour, Calve, the DC Reszkes, Planjon and Lassallc upheld the star-spangled
reputation of the troupe on the road.
To secure a partner for Jean de Reszke's Siegfried, Grau looked no farther
than Eclouard's sister-in-law, Felia Litvirme, an enormously fat lady whose
voice impressed Chicago by its size and power but who "found it impossible
FABULOUS 'NINETIES THE GREAT GAMBLE 75
to appear maidenly." This choice further provoked Nordica's ire and pre-
cipitated a quarrel with Jean that ruptured a long friendship.
Nordica first claimed that Jean had inspired Melba to the ill-advised step
of joining the Valkyrie maidens. Now she accused him of conspiring with
Grau to replace her with his relative. Jean denied this with dignity if with
some heat. The rift between the two singers was not closed until 1897. Mean-
while Chicago missed Nordica as well as Melba and Eames.
With twenty-five performances, only three fewer than the total of other
out-of-town appearances in Brooklyn, Hartford, St. Louis, Louisville, Cin-
cinnati and Boston, Chicago's 1896 vote proved decisive. It was a general
"Nay."
Calve's Carmen still commanded slavish worship it was thrown into
the breach five times and Marguerite, a new role for her, astonished and
delighted Chicagoans by its "gentle girlishness."
Still, the prevailing situation seemed desperate enough to warrant a drastic
departure from precedent lowering prices to a "popular" level. Six operas
were subjected to this ignominy during the last week, even Les Huguenots
going at the bargain rates of $2 in the orchestra, seventy-five cents in the
balcony. But all to no avail.
Chicago newspapers might loyally fan the blaze of favor for a local girl,
Marie Engle, and might show how deeply they were impressed by a new
singer, David Bispham might even continue to sing the praises of the
"famous five." Chicago readers remained indifferent.
From New York came the ultimatum: No opera next year unless a guar-
antee is forthcoming!
In his distress, Grau found help from his business associates and, more
surprisingly, from his singers. To make up deficits, Jean de Reszke gave
$4,000, his brother $2,000, Calve $3,000, Lassalle $2,000. Other contributions
came from Grau's firm (he himself wrote a personal check for $2,500), and
from Milward Adams for the Auditorium. The company limped on to
other commitments, which did not materially improve its condition.
When Nordica turned her back on Grau ; rumors spread widely and were
eventually confirmed that she, as well as Melba, would join Damrosch's
wandering singers. Seeking a foothold since 1891 and denied a place at the
Metropolitan, Walter had given sporadic performances here and there, no-
tably three Wagnerian operas as a benefit in Philadelphia in 1894 with
Materna, Schott and Fischer, remembered from the previous decade-
In 1895 he had formed his own company and for two seasons had barn-
stormed through cities large and small. When Grau decided that his troubles
did not permit a season in 1897-98, he leased the Metropolitan to Damrosch,
who had acquired Charles Ellis as a partner, chiefly to secure Melba.
Chicago as usual provided the touring anchor. Damrosch eff ected such in-
roads into Chicago's affections that one newspaper hopefully suggested in
1897 that he take over the entire operatic business. Probably nothing would
have pleased Walter better, but the next year Grau bounced back as cheer-
ful and competent as ever, and "all his sins were forgiven him" by Chicago.
Among these sins, the lack of freshness in the repertory disturbed Chicago
76 OPERA CARAVAN
very little. Although not premieres, Orfeo, Otello and Cavalleria had suf-
ficed as novelties in 1891; the American premiere o Massenet's Werther
had dignified 1894; Falstaff gave Chicago's musicologists their chance to
pontificate in 1895; La Navarralse scored a hit with Calve in 1896; another
Massenet work, Le Cid f like Werther a starring vehicle for Jean de Reszke,
"excited the most pronounced and spirited ovation" of the bleak 1897. Then
Grau waited until 1902 to produce other novelties from his trunk Magic
Flute and Manru. Chicago hardly grumbled; this was, after all, the age of
song and only singers counted.
The heart of the country's railroad system, Chicago had been a way-stop
for every migrant troupe. The city's first opera house, Rice's Theatre, "could
not stand the innovation" and burst into flame during the second perform-
ance of Sonnambula on July 30, 1850. After the theatre was rebuilt, the
city, like an eligible bachelor, entertained all the visiting ladies but saw no
reason to give its heart to any one.
But in 1907 Henry Russell brought his San Carlo company with Nordica,
Alice Nielsen and Florencio Constantino, and planted a portentous seed.
Unrest at Heinrich Conried's methods had already sprung up.
The decisive step awaited more auspicious circumstances, however, and
was taken under Metropolitan auspices. Three years later, when the New
York company under Giulio Gatti-Casazza had successfully completed the
expensive and harrowing business of suppressing Oscar Hammerstein, and
desired to plant its own roots in strategic grounds, Chicago was offered
Hammerstein's singers and scenery. At last Chicago raised the curtain on its
own opera company, November 3, 1910.
Cleofonte Campanini received the appointment as musical director, and
Andreas Dippel, the first tenor to accede though not the first to aspire to
management level, accepted the post of general director for Chicago, thereby
relieving an embarrassing situation in New York. His dissonant duet with
Gatti-Casazza as co-director had grated on too many ears.
Through additional arrangements with Boston and Philadelphia, New
York interchanged repertory and casts in a four-city scheme that promulgated
grand opera on a scale never before and never since attempted in
America.
Chicago played its role vigorously at home and on the road as well. Known
as the Chicago-Philadelphia company on the local scene and in New York,
Boston and other cities, the organization reversed its title for annual visits to
the Quaker City.
Subsequent shifts in the balance of operatic ballast brought Chicago's com-
plete autonomy a few years later under different titles.
The local Maecenas, Harold McCormick, with his socially prominent wife,
the former Edith Rockefeller, poured their resources into opera for two
decades.
This period represented "partly the history of Mary Garden's fabulous
career, as she presented one by one her vivid characterizations of a long line
of heroines, mostly scarlet ones," wrote Cecil Smith in Musical America.
"McCormick withdrew his support after the season of 1921-22 in which Miss
FABULOUS 'NINETIES THE GREAT GAMBLE 77
Garden, in her sole year as director, doubly scandalized her patrons by her
performance in Salome and by the ease with which she let a deficit of $1,110,-
ooo accumulate in twelve weeks."
Samuel Insull took over in the sweeping reorganization that followed, and
Chicago's prestige continued with the Chicago Civic Opera until the collapse
of the financier's utilities empire in 1932. After the debacle Chicago's opera
became a "hand-to-mouth" affair, according to Smith, until 1942, when the
Metropolitan returned as an old friend after thirty-two years' absence.
The Auditorium is no longer the scene of Chicago's opera gaiety. In 1928
InsulPs $30,000,000 Opera House on Wacker Drive usurped the glory. It is
still Chicago's home for the Metropolitan, as well as for the new Lyric
Opera that has given the city its own company once again.
The Auditorium never recovered. The grand theatre suffered humiliating
vicissitudes: it was invaded by vaudeville; converted to a baseball diamond
for the annual newsboys' and bootblacks' benefit game and to a cathedral
for Reinhardt's Miracle; disguised as a bowling alley and a service center
during World War II; and once even reduced to servitude as a warehouse.
In 1946 Roosevelt College (now Roosevelt University) bought Sullivan's
monument and converted hotel and offices to academic uses, including the
Chicago College of Music. But darkness fell on the famous Auditorium.
Part V
GRAU'S BARNSTORMERS
L OUTPOST ON THE MISSOURI RIVER
The opera train chugged through New England's ruddy autumn hills,
bisected New York beside the placid Erie Canal, angled to cross the friendly
frontier to the north then returned to pause in the tangled knots of our in-
dustrial centers.
In 1899 t ^ e tour set * ts western mark at Kansas City. But in the ensuing
two years, it did not stop until Maurice Grau had at last stretched the Metro-
politan's perimeter almost to the boundary of the United States. In three
touring years, the troupe visited thirty-seven cities, twenty-three for the
first time. From Portland, Maine, to San Francisco, from Minneapolis to
New Orleans, the special trains wove their complicated patterns.
Along the way, local folk gathered to watch and marvel. There could be
no mistaking this for an ordinary band of travelers. An inscription in letters
a foot high exulted to the world that this splendid caravan belonged to "The
Metropolitan Opera House/' To protests that the company resembled a
traveling circus, Grau answered that he believed in advertising his product
as loudly as possible; the blatant stencil remained.
A holiday spirit, partly thwarted when the wayfarers were confined to a
few larger cities, lightened these longer trips. Singers who had spent most
of their waking hours between theatre and hotel now felt new freedom and
found new friends.
In a small town en route, they all disembarked to stretch their legs, to ad-
mire the faraway mountains and to pose for Librarian Mapleson's camera.
Suzanne Adams, the new American Juliette, climbed tomboyishly into the
engineer's cab; Walter Damrosch (who, not able to "lick 'em," had "fined
'em" in 1900) aspired to a different kind of conductor's job and donned a
placard identifying himself with Car B. Thomas Salignac, the tiny tenor, and
Antonio Pini-Corsi, the corpulent buffo, paired off inevitably for a snapshot.
Edouard de Reszke, still the popular favorite of colleagues and public
alike, conquered a superstition that stirred uneasily in his Slavic soul even
after years of facing professional lenses and allowed Mapleson to picture him
with the bewitching new Viennese soprano, Fritzi SchefE. Ernestine Schu-
rnann-Heink boomed her good-natured laugh, then twinkled almost coyly at
79
80 OPERA CARAVAN
Plan^on, a notable gallant though an implacable bachelor. The huge, hand-
somely-bearded bass joyously executed an arabesque a la Mercury.
Creature comforts may or may not have been plentiful, depending on
whose account one believes. Andres de Segurola, the dashing Spanish bass-
baritone, who made a transcontinental tour before singing a note at the
Metropolitan, pictures the company thus in his unpublished memoirs,
Through My Monocle:
"A milky way of stars, rolling along in nine or ten Pullmans . . . with
good food, good drinks, good laughs . . . and a table of poker at which I
sat from six to eight hours daily with Dippel, Reiss, Journet, Campanari and
Franko."
The monocled bon vtvant preferred to remain incognito during his early
journey with the Metropolitan, for he used a pseudonym, Perello, in his
first few appearances, adding his surname later and changing the Perello for
Andres only in New York. He reacted unfavorably to Grau's businesslike,
rather brusque manner and did not return to the Metropolitan until 1909.
Comparison with the private car in which she later circled the concert
route may have prompted Calve's confession:
"We were not luxurious in Grau's day . . . small quarters, not always the
best arrangements. On some of the long runs we had to carry our own food
supplies, for buffets at stations were so poor that we could not eat there. We
had merry times at our improvised suppers."
Could the troupe possibly have traveled without a diner? It seems hardly
likely,, and yet an account in Louisville mentions a stop in Cincinnati for
"supper and rest." Smaller cities lacked many of the refinements the opera
stars demanded. After learning that the "hummingbirds" she noticed in a
southern hotel dining room were in reality flying cockroaches, Emma Eames
took to dining in her bedroom.
This expedient was favored by most of the Italian troupers, who, un-
daunted by regulations, continued to smuggle skillets into their hotels and
cook savory messes in their rooms. Giuseppe Campanari was said to go so
far as to make his own spaghetti, taking along a special machine.
Lodovico Viviani, an Italian bass who was entitled to the prefix of "Count,"
solved the problem with his usual thoroughness and elegance. But his very
fastidiousness betrayed him, as Aime Gerber, long-time paymaster, relates in
Bac\stage at the Opera.
Max Hirsch, the box-office treasurer, never lost an opportunity to deflate
Viviani's pretensions. As the bass was signing his noble name in a Chicago
register, Hirsch playfully tipped over the shiny silk hatbox Viviani never
let out of sight. Even Hirsch was surprised as a clattering assortment of pots
and pans rolled out on the stone floor. The clerk, who had been slightly
cowed by Viviani's impressiveness, now took pleasure in informing him,
"No cooking in the rooms, Count!"
Melba fell victim to the unkindest practical joke of all In the midst of her
Chicago tribulations in 1894, some wag sent out fifty invitations to a supper
party in her name an extreme seldom resorted to by pranksters. Mischief
usually took a less expensive, more professional turn. During the tour of
Col. W. L. Peel of Atlanta
Courtesy Dr. William H. Kiser, Jr.
Above; Atlanta hospitality. 1'Yom the left, Rosa Ponselle, Henry M. Atkinson,
Festival president in Mephistophelean dress, Julia Olaussen and John Grant
Left: Lucre'/ia Bori "I became a golf fan." Champion Bobby Jones at her left
V
Giuseppe De Luca entertains Marion Talley and Giovanni Martinelli
Recognizable: Lawrence Tibbett, Louise Hunter, Otto Kahn, Mary
Lewis, Kllcn Dalossy, Giuseppe Bamboschek and William Gustafson
News Events; Courtesy Musical America
Grace Moore, in a 1928 hat, with Jackson P.
Dick at one of the famous Atlanta barbecues
Above: Reunion Arturo Toscanini
and Giulio Gatti Casazza in 1932
Left: An Atlanta party. Rothier,
De Segurola, Caruso (behind Mrs.
Peel), Martin, Scotti and Amato
Hayes; Dallas Times-Herald
"Welcome to Dallas!" The Arthur
L Kramers #reet Kdward Johnson
Clevelancrs Public Square takes note
ol a lamous visitor in a spring snow
In Denver the Arthur ( )berf el tiers meet Patrice Mumel, Jan Ptme
(front), Mrs, Pccrcc, Herbert Oral', Frank St. Lcgcr, Ramon Vinuy
Scbumer
Stage Manager Desire Defrere (left) and Assistant
Manager Max Rudolf explore the Midway in Memphis
,/S
Troupers Alessio De Paolis, Frank Guar- Above: Lauritz and Kleinchen Mekhior
1 ,Alvary, form a typical trio (right) make sure ot their dcstmaaon
Paul Seligman
"All aboard!" Rise Stevens urges her colleagues,
Zinka Milanov, Leonard Warren and Ezio Pinza
Thelma Votipka, "fabulous
moves in aura of accomplishment'
Hayes; Dallas Times-Herald
Above: Breakfast posy for Bruna
Castagna from Mary Ellis Peltz
Left: 'We're off!" cry Brownlee,
N. 7, Times Studio Novotna, Ziegler, Jobin, Lewis
Left: Chief down "Nicky" Moscona
perplexes at least one conductor
Right: Heavy duty for a "heavy":
iBaccaloni wheels Inge Manski and
Tucker; Paula Lenchner kibitzes
Needs a stitch?" Dresser Angelo Jennie Ccrvini settles a chaplet on
aspects an elaborate Boris robe Lily Pous for a Chicago (Jilda
Left: New Orleans hardly recognized
Cleva, Pelletier, Papi, Leinsdorf
Right: Earle Lewis' hand is quicker
than, for one, Eleanor Steber's eye
Left: War effort. Mona Paulee & Company
Below: Rudolf Bing (seated) waits while
Florence Guarino, Francis Robinson worry
^chmner
Everyone asleep but Jerome Mines
Right: In Atlanta Cesare Siepi
leads Mrs. Harold N. Cooledge
Below: Oklahoma City idyll for
Giuseppe Campora and his bride
Sckttnwr
Ettorc Bastianini waits while Frank
aola gives Herva Nelli her tickets
Roberta Peters and bridegroom, Bert Fields
Schumer
Redcap for Blanche Thebom!
"Bon voyage!" Rudolf
Bing cheerily speeds
his troupe departing
without him in 1956
Paul Seligman
The Northrop Auditorium The Fair Park Auditoriur
Left: Brooklyn Academy
of Music, built in 1908
CQ HOAiM&i'Jbtit ^ '/.fltfil," v
Montreal's Forum becomes an opera house
An opera night at Indiana University
The largest Metropolitan audience: 11,352 for Carmen in Toronto Maple Leaf (Jardens
GRAU'S BARNSTORMERS 81
1901 Montreal's Arena, a skating rink with a decrepit roof, dripped copiously
on a Tannhauser cast.
In Memories and Reflections Eames, the Elisabeth, describes how "Dippel,
egged on by Walter Damrosch, began the series of Weber and Fields jokes
that followed us to the Pacific Coast by appearing in the wings holding a
huge cotton umbrella, which in conjunction with his Tannhauser costume
put us in a hilarious mood from which we found it difficult to recover."
Grau indulged this friskiness, as natural to opera stars as children's spit-
balls and paper airplanes, but he seldom joined in the fun. Even the poker
game, his only relaxation, rarely welcomed the manager on tour. Too many
hazards occupied his mind.
Yet, according to David Bispham, Grau regarded his profession "in the
light of a complicated and highly interesting game." The baritone had
watched Grau in intricate discussions of changing casts, while at the same
time "hearing a complicated report from the managers of the company, dis-
cussing terms of a written agreement with an artist without referring to the
document except to prove the artist wrong; speaking three foreign lan-
guages in rotation with men of as many nationalities, calling up his Wall
Street broker to give orders and evidently calculating the possibility of gains
and losses mentally as he spoke."
Grau considered himself to be a cold, shrewd man of business, although
most of his colleagues also granted him amiability. His artists even liked him
in their grudging way, said Walter Damrosch. They loved to repeat the
characterization attributed to Jean de Reszke:
"Grau would give a man a fine cigar but would not offer him a match to
light it unless such generosity had been nominated in the bond."
Few credited this manager with any depth of feeling or subtlety of ap-
preciation for music, although he told a Louisville reporter that his taste for
grand opera had "grown remarkably."
In a San Francisco interview he insisted that he was not a musician, "had
never discovered as much as a single voice and had yet to give his first
original production of a new work."
The record of Grau's five seasons as complete master of the Metropolitan's
destinies bears him out in the letter if not entirely in the spirit. He intro-
duced several novelties, and although none of them possessed staying power,
he did his honest best for Paderewski's Manru and Mancinelli's Ero e Le-
an dro on the road.
He did not "discover" Puccini's La Boheme and Tosca, but hustled them
into the Metropolitan repertory with commendable alacrity. These were the
years when, as he declared in Musical America, "a fine ensemble will not
attract people; some star must shine out above all the rest, and people will
not go to new operas."
He could command any singers he wanted, discoveries or old favorites, for
Jean de Reszke's intercession had obtained for him the directorship of Covent
Garden after the death of Sir Augustus Harris, and he managed the pair
of great opera houses simultaneously for two years. At his behest Teraina,
Homer, Schumann-Heink, Adams, Saleza, Van Dyck, Alvarez, Scotti and
82 OPERA CARAVAN
Van Rooy came to the Metropolitan; the singing fabric remained strong
and golden throughout his stewardship.
"His casts were his form of personal expression," said Gerber.
As he manipulated the hundreds of pieces in his operatic jigsaw puzzle at
the turn of the century, he looked almost the same Maurice Grau who had
shared bad news with Abbey in Cincinnati on the morning of February 10,
1884. A shade stouter, his skin swarthy, his keen eyes sparsely lashed and
lightly hooded, he reminded some observers of a heavily charged electric
battery as he paced about nervously, hands in pockets.
Others found him placid and imperturbable, tactful as a woman, just the
man to tame the wild prima donna. Chicago reported an exchange between
Grau and William Parry, the small, neat stage manager who had been
snatched back by Mapleson in Abbey's first raid, but later rejoined the
Metropolitan's technical force.
"How is Madame X. today?" Grau asked.
"Oh, Madame is alive," answered Parry.
"Then I'll bet she's kicking."
Touring farther afield than Chicago in the Autumn was unheard of until
1899. Grau decided to use his knowledge of every theatre in the country to
build a prosperous network for opera. He even succeeded in selling the per-
formances outright in Kansas City the beginning of the guarantee system.
Wherever a hall could be adapted to his purpose, Grau booked a date.
Kansas City offered the Metropolitan its first experience in one of those im-
mense, barnlike rectangles known as "convention halls." This new audi-
torium was dedicated on Washington's Birthday, 1899, with two concerts
by Sousa's Band.
An injudicious bit of booking turned the opera's opening into a nightmare.
Frank Rigo, the Metropolitan's stage technician, and his expert crew ar-
rived in town to convert the hall to the semblance of an opera house. They
found a cattle show in progress, the auditorium floor deep in tanbark, the
atmosphere reeking of manure. Not uatil Saturday, October 28, would the
last prize Hereford lumber from the premises. On Monday evening, Carmen
was due to "dedicate Convention Hall in the cause of art,"
Rigo's plan called for an apron extension to the 45-foot stage, a proscenium
arch and a huge projecting sounding board. Most of the construction was
ready; finishing it arid installing it became a matter of intensive., driving
labor. Painters worked while the cattle were cheered in the hall; hardly had
the last customer departed when one crew began shoveling' out the tanbark
and another repaired the floor.
Dressing rooms with canvas partitions, a row of boxes on the arena floor
(provided with hooks "so that persons need not check wraps and hats'*) and
a thousand other conveniences and appurtenances flew into place as if by
magic. Checkrooms would be open and attendants on duty as at a Priests of
Pallas Ball, the Journal informed patrons.
"Tomorrow, grand opera!" exclaimed the paper. "Three words never
meant more in the way of artistic and intelligent entertainment to Kansas
City."
More capacious even than Mechanics Hall in Boston, Convention Hall ao
GRAU'S BARNSTORMERS 83
commodated the biggest audience for a Metropolitan performance to that
date, possibly invalidating Atlanta's claim some years later. Atlanta's audience
of 6,000 for Caruso's local debut in 1910 was said to be the largest ever to hear
him in opera but the tenor's first Kansas City appearance in 1905 was esti-
mated to have attracted an even greater number.
Acoustical problems were not easily solved, and the view from far away of
the "little stage and bits of little men and women in brilliant lights and
colors seemed like an opera in miniature" to the Star reporter. "The faces
were indistinguishable, but voices floated up sweet and plain, clarified and
glorified."
Whatever souvenirs remained from the performance, memory of Calve
was not among them. The prima donna had had "an attack" in St. Louis, not
the first of the spells of illness that were to harass Grau's schedules. She ar-
rived in Kansas City with the troupe, and "the swish of her skirts stirred a
lively breeze as she walked rapidly toward the gate."
Healthy enough to give the Journal representative a long interview, she
told him plaintively that she had just designed her own tomb, to be orna-
mented with statues of herself as Carmen and Ophelia.
Bonnard, the tenor who had traveled with Damrosch the previous year and
whom Grau had engaged for the Autumn tour to replace Alvarez, left him-
self open to the wrath of the goddess by stating publicly that De Lussan was
every bit as good as Calve he had sung with both and he ought to know.
Kansas City liked him and agreed with him about the American. De Lussan
remained the standard; Calve never appeared in opera in Kansas City.
In April, 1900, Convention Hall was destroyed by a fire, but public-spirited
citizens now sprang into action with typical Midwest "get-up-and-go." A. E.
Stillwell and William Rockhill Nelson led the drive for funds, and a new,
fireproof interior was ready in ninety days for the Democratic National Con-
vention on July 4.
Learning from previous opera experience, S. Kronberg, the local impre-
sario, induced Louis W. Shouse, the new hall manager, to block off about one-
third of the hall in 1900-01, hoping to create an atmosphere of comparative
intimacy. If the series had opened with Huguenots or Lohengrin, the effect
would have been notable, but Grau chose his novelty, La Boheme, with the
Mad Scene from Lucia as its customary pendant for Melba.
"BohSme is a gem," remarked the Journal, "but Convention Hall is not the
place to exhibit gems. There is just a little less interest this season . . . only
5,000 in the audience."
Puccini's "new" opera provided an ideal opportunity for the oracles. Philip
Hale thought Boheme a triumph, though "the music may shock the purist or
confuse the careless." Trenchant Chicago pens were not given a chance at a
Metropolitan Boheme until 1907. Many prophets solemnly agreed that the
soprano part offered "very slim pickings" indeed. The Kansas City Journal
advanced a typical view:
"Neither the character nor the music of Mimi is showy. . . . This work
ranges from light and trifling music and playful recitative to beautiful, sus-
tained concerted numbers. ... It seems as if Puccini had endeavored to
make an ideal compromise between the florid embellishment of Donizetti
84 OPERA CARAVAN
and the rigid motif service of Wagner. In his orchestration he displays his
genius most."
In a gloomy prognostication the Star's critic averred that: "Eoheme is al-
together too scholarly to ever rival Faust. It does not stream with melody; there
is nothing to whistle unless it is the theme of the duet in the third act. . . .
Maybe the masses will grow to love it, however, though it is doubtful."
For several years customers did not get their money's worth unless after
this "curtain raiser," as in Kansas City, the figure of Melba appeared "with
streaming hair and flowing draperies, a wild light in her eyes, a playful,
challenging smile on her lips."
The smiling lips of this apparition parted, and "there stole into the darkness
a rippling note that danced from head to head until it reached the farthest
crevice of the building . . . then the soft-tuned flute spoke out and the mad
girl's voice chased it as a woman would have tripped gaily after a butterfly.
Now voice, now flute ... the race grew faster, the woman's eyes wilder,
until in one last burst of purest sound Lucia reached the climax of the
struggle and, throwing her hands on high, ran from the stage."
Delirium from the Star's critic inspired all too few customers for the re-
mainder of the series. Even the solid core of out-of-town patronage weak-
ened. S. Kronberg was heard once more to grumble his annual threat to
cease and desist. This time he meant it. After paying Grau $12,500 for three
operas the first year and $13,000 in 1900-01, Kronberg told the New York
manager that from now on he was on his own. The third year, Kronberg
again took charge, but at Grau's risk. The season grossed only $9,159.
Kronberg, who had accepted a job with Grau to set up the local machinery
in Lincoln and Minneapolis in 1900-01, performed the same services in 1901-
02 for Buffalo, Cleveland and several southeastern cities.
This was the winter of Grau's discontent, his profits and peace of rnind
nibbled away by the antics of his two wayward prima donnas, Calv6 and
Sybil Sanderson, and an occasional tantrum by Emma Eames. All three
were promised to Kansas City in 1901-02; none was delivered*
The suggestion of Austin Latchaw, the Journal's critic, that guarantees
from the wealthy men in town be solicited and a subscription basis adopted,
fell on barren ground. In spite of a "masterful" Tannhauser and an Aida
that enrolled a peerless cast Gadski, Homer, De Marchi, Scotti, Jouraet*and
Edouard de Reszke disillusion had set in.
2. THROUGH THE GOLDEN GATE
It was with the greatest misgivings that Grau signed a contract to appear in
"the smallest city in the United States," noted a western newspaper in 1900.
Though his path lay in the right direction, it took the zeal of a go-getting
citizen to allay his apprehensions. Finally the manager of the Metropolitan
GRAU'S BARNSTORMERS 85
Opera committed himself to three performances in this little community, for
which he was to be paid $13,500. The dates agreed upon were November 9
and io
The party of the second part signed his name to the contract: Lynden Ells-
worth Behyrner. The contract was executed in the City of Los Angeles, Los
Angeles County, State of California. Although not the smallest among hosts
to the Metropolitan, its population of 102,489 ranked it thirty-third in size
among cities of the United States, and Los Angeles displayed a seemly
modesty.
The "Busy Bee," as Behymer became known to an ever widening circle,
electrified the community with his exploit, the first of a lifelong series that
was to make him musical czar of the West. He had arrived in Los Angeles in
1886 and it was rumored that he had begun his career as a "scalper." Usher,
book reviewer, press agent, playbill publisher and theatre treasurer marked
some of the steps that brought him to the position of the nation's most re-
spected regional impresario.
More than any showman of his day Bee realized the advantages of public-
ity. He was the first manager to quote press reviews in advertisements, ac-
cording to Howard Swan, author o Music in the Southwest. Anyone who
could read the Los Angeles Times knew that Bee had renovated old Hazard's
Pavilion at Olive and Fifth Street, "laying canvas over dirty floors so that the
most exquisite toilette need fear nothing." He saw to it, with the glad assist-
ance of the manager, that a page from the Van Nuys Hotel register, burdened
with famous names, was reproduced in the papers. He set aside 700 matinee
seats at reduced prices for music students and teachers.
On opening night a contingent from Pasadena "swept up before the very
door in a special trolley car all blazing with light and gorgeousness." Fifty
came from as far away as San Diego, added the Times.
Lohengrin won favor over Boheme and Romeo that first year, perhaps
due to the popularity of Nordica, whom the Express critic represented lying
"prone upon the stage as the last notes were dying out. The great audience
heaved a pent-up sigh," continued the reporter. "The curtain fell and the
grandest season of opera ever held in Los Angeles was at an end."
The opening of the season had brought a number of outstanding Metro-
politan debuts, especially Fritzi Scheff as Musetta, Marcel Journet as Colline,
Suzanne Adams as Juliette and Georges Imbart de la Tour as Romeo. Evi-
dently his first appearance as Parpignol so unnerved a tenor named Aristide
Masiero that his services as Benvolio faltered the following night. The official
program contains the note: "Masiero's music sung by Miss Bridewell." Los
Angeles, however, heard nothing amiss; in fact, the Express complimented
Masiero for his "excellent pronunciation."
Grau heeded the suggestion of the Times and repeated Lohengrin a second
year, bracketing it with Carmen and Huguenots for a $500 raise in the guar-
antee, which Behymer cheerfuly met.
San Francisco was Grau's main objective in these two Autumn tours with
Los Angeles acting as prologue.
The Golden Gate had seasoned itself to grand opera performances early in
its vigorous life. The "Forty-niners" wanted opera, a history compiled for the
86 OPERA CARAVAN
WPA Music Project states unequivocally. "They loved opera. They loved
gold, good food, adventure and their own great land. . . . The circus gave
way; clowns yielded to prima donnas."
The rough miners had to be told to mind their manners, however. A notice
in 1851 "respectfully advised gentlemen that if they must eject tobacco juice in
church or in the theatre, they be particular to eject it on their own boots and
pantaloons instead of the boots and pantaloons of others."
Sonnarnbula launched San Francisco on its operatic way in 1851, one year
after it had performed the same service for Chicago. Norma and Ernani fol-
lowed in a Pellegrini Company season at the Adelphi Theatre.
More opera troupes flourished in the 'fifties and 'sixties than in any other
period of the same length. A company might give as many as three seasons in
one year.
Empty pockets in the early 'seventies deflated the excitement, but in 1879
flagging interest revived under the stimulus of a new form of entertainment,
San Francisco's famous Tivoli, launched as a beer garden with the Viennese
Ladies' Orchestra playing sweet waltzes and even operatic medleys, became
the rage. The ambitious management broke the operatic ice with H. M. S.
Pinafore and subsequently offered opera of every type, from comic to grand,
until 1913. The theatre remained dark only forty nights: twenty-five for reno-
vation, thirteen for deaths and two for dress rehearsals.
Colonel Mapleson paid the first of several visits in 1879, bringing Marie
R6ze, Minnie Hauk and Etelka Gerster. Emma Nevada's return to her na-
tive state in 1885 fanned enthusiasm to fever heat. (The singer had adopted
her stage name from a town near her birthplace, Alpha, Calif., and not from
the State of Nevada.) Her triumph rivaled that of PattL
San Francisco had been clamoring for grand opera since Mapleson's day,
happy at anything that came its way but asking for more. The National
Opera under Theodore Thomas gave an impressive season before its spectacu-
lar collapse; Emma Abbott's troupe paid regular calls until 1891; the Bos*
tonians visited the Baldwin Theatre twice; Emma Juch and Tavary headed
companies in 1891-92 and the Hess and Duff troupes were frequent visitors.
Even a fifth-rate troupe drew eager patrons until it became obvious to the
public as well as to the critics that a difference always exists "between the
lithograph you see outside of the show and the performance that goes on
inside the canvas."
Near the end of the century, the Del Conte Company had made history by
producing the first Boh&me in America, straggling up from Mexico to per-
form in Los Angeles and San Francisco successively. Giuseppe Agostino, the
Rodolfo, still lingered as a model in San Francisco's opinion (he would ap-
pear once in the opera as a substitute for Caruso in New York in 1903).
Damrosch and Ellis brought Melba, Gadski and De Lussan in 1898.
Grau had looked with favor upon San Francisco's opera public since 1890,
when he and Abbey had presented Patti and Tamagno during a prosperous
February fortnight. The blandishments of the West persuaded him to a step
unique in Metropolitan history: he opened a tour on the Pacific Coast.
For two subsequent seasons it seemed as if the balance of power had shifted
GRAU'S BARNSTORMERS 87
1,500 miles from Chicago. Only four cities east of the Mississippi aside from
Brooklyn and Philadelphia benefited from the Metropolitan's largesse in 1901
and 1902, in spring tours of from four to five weeks.
Grau promised San Francisco twenty-four performances, more than a
Metropolitan^rnanager had ever granted any city except Chicago. As a climax,
the entire Ring Cycle was expected to excite far-western ears, which had
never heard any of the Tetralogy but Die W allure.
"Wagner is no longer a fad; it is a fact," admitted a daily newspaper.
Grau began to wonder on opening night if he had been right to put so
many eggs in this western basket. Although the box office showed that satis-
factory numbers of San Franciscans occupied the seats of the old Mission
Street Opera House, "a cold, gray audience . . . took the singers for
granted." Ashton Stevens of the Examiner felt sorry for the performers, al-
though he found Melba "as cold as the audience."
Half as many heard Tannhauser, a "fabulous production with great sing-
ing," the second night; and even fewer enjoyed a sumptuous Aid a wherein
Nordica shone supreme, Homer's debut with the company brought her in-
stant recognition, Scotti played a fiery, virile Amonasro, Imbart de la Tour's
top notes "were enough to bring the gallery downstairs" and Plan^on sang
superbly.
The next night was Melba's, but in spite of San Francisco's "Melba mad-
ness" not enough of the town turned out "to cover all that Mission Street
plush," even though Faust enjoyed the best production San Francisco had
ever witnessed.
Bispham as the Hollander overwhelmed the critic by his superior gifts, but
the audience remained undersized; Melba's matinee Lucia brought hardly
any improvement.
Stevens pondered gloomily on his city's delinquency. Chicago a few years
ago had been offered big shows at bargain counter prices; they went a-beg-
ging. That settled Chicago. He concluded:
"This settles San Francisco."
But he despaired too soon. A performance of Lohengrin turned the tide;
the season sailed full speed out of the doldrums. The town shook off its
apathy. Schuniann-Heink galvanized the audience as Ortrud; there seemed
no limit to Bispham's skill; Nordica was a sensation; Edouard de Reszke
added stature to a "big broad night." Only Van Dyck was "in painful voice."
The season which was to be marked with a big red letter in West Coast
calendars proceeded smoothly to its apogee: the Ring Cycle. These stu-
pendous music-dramas dwarfed all else in the public's anticipation. Signifi-
cantly San Franciscans showed up in the greatest numbers for the relatively
familiar Die Walfyire. When all four productions had been entered in the
record book, San Francisco, still game, picked itself up and turned to
Travtata, Lohengrin and Rigoletto as the season ended.
San Francisco was made of the right metal, Eustace Cullman wrote in the
Bulletin of the Ring experience. "Grau applied the acid and we stood the
test/'
Others sustained doubts. For all its initial willingness to experiment, San
88 OPERA CARAVAN
Francisco's digestive system could not assimilate large doses of the later
Wagner. Next year Wal\ure drew the comment from the Call that the
boxing ring captured more ardent attention.
Siegfried affected one writer as "puerile, tedious and exasperatingly dull,"
while Gotterdarnmerung held value chiefly for Edouard de Reszke's Hagen.
Meistersinger and Tristan met with the same lack of appreciation except
from Stevens, who studied the score for a week and heard Damrosch's lec-
ture.
His paper's news reporter frankly confessed, however, that, aside from the
Quintet, "it would require a raise of salary and a span of mules to draw me
within four long city blocks of Meistersinger again."
Two American girls, similar in their origin, Christian names and eventual
destinies, pleased San Francisco in Grau's first season, although Suzanne
Adams invariably won a larger slice of approbation than Susan Strong by
virtue of a more brilliant talent and showier roles.
Suzanne made her San Francisco debut as Marguerite in a breathtaking
production of Les Huguenots that paraded "real grand opera" before the
dazzled audience. A Chronicle reporter singled out Adams from the rest:
"It is doubtful if any prima donna here shows the same intense brilliancy.
Her voice is not large, but sound and sympathetic."
"Successful" was the word for Susan as Elisabeth. Otherwise, Miss Strong
remained only a name in the Ring casts in San Francisco Gutrune and
the Rheingold Fricka. When the market for her Briinnhilde, Venus and
Sieglinde dwindled, this gently-born young lady (her father was a New
York state senator and one-time mayor of Brooklyn) opened an elegant
laundry in London, catering to the peers and royalty of several realms.
Suzanne Adams emulated her sister prima donna when times turned harder
and her distinguished husband, the cellist Leo Stern, had died.
San Francisco had never heard of blue laws and saw nothing strange in
opera performances on Sunday nights. So Grau allowed no holidays, but
played straight through from November 12 to December 2, with matinees on
Saturdays. Sundays were "Pop" nights, with admission prices lowered ap-
preciably from the $7 top that prevailed all week. No Sunday night, that
season or next, paid for itself except a Barbiere that provoked the demonstra-
tion of the season for "the greatest Rosina since Patti," Marcella Sembrich.
There had been nothing like it, Stevens averred, since Melba sang The Star-
Spangled Banner in the lesson scene during the Spanish-American War,
"People stood in the aisles and whooped and thundered."
While tenors sulked at San Francisco's treatment (Van Dyck, De Marchi,
Salignac and Dippel bent their efforts and also strained their vocal cords to no
avail), at least four females lived a pampered life.
Sembrich J s conquering march appeared the more remarkable for her fail-
ure in her own company the previous spring. After two years with Grau,
the petite Polishwomari had succumbed to the desire for independence. Her
illness in San Francisco revealed the fatal flaw in a one-woman company.
Paying off 130 people at the rate of two weeks' salary each and transportation
home, the disillusioned prima donna returned to Dresden. The following
GRAU'S BARNSTORMERS 89
season, Marcella once more nestled happily in her niche with the Metro-
politan company.
Calve became directly responsible for San Francisco's good fortune in ex-
tracting an extra week from Grau's schedule. Her first Carmen produced
the desired effect, but she was unable to sing two days later. Grau announced
that the ailing diva would seek rest and solace in the green fields o Pasa-
dena and that he would extend the season in order to allow patrons to hear
her famous role twice more, canceling plans to revisit Los Angeles and to
accept Dallas' rumored offer of $20,000 for a single night
Three audiences eventually paid $27,836.50 to hear Carmen and few
thought their money wasted. In interviews with "the man on the street/' the
Examiner quoted a fire commissioner as calling Calve's Carmen "the greatest
thing in the world of opera.'* An insurance man, however, preferred Collam-
arini, while an iron magnate was loyal to De Lussan's Carmen.
The more controversy in this case, the merrier for Grau. A teapot tempest
that raged around the handsome head of another of his prize songbirds,
however, left a faintly bitter aftertaste. Sybil Sanderson, whose wealthy hus-
band had died in Europe, came home once again to try her Manon and
Juliette. "Home" to the dainty prima donna meant Sacramento, and most of
northern California rallied to welcome the return of a famous daughter.
Sanderson approached her first San Francisco audience with timidity and
relied heavily on the prompter. Her own sex meted out the harshest treat-
ment. Blanche Partington wrote in the Call that Sanderson could not sing
now, whatever she had done in the past, and that she had no place in grand
opera.
The exotic prodigal had postponed all social activities until after Manon
should be behind her. Now she was in no mood for gaiety. She cried herself
to sleep, Edward H. Hamilton reported in the Examiner, and even wrote
indignant letters to the critics. Only one-third of an audience watched her
redeem herself as Juliette, when her high, light soprano showed at its best.
Sanderson did not appear again on tour, canceling a San Francisco assign-
ment for Marguerite in Les Huguenots and a special Los Angeles gala. She
was said to be undergoing a throat operation, although this seems doubtful,
for she contrived to sing a single performance in New York as Juliette on
December 28 and in Philadelphia on New Year's Eve her farewell to opera
and to America. She died in France two years later.
Two earlier Wagner operas, Lohengrin and Tannhauser, staunchly held
their own in San Francisco, and provided vehicles for several of the Coast's
most favored singers. Lohengrin, opening the 1901-02 season, gave the city
its first glimpse o Emma Eames, who immediately succeeded Johanna
Gad ski as the Golden Gate's most beloved Els a since Gadski had replaced
Nordica late in the previous season.
Unfortunately for the establishment of a real bond between city and
singer, Eames fell ill and had to cancel a Lohengrin and a Faust, later
singing an Aida when hardly equal to the task. Her acting, however, proved
"a memorable reproach to those who have called this most human and un-
affected of prima donnas cold and glacial."
90 OPERA CARAVAN
Stevens was inconsolable when Ltiise Reuss-Belce, a soprano "who looks
more like a Greek goddess than others," according to Miss Partington, took
Eames's place as Elsa, "attacking the part with a savagery which distorted
it out of all poetic meaning."
Gadski made herself immensely popular off stage as well as on, par-
ticularly with the press: "After the gossip and backbiting of the ordinary
prima donnas, it is good to see this one, so comfortable, generous and
German."
At its highest point and twice again, the season owed its happiest mo-
ments to Mozart. Le Nozze di Figaro filled the opera house as never before.
"Eames may have been greater as Elsa, Sembrich as Violetta, Campanari
as Marcello, De Reszke as Mephistopheles, but put them all together and add
Scheff at her best in an opera with tunes to tickle the ear and you have a
sensation," crowed the Examiner. "Walter Damrosch shouted 'Bravo,
Seppilli!' from the dress circle and went down and played the drums under
Seppilli's baton. The Zephyr duet called out a demonstration like those of
twenty years ago. The musicians were all but delirious."
Only one accident marred the perfection. "Eames missed her cue for the
'Dove Song' [sic c Dove Sono'] and left the stage in an empty wait. After
a half-minute of tense silence, Seppilli gave the signal for the next scene.
De Reszke and Dufriche [the Count and Antonio] made a hasty entrance,
but Eames was in the wings before their short episode ended, and the hands
of time turned back for her aria."
Informality in transposing and repeating scenes bothered no one. The
encore habit died hard on the road. Three "Toreador Songs" were common
in Carmen, only one in context. If conductors grew weary of the tasteless
business, the singers took over: the tenor Russitano once conducted the
orchestra himself for his third rendering of Di Quella Pira, When the
orchestra left the pit after a performance of Faust, the tenor De Lucia,
nothing daunted, sang the serenade from Cavalleria unaccompanied.
In Boston "Azucena recovered sufficiently from her fainting to bow before
she had another attack, and Manrico came out of the locked tower as though
he knew the combination ... or a friendly jailer." In Brooklyn "the de-
lighted Leonora broke into prison, caught the beaming Manrico by the hand
and brought him down to the footlights to receive the plaudits of the audi-
ence. Then the prisoner trotted dutifully back to jail and they sang the whole
scene over again."
In 1896 Hale was ashamed of his fellow Bostonians: "Tell It not in New
York, publish it not in Philadelphia! The Soldiers' Chorus [in Faust]
was redemanded." By the next year he recorded the encore as a simple matter
of historical fact. Even the harp solo in Lucia was encored in Philadelphia.
Scenes of equal tumult took place at the repeats of Le Nozze di Figaro
which closed the San Francisco season. Grau could not quarrel with the suc-
cess of his Pacific stand. Both seasons had proved worth while.
In 1901-02, San Francisco marked the halfway point of the Autumn tour.
In 1900-01, Grau had only two weeks on the road before the New York
season.
GRAU'S BARNSTORMERS 01
He revisited Kansas City and added Denver, Lincoln and Minneapolis to
the roll of Metropolitan cities. "Mr. Grau's priceless singers, bearing aloft
the branches of genius," made their Denver bow under circumstances not
wholly favorable. An extra performance of Tannhauser had been prefixed
to the announced season too late to promote properly. The Broadway Theatre
left much to be desired; chorus and ballet crowded the stagethe company
evidently was scaled to larger spaces" as the Times admitted.
The opera itself proved "too heavy" for manythe Republican confessed
that TannMuser was impossible to understand without a half-dozen hearings,,
and "not knowing German or the story made it doubly hard." No fault
could be found with the remainder of the series.
The Nebraska capital regarded the opera visit as almost as exciting an
event as the election, when its most illustrious citizen, William Jennings
Bryan, had met his^ second defeat as candidate for the presidency. Smallest
city on the route, Lincoln was required to post a guarantee before Grau con-
sented to stop.
Willard Kimball, who risked $7,500 to bring "the most expensive form of
entertainment so that Nebraskans could enjoy the highest form of art with-
out paying more than at the Metropolitan," had founded the University
School of Music in 1894 and directed music at the Omaha Exhibition in
1898. He strained every resource to promote this undertaking, a gigantic
task for the little city.
Lincoln's new opera house, the Lansing, would not hold the crowds ex-
pected for the "largest and strongest opera company in the world." Another
reconstruction job for a big auditorium, similar to Kansas City's, was indi-
cated. Work proceeded frantically until after the opera train arrived. Confu-
sion seemed likely to persist; indeed, the performance of the matinee Faust
had to be delayed an hour. When at last the curtain went up, all the
troubles and "the dismal auditorium, half-filled, were forgotten in the magic
of the performance." Only one trace of disappointment lingered.
Advance programs had listed alternates in the role of Mephistopheles
Journet and Edouard de Reszke. Lincoln heard Journet. A story printed
simultaneously in Lincoln and Kansas City papers explained that the hearty
Polish trencherman could not be dissuaded from finishing a "family sized
steak" and a huge stein of beer and had consequently missed his train.
Journet was replaced by Viviani at the evening performance of Lucia,
which John Randolph of the Nebraska State Journal deemed "jaded and
thin today, but wonderfully tuneful. It is music our grandmothers heard
with enthusiasm. . . . Today we prefer the ecstasy of Tristan und Isolde!'
The majority of Lincolnians did not agree. The "one-day season" which
began in gloom, ended in a storm of enthusiasm.
Minneapolis received the troupe warmly, although a Journal writer vouch-
safed the opinion that "none of the Grau people are in danger of being
drafted for beauty shows."
Exposition Hall, although heated for the duration, put the troupe in a dis-
advantageous position, Frances H. Robertson of the Tribune apologized.
Many Minneapolis citizens agreed with her. Pride in being chosen as a
92 OPERA CARAVAN
Metropolitan city and shame at the surroundings in which it received the
visitors inspired a campaign for a new hall. It was completed by the time
Conried came that way in 1905.
3. MARATHON
On October 7, 1901, the opera train steamed out of New York once again,
not to return until December 22. During the intervening weeks, the com-
pany from the Metropolitan Opera made touring history. In what was to
be the last Autumn foray by any troupe from the House, Grau and his song-
birds called at twenty-one cities from coast to coast. During the New York
season, which measured only slightly more than half the number of per-
formances on the road, they visited Philadelphia fifteen times. In March,
Grau set forth again to keep important engagements in Boston, Chicago,
Pittsburgh and Baltimore, completing the extraordinary record by a single
appearance in Brooklyn.
Total statistics on the season thus read : 145 performances of thirty operas
(four in double bills) in twenty-seven cities in fifteen states and Canada.
Grau opened his marathon in Albany. In the effort to pave the way to
Canada in two directions, he continued to try various combinations of New
York way stops, but opera never became a fixture along the Erie Canal,
although the circuit was an old-time favorite for stage troupes. Albany, with
its Harmanus Bleecker Hall, well built and commodious with i ? 8oo seats,
commanded occasional visits in after years, but the other towns could not
match Albany's box-office yield of $3-4,000 in Grau's time, $7,000 in Gatti-
Casazza's.
"Not more than 1,000 Utica people were enthused" when Grau first ex-
perimented with the Canal route in 1899. If they wanted opera, they could
go to New York and, furthermore, hear Calve in Carmen instead of De
Lussan, who, after all, had been popular years before with the Boston Ideals
and even before that as a concert singer at Richfield Springs. At a $4 top,
not even 1,000 showed up at the Utica Opera House on October 13 for what
was to be the city's only Metropolitan performance,
Syracuse, as Utica complained, did receive more consideration* In 1899
Sembrich sang Rosina and Calve, Carmen in the New Wieting Opera House.
The University town responded with genuine appreciation, which was re~
fleeted in many columns of newspaper reviews and interviews. A Post-
Standard reporter, graciously received by Sembrich, quoted her as expressing
the usual nostalgia of the trouper for "a little place to rest," sighing that
singers' homes are only perches for birds of passage!
Grau shuttled from Albany to the two Canadian cities, Rochester, Syra-
cuse and Buffalo in 1901. Lohengrin was the choice of Albany and Syracuse,
GRAU'S BARNSTORMERS 93
with the same cast except that Homer sang "Ostend" (sic) in Syracuse in-
stead of Schumann-Heink.
Buffalo, its 352,000 population comparing favorably with most of the tour
cities and even surpassing San Francisco and Cincinnati, still remained
unsophisticated in operatic matters. No opera could be too hackneyed in
1896, when the company played in Abbey's own Music Hall with consider-
able success. Now in the bare, bat-infested Convention Hall, audiences fell
off sharply. The opening-night Faust contended for the auditors' attention
with the chilly temperature of the hall, the leakage of gas and the squeaking
seats of latecomers.
Rochester, in spite of its all-time low box-office record for a Metropolitan
performance -$332 for Manon at the matinee of October 14, 1901 is the only
New York town to have reentered the Metropolitan's present-day route books.
Toronto, stubbornly English, and Montreal, as stubbornly French, en-
countered language difficulties with their early Metropolitan experiences.
The Toronto Globe, in 1899, attributed the relatively small audience for
Barbiere to the fact that the opera was not very well known and noted a
further drawback in that it was sung in Italian. The Montreal Gazette
shuddered at the German text for Tannhauser, in 1901, saying that "its strong
guttural sounds at first grated on the ear a little, following three operas
written in the most polished language of Europe."
Grau consented to his singers' participation in a State Concert in Toronto
on October 10, 1901, to honor Their Royal Highnesses, The Duke and
Duchess of Cornwall and York, later George V and Queen Mary, whose
triumphal progress from coast to coast elicited the best Canada had to give.
Even if the receipts of $7,877 exceeded almost any other of the year, the strain
on the singers was considerable. Calve, forced to wait until the Royal party
entered, competed through her songs with a brass band, a chorus of fish horns
(noisy instruments that irritated even patriotic Canadians), a cavalcade of fire
engines and finally a band of pipers.
Massey Hall was not built for a theatre, the Mail and Empire reluctantly
concluded. When the Metropolitan company next crossed the border in 1952,
quarters of an unexpectedly different nature had been prepared for it in
Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens.
Still less appropriate than the comparative refinement of Massey Hall was
Montreal's Arena, the skating rink with the leaky roof. Montreal welcomed
the troupe once more, in 1911, at the popular theatre known then and now
as Her Majesty's, before following Toronto's example by transforming a
sports arena into an opera house.
The train headed southward on October 19, as Grau's master plan un-
folded. For two weeks a half-dozen southwestern cities buzzed wildly about
the glamorous visitors. In all but Louisville the Metropolitan company was
breaking new ground. Nashville, Memphis, Atlanta and Birmingham had
entertained no troupe of comparable grandeur. New Orleans, however,
proud Queen of Opera in the South, proclaimed that its illustrious French
Opera House had been occupied by an opera company every season since
94 OPERA CARAVAN
its opening in 1859 "except in national or local calamity, such as the four
years of war and a few dates following disasters."
Louisville, itself a theatre town of no mean pretensions, laid down the red
carpet for the fourth time since first it was unrolled for Patti's delicate steps
in 1890. Abbey and Grau had always liked to do business with Daniel
Quilp, the manager of the Auditorium. He had paid them $25,000 outright
for four performances by the Patti-Tamagno troupe and $10,000 for three in
1891.
Daniel Quilp was a pseudonym for Captain William F. Norton, scion of a
pious Baptist family, who chose one of Dickens' less attractive characters to
mask his theatrical activities from his mother. Mrs. Norton must have led a
sheltered life indeed not to have received some inkling of "Willie's" doings.
As Melville O. Briney, columnist for the Louisville Times, records in her
Fond Recollections, Norton found himself the possessor of 3,065 chairs, waved
his hand toward a vacant comer lot and said: "We'll set 'em out on the
lawn, by God! and build an auditorium around 'em."
Norton's Auditorium dominated an entire city block. The Amphitheatre,
a huge wooden structure seating more than 3,000, an artificial lake, on which
floated a great ship used for performances of H. M. S. Pinafore, bicycle
tracks through glades and an esplanade offered the town entertainment
summer and winter from its dedication on September 23, 1889, by Edwin
Booth and Lawrence Barrett.
Before the marathon tour was over two weeks old, Grau's serenity dis-
appeared. Calve, who had sung three times during the fortnight, refused to
continue after Louisville. She had caught cold.
Grau at last persuaded her to board the opera train to Nashville, although
she insisted that there was no use in stopping anywhere short of New
Orleans, where lived a French doctor who "understood" her. Consternation
swept along the telegraph wires between Louisville and three cities that had
built their operatic hopes on Carmen, Nashville, one day away, presented
the direst emergency; a breathing space existed to pacify Memphis and At-
lanta.
Before the damaging news could reach the Nashville Morning Banner f
the Tabernacle Committee and the Philharmonic Society, jointly responsible
for the engagement, worked feverishly behind scenes.
Strangely unbeknownst to the contemporary newspaper reporters, who
were occupied interviewing Sembrich or chasing "big, florid Germans with
blond beards and deep voices or bright and vivacious French and Italians"
through hotel corridors, a delegation of three Nashville ladies called on
Calve. They wished to offer felicitations or commiserations or whatever
courtesy seemed to be in order and incidentally to determine for themselves
if the singer was really ill But Mrs. T. Graham Hall, Mrs. Brandan and
Mrs. Chapman never got past the prima donna's door in the Maxwell House*
They were given to understand that not only Madame was ill, but her dog
as well (the chef had sent up a beefsteak too well done, the report got
around) .
Calve, however, offered to submit to examination by Nashville doctors,
GRAU'S BARNSTORMERS 95
and the committee agreed. Doctors W. D. Haggard, Jr., Hillard Wood and
George Hunter Price duly peered down the diva's throat and produced what
Dr. Price's sister Elizabeth termed fifty-five years later a masterpiece of
adroitness in their published report:
"We find her complaining of a bronchial irritation which she insists will
incapacitate her to sing tonight. She also states that she will be unable to
sing in Memphis and Atlanta, but hopes to sing in New Orleans."
The committee reluctantly settled for Camille Seygard in place of Calve.
The people were satisfied, the Banner announced next morning, that the
Citizens' Committee did the correct thing in a trying emergency. In spite
of cash refunds of $1,018, the house was nearly full, representing "all of the
social and musical culture, beauty and wealth in Nashville and nearly all over
the state."
Seygard, "with a flaming geranium between her pearly teeth and an impu-
dent swagger," showed the audience to perfection "that she was even more
beautiful than Calve." Destined to become the "pinch-hitter" of the troupe,
the Frenchwoman fared better in Nashville than in most of her fourteen
substitutions for Calve, Sanderson, Eames and Scheff .
After all, as Frederick Farrar pointed out philosophically in the American,
"one singer does not make an opera company by any means," although Grau
might have felt like disagreeing at the moment. Still, Sembrich redeemed
the engagement by her matchless performance as Rosina the second night.
Ryman Tabernacle was the city's best auditorium, although the chant and
holler of the revival meeting had echoed through its walls more often than
the opera aria. Captain T. G. Ryman, a retired steamboat owner., had built it
"at the behest of the Lord" for the evangelist Sam Paul Jones (who never
saw it until he preached at Ryman's funeral) . Grand opera encroached on the
hallowed premises at last. Captain Ryman could not refuse the Grau engage-
ment but he tried to ensure against any contamination of his sacred premises.
During the entire length of both performances the devout man stood be-
neath the quivering stage, praying at the top of his voice.
Ryman's monument lived on in Nashville, acquiring a chatelaine in Mrs.
L. C. Naff, who brought musical visitors to the Tabernacle for fifty years un-
til her retirement in 1956. Her eyes shoot bright blue sparks at any criticism
of her beloved auditorium. "It still has the best acoustics anywhere," she
maintains, "and those who complain about the hard benches [the original
pews installed in 1892] sit longer in church!"
Memphis hungered for grand opera with a passion that overflowed into
the surrounding countryside and prompted special trains from many outlying
towns; a zest that called for renovation and backstage reconstruction of its
Auditorium and that inspired an unprecedented advance sale. Grau's
promise of Sembrich in. Faust compensated for Calve's defection.
As the curtain rose on Lohengrin, the Commercial Appeal took note
of an audience of 2,800, capacity for the house. "Lovely women of the South
and men of many occupations blended with one accord into an enthusiastic
multitude which cheered the artists to the echo."
Memphis stood exonerated from an occasional charge of "inartisticness."
96 OPERA CARAVAN
The future of grand opera in the city seemed assured. Faust was sold out,
so that the afternoon Manon remained the one unknown element. Memphis
knew nothing of the opera and little more of the prima donna scheduled for
the title role. When the performance had ended, knowledge of Massenet's
music had increased somewhat, but all Memphis gleaned from Sybil Sander-
son's performance was that Manon seemed more souffrante than any cour-
tesan, except Violetta Valery, had any right to be.
Sanderson's illness became apparent after the first few moments. She
seemed to pause as if lost, reported the Commercial Appeal reviewer, and
then whispered distinctly enough to be heard in the front rows, "I cannot
sing." At the end of the act, Seygard took over.
A legend has grown up in the South that Sanderson partly recovered and
found her way back to the stage in the third act, so that two Manons were
imploring Des Grieux to return to their arms. But this is obviously a canard.
Memphis had not "universally honored the occasion with evening dress,"
for, as the society chronicler explained, "grand opera is democratic ... to
the tyro in fashion's art the discomfort of full dress outweighs the sense of
duty fulfilled." But Atlanta announced proudly that a full dress will be worn
by all occupying seats on the lower floor in the De Give Grand Opera House
and a number of elegant toilet [te]s are being designed for Atlanta belles."
Even after the announcement of Calve's withdrawal, enthusiasm persisted.
Lohengrin shared headlines with the execution of President McKinley's as-
sassin: "Czolgosz Dies as Fool Dieth!" topped page one of the Constitution,
but the grim specter of retribution was soon forgotten, while Eames as Elsa,
Sanderson as Juliette, and above all, Sembrich as Rosina, captivated
Georgians.
Birmingham's one-night stand proved refreshingly lacking in incident for
Grau's troupe. The Alabama steel center of 38,000 professed to be less boastful
and self-conscious than Memphis or Nashville or Atlanta, and "so in the
most modest and unpretentious ways its members have attended the lectures
on Lohengrin and given an order here and there for a new gown or wrap."
Some small dissatisfaction about the cast found expression, when Birming-
ham, which had demanded Sembrich, realized afterward that she shone less
brilliantly in Wagner than in coloratura roles. William Ryan of the Age-
Herald yearned for Schumann-Heink, but conceded that giving the role of
Ortrud to Carrie Bridewell, a Mississippi girl who had lived in Birmingham,
was a stroke of good politics. Boyle and Edwards of the Auditorium paid
Grau $5,000 and were said to have cleared $1,000 at a {4 top.
"When Grau comes this way again, standing room will be demanded,'*
the newspaper prophesied; but Conried, not Grau, reaped the harvest so
happily seeded in Birmingham.
Grau had intended his four-day stay in New Orleans as a bonbon after a
long October feast. By the time he brought the company safely to rest on
the shores of Lake Ponchartrain, the manager was ready for the balm of
applause and high subscription figures from a really, exigent audience.
Society had not been better represented on any first night during the best
seasons of opera, the Picayune stated firmly after Lohengrin. Every seat
GRAU'S BARNSTORMERS 97
was taken, the aisles packed, and many ladies "bravely stood." Old habitues
jubilantly talked of palmy days. The rather unfamiliar opera carried Eames to
triumph; Van Dyck, "the best Wagnerian tenor today/' opened his last season
with the Metropolitan at this performance, and Edouard de Reszke began
his tenth in America, "his glorious voice as flexible as a high soprano."
Bispham's brilliant and ringing baritone kept the audience in a fever to
applaud.
Calve, "like a splash of sunshine," brought perfection to Carmen before an
even larger crowd, while Gibert, a favorite New Orleans tenor whom Grau
had recruited for the tour, seemed better than ever. Calve's Carmen, ex-
tolled in the newspapers of the time, left little impression on several opera
aficionados who remember it even today, among them Edward Alexander
Parsons and Harry Brunswick Loeb. The latter unkindly described her as "a
harp just taken out of the case and not unwrapped."
This public was the first o any sophistication in America to judge the
talents of the tenor who had created Cavaradossi in Rome; Emilio de Marchi
had made his debut in Buffalo on October 18, but had not been heard again
until he sang Raoul in New Orleans. The Picayune deemed his voice
glorious.
New Orleans also appreciated Sanderson in Manon as the exponent of a
unique French style, summoned up a few surprisingly warm words for
Salignac and thought Homer a revelation as Urbain in Huguenots.
Several Autumn tour cities would have been happy to welcome Tosca in
their repertories, but Grau did not include Puccini's newest opera, perhaps
because Milka Ternina, its superb heroine, was not available. Philadelphia,
Boston and Chicago had found the work strikingly effective, if not so easily
assimilable as Boherne, the previous Spring. William H. Sherwood in the
Chicago American deemed it a marvel, and Philip Hale in Boston believed
it to be a step toward Bernhardt's ideal a play with continuous and expres-
sive music.
Even with the original Cavaradossi at hand, Tosca traveled no farther
than Philadelphia and Boston in 1901-02, and reaped a single performance in
Philadelphia in 1902-03, with Eames and De Marchi.
Three Texas towns had contended for the open dates on Grau's west-
ward trek. Dallas, smallest of the three with a population of 42,000,, lay
slightly off the route, so Grau chose Houston and San Antonio for one-
night stands, promising Lohengrin to each.
The opera vied for Houston's attention with the news of three more oil
"spouters," and with a campaign to prohibit the carrying of deadly weapons.
A letter to the editor of the Post deplored "too many personal conflicts and a
consequent tendency to violence and bloodshed." But opera meant more to
the Post and to the wayfarers from a dozen outlying towns who assembled
in the old city Auditorium than mere pomp and show :
"Those who presented themselves for music's gracious ministrations were
strengthened, comforted and spiritually uplifted by the contemplation and
sympathetic reception of the heroic heights of harmonious polyphony and
98 OPERA CARAVAN
refreshing streams of melody which delighted the ear and heart all through
the long score."
Backstage in the crude auditorium, however., all was not "harmonious
polyphony." Lying at some distance from the center of town, the building
had been harnessed to the Citizens' Electric Light plant, but no similar link
to a plumbing system had been thought necessary. Certain facilities were en-
tirely absent in the dressing rooms, and the Ortrud, shaken by pre-perform-
ance nerves, was heard to demand a substitute.
"No vessel, no performance! 5 * she shrieked in contralto tones of unequaled
power, range and vibrance. While she fumed, a distracted auditorium official
made a house-to-house canvass in the sparsely populated neighborhood,
asking an embarrassing question at each door. At last his heroic efforts were
rewarded. Bearing the desired article under ajn overcoat he had foresightedly
thought to carry, he scurried back to the auditorium stage door. The per-
formance and Madame's comfort were assured.
San Antonio lacked none of the amenities, and its picturesqueness caught
the fancy of the traveling troupe, who would have liked to explore the quaint
city more thoroughly.
In 1901 Grau settled his company for one night in the Opera House, on the
west side of Alamo Plaza. The audience gathered at 7 o'clock, "magnificent
in point of brilliance as well as numbers," and wildly applauded "the dignity,
glory and stateliness of Wagner." The Express critic showed some disap-
pointment at first in Sembrich's Elsa, but "she grew on the audience."
Jacques Bars, in a rare assignment to a leading role, proved a "sweet-voiced
tenor, whose first notes bespoke him a true artist,"
Grau's company provided as keen a cultural excitement as any since the
San Antonio visit of Oscar Wilde in 1882, The death of the witty esthete in
1900 had renewed Texas memories of an event described by Mrs. Franz
Stumpf in a history of San Antonio's famous Hotel Menger. Wilde caused
a sensation with his "colorful, light-brown overcoat, yellow silk waistcoat,
blue tie, lemon-yellow gloves and green morocco bag*' as well as with his
lecture on "Decorative Art." Texans failed to appreciate his long hair and
"his posing in stained-glass attitudes."
After a month on the West Coast, Grau's company returned through
Missouri, Indiana and Ohio. Attendance dropped discouragingly in St.
Louis, Kansas City, Cleveland and Cincinnati, and in Indianapolis Grau en-
countered the most adverse circumstances of the tour. English's Opera House,
where he had played in 1899, was not available, and he had been forced into
Tomlinson Hall, a large room over City Market, inadequate in every
respect.
On the bitter December day, with temperatures predicted at ten degrees
below zero, the opera train arrived late from St. Louis. Customers shivering
in the freezing hall for two hours were eventually told to get refunds at the
box office; the matinee Romo et Juliette had to be canceled.
Scenery for Lohengrin was hoisted through the windows, and the audience
that evening huddled in coats and wondered how much of Wagner's music
they had missed under the victorious "clanks" of the steam radiators*
GRAU'S BARNSTORMERS go
In a reasonably profitable spring tour to Boston, Chicago, Pittsburgh and
Baltimore, Grau s new production of Magic Flute drew curious thousands
in the two larger cities, and theatres invariably filled for Carmen with Calve
and Alvarez, and for Figaro with a superlative cast.
Nevertheless, Grau was through. He had intimated as much in San Fran-
cisco, when he spoke his mind freely to Ashton Stevens of the Examiner,
"peeling the^opera business of the last coating of romance with a frankness
almost ferocious." His usual buoyancy seemed deflated; he may have even
stopped his tuneless whistling that drove superstitious singers to the brink
of tantrums.
"Grau must assume all the risks," Stevens quoted him as saying. "Well,
Grau is tired, and after thirty years of it, Grau will retire ... I shall quit
while the luck is still hot; and the funeral of Maurice Grau will not be paid
for by his friends."
^ This was true prophecy: Grau had multiplied his opera earnings many
times by canny stock-market manipulations; he became the first opera im-
presario to depart with a nest egg.
"Only a fool or a madman will take up where I leave off," he told Stevens.
Heedless of this warning, a half-dozen claimants to his title and perquisites
made themselves heard when he announced his abdication in the middle of
his 1902-03 season. The American continent, which had known and respected
the doughty little manager for three decades, saw him no more. France
was to be his home until his death on March 14, 1907.
Part VI
CONRIED: MAN OF THE THEATRE
1. STEEL LOSES TO THE IRON WILL
In an elaborate prospectus entitled "Grand Opera Tour Across the Con-
tinent, Season 1905," Heinrich Conried appears as "Rejuvenator of the
Opera." The first year of his regime had been not without its mishaps, ad-
mitted the brochure's writer, but "Conried had had his baptism of fire, he
had been in the crucible!" As new plans were announced, "the Sneer and
Curled lip were again in harness. But this man Conried had caught his
second wind! Artistic Finesse came to his aid, as did courage and daring, also
quiet and unyielding determination."
Conried had not only "caught his second wind" but he had found the ideal
bellows to direct a stream of grandiloquent press-agentry in his van. Gustave
Schlotterbeck's rich hyperbole, its italics and exclamation points as thick as
paste diamonds in stage jewelry, had hitherto been confined within the
columns of the Pittsburgh Post. The effusive critic had managed the Metro-
politan's Pittsburgh season in 1903-04 and at Conried's behest had repre-
sented the company in Cincinnati and Chicago. In 1904-05 he was entrusted
with the exploitation of Conried's first transcontinental tour.
Schlotterbeck's efforts, described by himself in the prospectus as "vigorous,
intelligent and absolutely truthful publicity," admirably suited Conried's
flamboyant nature.
The emphasis placed on the personality of management in America had
touched Grau's sense of irony. He told Ashton Stevens in San Francisco that
singers, seeing the manager's name prominently displayed in the programs,
would ask with unconcealed amusement, "What part do you sing, Mr.
Grau?"
Conried was never one to shun the spotlight. A three-quarter length por-
trait, showing a cluster of decorations on his evening coat lapel, occupied
the first inside page of the 1905 prospectus, surrounded by a laurel wreath and
topped by a lyre,
His first taste of power had made an indelible impression. ^Taking over
the Bremen Stadttheater when a mere boy, he soon came to "recognize no
one as above him," according to his biographer, Montrose J. Moses. "From
101
102 OPERA CARAVAN
then on he adopted an imperious manner which instilled confidence into
those under him, but which gained for him many enemies.*'
Adolf Neuendorff, who in 1886 was to conduct the Metropolitan Company
on its "rebel" tour, brought Conried to America in 1877 to take charge o the
Germania Theatre. The next year the immigrant became artistic director of
the Thalia Theatre. For several years he was associated with Rudolph Aron-
son in producing operas at the New York Casino, then returned to the
German stage to direct the Irving Place Theatre, where his phenomenal suc-
cess recommended him most strongly to the Metropolitan's directors, in spite
of his conspicuous lack of actual operatic experience.
Conried did not win the nation's supreme operatic post without opposition.
When Grau's failing health made it imperative that he be replaced before
the end of the 1902-03 season in order to insure the continuity of the com-
pany, bids for the lease of the House poured in upon the directors. News-
papers in many cities picked their own candidates and frequently changed
them from week to week, so that one day it was possible to read that Charles
A, Ellis of Boston stood the best chance; next day John Duss, a band leader,
had threatened through his manager R. E. Johnson to withdraw the Metro-
politan orchestra and many singers under hi$ control if he were not selected.
John B. Schoeffel, Abbey's and Grau's former partner, saw his name in the
lists; others suggested were Frederick Charles of the New Orleans French
Opera, Daniel Frohman, Charles Frohman and Henry Russell, Even the
singer David Bispham "had the temerity" to covet the position, as he con-
fessed in his autobiography.
As February began the competition had narrowed down to three in addition
to Conried. According to which paper one read in which city, Walter Dam-
rosch or Henry W. Savage (who had headed the only English-speaking
troupe ever to inhabit the Metropolitan, in a pre-season series in 1901) or even
George W. Wilson of Pittsburgh was the favorite. By Lincoln's Birthday,
Savage had dropped out. The other two strove mightily behind scenes to im-
press the board with their good intentions and splendid backing.
Damrosch had raised the required $150,000 backing for the Metropolitan
post, but had not been able to coax a letter of recommendation from Grau,
who acted as a sort of elder statesman through all the campaigning.
Wilson seemed to many observers (even outside of Pittsburgh, which quite
naturally embraced his candidacy as a matter of amour propre) to be the
leading contender. His long career as a practical manager was cited : he had
been transplanted in 1891 by Theodore Thomas to Chicago, as secretary of
the Bureau of Music of the World's Fair. In his native Boston, he had
written criticism for the Daily Traveler, annotated the program notes for
the Boston Symphony and for ten years had published the Musical Year
Boo% of the United States. After managing the Chicago Symphony for one
year, he was summoned to Pittsburgh in 1895.
Andrew Carnegie's representatives believed Wilson the right man to run
the "great new artistic movement" that was afoot in the steel capital, He
took charge of Carnegie Music Hall and the Pittsburgh Art Society and
helped organize the Pittsburgh Symphony.
CONRIED : MAN OF THE THEATRE 103
^Grau had accepted Wilson's first invitation in 1899 and had returned to
Pittsburgh every year thereafter, pleased at the mounting receipts and the
attentive audiences. In 1901 Duquesne Garden, a huge, car-barn that had been
turned into a skating rink, was remodeled for opera. Wilson, who had
crowded the 2,ooo-seat Grand Opera House at a $6.25 top for four perform-
ances, now coped successfully with 4,000 seats at a $6 top for five. When
Wilson sought Grau's post, he believed that Grau himself approved.
Wilson was summoned from a sickbed to New York on Lincoln's Birthday
and learned that the deadline for the $150,000 guarantee had been advanced
frorn^ March i to February 13, the next day, when the Metropolitan board
meeting was scheduled. By frantic cabling and long-distance phoning he
raised $200,000 within twenty-four hours on a legal holiday. Among his
guarantors were Charles M. Schwab, president of United States Steel, who
was enjoying a Riviera holiday at Cannes at the moment, and other steel
magnates chosen from the seventy-six rich men who had backed his projects
in Pittsburgh.
The "Battle of the Millionaires" was opened: standing for Damrosch was
Samuel Untermeyer, the famous lawyer; behind Wilson ranged most of the
"Steel Trust"; supporting Conried was Jacob Schiff, a member of Kuhn,
Loeb and Company and director of nineteen corporations, who had pledged
himself to Damrosch if Conried failed.
Only thirteen members of the board were present In George G. Haven's
office that Friday the thirteenth; it was an unlucky number for Damrosch
and Wilson. Seven voted for Conried; six are said to have voted for Dam-
rosch. When the chips were down, the Metropolitan preferred New York's
millionaires to Pittsburgh's. The decision was made unanimous at a full
board meeting the next day.
Though chagrined, Wilson, settled back into his orchestra routine, handing
over the Metropolitan's visits to Schlotterbeck. When Conried came to Pitts-
burgh in 1903-04 it was to the Nixon Theatre (seating 2,160), which would
be the Metropolitan's home until its last visit in 1910. Wilson died on March
1 8, 1908, just seventeen days after Conried's resignation from the Metro-
politan.
The rumor that Darnrosch, on the strength of his big minority vote,
would be taken into almost equal partnership with Conried or at least given
a high post quickly proved false, Conried let it be known that he and he
alone would rule his new kingdom.
With a will stiffened to iron by years of absolute command in the theatre,
he immediately laid down the law upon his succession to the highest operatic
post in America. In an interview the very day of the formal announcement
that he had won the negotiations, he charted a plain course for the opera:
He would have the best singers that money could buy and many new
singers . . . but he would subordinate stars to ensemble. He would show
novelty in production of new and entertaining works. There would be no
rushing over to Philadelphia and Brooklyn for one-night stands : "The time
spent in catching cold on the cars and in extra work in public in the neigh-
boring cities will be given to rehearsal." Discipline, discipline that was to
104 OPERA CARAVAN
be the watchword: "I am afraid the artists don't realize what downright re-
hearsals mean."
As for the star system, "I warrant I can put a star on one night and an en-
semble opera the next and draw as great a crowd. . . ."
And, finally: "No one is absolutely necessary to success. ... If I felt de-
pendent on any one person I should seek another as alternate or close up my
theatre."
Brave promises these, which he was forced to eat almost to a word. Hardly
one of them was realized.
Perhaps a Napoleonic complex underlay the actions of this small, corpulent
man who tried to appear taller by affecting a crest of thick, black hair at one
end and high-heeled suede boots at the other. "Formerly it was the star who
managed the opera house; now it is I," he told Chicago. But unfortunately
for Conried's claims to absolute authority, his wagon had become hitched
willy-nilly to the most refulgent star of all times : Enrico Caruso.
His complete dependence upon this single voice not only belied one of his
early promises but made another impossible to fulfill: he neglected to secure
the great French and some Italian talent that played into Oscar Hammer-
stein's hands and further increased that pugnacious impresario's power.
In his five-year term Conried offered nine "novelties," including the sensa-
tional and short-lived Salome and the pirated Parsifal which with Madama
Butterfly, Hansel und Gretel and Manon Lescaut became staples of the
repertory. Others that reached any part of the road more remote than Phila-
delphia included Iris and Fledermaus. Of several revivals, only L'Elisir
d' Am ore has lived.
Needless to say, the threat to excommunicate Philadelphia never material-
ized. Brooklyn automatically disqualified itself by the loss of the Academy of
Music, which was destroyed by fire on November 30, 1903.
When Conried's term was finished and the record could be seen in retro-
spect, the two milestones of his five years were admitted to be his production
of Parsifal and the exploitation of Caruso. At first the road enjoyed neither.
The tenor sang five times in Philadelphia in his and Conried's initial sea-
son, but journeyed no farther afield because Conried had contracted for too
little of his time. Neither did the bruited Parsifal reach the circuits until
1904-05.
The first tour of the Conried Metropolitan Opera Company pushed no
farther west than Cincinnati. When the German wing occupied itself in New
York and Philadelphia in early March, the Italians and French split a week
between Buffalo and Washington; then the entire company traveled to
Chicago for a fortnight. Two performances in Cincinnati, five in Pittsburgh,
sixteen in Boston and single stands in Providence, Hartford, Springfield and
New Haven completed the round.
Nor did Conried leave the bounds of the conventional in his repertory and
principals, but drew heavily on his inheritance from Grau. Calves Carmen
led the parade numerically with eight performances; Faust, starring a new
and not overpopular soprano, Aino Ackte, ranked second with seven.
Ternina's Tosca, Isolde and three Brunnhildes, Sembrich's Violetta and
CONRIED : MAN OF THE THEATRE 105
Rosina, Gadski's Walfyire Briinnhilde, Pamina and Countess Almaviva re-
mained favorite ladies in the provinces, while Plancon continued to enchant
auditors with his sauve Mephistopheles, and Van Rooy still seemed the ideal
Wotan and Kurvenal (except to the Pittsburgh Commercial-Gazette re-
viewer, who remembered Fischer too clearly).
Sembrich no longer had to reckon with "that pestiferous little Scheff" in
Zauberflote, the Chicago Inter-Ocean pointed out, referring to an incident
the previous year. Papageno (Campanari) and his Papagena (Scheff) had so
charmed the audience that applause for them persisted even after Sembrich
made her entrance for the Queen of the Night's second solo. Hisses to quiet
the applause increased the bedlam. Sembrich, believing the hisses to be for
her, ran furiously from the stage and refused to sing again. Newspapers
waxed hot in partisanship over the affair, several taking the prima donna's
part, others the soubrette's.
Sembrich accomplished both arias with eclat this time. The Papagena was
the long-suffering Camille Seygard, who seldom earned enough applause
to hold up any performance. On this occasion she was preoccupied with
costume changes, for she sang the First Lady as well.
Several beloved prima donnas absented themselves from Conried's first
season Nordica and Eames chief among them. Melba had been off the
roster since 1901. Both Schumann-Heink and Scheff were trying their wings
in comic opera; the soprano's held steady, but the contralto's let her down
with a thump. All but Scheff returned for a season or two before Conried's
banner fell.
At the end of his initial year, further to unbalance the seesawing roster,
Calve and Gadski departed, airing their grievances widely. Calve by now
considered herself beyond discipline, and Gadski stated plainly in Phila-
delphia that "vocal artists cannot be bullied, driven or whipped into getting
around for 8 a.m. rehearsal like the little German actors of Conried's little
German theatre."
Gadski would return after two seasons; the Frenchwoman never. Mean-
while Conried added three personages who took root in America's affections
from the first.
The advent of the statuesque Olive Fremstad ranked only just below that
of Caruso and Parsifal in a New York critic's eyes; the road soon agreed. As
Lilli Lehman n had been introduced to the American public in the incon-
gruous role of Carmen, so her pupil, a later embodiment of the towering
Wagnerian heroines, first appeared before an out-of-town audience as
Santuzza. Philadelphia remained cool to her charms, justifiably after Caval-
leria, but less understandably when she had shown what Chicago called an
"ideal" Venus, and a Sieglinde that both Boston and Chicago were to
reverence.
The Quaker City reviewers woke up to the new sensation in their midst
only after Fremstad J s Carmen in 1905, another role that she quickly cast
aside in America, although it had been uniquely her own in Germany. The
Ledger accounted the Swedish-American's gypsy portrayal "startling, vivid,
dominating."
106 OPERA CARAVAN
In the midst o a "very bad" performance of Tannhauserhi'gdy the fault
of Alfred Hertz, the Boston Transcript insisted, "the frightful din being in
no way due to exuberance of temperament but solely to coarseness and rude-
ness of concept" Fremstad's Venus stood out as "graceful and agreeable to
look at." Above all, continued the critic, "she sang with exquisite skill, in-
telligence and a lovely tone."
Edyth Walker, a young American, sang Amneris, Ortrud, Brangaene and
Erda to the deep satisfaction of Conried's first tour cities, and settled down
to a three-year occupation of her own special niche.
Otto Goritz, who fulfilled the promise of a long stay (until the German
repertory was cast out in World War I) surprised Chicago by his "truly
exquisite voice" as Wolfram. Boston thought he lacked "purity of vocal
style" as Papageno and presented "an even more disagreeable Alberich than
most, though less vocally tiresome," The baritone at last came into his own
in Pittsburgh, where an encore was demanded for his Papageno aria.
Pittsburghers did not seem unduly swayed by the exhortations of the
Metropolitan's new "public relations" expert; they had lived with him for
several years and had become accustomed to "Schlotterbeckia."
After apostrophizing Grau's 1902 production of Aida as "shades of the be-
jeweled orchid, the golden jasmine and the fabulous asphodel," the Post
critic asked himself rhetorically if he had not been too enthusiastic. His
answer: "Not so, not one whit. The materialistic is no longer everything with
us ... an ideal or two are not amiss ... so welcome thrice a Lord En-
thusiasm; hail, hail chief Optimist! bos, has Mephisto Pessimist!"
After one of Alfred Hertz' typically energetic performances, Schlotterbeck
headed his review: "Donnerwetter! Donnerwetter! %erplat%en } m&ine Herren.
. . . Hertz' ebullient temperament never intended him for a two-armed
man!"
It was Schlotterbeck, of course, who found "the very air drunken'* at La
Fille du Regiment. "It staggered, heaved, reeled and rolled. Sembrich, that
seven-mooned coloratura, was stung by the intoxicating currents and from
her throat issued such tones as put the flush of deep-seated envy upon the
rich limpidezza of the mellow-voiced flute."
The Post critic had been quoted in 1902 at some length in the New Yor/(
Sun:
"Nervously, even violently intent all day yesterday were the heartstrings
of nearly 10,000 opera patrons who attended two presentations. . . . Quick-
ened was the flow of blood by the thrill of heaven-scaling ensembles and of
solo performances that were spangled with the diamond light of pristine
brilliance. High were the beating of the waves of enthusiasm which washed
from the auditorium across the footlights and immersed soloists, orchestra
and chorus with results most infectious . . ." and so on and so on.
The Sun commented, in the fashion of today's New Yorker:
". . . in the waves, what happened to the footlights?"
Schlotterbeck once described Calve's Carmen as a "lovely, seductive, devil-
ish octopus, supple as leather, cold as night, terrible in its very softness," and
then confessed that "superlatives falter/' Fortunately for the Post's readers,
CONRIED : MAN OF THE THEATRE J07
and later for the recipients of 100,000 Metropolitan prospectuses, neither
superlatives nor involved, inverted, infinitely ornamental sentences ever
ceased to flow from this eager pen until its work was done.
2. THE GUILELESS FOOL WHO MADE
A FORTUNE
Heinrich Conried had thrown the main burden of his first season on the
pirated Wagnerian Festival Play, Parsifal, surviving the storm of remon-
strance from Bayreuth and the concerted attack of a number of clergymen
who condemned the work as sacrilegious. This double-barreled opposition,
far from throwing a damper on Conried's daring project, only fanned the
fires of curiosity to ravening proportions. Parsifal became the thing to see,
regardless of the doubled prices Conried charged at the Metropolitan, having
cannily withheld his coup from the regular subscription lists.
The manager fed the excitement on the road by examining local stages
in 1904 with the view to the necessary conversion for the spectacle and by
allowing the controversy to rage on over his leonine head. By the time the
Guileless Fool was ready to travel in 1905, the chosen sixteen cities had been
raised to a state of exaltation or, as some put it, reduced to a state of
drivel.
The amount of newsprint pressed into Parsifal's service, the lectures, the
"readings," the analyses, the debates "Is Parsifal a religious expression or
only a fable?" exceeded any manifestations ever before summoned up for a
cultural event. The countrywide, quasi-devotional brouhaha attending
Parsifal's introduction in nineteen performances has never since been equaled,
even in this day of streamlined public relations and network communications.
A prospectus devised by Gustave Schlotterbeck set the tone, a nice blend
of the lurid and the reverent, the material and the artistic. Thirty-five of its
sixty-four pages told the story of Conried, his Opera School and the tour.
Twenty-nine exhorted readers to buy choice merchandise, chiefly pianos, al-
though corsets ("Kabo's have no brass eyelets"), Mumm's "Extra Dry" and
"Selected Brut," bathroom fixtures and the "Wonderful White ideal car
for shopping and for evening use-" begged genteelly for attention.
Parsifal had been reserved exclusively for performance at Bayreuth, Cosima
Wagner had protested at the first inkling of Conried's proposal, which she
condemned as illegal and irreverent. The manager persisted; Wagner's
widow resorted to court action. Conried argued that no copyright protected
the work outside of the continent: that he had found Parsifal scores on the
open market in London. As for irreverence, "it is morally inadmissible that
a handful of people, even though they should be Wagner's heirs, can decide
whether a great, immortal work shall be revealed or denied to an admiring
1AO OPERA CARAVAN
lUo
world. All humanity has an ideal right to the creations of its greatest minds."
Bayreuth had made no protest, he added, when the work had been given in
concert form in Brooklyn under Anton Seidl in 1890.
To the stricture of the clergy Conried countered that there had been noth-
ing wrom? with accepting money for tickets to witness Parstfal at Bayreuth
-therefore it had been a theatrical performance and not a church service. ^
The Metropolitan manager stood on secure legal grounds, though his posi-
tion may have been ethically indefensible, as many continued to believe even
after the New York court found in his favor. Cosima never relented; her
wrath spilled over on the singers as well. Any who participated in the rapine
would never be allowed to darken the shrine of the master again or sing in
the Festspielhaus. -
This interdiction chiefly affected Alois Burgstaller, a notable exponent ot
the title role. Others, too, among them Olive Fremstad, who soon made the
role of Kundry almost exclusively her own, feared the "Bayreuth curse and
anticipated some manifestation at every performance.
The odd hour at which the curtain was set to rise threw Americans into a
dither of excitement and speculation. How to dress for an event that began
at 5:30 (when the tired business man was usually just leaving his office), ad-
journed for an hour and a half and then resumed at 8 ,30 ?
Not only was Parsifal the most esoteric entertainment ever offered the
American public, it was also the most expensive since Pattfs ill-fated tour o
1881. The top price of $10 for a seat added a fillip of exclusivity that appealed
to snobbish society.
The "Parsifal tour" extended to the West Coast, embracing Boston, Pitts-
burgh, Cincinnati, Chicago, Minneapolis, Omaha, Kansas City and Salt Lake
City on the way. Boston and Chicago witnessed the "novelty" twice each
during a week's span; San Francisco asked for and received three perform-
ances; the other towns were content with one each. After Los Angeles, the
fourteen additional productions that Conried carried thus far were shipped
home and Parsifal journeyed on alone, returning east through most of the
towns Grau had visited in 1901.
As anticipation rose to fever heat, Conried learned with dismay that his
piracy had borne strange fruit an imitator. Henry W. Savage, a defeated
candidate for the director's Metropolitan post, had paid him the highest
compliment. Retooling his American opera company for a big job, he had
produced an English version of the disputed Wagner work and was blithely
touring the country, preceding Conried into most of his towns by a slim
margin, sometimes only days. The inevitable comparisons did not always
favor the Metropolitan's production. Taking Boston to task for preferring
Savage's "chromo" to his genuine production, Conried sounded not like
a "petulant person," Philip Hale thought, but "expressed the deep-rooted
grief of a philanthropist who finds those whom he would benefit indifferent
and ungrateful."
Conried maintained this lofty sense of injured dignity until the company
reached Chicago. There, to add salt to the Metropolitan manager's wound,
Savage cheerily issued a challenge to a "Parsifal duel," setting the stakes at
CONRIED : MAN OF THE THEATRE 109
a fair box-office intake, $8,000. Conned "Ignored the Defi," as a Chicago
Chronicle headline put it, but could not resist launching a few sizzling verbal
rockets at his adversary, "shaking his lion's mane" the while:
"Savage's challenge is so ridiculous, so silly, I don't care to discuss it. ...
He only wants to advertise his production. I have no desire to help. ... He
has copied my production in every detail. Why? Good business, of course. I
could have made a million last year if I had sent Parsifal on the road. But
artistic aims prohibited me."
The larger stages he occupied gave Conried an advantage but Savage
commanded greater mobility. Even with Eugene Castei-Bert's advance visits,
many stages resisted transformation. Surprisingly the Chicago Auditorium
with its hydraulically controlled platforms could not furnish the illusion of
Kundry rising out of the depths at Klingsor's call. Burns Mantle, the Inter-
Ocean's theatre "newsman" of the day, considered this lack a good excuse
for not asking Nordica (who divided the role with Fremstad in Boston,
Chicago and San Francisco) to ride up on a trap door.
While the Metropolitan's second act showed an improvement on Bayreuth's,
in Chicago's opinion, the transformation barely equaled Savage's. Awk-
wardness of stage management made illusion difficult to preserve: Kundry's
couch was pushed on stage while a piece of flower scenery was pulled off; the
line for the spear remained plainly visible throughout, and the final trans-
formation from the enchanted garden to withered desert was accomplished
by merely raising the flower scenery in full light.
Both productions boasted a winding panorama similar to Bayreuth's. As
Gurnemanz and Parsifal strolled toward the Temple of the Grail, the scene
passed rapidly behind them when it worked properly. In Kansas City, the
Metropolitan's drop curtain caught on the panorama at an embarrassing
moment, whereas Savage's transformation in the Willis Wood Theatre had
been "a triumph of stagecraft."
One mishap after another plagued Conried's troupe in Kansas City. The
train arrived an hour late and could not be accommodated in the depot
proper but stopped at a tower near the south end. In the eyes of the Journal
reporter, the scene resembled a nightmare. Baggage was piled up anyhow;
no porters showed up. The singers were forced to walk seventy-five yards
through a confusing tangle of tracks, trains and baggage, dodging trucks and
fighting thick black smoke that came down from the engine "in ominous
clouds."
A truck barely missed Fremstad's maid; the prima donna screamed and
jumped against a train coach. She would not move until the reporter prom-
ised to escort her up the dark and narrow passage to the station.
Abuse in three languages spouted from the tired, hungry, frantic singers.
After another tangle of confusion on the carriage platform, the crowd finally
dispersed. The Star representative followed Fremstad, Burgstaller and Robert
Blass to the Midland Hotel The two men were assigned a room together.
"Not for us!" expostulated Blass.
"Sing together we will; room together we won't!" echoed Burgstaller.
The Midland's orchestra was playing "Back, Back to Baltimore" at the
110 ' OPERA CARAVAN
moment. The singers did not recognize the tune but found significance in
the words, and forthwith departed to the Baltimore Hotel
The gremlins had only just begun their mischief. Because of "faulty stage
construction" the performance was delayed a half hour. Three times the
trumpets sounded (a Bayreuth touch that deeply impressed American cities) ;
three times disappointment followed. At the fourth summons, the curtain
rose* But the damage had been done. At 6:45, when intermission was sched-
uled, Kansas City rose in a block and left the hall. Patrons had made dinner
reservations in swanky restaurants, the Journal explained, and "no Parsifal
neophyte was going to permit his 'ham and* to grow cold, even though the
bass viols droned and the bugles blew and grand opera stars sang their
heads off!"
Castel-Bert had discovered that Parsifal's spear could not be made to stand
upright in the Kansas City Convention Hall stage floor, so he ordered a hole
to be bored and a bracing inserted below stage; then he warned Burgstaller,
the Parsifal.
The tenor accordingly sought the prepared spot and carefully plunged the
spear into the hole. To his horror, the shaft sank out of sight up to its head.
Someone had removed the bracing. Poor Parsifal reached down and drew
out the weapon, but he could not make it stand. Finally he tipped it like
Pisa's tower and finished the scene. But the audience laughed; some of the
devotional atmosphere was dissipated.
Nevertheless, Parsifal was accounted a great experience, and one which
Kansas City treasured in memory side by side with Caruso's first appearance
in PagliaccL Barrett and Oakford, who had assumed responsibility for the
engagement, established something of a record for Kansas City, with box-
office figures that compared favorably to those in most of the tour cities.
Because Convention Hall was so commodious, the top price was reduced to
$4, the lowest for Parsifal on the tour; still the gross amounted to $12,622,
$122 more than Kronberg had paid for three performances in 1899,
The controversy over Parsifal's religious content still raged. In spite of the
humorous contretemps in Kansas City, the Journal critic vouchsafed for the
atmosphere of "some great religious festival in a cathedral" that prevailed*
In the Chicago Examiner Harriet Monroe described the performance as a
"delicious spectacle," but averred that Parsifal, "instead of being a simple act
of faith (Wagner never was completely contrite) is a statuesque, medieval
pose like Tolstoy's Resurrection. It lacks high sincerity, profound conviction,
. . . Wagner does not in his deepest heart believe in his hero. . . . Parsifal
is always a pageant, never in the least a rite,"
The Los Angeles Express critic, one of the few who adopted a frivolous
tone, declared that "Males find it hard to understand why Parsifal should
resist . . . that Kundry Kiss! It made Parsifal clutch his stomach with a
gesture that expressed intense enjoyment or intense painone did not know
which/'
The San Francisco Examiner produced a gem that Schlotterbeck, recog-
nizing a fellow embroiderer, culled to use in subsequent advertisements:
"Parsifal transcends hysteria. The English language, full as it is and
CONRIED : MAN OF THE THEATRE 1 1 1
founded on great conceptions, has but one word which covers such a per-
formance 'gigantic.' Parsifal takes possession of you and holds you as a
great horror or a great beauty would. You cannot think of anything else, you
cannot smile and whisper to your neighbor, you cannot frame your thoughts.
As the wonderful symphony beats in on you, sex and individuality disappear
in the maelstrom of the allegory, for you are Amfortas, you are Kundry, you
are Parsifal, you are Klingsor."
Birmingham, where this example of the "great conceptions" of the English
language was most prominently displayed, reacted timidly. In spite of ad-
vance fanfare, $7 and $10 tickets moved sluggishly. On April 25, two days
before the performance, Conried reduced all orchestra seats to $5. This stimu-
lated sales in Birmingham, the penultimate city on tour, but stirred resent-
ment in Nashville, where the final performance was scheduled in the Ven-
dome Theatre on April 29.
Whatever he may have yielded to his rival in stagecraft, Conried bested
Savage in the musical elements of his Parsifal production. Walter Henry
Roth well proved no match for the exuberant Hertz, who commanded a peer-
less orchestra of sixty. Florence Wickham, Louise Kirkby-Lunn and Hanna
Mara, Savage's alternates as Kundry, and Alois Pennarini and Francis Mac-
lennan, who sang Parsifal, lacked the full artistic stature of Conried's protag-
onists for those roles Fremstad and Nordica, Burgstaller and Dippel.
In other parts, Van Rooy and Goritz (Arnfortas), Journet and Miihlmann
(Titurel), Blass and Journet (Gurnemanz) and Miihlmann and Goritz
(Klingsor) overweighted their opposite numbers: Johannes Bischofi and
Franz Egenieff, Robert Kent Parker, Putnam Griswold and Ottley Cran-
ston, and Homer Lind and J. Parker Coombs.
William Foster Apthorp, in his last year with the Boston Transcript, had
said of Burgstaller in Meisterdnger that he "convinced one before five min-
utes that he was Walther. As with Irving's Hamlet, one instinctively transfers
the actor's peculiarities to the character and so takes them for granted." Burg-
staller similarly accomplished identification with Parsifal; he seemed the
character to the life,
One performance in San Francisco subjected the tenor to a severe strain,
a$ the headlines in the Chronicle revealed :
"Sings Role with a Breaking Heart Burgstaller, Bowed with Grief at
Mother's Death, Lives His Part."
"Few of the thousands who listened . . . entranced, enraptured . . . knew
that his heart was breaking for the love and the loss of his dear little peasant
mother far away," the sentimental account rambled on. "She lay dead in the
simple mountain home in Upper Bavaria, the home from which her boy was
lured to the bigger world because he, as none other, could sing the greatest
role the master of the world of song created."
Those who did know watched the tenor with particular sympathy in the
passage where Kundry tells Parsifal of his mother's anguish and death. Sev-
eral viewers claimed that both Kundry (Nordica) and Parsifal wept, the
tears of the temptress and the "reine Thor" mingling throughout the ordeal.
Fremstad's triumph as Kundry was complete everywhere except in her
H2 OPERA CARAVAN
home town. Although she had not been born in Minnesota, Minneapolis
had fallen into the habit of claiming the Scandinavian diva because of her
youthful days there, and professed to be hurt at what it termed her later
superciliousness. This opinion grieved Fremstad, who tried very hard to
counteract it, but lacked ease in a situation that called for tact and unbending.
The queenly soprano demonstrated "the full fruition of her vocal gifts" in
the opinion of W. B. Chamberlain of the Journal, "but she was not as allur-
ing in face, attitude and voice as her predecessor (Kirkby-Lunn), who sur-
passed her in vitalizing the contradictory character of Kundry. In the defiant
and morose aspects of the character Fremstad seemed more nearly ideal."
On this occasion the town's interest was divided between the performances
and the new building that sheltered them. "There is no fellow to the Minne-
apolis Auditorium," the Journal exulted, "either in ancient temple or mod-
ern theatre. It is not a copy of any building, though of classic style, rather
a consistent adaptation of Grecian Doric to modern requirements." Its 2,507
"conventional folding opera-type green plush seats" were satisfactorily oc-
cupied during the Metropolitan season.
Amid the columns devoted to symbolism, staging, local behavior and
virtues of the individual singers, comparatively little space was allotted to
Parsifal's music itself. Few critics ventured out into such dangerous depths.
Philip Hale's successor on the Boston Journal found that "after the thin,
small voice of played-out Italian opera, the majestic fullness of the colossal
German" was welcome. But Hale himself, though he thought the perform-
ance one of uncommon merit, stood fast on his anti-Wagner promontory.
"Some may wax hysterical over Parsifal and with uprolled eyes declare it
to be a divine message. Others, and we of them, believe the work as a whole
to be the last effort of the tired brain of an old man."
A few who, like Glenn Dillard Gunn of the Chicago Inter-Ocean, had
worshiped at the Bayreulh shrine, contented themselves with comparisons:
"Hertz* tempos were much slower than Bayreuth, but he was justified."
Those to whom Parsifal came as a new and overwhelming experience, even
Miss Eugenie Wehrrnann, "the South's great musical genius" who wrote a
special column for the Houston Chronicle, were inclined to hedge or gush.
Miss Wehrrnann hedged.
Marie Alice Phillips in the Atlanta Journal chose the flowery path, de-
scribing the music as "a marvelous deep rumbling of wonderful harmonies,
which fairly makes one gasp for breath and struggle to keep down a creep-
ing fear of falling under the magic o Klingsor's black art."
The perplexing question of applause arose in each city. Omaha found it
difficult to restrain enthusiasm at the entrance of Parsifal in spite of requests
that any demonstration be confined to the second act, Chicago hissed down
the few extroverts who were determined to respond at forbidden junctures;
Kansas City thought that Wagner would have been heartbroken at the noisy
citizens who expressed themselves too freely. Los Angeles refused to follow
the "Wagner cult" to absolute silence, while Houston proclaimed its rugged
individualism by justifying applause as "the American way," and upholding
those "whom the worshipers would class among the hoi polloi!'
CONRIED : MAN OF THE THEATRE j]_3
Equally vexing was the problem of what the Los Angeles Express termed
"pre-digestion."
"I hope to get something out of it," a woman in white was quoted by the
Minneapolis Journal "I've been to all the lectures and the English version
and played the motiveshaven't thought to read anything else for weeks."
"Aren't you afraid you're overtrained?" asked her companion.
Many business menand some of their wives solved the puzzle of what
to wear by going home at the intermission, snatching a bite of food and
changing into evening clothes for the final session. L. E. Behymer, the Los
Angeles impresario, published a request that evening dress be the rule for the
entire performance, but "Bee's advice was not taken," said the Express, and
"many business suits appeared in the evening." Handsome, light dresses,
"but high-necked/' formed the prevailing Minneapolis style; a minister re-
marked that "no one wants the consciousness of his own or neighbors*
clothes thrust in between him and such high ideas." Omaha indulged in
"gilded luxury, but somewhat modified."
Despite its high prices, Parsifal commanded such crowds as had rarely
been drawn together in the tour cities. Conried had gambled successfully:
when his books were closed on the 1905 tour, the Guileless Fool had earned
$167,000, probably an alkime record for any single opera production.
3. LOGE BRINGS DOWN THE HOUSE
No black-winged shadow brushed across the sky to warn the Metropolitan
Opera voyagers that the spring of 1906 would be different from any other.
No omen darkened the spirits of the superstitious opera stars.
The annual hegira began sunnily enough in Baltimore, where an opera-
fiungry crowd, eager to emerge from the gloom cast by the previous year's
calamitous fire, paid $19,666 to cheer Caruso in two appearances. For the first
time in what was to be an enduring custom, the opera played in the Lyric
Theatre, which normally held 2,300. More than 3,000 tested the elasticity of
its walls when Caruso sang Faust. The tramp of feet drowned out the
tenor's first silvery notes; a dozen women fainted.
Washington greeted the new tenor with more decorum if no less en-
thusiasm. A distinguished visitor backstage sought out the singing hero of
the evening, but Caruso thought it a joke that the President of the United
States should be asking to see him, and ignored the summons. His embarrass-
ment when he came face to face with President Roosevelt, who was wait-
ing patiently, mounted to the point of anguish. "T. R." heaped further coals
of fire on the penitent singer by asking him to sing at the White House and
presenting him with a large, autographed photograph, which Caruso cher-
ished thenceforth.
.14
OPERA CARAVAN
Pittsburgh, attempting a full week instead of the usual four or five per-
formances, had to admit that it had ordered more opera than it could digest;
>nly $43,000 of an expected $70,000 materialized.
Chicago's week had sold out, three Caruso appearances bringing $12,600
>ach, but the total lacked $5,000 of the previous year's, when Parsifal was
m additional drawing card.
Conried told Chicago bluntly that he could not afford to experiment with
Eurther performances in that city. Then he returned to New York, allow-
ing Ernest Goerlitz, his second-in-conimand, and Charles W. Strine, his
[lew touring manager, to carry on.
St. Louis ran a lower temperature than anticipated. Goerlitz, echoing
Abbey and Grau, pronounced a malediction with threats of boycott, adding
sarcastically that perhaps the town would prefer Buster Brown to the opera.
St. Louis retorted that bringing the opera during Holy Week was an insult.
When Kansas City turned in only $8,585 for two performances, Goerlitz'
temper had worn off and his scolding took on an almost perfunctory tone.
His thoughts already anticipated a California triumph.
In the early hours of April 13, the caravan turned its face to the West.
Only three principals were not on the special train: Lillian Nordica, who
had gone no farther than Chicago; Heinrich Knote, the German tenor, and
Lina Abarbanell, the ingenue from the Irving Place Theatre who had been
the company's first Hansel. Philip Crispano, a property man who later headed
this complicated department, also missed the trip, fidgeting restlessly through
convalescence from an emergency appendectomy.
Conried had known what he was doing when he sent the company to San
Francisco again. The Golden Gate had rewarded him richly, its citizens sub-
scribing $120,000 in advance of the two weeks' opera season. Goerlitz ex-
pressed his gratification to the local management and to Frank Garlichs, the
company treasurer, and passed through the iron door onto the stage,
In the unshaded rays of a single work-lamp, the magnificent pillars and
golden lions of Solomon's throne room glimmered faintly; all lay in readiness
for the arrival of the Queen of Sheba.
Historians were to write of the Mission Street Opera House that its cur-
tain had risen on only 255 nights of grand opera in thirty years. Tonight's
Queen of Sheba would mark its 254th.
Goerlitz, unaware of the imminence of destiny, stepped to the footlights
and gazed up through the dusky audience chamber to where a proud crystal
chandelier shivered through the deep shadows. Then he decided to make a
final check of the storage rooms.
In any other city only one or two productions would be trucked into the
opera house at one time, but in San Francisco the long, daily barge haul from
the Southern Pacific depot in Oakland was deemed impractical Conried's
settings for the nineteen tour operas consequently reposed under one roof.
Disappointingly The Queen of Sheha possessed no allure for San Francisco
that night, "Opera Crowd Cold," ran Ashton Stevens' headline.
The second night told a happier story. Caruso broke the ice; his sultry,
passionate Don Jose swept away all the reserve of the San Francisco audience.
CONRIED : MAN OF THE THEATRE - 1 -
Fremstad's Carmen seemed pale and overshadowed. Later she claimed that
sttang * kthargy
cour
court
h fel !l n ' SUCh f reb ?. din ^ With customary expanslveness he held
his dressing room then went to bed late at the Palace Hotel con-
tented with the evening's &lat. Shaken out of a light slumber by an un-
usual noise, which he described as if someone had thrown himself on the
bed in the next room and then hit the wall with a "biff, boof br-r-am!" he
dashed across the heaving floor and pulled up the window shade
What he saw and heard made him tremble with fear-buildings toppling
against the pearly dawn sky like toys knocked over by a petulant child
screams and shouts of terror He remained spellbound for a long, suspended
STS 4 n hoT ? r e thoug ^i o > ' different thin ^ s " and h * s -- ed *>
sing the whole of Carmen all over again. At last he gathered his faculties
and called for his valet Martino came immediately and solicitously helped
his master into a few clothes. p
In the corridor Caruso encountered Antonio Scotti. The baritone had
awakened with a feeling of seasickness. He reached for the light button but
no electricity responded. When he tried to unlock the door, the key 'was
gone; he finally found it on the floor amid scraps of fallen plaster.
On the sixth floor Bessie Abott, the new protf gfe of Jean de Reszke, who
as Micaela had vowed m song only a few hours before not to fear anything
was nearly thrown out of bed. Everything rocked more violently than a ship
at sea. She heard a noise that she could not understand "indescribable
rumblings and grinding sounds, as if bones of earth were cracking and being
crushed in the jaws of some giant monster."
As Miss Abott tumbled out of bed great strips of plaster peeled off from the
ceiling in grotesque coils, writhing through the room. The crystal chandelier
hurtled past her and broke into shards on the floor. She cut her feet cruelly
in gaining the door. Her maid joined her in the stumbling, panicky crowd
on the staircases.
No one seemed to kaow what had happened. Miss Abott was ashamed to
hear herself ask idiotic questions ? joining the babbling chorus that echoed
through the Palace. Across the street a fire had broken out; its heat pene-
trated scorchingly even into the lobby. Miss Abott decided to return to her
room to dress.
Cursing his lame leg, Alfred Hertz pulled on a pair of trousers and a coat,
ducked die falling chandelier, clutched his room key, numbered 615, and
hobbled painfully down five flights.
Down the hall, Edyth Walker's trunk landed in the middle of her bed a
moment after she had vacated it. Her piano danced awkwardly into the
middle of the tipsy room. She hurriedly dressed and snatched up a sealskin
jacket and a small sofa pillow. Several interminable moments passed before
she could wrench open her door, which had bent and jammed.
Marion Weed, also from the sixth floor, reached the ground in time to see
the Call Building a few doors away buckle and fall. She dashed back up-
116 OPERA CARAVAN
stairs, packed a trunk, and lugged it down, only to abandon it because fall-
ing timber barred the exits.
Josephine Jacoby, another American singer, disregarded the hubbub in
the Palace lobby and hastened back to her room to dress fully. She packed a
bag with her jewels, got into a brown tailored suit, but slipped her feet into
Frasquita's flimsy golden slippers.
Farther uptown in fashionable Union Square the thirteen-story St. Francis
Hotel sheltered three Metropolitan singers. From a room on the top floor
Andreas Dippel, the company's old reliable, looked at his heavy gold pocket
watch. Its hour hand stood at 5; its minute hand moved jerkily from 12 to
13. He hurried down twelve flights, stopping at the sixth floor to see if
Marcella Sembrich was safe.
The little Polish prima donna thought the world had come to an end.
Shocked and crying she ran out of her suite in her night clothes and bare
feet; only coming to her senses when a gentleman gallantly placed an over-
coat around her quivering shoulders. Between temblors her maid helped
her into underclothes and a light blue suit.
Pol Planf on, awake in the dawn, suddenly experienced the sensation of a
bird in a swinging cage. For once neglecting his usual finicky elegance, he
appeared in Union Square in underwear and overcoat.
Preferring private luxury to a hotel, Emma Eames had taken up residence
with friends on Taylor Street atop Nob Hill. Her coolness and sense of
superiority to fate persisted through the hours that followed. Her first
thought after she had extricated herself from the peril of a heavily canopied
bedstead was of the matinee performance of Le Nozze di Figaro, in which
she was billed as the Countess. She tried vainly to telephone Goerlitz and
decided there would be no matinee.
Individual as always, Olive Fremstad had leased a suite at St. Dunstan's
Hotel in Van Ness Avenue, some distance from her colleagues. The tremor
that shook the facade from her hotel loosened hardly a petal from her crimson
roses of the night before. As she picked her way down stairs made rickety
and railless, the flowers obsessed her. She sent a porter up to fetch them. For
several hours she hugged the long-stemmed blossoms to her heart as she sat
in the little park across the street and breathed the sulphurous air. Then she
gave the flowers one by one to the swarming refugees.
In a less pretentious hostelry called The Oaks, orchestra players and com-
primario singers fled for their lives amid showers of masonry. Taurino Parvis,
a young baritone with two years* experience under Conried, managed to don
his underwear and tuck a precious violin under his arm. The baritone Eugene
Dufriche and his wife, a member of the orchestra, had thoughts only for the
expensive firard harp, which reposed in the Opera House. They set off toward
Third and Mission Streets, but they were too late.
Goerlitz, like Eames, was concerned primarily with his schedule- He
found Strine, assigned him to look after the women and round up the com-
pany in Union Square, then hastened to the Opera House.
In this first hour of the death struggle of a glamorous and bewitching city,
no one spared a thought to the bundles of morning newspapers already
CONRIED : MAN OF THE THEATRE 117
dumped beside newsstands. Their front pages told that a great fund had
been raised for sufferers from the recent eruption of Mt. Vesuvius.
Caruso would not learn for many days that Blanche Partington of the Call
wanted to rechristen the night's opera Don Jose in his honor. Fremstad would
not know that Ashton Stevens of the Examiner had called her "dutchy."
Bessie Abott remained happily ignorant of Stevens 1 appellation of "phantom
soprano."
Caruso and Fremstad and Abott and all of their confreres had assumed
unrehearsed roles in a more exigent drama. Few, however, thought in dra-
matic terms; only Hertz is credited with comparing the holocaust to Gotter-
dammerung. The 300 members of the opera company were preoccupied with
reality.
Along the 270-mile trail of the San Andreas Fault, the earth cracked open
from northwest to southeast that morning, shaking and grinding and tear-
ing at everything in its path. San Franciscans knew it instantly for what it
was; they had experienced the lesser stirrings of this giant before. The
visitors learned fast.
In that brief and terrible April morning, water mains, gas mains, sewers,
telephone connections, street car lines and telegraph cables snapped. Live
wires were exposed; stoves overturned; flues cracked. As Jack London, a de-
voted San Franciscan, wrote for Collier's Weekly a few days later :
"All the cunning adjustments of a twentieth century city had been
smashed by the earthquake. . . . All the shrewd contrivances and safeguards
of men had been thrown out of gear by thirty seconds' twitching of the
earth-crust."
Tongues of flame leaped into the air from a score of tindery frame shacks
south of Market Street. Within minutes Loge assumed supreme command.
Hoses were limp and empty from the beginning. Dynamite remained the
only weapon against the fierce, consuming element.
The straggling file of refugees to the north and west became a torrent: toil-
ing up hills, choking streets, spilling into small green oases of squares and
parks, settling down to watch in dazed disbelief as destruction came ever
closer, moving on at last when the rain of ash grew thicker and the suffocat-
ing smoke heralded the hungry flames.
A second vicious shock lasted half as long but the earth continued to shud-
der for twenty-four hours.
Around the experiences of the opera visitors legends grew like weeds, nour-
ished by inflamed imaginations and the fallibility of the human memory.
Each informant added a new "fact."
Legends clustered thickest around the chubby person of the chief tenor.
Caruso was seen in many strange circumstances. In a fur coat, with a towel
around his neck, he sobbed on Hertz' shoulder. Scantily clad, he sat on a
valise in the street, begging for a pair of trousers. Antonio Scotti saw him
come out of his room fully dressed. Caruso himself remembered that his valet
helped him don socks, shoes, trousers and a coat.
Campanari saw the valet "with absolutely nothing on," capering about,
^g OPERA CARAVAN
crying in Italian for a towel. Caruso remembered him as cool and self-pos-
sessed, decently clothed.
When the tenor first realized what had happened, he was heard trying out
his high C through the corridors in the Palace Hotel His voice had failed
him.
Alexander Krasoff, a Russian tenor who had renewed his acquaintance
of 1905 with Caruso after the Carmen performance, crossed the Bay from
Berkeley to keep a breakfast engagement with the tenor. Caruso had prom-
ised him an autographed picture as a souvenir. Krasoff could not find his
friend at the Palace, and sadly returned home.
In the lobby of the St. Francis Hotel Caruso was overheard (by the pho-
tographer Arnold Genthe) to mutter: "'Ell of a place! 'Ell of a place! I
never come back here." At the time he was dressed in pajamas and a fur
coat and was smoking the inevitable cigarette. He compared Vesuvius fa-
vorably with San Francisco.
Caruso had reached the St. Francis after many painful incidents. While
the faithful Martino ran up and down stairs, fetching the last of three small
trunks, Caruso stood on Market Street guarding the other two. A rough man
(Chinese by some accounts) tried to steal one. Caruso yelled for help, and a
soldier, recognizing him as the opera singer, made the thief "skicloo."
The tenor wandered aimlessly all day. His and Scotti's luggage, according
to the baritone, was conveyed on a wagon to the house of a Dr. Bachman,
outside the danger zone, where Caruso lay under a tree in the Bachman yard
all night.
Caruso remembered sleeping on the hard ground, but in Lafayette Square
or Golden Gate Park. Wherever he walked, the precious photograph of
Teddy Roosevelt went with him. The talisman served as a passport into
Lafayette Square. A soldier halted Caruso at the point of a bayonet^ but
when he glimpsed the huge picture said, "Any friend of T. R.'s is a friend
of mine," and showed the tenor to a place on the grass.
Martino kept track of his master and the luggage as well, and when Thurs-
day dawned, produced a frail cart with a horse and a man to drive it. Perched
on top of his three perilously rescued trunks, the world's greatest tenor
moved slowly through the ruins of a city he would never see again*
Once in Oakland* Caruso opened his trunks and shared with any who
needed and could wearhis raiment. Hertz arrived in New York wear-
ing Caruso's shirt.
Another legend pictured Fremstad as a kind of a Viking Florence Night-
ingale. She saved an invalid woman from the third floor of her hotel, then
like a ministering angel she tended the wounded in the park nearby, spend-
ing money recklessly for food, wine and bandages and working from day-
light till night without food. She neither confirmed nor denied the pretty
story.
With her trunks safely in the street, the prima donna served coffee and
bread over them. The improvised tables were carted away to the Oakland
ferry on Thursday with the help of St. Dunstan's manager, a Mr, Wheedon.
The name of Bessie Abott was also inscribed in San Francisco's book of
CONRIED : MAN OF THE THEATRE 119
heroines. Miss Abott and her maid, lucky to find a carriage, soon drove to a
friend's home on Telegraph Hill and left their trunks. Then the singer
made the long pilgrimage to an improvised hospital at Mechanics Pavilion,
opposite the shattered City Hall. The lack of water proved an almost in-
superable hindrance to the care for the wounded.
Everywhere she saw deeds of heroism. Everyone, she thought, forgot him-
self; the city was transformed into a place of heroes.
Miss Abott's friends had chosen the wrong side of Telegraph Hill. The
Neapolitan fishermen saved their cottages at the top by soaking blankets in
Chianti, but the singer's friends possessed no wine cellar. Their house and
$25,000 worth of Miss Abott's possessions were lost.
Edyth Walker found her way to Golden Gate Park after a harrowing
day. She reassured the frightened chorus women who clustered in Union
Square like lost sheep. The contralto lent her sofa pillow to an exhausted
woman,
Alfred Hertz found a German saloon and nourished himself on cheese
and sausage and beer on Wednesday. But before he could make a second
meal Mayor Schmitz' martial law had closed the haven; Hertz was obliged
to subsist on sardines and cocoa. He wandered to the zoo in Golden Gate
Park and slept uneasily in an abandoned street car, frightened by the roars
of the disturbed lions. The self-control and discipline of the San Franciscans
deeply impressed this German drill master.
Marion Weed, with a fine disregard for distances and geography, set off
to walk around the Bay to Oakland. She wound up in Golden Gate Park
and, like Hertz, found an old street car to sleep in. Thursday morning she
and Josephine Jacoby accepted a ride toward the ferry. Their companions
drove drunkenly into an area where house after house was being dynamited
in a vain effort to stem the flames.
The two women got out and walked through the nightmare of China-
town past bodies lying in heaps, through rubble and over hillocks where
sidewalks had been, skirting huge cracks in the streets and dodging falling
bricks. Men cooked their meals at fires in the middle of the streets until sol-
diers ordered the fires extinguished.
Emma Eames dressed herself with her usual fastidiousness. Then she and
her host, Dr. Harry Tevis,, descended the few blocks to the St. Francis and
persuaded Scmbrich, Dippel and Planjon to join them on the hill. Sembrich
brought her diamond and pearl necklace and some money but in her nerv-
ous state came away without a coat. Eames supplied her with one. The
story still persists that all through their ordeal the two prima donnas carried
on a current feud and never spoke directly to each other.
The afternoon passed in a state of suspended animation. Dr. Tevis had a
habit of saying after each tremor : "Go on, go on! Shake a little faster!" Eames
played patience, much to the indignation of Planf on, who called her a "rock."
Warned that the house might be surrounded by fire, they packed coats,
blankets and a few valuables in a carriage retained by Dr. Tevis. Eames'
companion, Miss Fetridge, and Sembrich's maid, Frieda, were not allowed
to walk, though the others went on foot to North Beach*
120 OPERA CARAVAN
The expanse of vacant lots to the north was jammed with refugees. The
singers slept fitfully under the strange mixture of dew and soot, surrounded
by strange companions, menaced by strange animals. Plan^on roused to find
a cow sniffing wetly at him and yelled for help. Barnes drove the beast away
with a flick of her handkerchief. At dawn they moved up the hill to allow
a procession of prisoners to shuffle past them toward the new jail at Fort
Mason.
They saw a man in his underwear holding a phonograph under one arm.
A woman passed by, carrying a cage of birds. A man who had saved only
a large and elaborate clock suddenly threw it on the street where it broke
into a thousand pieces. The sun rose blood red.
The little party separated, Eames and her entourage to travel with Dr.
Tevis to his home near San Jose, where the prima donna wrote for the Asso-
ciated Press the clearest personal account to emerge from the opera folk.
Sembrich reached the opera's special train in time, leaving $40,000 worth
of personal effects and costumes behind her.
Plancon's loss was equally sizable. At first he railed at fate, calling the
catastrophe a visitation upon him for not having gone home to Paris for his
niece's marriage. Sembrich told him tartly that it was a pity so many had
suffered for his small sin. Later Plan^on admitted that he had been amazed
by the Americans' calmness and coolness. The Latin races ah, they might
well go to pieces under such conditions.
Planjon's personal grooming provided a target for comment from his col-
leagues. Scotti alone noted that the French bass had been caught by the first
shock before he had time to dye his beard, now greenish in the morning
light. No one else mentioned this lapse. Sembrich described his first im-
promptu costume euphemistically as "shirtsleeves." Jacoby later saw him
"faultlessly dressed even to a boutonniere." He arrived in New York in a
light suit and overcoat.
Dippel, who minimized his own good deeds, saw wealthy women carrying
clothes and provisions to ragged unfortunates and commented on the essen-
tial goodness of human nature. The tenor claimed that he slept on the bank
of a reservoir, contradicting Eames' story. He smiled at the wax dummies
in store windows, melted into grotesque shapes.
Archangelo Rossi was alleged to have stood on a corner near the Palace
Hotel, singing Vecchia zimarra at the top of his voicepresumably to
prove that he still could. The basso's frenzy subsided as the hours dragged by.
For a whole day and night he had to be satisfied with three cracktrs and a
glass of milk.
Giuseppe Carnpanari, on the other hand, endured the hazardous hours
with a surprisingly light heart and considerable humor. After the first shock
he dressed, even to garters and stickpin. Then he waited for death. When
it did not oblige he went downstairs.
Meeting Arturo Vigna in the street, he borrowed $10 from the conductor,
who had tucked some money in a pajama pocket. Campanari hastened to
a telegraph office and paid $5 to expedite his wire. It was one of the first to
CONRIED : MAN OF THE THEATRE 121
arrive in New York, informing his family that all was well. He signed it
"Papa."
The baritone then walked to the house of his brother-in-law and was dum-
founded to find the family on the veranda munching cakes and drinking
tea. "Heavens! A picnic," he thought.
Next day he took his niece and went down into chaos to find either food
or the opera company. He bought a bottle of whiskey and a corkscrew and
talked a Chinese merchant into giving him a box of biscuits for $1.50.
After a whole side of a street was blown up almost in their faces, he sent
his niece home. Now scores of dogs began to follow him, slavering, as he
believed, for the biscuits. "Not a bit of it," he told them. He collected a batch
of newspapers ; they would be interesting twenty years hence.
Campanari studied the people. They laughed when a house caught fire.
He felt no fear and walked around like an imbecile. He lost count of time.
Noticing some men drinking in a bar (the mayor's proclamation had out-
lawed the sale or possession of liquor; this resort must have been extremely
well hidden), he decided to get drunk himself. One man flashed a huge roll
of money. A thug demanded it. The man shot him dead.
The wanderer moved on. That night he slept on the grass. He wondered
vaguely if a man could exist on grass. He seemed to be trying. He appeared
at the Oakland railroad station unshaven and unshorn, borrowed a collar
from Dippel, bought a shirt for thirty-five cents and a tie for ten cents. When
he reached New York he looked like an immigrant, his kit still tied in a
gay blanket over his shoulder.
"Such a change," is all he said before he embraced his son Christopher.
Louise Homer, the comely American contralto, reached the Oakland ren-
dezvous in a state of shock, wearing what was called a "wrapper" over a
pair of her husband's trousers. Sidney and Louise had both fled from the
Palace with masculine garb. A Mr. Pope on Pacific Avenue gave the Homers
shelter, allowing them to sleep in his car. His cook gave Mme. Homer a pair
of shoes five or six sizes too big, the only shoes she possessed until she
reached Chicago.
Hers was the most serious plight among the singers. At Des Moines Dr.
W. D. McFaul boarded the train and advised her removal to a hospital in
Chicago, where she slowly recovered.
Adelaide Thomas, one of the young girls in Conried's Opera School, had
been allowed by her Pittsburgh parents to go on the tour because Mme.
Homer would be near to keep an eye on her. The contralto's father had been
the preacher at the church where Adelaide's mother sang. Adelaide wor-
shiped the older girl. Even in her distress Homer "was always a lady."
Adelaide, with the buoyancy of youth, fended nicely for herself in the
emergency. With other junior members, Lucille Lawrence, Lucy Call and
Jeanne Jomelli among them, she boarded the train without mishap. This
was only the first of three earthquakes in her eventful career.
Marie Rappold arrived in a truck loaded with thirty other members of the
company, collected by the diligent Strine. At last all of the singers came out
of jeopardy. One by one their stories emerged. Jacques Bars had run out of
122 OPERA CARAVAN
his hotel to be confronted with an automobile filled with corpses. Marcel
Journet and Robert Blass had hired a cab, but the driver decamped with
the horse. The two men drew the vehicle out of the danger zone and made
it their bedroom for the night.
Albert Reiss and Bernard Begue lost everything. The librarian Mapleson,
the repetiteurs Morgenstern and Schindler and the chorus master Pietro
Napoli arrived destitute. Max Hirsch saved his mother's picture and one
business suit.
Alois Burgstaller rescued a hen from a burning house and roared happily
(he found it difficult to speak softly) that he was going to teach it the "Vood-
bird song" from Siegfried. Adolf Muhlmann boasted two crocodiles as tro-
phies. Charles Henry Meltzer, the acting press representative, fondled an
armadillo, given to him by a soldier at the zoo. Bianca Froelich, the pre-
miere danseuse, carried two Mexican hats as her only baggage.
Only Frederick Rullman, a former Grau partner, a ticket broker and
founder of the Metropolitan's libretto concession, had no tale of shock to
tell. Under the effects of a hilarious celebration after the opera, he had slept
through the first hours of terror.
Goerlitz had done a superhuman job. By Thursday night everyone had
been accounted for and all except Eames were in Oakland ready to board
the Chicago and Northwestern's "Overland" or a later train that was to be
routed through New Orleans. Strine had made many trips back and forth
to convey the choristers and the ballet, who had been lodged in the foreign
quarter under Telegraph Hill and who miraculously clung in groups
throughout the agonizing thirty-six hours. Goerlitz refused to take credit.
"They all just got together," he said.
Goerlitz' own Wednesday and Thursday had been not without unhappy
incident. He paid a man $25 to take his luggage and the opera's subscription
books to the St. Francis Hotel. When that hostelry fell vulnerable, Goerlitz
joined the multitude of the "have-nots."
Almost immediately it became apparent that the Opera House would be
an early victim to the fire that crawled from roof to roof behind it. No wind
blew, but the searing heat created its own wings.
Goerlitz watched helplessly as the first red tongue licked at the plain
three-story building. The successive shocks of the earth's convulsions had
shaken down the wooden balconies and sent the famous chandelier crashing
into the orchestra well. Few dared enter the doomed structure. Ten out of
fifty-five precious instruments were retrieved by reckless musicians before the
walls collapsed. Only thirty trunks could be extricated. Nine carloads of
scenery, properties, costumes, music and personal clothing were destroyed.
As the roof plummeted onto the stage where Carmen had met her death
barely twelve hours before, the Metropolitan administrator turned away with
a shudder.
Wearily he hopped a ride on an old cart to friends on Clay Street, where
fourteen sleepers shared a few mattresses. All night long the manager sat
on the steps. A woman asked him to help revive her child; the infant's skull
had been crushed. The dull grinding noise of thousands of trunks scraping
CONRIED : MAN OF THE THEATRE 123
over the pavement came to his ears the sound that had obsessed Arnold
Genthe and other writers. Thursday he got to Oakland and by heroic ef-
forts arranged for the two trains.
While San Francisco still writhed on its funeral pyre the opera troupe
started home. The stricken city blazed on until Saturday morning. While
the opera stars, destitute but thankful to be alive, sped over mountains and
descry San Francisco's fabled phoenix rose out of her ashes and summoned
her citizens to return and build again.
In Los Angeles the trains were allowed a brief stop so that the passengers
could buy toothbrushes or whatever they thought vital. Sembrich purchased
a bright red kimono. Otto Goritz bargained for a gaudy shirt and socks "at
which the East will marvel."
In New York, meanwhile, two days of uncertainty had frayed the nerves
of the opera personnel and relatives of the travelers. After a long vigil, Con-
ned heard that Nathan Franko's wife had received a reassuring message
about the musicians. Wednesday night a stagehand called in wild excitement
to say that he had heard from a carpenter that all were safe.
Rumors began to spread that Franko's message had reported Caruso, Sem-
brich and Eames as missing, Sembrich's husband, Professor Stengel, was dis-
traught. When at last he learned through the eastern agent of the Southern
Pacific that the entire company was on its way home, Stengel wired his wife:
"Leave for New York at once."
Her overwrought friends could not help laughing.
On Monday at 12:50 P.M. the "Overland" arrived in Chicago. In the crowd
that met the train were Mil ward Adams, the Auditorium manager; F. Wright
Neumann, local impresario, and Charles E. Nixon, Musical America's cor-
respondent. The three posed for a photograph with the refugees. Everyone
wore hats the women, surprisingly elaborate affairs, the men, derbies or
fedoras. Three of the women Sembrich, still in her light-blue suit, among
them boasted fur boas. Caruso kept firm hold of Roosevelt's photograph.
Adams told the singers that the Actors' Fund Benefit had been diverted
to the earthquake victims and would bring in $6,600.10.
As soon as Conried learned that his flock had suffered no fatality, he turned
his mind to figures. He would lose $210,000 on his properties, for which in-
surance would recompense him only $50,000. He would be obliged to refund
$118,000 to San Francisco ticket buyers if they could be found. The artists
must be paid to the end of their contracts. Conried determined further to
give each male chorister a new suit and $5, each woman a $15 bonus.
When a reporter pestered him about replacement of the demolished scenery
he snapped:
"I have already given orders to reserve time and workmen. But I am not
Oscar Hammerstein and cannot have these things done without time!"
As the Twentieth Century Limited approached, bringing a part of his
company, Conried sent Ainie Gerber, his paymaster, to buy $200 worth of
roses and himself conveyed them to Albany, where he boarded the home-
coming train. The manager had little chance to deliver the blossoms at first
because of what the Times described as a friendly assault by tenors, sopranos,
124 OPERA CARAVAN
contraltos and baritones "falling on his stout neck, kissing him and crying
affectionate greetings." The same moving scene was reenacted when the
silk-hatted impresario met the remainder of his troupe in Philadelphia two
days later,
Most of the singers jumped nervously at any sudden jolt or unusual noise.
Fremstad screamed at a flashlight photograph. But these symptoms soon
wore off. The majority of the company boarded ships for Europe within a
few days. Caruso and Journet made a detour to Paris to order new costumes
for the Covent Garden season. Hertz still kept his hotel key as a memento.
Sembrich, touched by the plight of the chorus and orchestra, gave one of
her famous benefits, playing both the violin and piano as well as singing. Of
the total receipts $7,691 went to replace the musicians' instruments, $2,435 to
the chorus and technicians.
Goerlitz, who seemed to one reporter "in surprisingly good health" and to
another "a veritable wreck with cheeks hollowed,, beard ragged and eyes
dimmed," barely caught his breath before he was dispatched back to San
Francisco to supervise one of the most monumental refunding operations in
history. At first the Metropolitan representative demanded proof of ticket
purchase but soon waived any such formality and paid on demand. The in-
finitesimal amount of overpayment spoke well for San Franciscans' honor.
The summer slipped by; another season impended. The House opened its
doors as usual, with new singers, new costumes, new scenery and the old
spirit.
The Metropolitan, too, rejoiced in the sign of the phoenix.
4. THE STARS REMAIN
Heinrich Conried's penultimate season (actually the last in which he was
actively concerned with the tours) promised to be his brightest. Nerves
shattered by the San Francisco ordeal had mended by November. Although
the budget tipped woefully out of balance, the Metropolitan benefited artisti-
cally from the scenic replacements. The shocking experience, however,
proved only the first in a series of trials that led to Conried's collapse.
The manager's health began to be a subject of public comment during the
summer. What was diagnosed as "locornotor ataxia" and later sciatic neuritis
made walking and standing difficult. He was called on to do both under cir-
cumstances that caused both physical and mental torture,
A week before the season was to open, Caruso was arrested for having
allegedly accosted a woman in the Central Park Zoo monkey house. The
episode not only brought painful notoriety to both tenor and manager, but
caused Conried to stand long hours in the crowded courtroom. Technically;
CONRIED : MAN OF THE THEATRE 1 95
the case went against Caruso in spite o his protestations of innocence, but
cast no shadow on the faith of his friends. And his audiences in New York,
. r,
S S? ] a / a f ?f n ^^y acclamatory at his first appearances.
The Philadelphia Ledger complained indeed that the interest in the tenor's
return and curiosity about the new soprano, Lina Cavalieri, obscured the
significance of their novel vehicle, Giordano's Fedora.
Never again would Caruso's hold on the public be questioned. The Ameri-
can newspapers might make capital of his common-law wife and their two
children; of the divorce suit instituted by her husband after the lady had
eloped with her chauffeur; of breach-of-promise suits and skirmishes with
assorted blackmailers and Black Hand villains. But the American public's
sympathy never wavered.
The tenor encountered stage mishaps in unusually large numbers on
tours, perhaps attracting them by his superstitious fears-accidental stab-
bmgs, falls, tumbling scenery. His millions of admirers were vitally con-
cerned. When he suffered an attack of parotitis in Boston, his audiences wor-
ried. He appeared in Gioconda, but to Philip Hale "his suffering visibly
chastened his ardor." Mumps could be dangerous at the age of thirty-two.
Once assured in 1906 that his stellar songbird would continue to lay only
golden eggs, Conried, though frequently an absentee general, planned his next
campaign for Salome. He intended that the feverish eroticism of Herod's
court should become as familiar to American operagoers as the consecrated
temple of Monsalvat. The seven-veiled dancer was to reap as much cash and
reclame as the Guileless Fool. But a squeamish element among the box-
holders demanded that the management take the "operatic offal" (W. J.
Henderson's redolent phrase) off the boards. Thus Conried lost what surely
would have been a succes de Grand Guignol on the road.
Tour cities were not to see a Metropolitan production of Salome for
twenty-seven years; meanwhile Oscar Hammerstein picked up the work as a
strong card in the operatic hand he was playing with traditional beginner's
luck against the Metropolitan.
Hammerstein, opening the Manhattan Opera House in New York in
1906, was just emerging as an opera director to be reckoned with. The stim-
ulus of his competition could be held directly responsible for the feverish ex-
pansion undertaken by the Metropolitan in 1909.
At first the older institution underrated this adversary. But Hammerstein
was out for blood the Metropolitan's and Conried's. His antipathy to the
established house was no secret; Hammerstein liked nothing better than
talking for publication.
Hammerstein and Conried, singularly alike in their drive for power, had
fallen out long ago, when the German refugee backed a play in which the
Austrian actor appeared. Vincent Sheean, in his recent Hammerstein
biography, emphasizes that the mighty Oscar ordinarily did not cherish
grudges, but that Conried aroused in him a unique loathing. Sheean believes
that Hammerstein was "inclined to see the hairy hand of Conried" in any
of his tribulations as long as the latter lived.
A large measure of audacity backed by a first-class opera director in the
126 OPERA CARAVAN
person of Cleofonte Campanini and a few top-ranking singers Maurice
Renaud, Alessandro Bond, Charles Dalmores and Mario Sammarco car-
ried Hammer-stein through his first Manhattan season. He produced no
novelty but filled his new opera house almost every night. An alarm bell
sounded in the Metropolitan's inner counsels.
Conried reacted to this new nettle in his operatic meadow by attempting
raids on his challenger's flock. He was successful only in inducing Alessandro
Bonci to change sides. Bond's very name sent tremors through Caruso, as
that of Van Dyck had affected Jean de Reszke. For three seasons thereafter,
as a Boston observer put it, the tiny tenor "kept Caruso on his mettle."
Bond's "miraculously clear, sweet, resonant voice, used with consummate
art," graced the roles Conried occasionally filched from Caruso's repertory on
the road as well as the few Bonci could keep for his own. Many tour cities
regarded him as Caruso's equal. In fact, the Pittsburgh Post critic, Schlotter-
beck's successor, Jennie Irene Mix, contended that no other tenor should be
"mentioned in the same sentence."
The operatic war that was soon to rage through a half-dozen cities would
not concern Conried, however. Hammerstein did not cast a covetous eye at
Philadelphia, the object of his first infiltration, until the spring of 1908; his
two performances there on March 19 and 26 (Lucia to show off his dazzling
coloratura soprano, Tetrazzini, and Louise to introduce his magnetic "sing-
ing actress," Mary Garden) occurred after the announcement of Conried's
resignation.
All of Conried's troubles notwithstanding and a financial panic broke in
1907 to add to them the last tour under his supervision bore every mark of
success. The majority of his twelve cities delivered gate receipts that ex-
ceeded the previous year's average by as much as $1,200.
No city was allowed more than a week, but the route extended as far west
as Omaha (including stopovers in Cincinnati, St. Louis and Kansas City)
and as far north as Minneapolis and St. Paul.
Goerlitz and all the opera personnel complimented St. Paul on its new
"wonder building" in 1907 and expressed gratification at the respectable
average of $7,797 per performance. The Pioneer-Press marveled that "scenery
wagons could be driven right on stage and unloaded." Audiences of 3,000
were neatly contained in the smaller of the two chambers that were separated
by removable wings.
Across the river in Minneapolis the final performance was Tosca with
Emma Eames in the title role. Shortly after the first act a messenger brought
the news that the singer was a "free woman," divorced from Julian Story.
She rushed into the arms of a dear friend and was quoted by the Journal as
exclaiming, "Now you will hear me sing!"
"And how she sang!" the Journal summed up. "Never so well in her life!*'
Chicago had been grumbling in a steady crescendo for three seasons. Glenn
Dillard Gunn fumed in the Inter-Ocean that "Conried's standard grows
lower every year," and W. L. Hubbard proclaimed with equal heat in the
Tribune that "the desire for the almighty dollar is more in evidence in the
CONRIED : MAN OF THE THEATRE 127
present 'artistic' rule than when commercialism was the acknowledged
purpose."
Although Hubbard railed at Conried for using Salome "as bait" long after
the Judean princess had been shelved, 1907 was judged Conried's most
laudable season. Felix Borowski pointed out in the Post that the demand for
tickets was unprecedented. "Lines of music students, country cousins and
others" extended far into Congress Street.
Conried offered attractions that Chicago and the other cities could not
afford to miss. Two feminine headliners had aroused special curiosity:
Geraldine Farrar and Lina Cavalieri. The little American had conquered the
discriminating Berlin public and, it was hinted, the heart of the young crown
prince as well. A ravishing charmer, she fitted into the courts and opera
houses of Europe with extraordinary compatibility in spite of a New Eng-
land upbringing. New York, although unfavorably preconditioned by the
wave of European adulation that heralded the girlish prima donna, had
quickly capitulated. Now the road followed suit.
The day after her Philadelphia debut, the Ledger printed one of its rare
interviews, using as an excuse that Philadelphia looked on Farrar as one of
its own by virtue of her father's stardom at first base in its National League
baseball team. The interviewer discovered that the singer possessed a will of
her own and a "bland indifference to those who opposed her." Her originality
in costuming her heroines came to early notice: "Beauty is essential," she
claimed, and for beauty "she would sacrifice even appropriateness," assuming
a high, modern coiffure for Marguerite in Faust instead of the conventional
blonde swinging plaits, and appearing as "a Mignon who glitters with
spangles."
The year's craze for Puccini, signaled by the presence of the composer to
witness first Metropolitan performances of his Manon Lescaut and Madama
Butterfly, spread to the road, where his works led even Wagner's- in number
of performances twenty to thirteen. Only one flaw sullied Conried's pleasure
in the success of Butterfly: Savage scooped him here as in Parsifal with an
English production on the circuit as well as in New York.
Puccini's own favorite heroine soon became the darling of American
opera houses as well, and Farrar's most popular role as long as she remained
with the Metropolitan. Philadelphia found her "radiant" as the frail, pas-
sionate Cio-Cio-San. Chicago discovered that she possessed the "rarest and
most precious o guiding powers: brains," in addition to a lovely and re-
sponsive voice, capable of a "wide variety of gradations and colorings."
When she saag Elisabeth, her favorite at the time, Cincinnati responded
with an ovation such, as "seldom was accorded a newcomer." Boston's cur-
rent high priest, the formidable H. T. Parker of the Transcript, paid tribute
freely to a home-town talent, noting that she changed "fully and illusively"
in each of four roles, "not merely in external disguise and cast of features,
but in the very quality of her tones."
Farrar's appeal as a personality stemmed from the piquant contrast of
American independence and candor with European sophistication. Lina
128 OPERA CARAVAN
Cavalieri was wholly an exotic. Either would have supplied enough excite-
ment for any one opera company. Conried engaged both.
Cavalieri came from the gutters of Rome. She sold flowers on street corners
and sang in cafes. Her beauty still stirs the senses even from aging photo-
graphs. As a living presence she dominated the early century, trailing Rus-
sian princes in her wake. America offered no royalty to conquer; Cavalieri
consoled herself with merchant princes.
Philadelphia alone had the opportunity to succumb to her charms when she
sang in Fedora, Boheme, Pagliacci and Manon Lescaut. The next year she
created the title role in Adriana Lecouvreur and repeated Boheme for Phila-
delphia, also singing Manon Lescaut in Baltimore and Boston. Olin Downes
judiciously paid tribute to her talent in the Boston Post, recognizing her
cleverness and pronouncing her "an instant success."
The Tosca that later stunned Boston was under Hammerstein's wing.
Andres de Segurola describes it temptingly as an affair of "white Caucasian
ermine, glowing white satin and luscious flesh, topped by the deep green
emeralds of tiara, necklace and brooch."
In Conried's final year one of the most memorable figures of operatic
history flashed across American skies, vanishing almost immediately in a
cloud of misunderstanding. America was not ready for the peculiar great-
ness of Feodor Chaliapin, said many among them the bass himself. Others
suspected that the reverse might be true. The Russian artist sang four roles
during his brief passage, repeating three of them exclusively in Philadelphia.
His success as Mefistofele in Boito's opera was unquestioned in the eyes of
the Quaker City Press, "not only in the naked audacities of the reading of the
role but also the vocal treatment." "Naked" audacities extended to the huge
frame of the bass, stripped to a loincloth and painted gray, reminding John
Curtis of a dead body. Philadelphia politely ignored what New York deemed
disgusting in his Don Basilio, merely noting that the performance of Barhitrc
"struck a low water mark." His Leporello was dismissed as "low comedy,"
Not until 1921 would the offended singer make his peace with America.
One of Conried's last gestures was to restore the German wing to some
semblance of strength. The addition of Gustav Mahler to the conducting
staff kindled the Wagner and Mozart singers to new efforts. "A past master
of appraising comparative values," in the Philadelphia Enquirer's opinion,
the great conductor permitted "no languishing sentimentality," said the
Ledger. Tristan was reduced to a reasonable length, thereby ministering to
the comfort of that tyrant of the American stage, the "tired business man."
Mahler's triumph in Boston was termed "epoch-making" by the Journal,
while the Globe described him as "no apostle of noise." Hertz took over the
few remaining German performances on the road, so that Chicago and
Pittsburgh were deprived of the renaissance. Mahler did not go beyond
Brooklyn and Philadelphia in his second season and in his third and last did
not tour at all.
Miraculously there was no shortage of heldentenors. Alois Burgstaller, in-
herited from Grau, appeared in Meistersinger as well as giving consistent
service in Parsifal on the 1905 tour. His tall frame and boyish face became
CONRIED : MAN OF THE THEATRE 129
familiar to Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago in four other Wagnerian roles
during the last three Conried seasons.
Heinrich Knote, who amused Baltimore by his habit of addressing all his
colleagues by full titles ("Herr Geheimrat Goerlitz," "Herr Intendant
Hertz"), traveled as far west as Kansas City in 1906, but in his final year,
1908, sang only in Philadelphia. He gave the Quaker City its most satis-
factory Lohengrin in years "from the point of pure singing."
Carl Burrian remained the Tannhauser assigned to Philadelphia and
Brooklyn, singing other roles intermittently until he retired in 1913. Each
year one or more tenors (sometimes as many as four) parceled out Wag-
nerian roles among themselves Schmedes, Jorn, Anthes, Hyde, Jadlowker,
Hensel and even Slezak, although the big Czech never dipped into the deeper
waters of the Ring. And always Dippel, ever reliable, sang his own and
everybody's roles twenty-six in three languages during eight touring
seasons.
Fremstad's incandescent Isolde was revealed to Philadelphia, Boston and
Chicago in 1907-08, repeated in Philadelphia next season and in Philadelphia
and Boston in 1909-10. Thereafter the road was denied this most illustrious
creation, although her Elsa, a role she enjoyed least of all, was widely
circulated.
One of the last truly to deserve the title of "Diva," Fremstad traveled in
great style, scorning the economies of her adored teacher, Lilli Lehmann.
Mary Watkins Gushing, her faithful "buffer," relates in her perceptive Rain-
bow Bridge the hilarious circumstances attending every journey. Sheets
soaked in hot water and sprayed with pine oil were draped in train compart-
ments; bathtubs in hotel suites filled with steaming water and pine oil to
condition the air for her sensitive throat.
"Madame liked to go to the dining car . . . she detested lukewarm food.
. . . She always wore a veil over her mouth like an houri, and I, no matter
what the weather, would carry a large muff."
This ornament was in reality a camouflage for the dog, Mimi. Miss Watkins
hardly ever enjoyed her meals, "for the muff kept showing too lively an in-
terest in the contents of rny plate."
Conried's purposeful bolstering of the German wing, an area into which
Hammerstein could not follow, led him to engage Berta Morena, whose "be-
witching grace" as Elisabeth awoke echoes of Ternina in Philadelphia;
Martha Leffler-Burkhard, whose Wal^ure Briinnhilde impressed Paul
Rosenfeld of the Chicago Examiner as "beautiful and exuberant"; and Louise
Kirkby-Lunn, the serviceable contralto from Savage's company. Johanna
Gadski aspired to higher Wagnerian realms each season; and Ernestine
Schurnann-Heink returned for a few performances in 1907, contrasting
Wagner's heavy roles with a cackling witch in Hansel und Gretel.
An era ended with the retirement of Pol Plan^on. The debonair French
bachelor had commanded critical respect and enchained feminine hearts for
fifteen years. Appropriately his last role on the road was his most popular:
Mephistopheles, sung in Pittsburgh on April 26, 1908. Without seeming
aware that she was delivering a valedictory, Jennie Irene Mix, in her Post
130 OPERA CARAVAN
summary, paid him the finest compliment a veteran could have wished for :
"Plangon was the one star supreme."
Among other singers who wrote finis to their Metropolitan careers, none
had been more useful than Marcel Journet. After his first season in 1900
the stylish French bass had plunged into major competition with Plangon
and Edouard de Rcszke. In eight years he sang thirty roles on the road, nine
more than Planjon. Valuable as he was to Grau and Conried (and to the
Chicago Opera in the years to come), Journet nevertheless could not rival
Plancon in the public's favor.
At some juncture in the ill-fated tour of 1905-06, the little Bauermeister
slipped out of sight. A great to-do had been made for several seasons over
the threatened retirement of the "indispensable" seconda, but she, to a
lesser degree like Patti, lingered on. In 1906 she may have traveled no farther
than Washington. Bauermeister was listed in San Francisco's advance pro-
grams, but her name does not occur in the accounts of the earthquake.
Conried's time was fast running out. Long before his formal resignation,
Metropolitan directors had signed a contract with Giulio Gatti-Casazza. At a
cost of $90,000, the board bought the "president's" interest in the company.
Conried outlived his "Conried Metropolitan Opera" by scarcely a year. On
April 27, 1909, he died in Meran, Italy. The Metropolitan, having insured
his life, was richer by $150,000.
Conried was not present when the last company that bore his name played
his tour finale on April 29, 1908, in Pittsburgh, to the accompaniment of
the flames of Die W allure. Appropriately he ended his tenure in the House
with GoUerdammerung.
Part VII
GATTI'S QUARTER CENTURY
1. THE MERRY WAR: A TALE OF
SEVEN CITIES
The second year of Gatti-Casazza's regime as general manager of the
Metropolitan Opera has gone down in history as the most stimulating for
the patron of opera and the most disastrous for opera management ever
known in America. Never before and never since has so much grand opera
been available to the populations of seven United States cities. Three opera
houses were regularly open in New York: the Metropolitan itself; the New
Theatre (the Metropolitan's Opera Comique venture) and Oscar Hammer-
stein's Manhattan Opera House. More than 300 performances of opera were
crowded between November 8 and April 2 in the metropolis*
Across the Brooklyn Bridge, the Metropolitan performed on twenty Mon-
days and one Tuesday in the creamy-yellow brick Academy of Music on
Lafayette Avenue which Brooklyn had proudly dedicated the previous year.
Not to be outdone, Philadelphia undertook to support twenty-five Metro-
politan representations. Baltimore's quota jumped from the customary three
or four in the spring to a startling twenty during the season. One week in
January and another in March were allotted to Boston.
To carry out this grandiose scheme, the Metropolitan engaged a double
Orchestra, Italian and German choruses and a list of 101 principals. Ten solo
singers did not leave New York, but more than that number were hired for
the out-of-town engagements, several from the separate roster of the New
Theatre, which endured only one season.
The intricate schedule called for simultaneous performances in two cities
on fifty-six occasions. Even as Gioconda opened the House, the German
wing was performing Tannh'duser in Brooklyn. It is apparent what re-
sources a company must command to be able to show Falstaff in New York
while Rigolctto is being played in Boston; Aida in Baltimore while Lohengrin
is given in New York; Pagliacci and the ballet Coppclia in New York while
Boston enjoys Die Meister singer.
At the end of this remarkable operatic shuttling, only half the travel story
had been told. One company set off in April for thirty-three performances in
131
132 OPERA CARAVAN
Chicago; another headed for Pittsburgh to begin a tour of ten cities that
would end in Atlanta on May 7.
No wonder that the international madhouse, as one journal dubbed the
Metropolitan colossus, should need guideposts on the road. The complica-
tions were so obvious and the trail so arduous that the management issued
booklets showing maps of the cities visited and tabulating dates and hotels.
The grand total of these peregrinations lagged only one behind Grau's
record of 145 in 1901-02; but 1910 stands unique in Metropolitan history for
the season's European pendant. Leading artists of the company and its chorus
and ballet took ship in May for France and performed seventeen times before
the books could be closed on the achievements of 1909-10.
The Metropolitan's sudden mania for expansion had not originated in the
mind of its new general manager; on the contrary, Giulio Gatti-Casazza went
on record as being firmly opposed to such dizzy flights. Gatti stepped into an
ambiguous situation without warning. Although he had weathered ten sea-
sons as generalissimo at La Scala, the new general manager was unknown
to many Americans. Some members of the board evinced disquiet over the
possibility that the Italian might pass over the German repertory, a staple
since the late De Reszke days.
Arturo Toscanini, who had agreed to come to America if Gatti were in
command, was thought like him to be a fervent nationalist. Why take chances
when a man whom everybody knew and respected could be counted on to
champion the German works? Dippel was ripe for retirement as an artist;
the wider sphere of management appealed to him as to other tenors past and
future. He was well liked by the public and had powerful friends in high
places. Dippel was told somewhat ambiguously that he could "work by the
side'* of the director. Gatti-Casazza remained in ignorance of this appoint-
ment until his arrival on the New York pier.
Confronted by the fait accompli, Gatti, by his own account "a man who
never talks a great deal," bided his time. Because he was a professional, his
chances of survival mounted with each rash move of his colleague. If he
could not hold all the reins, he tried at least to snafHe some of Dippel's more
venturesome sallies. But Dippel was bent on "fighting fire with fire," as he
described the master plan for defeating Oscar Hammerstein at his own game
of aggrandizement. Gatti had to acknowledge that this challenge must be
met.
If the rivalry had been contained within the New York-Philadelphia axis,
desperate measures might not have seemed imperative. But in every one of
the four other old strongholds that constituted the Metropolitan's modest tour
of 1908-09, Gatti encountered Hammerstein J s outreaching tentacles. Chicago
was treated to Mary Garden in Salome and Jongleur de Notre Dame among
other gems in the Manhattan's provocative bill of fare; Brooklyn, Baltimore
and Pittsburgh were similarly drawn into the irrepressible Oscar's budding
empire. The Metropolitan could not even get into Boston: Hammerstein
had secured a lease on the city's only operatic shrine, the fifty-five-year-old
Boston Theatre.
GATTI'S QUARTER CENTURY J33
In 1909-10, Hammerstein added Washington, which, while not currently
involved, still belonged in the Metropolitan's orbit.
Of the seven outlying citadels stormed by Hammerstein, Brooklyn was
least^ affected. Oscar, whose passion for acquiring real estate amounted to
mania, bought a possible opera-house site in the borough, as well as another
in Cleveland; but this threat died before birth. Brooklyn continued to open
the Academy doors to the Metropolitan until two seasons after Gatti's de-
parture. By the end of 1937, even the five performances to which the season
had shrunk (from ten or twelve in the 'twenties), were thought to keep too
many Brooklynites from buying New York subscriptions. The time-honored
association fizzled out.
Ever since the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences had erected a new
Academy of Music in 1908 it had been a "subway series." In the years that
had passed since Brooklyn's decision to become a borough of Greater New
York, the huge, fiercely independent community had begun to smart under
an inferiority complex. The uneasy partnership with Manhattan, which
Brooklynites unequivocally call "New York," created an ambivalence which
has carried over into cultural life. Brooklyn resents the superiority of Man-
hattan's entertainment resources while patronizing them to the detriment of
its own. The Brooklynite professes to desire yet only halfheartedly supports
local musical institutions.
The Metropolitan's first season in the new Academy brought out box-office
receipts which were never again achieved. Fourteen performances averaged
$9,872 (the fifteenth, a matinee of Hansel und Gretel, earned only $2,165).
Subscribers paid $5 apiece but single tickets for opening night cost $10.
The 1908 inaugural night on November 14 gave the borough an evening
the more glorious for its anticipation by two days of the Manhattan opening.
The New York dailies covered the event with their usual (and to Brooklyn
infuriating) note of condescension. Geraldine Farrar sang "The Star-
Spangled Banner" amid unfurling flags; the Times believed that "the heart
of every Brooklynite must have been particularly joyous." In the side boxes
"the cream of Brooklyn society was separated from the milk of kith and
kin"; the Telegram expressed rnild surprise that "the same etiquette was
displayed as in New York."
The American delivered the final pat on the head:
"Caruso's celebrated high C (in Faust) made Brooklyn sit up and feel as
if it belonged.'"
In spite of many happy evenings in its acoustically excellent and com-
fortable theatre (the old Academy had been cramped and usually kept at a
freezing temperature), Brooklyn came to be suspected of a jinx by many
members of the company. Today's saying,, "Anything can happen in Brook-
lyn," which arises from the antics of its baseball team, might have applied
also to the Metropolitan's hegiras across the bridge.
Blizzards had a way of waiting until Brooklyn days to strike: once a
Lohengrin truck broke down in the storm and the chorus had to improvise
a concert; again and on a Christmas afternoon a stalled taxi made Anna
Meitschik fifty minutes late for her appearance as the Witch in Hansel und
134 OPERA CARAVAN
Gretel. A ballet entitled Czar and Carpenter, scheduled for an afterpiece, was
hastily moved up between the acts of the fairy opera, creating a weird se-
quence. The Eagle chided the "Hexe" for abandoning her characteristic mode
of travel, adding that "taxicabs are not so reliable as broomsticks."
Perhaps Brooklyn was too close to home. Louise Homer allowed only a
normal time to cross the river for an Aida in 1916-17, but the elevator in her
Manhattan apartment perversely stuck between floors. A very nervous
Amneris barely reached the transpontine Temple of Phtha in time.
Illnesses can occur anywhere, but those that struck in Brooklyn were always
specially remembered. Fremstad sang too soon after an illness; it was a
Brooklyn Tannhauser. Her chauffeur refused to entrust the car to the in-
evitable snowstorm, so Madame and her entourage traveled by subway, to the
astonishment of all the passengers, including herself.
Martha had to be cut short in 1909 because of Elvira de Hidalgo's fainting
spells, Frances Alda's appendix burst during an Otetto the same year
Slezak handled his Desdemona with unnecessary roughness, many observers
thought. The soprano underwent an emergency operation at 3 A.M. in her
hotel.
But the blackest day in Brooklyn history was the Saturday in 1920 when
a horrified audience saw Caruso struggle bravely to finish the first act of
UEUsir d'Amore although every note brought a new gush of blood from
his mouth. The hemorrhage that cut short the Brooklyn performance pres-
aged the end; Caruso never sang on the road again and appeared only three
times afterward in the House.
Because Brooklyn occupied an early place in the Metropolitan's calendar,
even opening the season three times, several artists made their debuts there:
the tenors Orville Harrold and Umberto Macnez, the baritone Clarence
Whitehill, and the bass Adamo Didur among them.
An unscheduled "debut" of which Brooklyn was proud brought Arturo
Toscanini in his first out-of-town appearance (on November 23, 1908) re-
placing Francesco Spetrino, who had effected his debut with the company
in Brooklyn's opening. Spetrino hurt his foot and was out of action for sev-
eral days. Toscanini conducted Tosca for him in the House and Rigoletto in
Brooklyn, both without rehearsal the first of the miraculous accomplish-
ments that were to found a new legend.
This Rigoletto marked Sembrich's final appearance in Brooklyn. The
1908-09 season also signalized the farewell of Emma Eames. Each of the
prima donnas sang four times out of town, dividing their favors between
Brooklyn and Philadelphia. Sembrich received her final dazzle of tributes,
tears and applause on the road at a Philadelphia Rigoletto on January 5.
Eames sang her last Countess Almaviva in Brooklyn on February 4 with no
fanfare whatever. Philadelphia had remarked her coolness in snuffing out a
fire caused by candle drippings in her first and last local Tosca on De-
cember 15. The Bulletin admired her for "never stepping out of character,"
an epitaph to be treasured by the lady who was seldom credited with enter-
ing fully into any role.
Baltimore sustained the harshest consequences of the new opera war. A
GATTI'S QUARTER CENTURY 135
small and fairly consistent customer for three or four spring performances
since the days of Abbey, Schoeffel and Grau, the elegant, mannerly city
suddenly found itself at the center of an operatic whirlpool
In 1908 the Metropolitan's contract with Baltimore for four performances
during the season omitted the usual clause stipulating that no previous opera
must be given within a certain period. Hammerstein advanced his first per-
formance, Lucia, to January 4, hoping to take the cream off of the Metro-
politan's January 20 Butterfly, for it seemed a foregone conclusion that the
first in the field would carry off the most profits. The ticket sale for both
companies was held the same day; and to confound the pessimists, both
series moved briskly. Baltimore began to believe in its oft-repeated conten-
tion that it could support as many operas as Philadelphia. The chance was
immediately offered.
Hammerstein had erected an opera house in Philadelphia to combat the
Metropolitan; very well, the Metropolitan would counter by establishing its
own fortification just to the south. Otto H. Kahn, acting for the directors,
bought the Baltimore Lyric Theatre and announced sweeping renovations.
Furthermore, Dippel promised twenty evenings of opera, contingent on a
guarantee of $7,500 for each. Henry Walters was the first to sign his name
for $10,000; Frank A. Munsey, proprietor of the News, made up the final
$1,800 of a $100,000 fund. Baltimore flung itself into the enticing new project
with unwonted abandon. The opening Tannhauser fulfilled all dreams of
glory. Society, diplomats from Washington, jewels, perfumes, expensive
corsages and excited talk filled the theatre; 400 were turned away. The box
office rang to the tune of $7,855. Dippel promised "to give Baltimore the
very best." Manager Bernard Ulrich rubbed his hands together in glee and
announced that any surplus would be placed in a fund to Baltimore's credit
next year.
With seven performances crossed off, it became apparent that Baltimore's
"eyes were bigger than its stomach" for opera. The city watched the dream
fade before the inexorable figures. Cautiously at first and then despairingly
the newspapers reported each performance in terms of deficit under the
guarantee. The $100,000 fund lacked half of being enough. The total in-
take was $99,683, leaving a deficit of more than $50,000.
Still, Baltirnoreans who took little account of fiscal problems cherished
shining memories: President and Mrs. Taffs visit to hear John ForselPs
"gorgeous" Figaro in Barbierc; Gioconda; Alma Gluck's first Marguerite
anywhere ("a joy to the eye") ; the debuts of Glenn Hall, Walter Hyde and
Jane Noria; and the farewell of Lillian Nordica in Trovatore> actually her
final performance with the Metropolitan.
Ulrich joined the Chicago Opera and, from the vantage point of his new
affiliation, persuaded Baltimore to try another operatic visitor. Except for a
single performance of KonigsJ^inder in 1912, the Metropolitan bypassed
Baltimore until 1927, when a new group, spearheaded by the energetic and
tactful Frederick R. Huber, initiated a fresh chapter in cordial relations.
Meanwhile the Lyric Theatre had to get along without the drastic improve-
ments that Kahn had envisioned. Out of all his and Ulrich's grandiose plans,
]36 OPERA CARAVAN
only new murals around the proscenium arch, a smoking room to replace the
bar and a refurbished lounge for ladies materialized. Improvements have been
instituted piecemeal in the intervening years, but the Lyric still lacks a
fa$ade and many backstage facilities. Its charm and atmosphere are confined
to the auditorium.
Hammerstein's inroads on the Metropolitan's territory had far-reaching
if indirect consequences in Pittsburgh. Here the vein of opera enthusiasm
might have petered out in any case. In 1909 Charles Wakefield Cadman com-
plained in the Dispatch that "New York is conferring no special favor upon
a city of Pittsburgh's size, culture and means in giving us a brand of opera
like last night's." He referred to a Faust in which only Farrar shone. Gio-
vanni Zenatello, whom Hammcrstein had lent to Gatti when Caruso be-
came too ill to tour, appeared ill at ease "in a strange garret"; Didur was
"atrocious"; Forma, "commonplace"; Amato, "insignificant." The other
papers took a less virulent tone throughout the short season, but everyone
was disturbed by the screaming child Trouble who had to be put off the
stage by an exasperated Farrar in the third act of Madama Butterfly.
Next season Pittsburgh was the chief complainant in the case against the
split tour. Although it enjoyed a Lohengrin with Fremstad, Jadlowker and
Soomer, and a Tosca with Farrar, Jadlowker and Scotti, Pittsburgh felt
cheated. John Forsell performed his "striking" Tonio and Rosina van Dyck
her "delightful" Gretel; Riccardo Martin "justified expectations" as Canio;
Jane Osborn-Hannah was a "vision of loveliness" as Elisabeth and Jane Noria
seemed "perfectly adapted for Wagner" still Pittsburgh was unhappy.
Caruso was absent. So were Bonci, Slezak, Gadski, Destinn and Alda.
"The Left Wing of the Metropolitan Opera closed a rather disastrous en-
gagement . . . [while the] Right Wing is now in Chicago," the Post con-
cluded indignantly.
Pittsburgh never entered the Metropolitan orbit again. The overexpansion
of 1910 led to a retrenchment; and when the Metropolitan began once more
to spread its influence widely, Cleveland became so strong a contender that
all cities within a radius of 500 miles bowed to its superior claims.
If the Metropolitan had not won in Pittsburgh or Baltimore, neither had
Hammerstein. The battle moved to other arenas. Hammerstein gave Boston
two seasons of diverting performances. His Elefyra with Mariette Mazarin
successfully challenged Gatti's Aida on the opening night of 1909 with a
jammed house, while two rows of boxes "showed wide gaps where there
might have been handsomely dressed people" to applaud the Verdi,
Chicago and Boston reacted almost identically to the "merry opera war**
and its aftermath. Both cities had been feeling artistic growing pains and the
chauvinistic desire to foster opera houses of their own. Henry Russell had re-
cently supplied an incentive with his San Carlo Company; in 1909 he settled
in Boston in a new opera house built largely through the efforts of Eben D.
Jordan, Boston's most influential patron of music. The Metropolitan, with an
eye to schemes almost as comprehensive as Hammerstein's, invited Jordan to
their board; and Otto H. Kahn became a Boston director. Cooperation in
exchange of artists between the two units lasted through the hectic opera
GATTI'S QUARTER CENTURY i 37
merry-go-round of 1909-10, and for several seasons a few of Boston's leading
smgers-notably Alice Nielsen, Maria Claessens, Antonio Pini-Corsi and
Morencio Constantino remained on the New York roster.
The Metropolitan left Boston exclusively to its home-grown product in
1910-11, 1912-13, 1913-14. After the demise of Russell's troupe the New York
company returned for visits in 1915-16 and 1916-17. Thereafter the Massa-
chusetts field was abandoned to other touring groups until 1934, when a
farm, new basis for friendship with the Metropolitan was secured.
Chicago already had an opera house; all it wanted was a company to call
its own. Sooner than anyone could have expected, just such a company
dropped into Chicago's lap. The decision was fought out in Philadelphia,
where the trouble had begun.
2. OLD FAITHFUL FLIRTS WITH A RIVAL
Philadelphia, dowager among hostesses, has inscribed only four "not-at-
homes" to the Metropolitan in an engagement book covering more than
seventy years of friendly association. In 1884-85 and 1889-90 Damrosch re-
gretfully bypassed the city; but in 1896-97, having left the Metropolitan to
head his own company, he negotiated successfully with Abbey and Grau for
a division of spheres of interest for one season. He chose Philadelphia; the
Metropolitan went to Chicago (a disastrous alternative as it happened). After
the Metropolitan's suspension during 1897-98 Grau brought the reorganized
company back to the Quaker City. Since then only the depression year of
1934-35, when the Philadelphia Orchestra undertook an opera season of its
own and lost upward of $300,000, has spoiled the perfect record.
It is ironic to reflect that the guarantees Philadelphia has raised for the
Metropolitan since 1899 were continuations of the efforts originally made by
zealous admirers in Damrosch 's behalf.
Though indubitably most faithful among all Metropolitan cities, Philadel-
phia did not bar a decorous flirtation or two with beguiling strangers. Hos-
pitality to opera from other cities may have deepened her sympathy for in-
digenous opera growths as well.
Her consciousness of the delights of "the stage" has been heightened, per-
haps, since she overcame her Quaker preoccupation with original sin. What-
ever atavistic pangs of conscience may nag her dreams, Philadelphia has been
addicted to opera for a century the life span of her illustrious opera house.
On January 26, 1957, the Academy of Music marked its centenary, exactly
100 years since the new center of culture for the little red brick city of 500,-
ooo was inaugurated with a great ball. The first opera, // Trovatore, came a
month later on February 25, 1857.
It had been a bold decision to place the hall so far from Fourth and Market
I og OPERA CARAVAN
Streets, the center of town. Largely determinate was the quiet of the resi-
dential neighborhood, since become the teeming vortex of the city's roar, A
nationwide competition had selected Napoleon Le Brim and Gustavus
Punge as architects.
With commendable honesty they offered a choice between beauty within or
without, claiming that both could not be accomplished for the $250,000-
available. With equally commendable wisdom John B. Budd and his directors
chose to concentrate on a beautiful interior. Although the facade was planned
so that a marble facing could be attached, none ever was. Today the building
is still "as plain as a market house" and 100 years dirtier.
But its audience chamber is the envy of every concert and opera society in
America. The unexampled excellence of acoustics is due to Le Brun's pas-
sion for the subject. He modeled the Academy after La Scala, securing good
results from a large, dry well under the parquet and a corresponding dome in
the ceiling. Sounding boards in the orchestra pit and around the back walls
of the auditorium, a hollow chamber in the form of a semicircular prom-
enade,, thick walls around the entrance lobby and the addition of tons of
cow-hair mixed with the cement may account for the glorious sounds in the
Academy's auditorium.
The handsome chandelier, which was brought from New York's Crystal
Palace in Bryant Square, still twinkles high above, seeming very close to the
cramped devotees in the top reaches of the Amphitheatre, Philadelphia's eu-
phemism for "peanut heaven." It is obvious to these occupants of "plain"
seats that the architect never sat through Die Meistersinger on one of them.
In 1950, while making such necessary alterations as a new fire curtain,
stacks of decaying scenery, defying identification, were thrown out all that
remained of the "largest and most varied stock of any place of amusement
in the country" in the 1870'$. In the same year the Philadelphia Orchestra
bought the controlling interest in the American Academy of Music (still the
official name), and together with an Academy association headed by Stuart
Lochheim keeps the centenarian in a reasonably healthy state.
Plans for the Academy's looth birthday took into account the imperative
need for a few renovations, so that patrons of the jubilee concert followed
by a grand ball were asked to pay as much as $1,500 for a lower box. That
the building has hitherto needed so little repair is undoubtedly due to the
fact that the shell was allowed to stand through the weather of two years
without a roof.
The Philadelphia Academy of Music is the only auditorium the Metro-
politan still visits after seventy-three years of almost continuous use. As we
have seen, Abbey had recourse to the Chestnut Street Opera House for a part
of his first tour, later transferring to the Academy. The only other break
was the ten-year hiatus after Philadelphia's flirtation with Oscar Hammer-
stein.
In the fall of 1908 Hammerstein's Philadelphia Opera House was the talk
of the town. He had not waited for the walls to weather; indeed he gave his
son Arthur, who always implemented Oscar's wild plans, only a few months
to build the house, deliberately setting his opening night for November 17
GATTI'S QUARTER CENTURY 139
to clash with the Metropolitan's. Arthur got the roof on seven days ahead o
schedule; whereupon Oscar gave a huge al fresco supper to the 'critics and
"men about town." John Curtis remembered that the stairs were improvised
and the railings temporary, but "an up-to-date phonograph played grand
opera records, and white-aproned cooks served steaks and champagne."
On opening night long kid gloves and broadcloth shoulders rubbed against
paint that was not quite dry; nevertheless "the whole city was at Oscar Ham-
merstein's feet/' according to Curtis and other insurgents. He was the only
one since Gustav Hinrichs had launched the first of many summer seasons in
1888 to "look at Philadelphia as something better than one-night stands."
Mayor John E. Reyburn bestowed his patronage on the new house and a
segment of Philadelphia society, headed by G. Heide Norris, counsel for the
Philadelphia Orchestra, endeavored to make a civic project out of Hammer-
stein.
The twin operatic attraction tried Philadelphia loyalties sorely. Neverthe-
less the Academy glittered as brightly as its new rival. The performance of
La Bo/ieme was unusually brilliant, with Caruso and Sembrich and new
scenery. A smoking room for men only, the first in the Academy, had been
installed. Fifty applications were received for one of the Drexel boxes,
offered for sublet because the family was in mourning.
Numerous boxholders attended both affairs, leaving relatives or friends as
stand-ins. Never had such an operatic night been vouchsafed Philadelphia.
Many of almost equal splendor were to follow. The Metropolitan stepped up
its schedule to two performances a week; Hammerstein was essaying five!
Something had to give. On New Year's Eve the proprietor of the new
theatre castigated Philadelphia and its financiers for not giving him a guar-
antee similar to the Metropolitan's. Dippel countered by offering to waive
the guarantee. No guarantor had been called on for five years anyway. But
luckily the committee voted to maintain it. At the end of the season only
seven of twenty-four performances had topped $7,000 guarantee level.
Hammerstein was feeling the pinch even more severely. He tried to borrow
$400,000 from Norris, but the latter refused without mortgages on both the
Philadelphia and Manhattan houses. Edward T. Stotesbury then stepped into
the picture, advancing $67,000 to meet Hammerstein's current deficits and
taking a $400,000 mortgage on the Philadelphia house.
Another season went by before the reckless Hammerstein finally over-
reached himself. Sentiment swung away from him, particularly when he
branded the Metropolitan personnel as a "bunch of antediluvian lemons."
Otto H. Kahn announced in April that Hammerstein was to be paid a
million and a quarter to give up. Title to the Philadelphia Opera House,
promptly renamed the "Metropolitan," was included in the transaction, but
not the Manhattan; however, Oscar was enjoined not to produce grand
opera there or in other strategic cities for ten years. The Metropolitan took
over the American rights to operas, scores and properties of the Manhattan
and contracts with its leading artists.
Stotesbury immediately formed the Metropolitan Opera Company of
Philadelphia with himself as president. All the while he had been a Metro-
140 OPERA CARAVAN
politan director and a partner in the house of Morgan; Hammerstein's
biographer advances the theory that his motives were "more complex" than
Kahn's, indeed the latter may have acted solely from altruism.
With the beginning of 1910-11, its twentieth season in Philadelphia, the
Metropolitan deserted the Academy for the new house, where 1,000 additional
subscribers could be accommodated. Considerable delicate maneuvering had
reassigned the boxes; and society presented an unbroken rank again for the
first time on December 13, when Morena, Fremstad and Slezak starred in
Tannhauser.
A week later the "second performance in the world" of Puccini's Fanciulla
del West delighted H. T. Craven of the Inquirer, achieving "an accent of
the picturesque to a degree never before associated with the, lyric stage," Puc-
cini volunteered the compliment that "Philadelphia is a real American city,
more American even than New York."
The war was over. Dippel had won in principle; but his inflation had cost
the Metropolitan $300,000 in addition to the Hammerstein "cease and desist"
money, which came out of private pockets. It also cost Dippel his job. He was
politely asked if he would care to manage the new Chicago-Philadelphia
Opera, created with Hammerstein stars as a nucleus. He solved many prob-
lems by accepting.
Gatti was now in full command. Not since Abbey had a Metropolitan im-
presario looked the part. His tall, imposing figure, his full beard and soft,
dark eyes, his inscrutable expression all indicated the man of importance. He
best lived up to George P. Upton's earlier definition: "Rarely if ever gregari-
ous. Dwells apart; as unapproachable as the Grand Lama. Usually a very
exalted person with a handsome brilliant in his cravat and wrinkled brow
above it."
Gatti thus explained his own wrinkled brow: "The theatre is "nothing but
difficulty. A manager walks on a razor edge. He should have a hand of the
best-tempered steel in a glove of the richest and most attractive velvet."
Gatti's "steel hand" revealed itself in his first edict: "No more touring."
The inevitable deflation hit the swollen roster first, especially the oversized
orchestra and chorus. Max Hirsch, veteran road man, announced his retire-
ment. DippePs severance brought other changes : John Brown was advanced
to be business comptroller; into Brown's place stepped young Earle R. Lewis,
destined to become box-office treasurer and in 1937 Edward Johnson's as-
sistant general manager.
Fortunately for the sake of the national status of the Metropolitan Gatti
changed his mind before the end of the season. The spring tours continued,
at least in token form, until the 'twenties, when the route burgeoned once
more.
From 1911 to 1915 the Metropolitan's visits to Philadelphia were bracketed
in one subscription plan with the Philadelphia-Chicago company. When the
latter failed, its successor also competed during its lifetime for Quaker City
interest. But Philadelphia's most dangerous flirtation was happily past.
In the ten years the Metropolitan occupied its own house, the names of
Stotesbury, Biddle, De Witt Cuyler, Drexel, Yarnall and Van Rensselaer in-
GATTI'S QUARTER CENTURY 141
sured that all was well "out front," while on stage the parade of stars never
diminished. On April 18, 1912, several boxes remained empty because many
Philadelphians were mourning their kin, lost in the sinking of the Titanic.
The next night all boxes except Stotesbury's were filled to hear Caruso and
Gadski in Aida. The tenor was greater than ever, claimed the Ledger.
Three years later the same paper found Caruso a sober, matured artist, "to
whom several seasons of prudence have restored much of the power of a
perilously strained and overused voice. The annoying cough that had become
almost an affliction was little in evidence."
^ Comparative austerity in the first year of the war did not lessen the bril-
liance on the opening night except that the Stotesburys omitted their annual
supper dance for 200, taking only thirty friends to the Ritz-Carlton for supper.
Philadelphians of tie period insisted they would never forget Geraldine
Farrar's "strongly individual Carmen, to which, perhaps, she imparted too
much of the street Arab"; yet when Margarete Matzenauer stepped into the
part unexpectedly, it was as if "heat-lightning" flashed across the stage, even
though the contralto's heroic build "made a considerable lapful for Jose"
[Martinelli],
Gatti was scolded by the Ledger in 1915 for not allowing Frances Alda,
whom he married in 1910, to appear more often, saying that the manager was
too impartial an opinion which many New York critics did not share. Alda
made an "ideal" Manon for Philadelphia. Supreme, too, was Maria Bar-
rientos as Lucia, now that Sembrich had departed. Philadelphia admired
Adamo Didur extravagantly as Boris, the Ledger opining that it was the
most vivid characterization of 1916-17.
Artur Bodanzky proved his "right to inherit the mantle of the able and
faithful Hertz," when he made his debut with Lohengrin in 1915, "reining
in the orchestra as he would a full-blooded horse." Jacques Urlus was the
Wagnerian tenor of the moment, "untrammeled by the leading strings of
the prompter's box." Frieda HempeFs delicious voice "threaded in intricate
coloratura measures with surpassing skill, comeliness and authority."
Before Hertz' retirement he had denounced Philadelphia in a New York
paper for not knowing when Lohengrin "begins and ends." In the middle of
the bridal procession the curtain dropped "like a pall." He stopped the or-
chestra and shouted for the curtain to be raised but was drowned out "by
that terrible audience which supposed the act was over." When the curtain
finally did go up, a "vulgar stagehand in shirtsleeves was hanging to it ...
like grim death." As the unfortunate man reached a height of about ten feet,
he let go, and scampered off among the bridal party into the wings. The
Ledger blamed "execrable" stage management, but it is highly probable that
Hertz pushed the wrong button when he gave a cue to the organ.
Perhaps the most famous incident in the Philadelphia Metropolitan Opera
House was Caruso's assumption of a bass role for the first and only time in
his career, singing the "Coat Song" in La Boheme. The story has been re-
counted in many versions but the most circumstantial account appears in the
autobiography of Andres de Segurola. The bass was hoarse even during a
luncheon with Caruso at Del Pezzo's in New York. On the train he tried
142 OPERA CARAVAN
his voice; it was worse. Caruso mocked him to perfection, and promised
jokingly to sing in his place. When the time came, the bass held the tenor
to his promise, in spite of Caruso's soito voce protests. "I pulled him toward
the left corner of the stage . . . seated myself on a chair, held Caruso next
to me and whispered, 'Enrico, save me, save me.'
"Polacco signaled and Caruso began singing glorious, grand, generous
fellow that he was. ... At the end he was trembling . . . said he had never
been so nervous on the stage.'*
Segurola places this celebrated occurrence in 1916; the Caruso biography
says 1915; but an eyewitness, Max de Schauensee, today's critic for the Bul-
letin, vouches for December 23, 1913, and suggests that Caruso took the ini-
tiative in the kindly substitution.
The incident passed unnoticed by the Philadelphia audience and critics.
Caruso made a special Victor record of Vecchia zimarra in bass register
as a souvenir for the three principals, and according to Segurola gave the
bass his complete Rodolfo costume as an extra favor, "from your understudy."
Stotesbury grew tired of his burden in 1920 and put the Metropolitan Opera
House up for sale in April. A syndicate of motion picture interests bought it
for $650,000; Hammerstein's Pride became a dance floor and variety house.
The Metropolitan turned back to the Academy.
But that ancient house was on the auction block too. Quick thinking and
united action, urged by Edward W. Bok and Charlton Yarnall, effected a
four-party agreement among the Philadelphia Orchestra, Metropolitan
Opera, Academy Association and a citizens' group stipulating the lease of the
Academy for five years. President George Fales Baker reduced the rental
substantially. A committee headed by Mrs. George Horace Lorimer and in-
cluding Mrs. Alexander Biddle and Dr. Herbert J. Tily worked valiantly.
Alfred Hoegerle, whose management activities reached back into the 'eighties
with Hinrichs at the Grand Opera House and included the recent decade at
the Philadelphia Metropolitan, was put in charge at the Academy, replacing
Siegfried Behrens, a former Philadelphian conductor.
The Metropolitan seasons went on without a break, in spite of the strenu-
ous reshuffling necessary to fit nearly 4,000 subscribers in a 2,910 capacity
house. Eugen Onegin closed the Metropolitan with a box office of $10,896
on April 20; La Juive opened the Academy on November 30 with the in-
credible return of $21,677, a record due to increased prices for the event, but
still unbroken until 1926. The only sad note of the evening was sounded in
retrospect: it was Caruso's final appearance in Philadelphia.
Philadelphia has been justly proud of its record as a "premiere city,"
boasting the first American performances of a score of celebrated operas,
from Der Freischutz in 1825 and Faust in 1863 to Gavalleria Rusticana in
1891 and Manon Lescaut in 1894. Metropolitan novelties have been almost
without exception shared immediately with Old Faithful, so that Phila-
delphia's calendar has resembled New York's through the years.
Cancellations have been rare in fact, nonexistent since 1918, when the
wartime fuel law closed the Academy and Philadelphia lost a Traviata. In
1909 Toscanini's production of La Watty was withdrawn at the last moment
OATH'S QUARTER CENTURY 143
because of Destinn's illness; but the Bulletin showed where consolation
might be found: "Of course everyone will flock to hear the first Pelleas et
Melisande with Garden and Dalmores at Hainmerstein's." A similar last-
minute cancellation occurred in 1895, when Maurel is said to have refused to
sing in Rigoletto with Marie van Cauteren, who was to replace the ailing
Melba. Manager Behrens told the enraged customers who had been standing
outside in the bitter cold for two hours that Maurel's costumes had not
arrived.
The Metropolitan has shown a penchant for Introducing important singers
through the medium of Philadelphia performances, Rise Stevens, Blanche
Thebom, Gladys Swarthout, Salvatore Baccaloni and Herbert Janssen among
them. Seven singers, almost the entire cast of Die Ver\aujte Braut, made
their Metropolitan debuts in Philadelphia in 1936, including Norman Cordon
and George Rasely.
Philadelphia's current problems fall generally under two headings: space
and money. Mrs. George Haly, the Metropolitan's Philadelphia representa-
tive since 1949, keeps track of old subscribers and tries to find room for new
ones. The opera's ballooning budget in 1957 precipitated a rise in seat prices
of $i each, which brings a parquet subscription to $60 for six performances.
Henry P. Mcllhenny, chairman of the Philadelphia committee., conducted a
drive for $15,000, in which subscribers were asked for extra donations from
$25 down to $5 for each ticket.
Tradition is even more important than money to Philadelphia, however.
And the Metropolitan means tradition, as well as enjoyment of the kind the
city particularly relishes. Philadelphia hopes never to lose its status as the
Metropolitan's Good Neighbor.
3. SOUTHERN COMFORT
Like her Metropolitan Opera guests of many Aprils, Atlanta is a prima
donna herself, one of her analytical sons admitted recently. This accounts for
the striking affinity between Atlanta and Geraldine Farrar and also for
their quarrel. "It was the dramatic temperament of both of them," elaborated
the Journal's Frank Daniel. "Scarlet O'Hara did not accidentally emanate
from this city."
"Atlanta wants to be a lady and have fun on the side, too," says Ernest
Rogers, author of Peachtree Parade, after thirty-five years on the Journal.
Her dual nature helps Atlanta to show "more friendly warmth" than most
northern cities and more "get-up-and-go" than most southern ones.
This happy blend has wrought a perfect atmosphere for grand opera.
Atlanta has played host to the Metropolitan Opera for thirty-three seasons
with a grace and largesse that can be only termed regal.
144 OPERA CARAVAN
Everything about opera week comes In large sizes and must be described
in superlatives. In a "week" of four days is crowded a lifetime of enjoyment.
The houses are sold out long in advance (the new Fox Theatre inheriting this
euphoric condition in 1947 from the older, larger Auditorium). In elegance
the audience bows only to the Metropolitan itself on opening night and
shows more homogeneity from box to balcony.
Two newspapers (formerly three) devote so much space to opera that
when the news and feature stories, society columns, advance analyses, re-
views, photographs, editorials, interviews, cartoons and versified satires are
clipped, only lacy shreds remain.
As for the parties Atlanta's famous parties. . . . Other cities may com-
pete in the gaiety or elaborateness of a single function, but Atlanta's parties
begin when the first opera curtain falls and (almost literally) end each day
barely in time to change 'from evening to daytime apparel or vice versa.
Francis Robinson, favorite ambassador from the Metropolitan to Atlanta's
court, quoted Rudolf Bing as moaning, on his visit as general manager:
"Work has stopped; sleep has stopped."
The lavishness of yesterday established the tradition for Atlanta's unparal-
leled hospitality. Still, no hostess today attempts to rival Mrs. John W. Grant,
who frequently entertained Bori, or Mrs. John Edgar Murphy, who practi-
cally adopted Geraldine Farrar, according to the Murphys' daughter, Mrs.
James B. Riley. A lunch table in the Murphy house at Peachtree and Four-
teenth Streets might glisten with silver baskets filled with little cakes whose
pink icing showed songbirds and the initials "G. F."; or twinkle with a
huge bunch of electrically lighted green grapes. On one occasion a hundred
canary birds sang throughout the house in sweet competition with an
orchestra on the porch.
The Atlanta Opera Guild, founded in 1949 through the inspiration of
Lucrezia Bori and the efforts of Mrs. Harold N. Cooledge, has become the
official luncheon hostess to more than 450 guests in the Biltmore nowadays,
with ceremonies including music by young singers of the company. Mrs.
Edward Van Winkle, Mrs. Green Warren and Mrs. Erroll Hay have served
the Guild successively as president.
An elder generation regrets the abandonment of the old-fashioned barbecue
at the Druid Hills Golf Club, where Atlanta remembers Edward Ziegler,
assistant general manager, drinking Bruderschaft with the beloved baritone
Giuseppe de Luca in Seidels of foaming brew . . . Jackson P. Dick, son-in-
law of a former president and himself now president of the Festival Associa-
tion, politely sharing a plate of spareribs with Grace Moore . . . Chaliapin
leading an impromptu band of clowning confreres while Louise Hunter,
named "Atlanta's Sweetheart" when she sang later in light opera, danced
an expert Charleston.
The fine careless rapture that inspired Lucrezia Bori to sing "Clavelitos"
while stamping her tiny feet in delicate precision on the supper table and
throwing carnations at the gentlemen has not evaporated. Revelers of recent
days have been known to escort Eleanor Steber to the train clinking their
champagne glasses in perpetual motion as they toasted her glowing beauty.
BOSTON, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1883.
BOSTON TIEITRE
EUGENE TOMPKINS
MR. HEWHT E. ABBEY'S
Grand Italian Opera Company
FROM THE
METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE, NEW YORK.
ACTING MANAGER MB. MAURICE GRAU
G-OITNOD'S OPKRA,
FAUST SIR. ITALO CAMPANINI
MEPHISTOPHELES V-.'A.SJfc,
. FRANCO NOVARA
Sig. OIUaEPPE DEL 1'UENTE
VALENTINO .
WAGNER. . . .
M I IRT^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^"Mm^E:AmTc^
\MD
$1 C .
Mme. SOFIA
MARGHKR1TA .
. CHRISTINE NILSSON
Musical Director and Conductor Sig. VIAKESI
~^The Cottumei r* entirely new, and wore manufactured at Venice by D.
ASCOLI, under tho iuperTliion of Mr. HENRY DAZIAN.
FOR m
ENGLISH
SMOKING
GOWNS,
JACKETS,
HOUSE
Henry Eugene Abbey,
"a gambler in stars"
Walery, London
, MM. CORANI
.Mr. CHARLES H.
Bu*Ine. Manager Mr. MARCUi
THURSDAY . '. " LUCIA DI
.FRH>AY~T "".~~~ 7~~~. ". ! . . ILTRO 1
SATURDAY MATINEE
SATURDAY EVENING .
SUNDAY NIGHT
. GRAND CONCERT POPULA
ARY 3 . - . * ELKS* ANNUAL B|
iThe PUnM used auht "Thtw ari from the Mtobraud manufeetow of CHICKEI
The Cabinet Organi re from the mnufcturtr, MASON & HAML1
IN THE FROI
DOORS OPEN AT 1.30 and 7.15 BEGINS AT
Rare Book Division, Boston Public Library
Opera Caravan's first port of call
Christine Niisson, Abbey's touring
queen. ". . . lese majeste in Boston"
Italo Campanini, tenor.
". . . the couch tipped"
Music Division N, Y. Public Library
Giuseppe del Puentc, "curly-haired and
handsome Spaniard, a true Escamillo"
Left: Sofia Scalchi, "idol in tights. 1 '
". . . a peculiar assortment ol: voices"
Cowiesy Musical Courier
IC9GO
T^OUSE
I Commencing Monday Evening, .\
d ra
ITH THE FULL STRENGTH OF THE
METROPOLITAN OPERA .-'
TUESDAY EVENING, APRIL 23, "CM.^
E WALKU$
Music Drama, in 3 Acts, bv Richard Wagner.
Falk
Walter Damrosch
Schaanvachter, Berlin
...Louise Meislij,., '!!>"
Frl. Kaschoska*""
Folk
Edmund C. Stanton
Max Alvary, "tall,
handsome, gallant"
a fine Tannhauser
Dupont
Falk
Victor Maurel as Don Giovanni "so the
libertine is revealed wicked, alluring"
Mapleson Collection
Lilli Lehmann as The Queen of Sheba;
"womanlike, she had nothing to say"
Right: Edouard.de Reszke ". . . never
-orders pints." Fritzi Scheff at right
Co., London
Mapleson Collection
Jean de Reszke, "pleasant, slightly balding
gentleman, gentle in love, fierce in fight"
Maurice Grau (left) "a fool or
a madman will take up after me"
Emma Caive "instrument
blown by passion's lips"
Dupont, Courtesy Musical America
Emma Eames as Marguerite
"always an odor of violets"
Nellie Melba, "a new goddess,
never seen hatless offstage"
Paris
Hoffert, Berlin
Lillian Nordica and Turk,
both welcome at the hotel
Francesco Tamagno, clarion-voiced tenor,
"turns a good-natured face to the world"
Adelina Patti and entourage in the Diva's private car "provincial eyes opened"
0, L A.
Andreas Dippel, "old standby." Right, Ernestine Schumann-Heink
Mapleson Collection
Mapleson Collection
Mapleson Lollectiou
Marcella Sembrich (right) and Suzanne Adams Debonair Pol Plancon "an era ended"
Grau's barnstormers stop for a breath of desert air during the first
tour to the Pacific Coast ever made by a Metropolitan Opera company
Frueh; Sf. Louis Post-Dispatch
Ira G lac kens Collection
Above: Conried and Savage meet in St.
Louis for one of their road skirmishes
Left: Mathilde Bauermeister, peerless
comprimaria "no ambitions, no escorts"
Below: George W. Wilson of Pittsburgh
his millionaires lost to Conried's
San Francisco Examiner
Sketches by Caruso. Left: Alfred Hertz.
Below: the tenor fleeing the earthquake
London Sketch; Courtesy Musical America
San Francisco refugees arrive in Chicago. Present: Nahan Franko, Edyth Walker,
Robert Blass, Marcella Sembrich, Bella Alten, Ernest Goerlitz, Enrico Caruso
Courtesy Tompkins' "History of the Boston Theatre'' 1
It all began here the famous Boston Theatre
Briol; Courtesy Musical America
Cincinnati's Music Hall today
Title Inmrance & Trust Co., L. A.
The old Hazards Pavilion, Los Angeles
Courtesy Chicago Historical Society
The Chicago Auditorium on opening night
Philadelphia Academy of Music
McClvre; Denver Public Library Western Collection
Denver's ornate Broadway Theatre
GATTI'S QUARTER CENTURY 145
Where Beniamino Gigli once offered "Home on the Range" at the Pied-
mont Driving Club, Jerome Mines rises to his handsome six-foot-four and
booms out "OP Man River" to the satisfaction of Atlantans of 1955. Once
Gadski sang "Coon Songs" with a band; now Mildred Miller holds the
Capital Club crowd spellbound with nostalgic Viennese melodies.
In the late 'twenties the new bass sensation, Ezio Pinza, shocked a society
audience by singing naughty verses to "The Parade of the Wooden Soldiers,"
written by sports writer O. B. Keeler, an opera fan in spite of himself.
A glory of the past are the masquerade balls at the Atlanta Biltmore Hotel
where Georgians loved to meet their operatic heroes and heroines on equal
ground, with the assistance of the Metropolitan's make-up and costume de-
partments. Henry M. Atkinson, president of the Atlanta Festival Association
at the time, especially fancied his disguise one season as Mephistopheles. Even
Otto H. Kahn, who enjoyed his visits to Atlanta, advising everybody to "Buy
South best tip on the market," once donned powdered wig, doublet and
hose.
The same flair for organization that prompted Gatti-Casazza to compli-
ment Atlanta on "the only method by which grand opera can ever be made
a success outside of New York" has always been applied to extra-curricular
affairs as well. Today it is even decided who is to ride in whose car to the
climactic supper party at the Piedmont Driving Club. Experts of the present
are the indefatigable Junior League women, who spent 8,957 hours of volun-
teer work in the typical season of 1955 on ticket sales, promotion, publicity
and the sale of advertising for the elaborate programs. Their annual reward
is several thousand dollars for charity, plus the satisfaction of making work
out of play. Nancy McLarty, their public relations wizard, remains a lode-
stone in the shifting patterns of new committees each year.
Even the weather man produces his best samples for opera week "he
would be lynched if he didn't help the beauty, wealth and chivalry of the
South to a week of Caruso and Culture," a New York newspaper predicted
in advance of Atlanta's first opera festival. The brilliance of the sun and the
sudden release from New York makes the singers "play outdoors like happy
children," reports the Atlanta Journal. Only a few cold snaps, the latest in
1955, have leadened skies "as lovely as the dreams of Cavaradossi," in the
words of Mabelle Wall, one of a long line of Georgian newspaperwomen. To
see Atlanta without its mantle of dogwood and azalea is to miss the usual
radiance of opera week.
Atlanta reckons "opera" (its unadorned terrrrfor the Metropolitan panoply,
equated with Boston's "symphony") from 1910, preferring to ignore Grau's
three-day visit in 1901 and Conried's 1905 Parsifal. One is tempted to con-
cede the point except for purposes of historical record. The Atlanta Festival
Association of 1910 brought a new concept into being. Guarantees had oc-
casionally been obtained by the traveling company in years past; but the idea
of supplanting local management by a citizens' committee did not take firm
hold until Atlanta showed the way.
Many observers give Farrar credit for the entire sequence of events. As
one of several soloists for the May Festival that dedicated Atlanta's new Audi-
146 OPERA CARAVAN
torium in 1909, La Geraldine knew that the committee had yearned for
Caruso as well, resigning themselves to Zenatello when the greater tenor
fell ill
"Why don't you bring the opera with Caruso next year?" the soprano
is supposed to have suggested graciously. Victor Lamar Smith, a prepossess-
ing lawyer who was chairman of the festival committee, consulted a director
of the Auditorium building committee, "Colonel" William Lawson Peel,
spruce president of the American National Bank.
Smith made an exploratory trip to New York. Fortunately for the new
aspirant to Metropolitan favors, Kahn was in Europe he declared later
that he would have dismissed the project as "crazy" and Smith's chief
transactions were with the travel-minded Dippel.
The Metropolitan demanded $50,000 for five performances. Atlanta topped
the sum by $1,000 in little more than twenty-four hours with the help of the
three newspapers.
Directors of the Music Festival Association, of which Colonel Peel was
made president and Smith secretary, not only bought their own seats and
boxes, but "toiled like beavers," said Smith. C. B. Bidwell, the young and
eager treasurer, wore out his eyes behind their rimless glasses with night
work.
The committee spent $20,000 to raise the Auditorium stage roof. The
Metropolitan donated the red velvet curtain recently replaced by gold
damask.
Until the once-disappointed town assured itself that Caruso was really
coming, ticket sales lagged. One director left town in order not to face the
debacle. But after the tenor appeared in the flesh, $20,000 worth of tickets
were sold in one day; the festival went over the top. Caruso's debut audi-
ence of 7,042 was claimed as a record even for him. Hirsch flatteringly de-
clared that the Metropolitan had never sung to so many people (27,042) or
such an amount of money ($71,030.50) in one week.
The jubilant Association cleared about $10,000, which was applied to the
purchase of a new $50,000 organ for the Auditorium. Atlanta thrilled to the
presence of Caruso, Farrar, Gadski, Homer, Scotti and Amato. The Journal
had secured a scoop by sending W. B. Seabrook to Chicago so that he could
ride back on the opera train. The writer reported that Caruso had been the
victim of a practical joke through a newspaper story claiming he wanted to
adopt a son. Thousands of ragamuffins showed up and pestered the unfor-
tunate tenor, who was having enough trouble already with a Black Hand
threat.
Farrar and Caruso both sang for the inmates of the Federal Penitentiary,
inspiring columns of "sob stories"; Caruso clapped Farrar *s picture hat on
his head at the automobile race track while the soprano swathed herself in
twelve yards of veiling to take a scorching ride with Ralph de Palma (who
later won a race in his Fiat 60) .
Thus Atlanta placed itself in thrall to opera almost overnight. Never was
she to become wholly immune to the alluring siren, for although the song
faded twice from her ears, it always returned, more compelling than before.
OATH'S QUARTER CENTURY 147
Farrar reigned as undisputed queen in the early days. "Atlanta adored her
and deplored her/' Frank Daniel remembers. "All Southern girls are
supposed to be beautiful; all Yankee girls homely. Yet this gorgeous creature
came from Massachusetts a spinster to boot! glittering, incomparable, a
symbol of shining achievement. . . . Was It any wonder that Atlanta al-
ternately wooed Miss Farrar and warred against her?"
Her peek-a-boo blouse, with its tantalizing glimpses of coy bows on her
camisole caused a minor scandal at Mrs. Murphy's luncheon and a raid on
ribbon counters next day,
Farrar's first day in Atlanta typified the dichotomy of the city's earlier
make-up : part Dixie hoyden, part grande dame. With her mother she had
taken a suite in the Piedmont Hotel. Next year she stayed at the celebrated
Georgian Terrace, and in subsequent visits lived in her private railroad car.
She recently recalled her initiation into Atlanta society :
"Rather early in the morning came a rat-a-tat at the door. It was Mrs.
Peel, the colonel's wife and head of the local D.A.R., with five other ladies.
They had come to look me over."
Mrs. Peel, who carried a heavy cane and bore a remarkable resemblance
to Queen Victoria, finally spoke :
"You're the nawth'n singah."
For the moment Farrar passed off the encounter with her ready charm
and wit, and went on to an eleven o'clock luncheon that brought the lighter
side of Atlanta into focus.
"Mrs. Riccardo Martin and I thought the delicious beverage in the tall,
frosted, silver glasses was iced tea," she confessed. "Luckily it wasn't a
matinee day."
For five seasons thereafter Farrar played enchantress to Atlanta's willing
slave. Each of her roles was judged more captivating than the last, although
the audience chastised her unconventional Carmen by making a great fuss
over Alda's Micaela. Then when she withdrew from Faust the rumor cir-
culated busily that she had imbibed too freely.
"That singers drank too much was a superstition here," Daniel com-
mented. "Matter of fact, all the drinking was in the audience."
Farrar remained absent from Atlanta for five seasons after 1915. When she
returned it was to mingled triumph and defeat. The Zaza that all men, most
writers and some women thought fascinating seemed to the dowagers the
ultimate outrage. In Atlanta one can choose between a dozen conflicting
versions of what Farrar actually did on the stage that afternoon of April 27,
1920. Perpetrated at a matinee, her actions seemed the more censurable.
In the light of the difference of opinion between her defenders and de-
tractors, Farrar's own account may be enlightening. Even then she looked on
the affair as a prank. "And everything I did contributed to the character of
Zaza, the demimondaine," she said recently.
"The idea of raising the skirt and perfuming the panties with an atomizer
originated with Belasco, the playwright. As for the 'strip tease' they accused
me of, I changed clothes down to a chemise. [So quickly and expertly was
this accomplished that many could not believe they had witnessed it at all.]
148 OPERA CARAVAN
My second-act dress was designed to be tantalizing black lace over pink
chiffon." The rumor spread rapidly, later confirmed by Farrar, that the saucy
prima donna, having been told to "go the limit" by several Festival directors,
sent notes to her friends suggesting that they sit on one side of the stage in
order not to miss the undress show. The rush to left side, front row seats was
noticeable.
Farrar was not invited to return by the Festival Association, but after her
retirement from opera in 1922, she was engaged to give a concert in Wesley
Memorial Church. Atlanta had not forgotten; the church was closed to her.
Farrar gave the concert in the Auditorium, which was jammed.
The prima donna returned Atlanta's love but shrugged off its denunciation.
Atlanta still suspects ruefully that it got the worst of the argument.
Other prima donnas took their turns in Atlanta's hierarchy, none more
cherished than Lucrezia Bori. After twenty-two curtain calls at her debut as
Antonia in Les Contes d f Hoffmann in 1912, Bori occupied her special place
in Atlanta's heart and scrapbooks. The photographs still look chic, even in
the awkward fashions of a bygone period. Cloche hats could not dim her
beauty; nor knee-length waistlines conceal her supple figure.
It tickled Atlanta's pride to bring together two of its idols, Bori and Bobby
Jones. The golf champion, at the height of his fame, found numerous ad-
mirers among the opera folk, particularly Otto Kahn and Earle R. Lewis,
whose partiality for the Atlanta links was one factor in his moving there to
live after he retired as assistant general manager.
One day, by Bori's account, she watched Kahn and Jones drive, fascinated
at her first sight of the game. Jones handed her a club and teed up a ball
for her.
"I evidently understood everything he told me to do," she said, "because
when I swung at the ball, off it went into the air, to my great delight, with-
out chopping the green. From that moment I became a golf fan and great
admirer of Bobby Jones and I think he admired me, too!"
When Bori returned to assist in the foundation of the Opera Guild, O. B.
Keeler expressed Adanta's sentiments: "That darling Lucrezia the peren-
nial jeune fille of opera!"
The last year of the First World War brought an unhappy hiatus in the
Metropolitan's southern journeys, but in 1919 the break was mended. At-
lanta's appetite for great singing, whetted by the deprivation, found satis-
faction in the new prima donna, Rosa Ponselle. Two years previously she had
appeared with her sister, Carmela, billed as the Ponzillo Sisters, in Adanta's
Forsyth Theatre and "not a bit ashamed of it," as she declared in an inter-
view. The tall, vivacious soprano immediately won her way into Atlanta's
graces by her performance in Forza del Destino and went on to become
"dangerously near the greatest of all" Atlanta was desolated when she ar-
rived in 1925 too ill (from a vaccination in Canada) to sing; but cheered
her valiant spirit when she roused herself to add a Cavalleria to the scheduled
Tosca on Saturday night. The Auditorium capacity had been reduced to
5,439 seats, and every one was occupied.
Atlanta, in common with the rest of the opera world, has succumbed regii-
GATTI'S QUARTER CENTURY 149
larly to "coloratura fever," shouting its approval of Barrientos, Galli-Curci,
Talley, Munsel, Pons and Peters. But even with a predilection for "glamor
girls" Atlanta slights no one.
No singer ever left Atlanta without experiencing her distinctive brand o
allegiance and esteem.
No tenor has ever quite erased Caruso as memory or legend. Periodically
some newspaper will recall that he rewarded a young clarinet player with
an expensive watch for doubling the voice part softly in Celeste Aida so
that he could keep on pitch at his debut; that he broke into song on the street
one day in an attempt to soothe a screaming child, collecting a crowd while
the child screamed louder than ever.
His multi-colored haberdashery and long cigarette holder are not for-
gotten; the sight of him waving in purple pajamas to friends in the street
from a window in his top-story suite (he always reserved the entire floor) ;
his wide grin as he drove through the town in an open car; his capers and
jokes and infinite good nature; his companion with the unpronounceable
name of Scognamillo.
Dozens of Caruso cartoons occupy places of honor in Atlanta shrines,
among them a charming series in the Peels' guest book, now in the possession
of Dr. William H. Kiser, Jr., a grand-nephew.
The "fullest moment" that Adanta knew was when Caruso's voice rang
out over a thunderous accompaniment in the National Anthem's closing line
"the land of the free" signalizing America's entry into the war.
Dapper Antonio Scotti eclipsed Douglas Fairbanks and John Drew in
feminine Atlanta's affections from the start. A tailor rushed to the door as
the baritone walked by, gazed at the tight coat, the square shoulders, the
ultra-correct trousers. Then he went back and changed a few entries on his
customer's order blank.
O. B. Keeler admired the baritone extravagantly for his strong constitu-
tion, which withstood early morning setting-up exercises "with a tall bottle,
siphon, glasses and ice."
Annual rumors of Scotti's impending marriage to Farrar delighted the
sentimental; annual denials raised others' hopes. But Scotti "was not made
for marriage," concluded Miss Farrar herself. Scotti left Atlanta, as he left
his life, a bachelor.
"Big Charlie" Chaliapin, as reporters dubbed the convivial bass, roared
through four seasons, with a single role each year. "Who is this giant, this
colossus? . . . who is the man with such divine powers? Who is this actor?"
demanded Pierre van Paassen, the Unitarian minister who later became a
best-selling author, and meanwhile turned out music criticism with more
warmth than accuracy. Of Marion Telva's "heavenly tenor" (sic) in the
Polish scene of Boris he wrdte that it climbed "with passionate fervor as the
embrace takes place."
Chaliapin attended all the formal parties but he preferred to forswear So-
ciety with a capital letter in favor of an intimate evening with a few cronies,
sampling "the wine of the country," according to Dudley Glass, who added
liveliness to each of Atlanta's three newspapers during a long career.
150 OPERA CARAVAN
"Georgia's prohibition-era moonshine was strong enough to take the enamel
off your teeth/ 1 Glass remembered, "but Chaliapin thought it resembled his
native vodka. Of course, when Billy Guard was around we had to drink his
grappa"
William J. Guard, the press representative who fitted the popular concep-
tion of an artist, with long, thin locks, straggling string tie to match and a
broad-brimmed black hat, had been Gatti's prize legacy from Hammerstein.
Until his death in 1932 he carried out his duties with the urbane charm of an
Irishman, the doggedness of a prospector for gold and the resourcefulness of
an ace newspaper man all of which he had been.
Giovanni Martinelli, Beniamino Gigli and Giacorno Lauri-Volpi in turn
nobly lived up to Atlanta's requirements for the "ideal" tenor; Edward
Johnson's fine art and winning personality made an early impression. The
town showed its warm interest in the rising young baritone, Lawrence Tib-
bett, who sang his first Telramund there.
The distaff members of the daily press took an important place: Nana
Tucker wrote long descriptions of opera plots. Louise Dooly, Louise Barili
(a grand-niece of Patti), Helen Knox Spain, Mabelle Wall and Marguerite
Bartholomew added moonlight, roses and commonsense.
Keeler was not the only sports expert drafted to referee in the opera arena.
The great Fuzzy Woodruff of the Constitution complained that an opera
jag had demoralized his entire staff. His headline, "Boheme K. O.'s Fans"
made opera and boxing history.
Glass added to the merriment with his versified Operas in Jazz in the
Georgian. Ernest Rogers adopted the formula for a series in the Journal.
In a survey for the W. P. A. Writers' Project, Eldin Burton complained that
"there was never any serious attempt at discriminating criticism ... in this
(1910) or any other season." But Atlantans and their visitors loved it.
Financial skies remained clear until 1922, when the guarantors were called
on for the first time. The deficit amounted to $24,000 only, according to
C. Howard Candler, who became treasurer in 1923, and the assessment
only twenty-five percent, but the warning sign was patent. Candler watched
anxiously through the next few seasons. Among the five children of Asa
Candler, founder of the Coca-Cola fortune, he had always showed the
deepest interest in the Festival.
The greatest ticket sale in Atlanta history occurred in 1926, Candler stated,
with receipts of $130,000 for seven operas. Colonel Peel died in 1927; his last
act: signing the current Metropolitan contract. Atkinson took over for two
gay but unprofitable seasons. Then, in 1930, with a reluctance that only half
masked her relief, Atlanta relinquished part of her week to Richmond.
Cotton had slumped; the guarantors thought it the better part of prudence
to do without opera for a while.
The "while" stretched into a decade. Then Atlanta's mixture of shrewd-
ness and charm revealed itself in an individual. One of the city's most beauti-
ful women signed a Metropolitan contract alone. Both she and Atlanta de-
serve credit for the outcome of her daring.
Mrs. Harold N. Cooledge, as president of the Atlanta Music Club, believed
GATTI'S QUARTER CENTURY 151
the restoration of the Metropolitan season would be a fitting climax to the
club's Silver Jubilee season. The business men shied away at first, but this
determined lady approached them without asking for money. One by one
agreed on a broad and general basis that, yes, it might be fine to have the
Metropolitan. Yes, they would help. . . .
For professional aid Mrs, Cooledge enlisted Marvin McDonald, originator
of several famous concert series in the South. McDonald went to New York,
to be received with "keen pleasure" by Edward Johnson, who had been the
Metropolitan general manager since 1935.
When the contract arrived in Atlanta, Harold Cooledge was in a hospital,
too ill to be consulted. His intrepid wife put her signature to a $40,500 obli-
gation without knowing how she was to meet it. When Cooledge recovered,
he sighed philosophically: "There goes my paint factory."
He need not have worried. Three performances brought in approximately
$52,000. For two years subsequently the beautiful lady, by now staunchly
backed by many former directors of the old Association, won complete
vindication.
Another lapse, marking four war years, did not cool the newly awakened
comradeship between the Metropolitan and its southern hostess. In 1947 the
Association was resumed with Jackson P. Dick as president and an affilia-
tion with the Junior League accomplished by its president, Mrs. James
Frazier.
Atlanta's latest smiling decade has twice been ruffled. In 1948 "one of the
best-dressed audiences came within a hook-and-eye of witnessing one of the
worst-dressed Carmens ever seen on any stage," Celestine Sibley reported in
the Constitution. "A flood, several railroad washouts and a pair of bushy eye-
brows were to blame," according to her colleague, Ho well Jones,
The eyebrows belonged to John L. Lewis, whose union had called a coal
strike reducing travel to a trickle. The Metropolitan's cars had to be hitched
to regular trains, The Peach Queen and the Piedmont. Both ran into trouble,
delaying the company's arrival. Rise Stevens and Kurt Baum improvised
costumes with scarves, and the experienced Licia Albanese, substituting for
Claudia Pinza, sang in a black street dress.
The other disturbance was serious. In 1949 John Garris, a gifted Ger-
man character tenor, was found murdered in an alley after the company had
departed for Memphis. The stunning shock to the personnel was intensified
by the presence of an Atlanta police lieutenant who followed the company to
Memphis, Dallas and Los Angeles. Under the extreme nervous tension, the
singers earned the right to be called good troupers, performing without a
hitch.
From recent guarded statements by another member of the Atlanta police,
one can infer a belief in the guilt of an early suspect, a vagrant. But the trail
grew cold long ago. The case remains on the books as "unsolved."
The sense of sorrow and strain lessened with time. By the next season,
tragedy had returned where it belongs in an opera company : on the stage.
Atlanta continues to combine business and beauty in true southern style;
and lier men and women alike treasure opera week as pure enchantment. The
152 OPERA CARAVAN
city today could not duplicate the experience o Mayor Robert Maddox, a
Festival supporter who inadvertently arrived late one night at the Audi-
torium. The doorman refused him admittance with this explanation:
"Mistah Mayah, suh, if I was to open them big doors right now, 4,000
husbands would come a-runnin' out!"
4. ITALIANI IN PARIGI
The Parisian public was agog; gossip darted like a swallow and twittered
like a starling along the boulevards. "L'Opera Itdien" was arriving for a
season at the Theatre du Chatelet. As the chief delight one could hear
M. Caruso in three new roles while the exquisite Cavalieri would appear with
him in M. Puccini's version of Manon Lescaut, never before given in the
French capital because of a delicate deference to M. Massenet.
"Audacieux!" cried the conservative inhabitants of le monde thedtral when
informed by the sanguine M. Gabriel Astruc, Parisian representative of the
New York Metropolitan Opera, that M. Gatti-Casazza would attempt full-
scale grand opera in the outmoded Chatelet in May, 1910.
"Epatant!" exclaimed the arbiters of fashion, to whom the exotic had be-
come almost a passion Shakespeare and the fine arts of English domestic
life, Russian ballet, American devices for comfort and convenience and even
German music. Just figure to yourself: had not the three Puccini works in
the repertory of the Opera-Comique necessitated the engagement of an
Italian conductor?
From other quarters came less admiring expressions. Resentful whispers
began to be heard from certain local ateliers and editorial rooms: dis-
gruntled singers muttered about "le snobisme"; while a few chauvinistic com-
posers (who also happened to be critics) sharpened their vocabularies and
waited for the chance to prove that Italian opera and "Italian" singers fell
woefully short of French standards!
Otto Kahn had decided in favor of the Paris expedition without much
urging from Gatti. Both were convinced by Astruc that the venture was
feasible, might be profitable, and certainly would add to the prestige of the
Metropolitan. Putting behind him all thoughts of the disastrous double tour,
which, after all, had ended on a crescendo in Atlanta, and dismissing the
money paid to Hammerstein as well spent, the godfather of the Metropolitan
sent a chosen flock of songbirds off on the S. S. George Washington and the
Kaiser Wilhelm II to Cherbourg.
The grand opera stars "burst upon Paris in a constellation of such magni-
tude and brilliance that Parisians forgot all about Halley's comet," a reporter
cabled the New Yor^ World. With so much beauty at hand, customs offi-
cials "lost their heads and nearly forgot to make the visitors go through the
GATTI'S QUARTER CENTURY 153
usual formalities." A ballet corps and the Metropolitan's chorus swelled the
invading troupe to more than 200.
Gatti's original plan encompassed fifteen performances: three each of
Aida, Cavalier ia Rusticana and Pagliacci, Otello, Falstaff and Man on Lescaut.
An overwhelming demand for Caruso nights soon threatened to leave Otello
and Falstaff without audiences; Astruc kept the balance by a "tie-in" re-
quirement that stated in effect: "No elder Verdi, no Caruso." At last it be-
came apparent that the haut monde could not be contained in one first night.
Astruc persuaded Gatti to anticipate his official opening on May 21 by a
public "dress rehearsal" on May 19.
Only two days remained between the departure from the Chatelet of a
company playing a melodrama entitled The Man with Two Heads and the
first Aida curtain.
This put it squarely up to the backstage experts: Edward Seidle, technical
director, and Frederick Hosli, chief machinist. At their first glimpse of the
Chatelet, "homely without as well as within," they agreed with other un-
charitable Americans that it reminded them of nothing so much as a
dilapidated old barn. "Why, it dates from one of the Napoleons!" Seidle told
a New York interviewer.
Heroically they set to work. Local stage hands had to be persuaded verbally
and financially to stir themselves out of a firmly-rooted lethargy; masses of
antiquated scenery were pushed into corners to make room somehow for
the heavily-built New York mountings; ground cloths, too long for French
railroad cars and consequently towed to Paris from Le Havre on special
canal barges, covered the wide, splintery boards that showed cracks big
enough to catch a prima donna's heel.
Thanks to the depth of the stage and the miracles performed by a com-
bined American-French-Italian staff, Parisians saw Aida much as it had been
shown in New York. A hundred small hitches plagued the dress rehearsal,
but nobody seemed to care except the technicians.
Impressive as were the lavish settings, rich costumes, remarkable chorus
effects (which Paris did not expect), and fine individual singing (which
it did) , the glory of the preview lay elsewhere. In the pit the imperious Arturo
Toscanini revealed to Paris what magic could be wrought even with a
strange orchestra. And in the theatre, an audience such as Paris had not seen
for two generations preened itself in an " eblouissement de toilettes et de
diamants"
Even the famous audiences in the Ventadour, elegant theatre of the Sec-
ond Empire, could not compare, admitted Raoul Brevannes in Figaro. Nor
could those boasted by Stendhal at La Scala.
"What a hall! What a public! What cascades of precious stones! What
beauties! What charms! What names, en fin!"
The deeply impressed reporter proceeded to list a hundred or so of these
names "at random," beginning with nobility in the persons of la duchesse
d'Uzes nee Montemart and S. A. (Her Highness) la princesse Lucien Murat,
proceeding to M. Lepine, prefet de police, M. and Mme. Jean de Reszke,
154 OPERA CARAVAN
M. Gabriel d'Annunzio, and ending with a score of singers, among them
Farrar, who was singing at the Opera-Cornique.
Minister Briand represented the French government; diplomats attended
in force, with Ambassador Bacon heading the American corps. Mrs. Wil-
liam K. Vanderbilt presided in her box (she would attend every perform-
ance); E. T. Stotesbury came from Philadelphia; Mrs. Potter Palmer (who
scorned diamonds in favor of giant turquoises), came from Chicago.
Two nights later the official opening scintillated no less brightly, boasting
an equal number of exalted personages and a smoother performance. The
famous "flower basket," as the two tiers of boxes in the first balcony were
called, coruscated with an array of feminine pulchritude and adornment.
Cartier was said to have estimated the jewels to be worth $3,000,000; the
Countess Colloredo-Mansfeld took honors for the finest collection of pearls,
and Dona Catalina Lassa de Baro of Havana displayed the most resplendent
diamonds.
Underlying the festive atmosphere, tension plucked at the nerves of per-
formers and observers alike. For several days a cabal against "The Italians"
had been building. (The Metropolitan's own name was never used by the
French papers.) French opera singers pointedly stayed away from a cham-
pagne party given by Astruc, although the composers Dukas, De Lara, Hahn,
Charpentier and Saint-Saens attended. For several days certain journals
voiced a local spite at the brilliant Metropolitan invasion.
Gil Bias had led the way with an attack on Toscanini and Gatti, evi-
dently inspired by a French singer, Marie Delna. This contralto had lost a
bitter argument with the conductor in New York, and had not been asked
to return.
The journal had made fun of Toscanini's conducting from memory;
quoted Delna to the effect that the conductor had only one friend, the
prompter; and reached its lowest level of malice on May 21, the day of the
opening, by accusing Toscanini and Gatti of angling for a Legion of Honor
decoration.
That evening a boisterous, unruly crowd pushed into the gallery, obvi-
ously bent on mischief. As Toscanini came out for the second act, the hostile
element unleashed a tumult of boos and hisses, screamed epithets and curses.
Toscanini continued calmly to conduct; his masterful arm could be seen to
sweep down in its long curved beat, but not a note could be heard over the
uproar, to which was added applause from the stalls and boxes as a counter-
measure.
On the stage, Louise Homer, the only American singer in the cast, began
her scene as Amneris. Her mouth moved; but no voice was audible. Sud-
denly a moment of quiet fell Homer's lovely tones floated out, miraculously
quelling the disturbance. Even the gallery fell silent after a few of their
ringleaders had been ejected. The coolness and gallantry of Homer and
Toscanini were acknowledged in what one newspaper termed "almost an
apotheosis."
"Honorable" journals gave the extraordinary season its due, although a
tinge of pique continued to color the reports of several malcontents, among
them Pierre Lalo. Gil Bias, however, repented to the extent of pronouncing
GATTI'S QUARTER CENTURY 155
Alda's Desdemona a triumph, and softened its opinion of her impresario-
husband.
This volte-face caused considerable amusement in knowledgeable circles.
Conclusive evidence that the shift was due to something other than con-
science is revealed in a note signed "W. J. Guard" on a Metropolitan scrap-
book page directly beneath the offending and the "reconstructed" para-
graphs. The cost of the change of heart was "exactly 2,000 francs, my own
price/' wrote Guard.
Caruso had been a hero to the Parisian public since his earlier appearances
in Rigoletto and Fedora; now Toscanini and Amato joined the tenor on his
pedestal. The baritone sang in five of the six operas; he was idolized as
Amonasro, Tonio, lago, Alfio and Lescaut. The conductor's transformation
of the hundred rather lukewarm gentlemen who constituted Paris' cele-
brated Colonne Orchestra electrified the city.
Andres de Segurola., who watched the first rehearsal, was amused at the
men's facial expressions: sneers, diffidence or professional nonchalance (;>
m'en fichisme). As the "little great Maestro" took hold with his customary
thoroughness, inspiration and discipline, the "gentlemen" straightened up
in their chairs and began to play better than they knew they could. At the
end they broke into a vociferous ovation.
From then on "they obeyed every crook of Toscanini's finger and shade of
facial expression," as one Paris music lover put it; in Fdstaff, he was "the
soul, the very terrible and moving soul, of this perfectly harmonious spec-
tacle," in the eyes of Figaro's critic.
While the public cheered Destinn and Rappold as Aida, Fremstad and
Jadlowker in Cavalleria, Slezak in Otdlo a triumph second only to Caruso's
in many opinions and Scotti in Falstaff, the composer-critics busily wrote
columns of analysis and opinion about the works themselves. Verdi's late
masterpieces provided their meat; the public preferred the verismo operas.
Both audiences and writers discovered unforeseen delights in Manon
Lescaut. Not alone for its own charms, but also for the unexpected heroine,
Puccini's opera won first place in the series. Shortly after the company ar-
rived, Cavalieri became ill it was rumored that all was not well with her
appendix but that she preferred to avoid an operation rather than scar her
beautiful skin. Gatti needed a Manon desperately.
"Where can I find what Toscanini wants now?" De Segurola quotes the
manager as asking. "He demands a talented singer, young and dainty
enough to impersonate the role so well known to Parisian audiences an
artist with an Italian voice and French looks. Where is that four-leafed
clover?"
Exactly fitting Toscanini' s description was a Spanish singer whom De
Segurola had heard as Mimi in Milan the year before. The Spanish bass
claims credit for suggesting Lucrezia Bori to Gatti, and he may well deserve
it. In any case Bori made an immediate impression.
*Une toute jeune fille" Gabriel Faur< said of her, using the phrase that
was to follow the enchanting Bori through her career and beyond it* "Her
voice is facile, fresh and charming in timbre; her acting showed no
affectation."
^56 OPERA CARAVAN
Gatti immediately invited the new prima donna to the Metropolitan, but
she was not free until 1912, when Puccini's Manon again served as her debut
role. j i i t -L-
The Paris introduction of Puccini's early opera coincided with news or his
latest work. Behind the scenes, Gatti signed a contract for the world premiere
of La Fanciulla del West.
The success of the first three performances of Manon Lescaut encouraged
the impresario to add two extras to his schedule. The impressionable public
still came in flocks. Never, agreed the scribes, had there been such a brilliant
season.
The "Italians" had asked and received more money for their performances
than any other theatre including the Opera; their prices an $8 tophad
been cheerfully paid. Gatti took in $172,892, an average of $10,500 a night,
which surprised everyone, including the Metropolitan financiers.
In addition to its artistic influence, the Metropolitan season produced two
unforeseen by-products: M. Carre of the Opera-Comique defensively raised
prices twenty-five per cent; and M. Begusseau, secretary of the Chatelet,
faced three duels from outraged citayens who were jostled by gendarmes
in the crowds outside the theatre.
In the week before they departed, artists of the Metropolitan company
joined others in a gala benefit at the Opera that set the town talking and
raised 200,000 francs for the survivors of the submarine Pluvi6se, which had
recently sunk in an accident. The audience contained an even greater num-
ber of distinguished persons than graced the Chatelet's opening night.^For
the first time in forty years a work was sung in German at the Paris Opera
the second act of Tristan und Isolde with Fremstad, Burrian, Homer,
Hinckley, Reiss and Ananian. Toscanini conducted. Farrar, Caruso, Scotti
and Alten sang the third act from Boheme; the Otello cast repeated an act;
and the final scene from Faust made a stirring conclusion.
As the company said "adieu" great plans were bruited for further inter-
national jaunts. Proposals involving an exchange with Sir Thomas Beecham
in London received serious consideration. The company hoped to storm the
seven hills of Rome and conquer another discriminating public. Such in-
ternational projects were never realized. The roster might include envoys
from practically every civilized country on earth, but the Metropolitan re-
mained on the North American continent in the forty-six years to come.
5. NEW DIMENSIONS AND OLD FRIENDS
When Maurice Grau retired as an impresario in 1903, he advocated some
reforms for grand opera astonishing from the old "star-system" magnate.
Above all, he urged that "everything should be done to make opera attrac-
tive to the multitude."
OATH'S QUARTER CENTURY 157
Of all the Metropolitan's tour cities, Cleveland may justly claim to have
filled Grau's prescription most satisfactorily. A city with a big auditorium
and big ideas, Cleveland determined to acquire a grand opera season tailored
to its own measurements.
Metropolitan performances in the Ohio metropolis have broken so many
records that a "box score" of attendance and receipts is no longer published
in the local dailies it has ceased to be news. Nor are later figures available
to challenge the $30,291 for Rigoletto with Talley in 1926, and, more re-
markable for a new work, $30,700 for Peter Ibbetson in 1931.
The task of filling Public Auditorium's 9,000 seats for a week of opera
raised Cleveland's sights even beyond the committee of guarantors that was
rapidly becoming the norm for Metropolitan hospitality. Guarantors were
indispensable, of course, but Cleveland went beyond them into its own city
government, and, moving dramatically outside of its borders, extended its
influence in a circle with a diameter of 500 miles.
In a moment of crisis in 1926, brought on by the collapse of a group that
had sponsored the Metropolitan for three seasons, William R. Hopkins, city
manager, intervened. Finding that direct municipal sponsorship would be
illegal under the city charter, Hopkins seized on the idea of using an existing
Public Auditorium Advisory Committee as a nucleus for an opera com-
mittee. The Northern Ohio Opera Association was formed under this guise.
Hopkins, a "glorious name in this story," according to Senator Robert J.
Bulkley (whose meed is no less) persisted until Otto Kahn's confidence had
been restored in Cleveland's good will and responsibility. The Metropolitan
signed a contract for five years. Then the city manager called a meeting, at
which Bulkley "talked too much and too enthusiastically" and was promptly
drafted as chairman. With Lincoln G. Dickey, manager of the Auditorium,
and Harold }. (better known as "Johnny") Miskell, a public relations and
promotion expert since become general manager, the new committee set
out to broaden the base of operations.
The intent from the very outset was to democratize the system of opera
management. Hopkins published an official appeal to the citizens of northern
Ohio for 500 additional guarantors. Experience showed, he explained, that
not more than ten per cent would be called the first year; five per cent the
second year. By the third, the enterprise should be self-sustaining.
On this basis, more than $200,000 was raised among 400 guarantors. En-
thusiasm and gate receipts remained high throughout the five-year span. "We
had a surplus in 1932, but our guarantee had expired, and depression made
us cautious," said Bulkley. "We asked the Met if they would play for what
we had in the bank. They chewed it over and finally agreed to four per-
formances. But it cost just as much to promote four as twice the number."
In 1931 Detroit had made a strong bid for the opera. To show its sense
of active partnership, the Cleveland City Council had authorized the use of
Public Auditorium without rent from 1932-36 unless any performance made
$900 profit. The newspapers looked jubilantly into the future, seeing an-
other five-year contract and rosy prospects. "Operatic industry is leading us
out of our well-known depression," crowed James H. Rogers in the Plain
Dealer. But, as Archie Bell ruefully admitted in the News, "Cleveland
J5g OPERA CARAVAN
bragged just before it fell" Reluctant to broach the subject to guarantors,
the committee decided to suspend after the 1932 season.
For the next four years the Metropolitan swung in a modest orbit that
extended no farther than Rochester to the west, Boston to the north, and
Washington to the south, adding a few performances in White Plains and
Newark, and continuing what was to be a twelve-year association with
Hartford. The company had inaugurated the luxurious Bushnell Memorial
Hall with Tosca on November 25, 1930 in a festive atmosphere compounded
of ermine, silk hats, curious bystanders and Jeritza's temperament.
The prima donna arrived with three maids and four trunks, prepared to
hang her own curtains at the dressing room windows. But Bushnell Hall had
provided pleasing draperies as well as a grand piano, a divan and vases of
snapdragons. Except for the tobacco smoke which Martinelli also deplored
the tempestuous Tosca was happy. Smoke did not bother Scotti, who
bought his own delicately scented Russian filter cigarettes and reminisced
about his previous visit to the Parsons Theatre for Faust in 1904.
In 1937 the Metropolitan returned to Cleveland, where it has been very
much at home ever since. Bulkley had no compunctions about asking for
money, this time on a perpetual basis. Guarantors signed self-renewing agree-
ments. The Northern Ohio Opera Association notifies a guarantor by No-
vember i of each year; if he has not canceled by the deadline of January i,
his pledge is automatically reinstated. Cancellations have been negligible, due
chiefly to deaths. When a guarantor dies, the committee waits a decent
interval, then invites survivors to join.
The billing, "Northern Ohio Opera Association in cooperation with the
City of Cleveland" is not an idle one, the partnership not a marriage in
name only. The city-owned Auditorium, not allowed to operate commer-
cially* makes its reasonable rentals on annual contracts.
Civic groups, schools (which benefit by low-priced midweek matinees),
industry and other cultural enterprises take a vital interest in Cleveland's
Metropolitan Week. For several years the Sherwin-Williams Paint Company,
which sponsored the Auditions of the Air, were hosts at a pre-season concert
by current and past winners. Wilfred Pelletier would conduct the Cleveland
Orchestra, and the program would be based on the year's repertory.
The absence of jealousy between the orchestra and the visiting opera is
refreshing in a competitive musical world. Thomas L. Sidlo, the opera chair-
man from 1938 until his death in 1955, was also president of the Cleveland
Orchestra Association for seventeen years.
Cleveland's "democracy" extends into a realm where it carries extra mean-
ing ticket prices. What Archie Bell called the "high-hats" still pay the toll
but "the derbies, fedoras and whoopee-caps get a bargain." Top prices
rose gradually through the years to $10, but the low has remained at $1.20.
High school students pay $1.25 no matter where they sit at the special mat-
inees. As many as 1,000 seats outside of the good sight lines are given to the
blind during the week.
Until Toronto entered the Metropolitan lists in 1952 with its i2,ooo-seat
sports arena, Cleveland had the most gigantic operatic machinery in ex-
GATTI'S QUARTER CENTURY J59
istence. Ohio still operates on a lavish scale second to none. Basically helpless
without the populous area surrounding it, Cleveland depends for fifty per
cent of the Auditorium's audiences on out-of-town patronage.
Cities within its sphere of influence may clamor for the return of the
Metropolitan, but as long as Cleveland gives its inimitable service, the opera
company ^is content. Such former Metropolitan customers as Pittsburgh,
Cincinnati, Buffalo, Toledo and Detroit have never succeeded in applying
the reentering wedge.
"They have not been able to build a tradition," Senator Bulkley gives as a
reason for the eclipse of these cities. "Cleveland is now an opera town.' "
With its customary efficiency and grasp of large projects, the association
set up box offices^in outlying communities: forty in 1955. The oddest agency
is in Canton, Ohio, where an automobile club passes out opera tickets along
with road information. Special trains, planes and buses bring the devotees
from far and near. Mrs. Flora Ward Hineline charters a plane in Toledo; her
party dresses at home and returns the same evening.
Quizzes and contests based on the opera are a Cleveland specialty in the
newspaper Unage annually surrendered to opera. Hotels and restaurants and
transportation agencies, not to mention retailers, become very busy and happy
each April.
With an amplification system that ranks with the best and the recent in-
stallation of air-conditioning, Public Auditorium shelters its huge audiences
in comfort.
Understandably Cleveland is too absorbed in Opera Present to take even
a fleeting look at Opera Past. After Grau's Lohengrin, Faust and Meister-
slngcr in 1901 at Gray's Armory, Gatti brought the company to Keith's Hip-
podrome in 1910 and 1911. The live geese trained for Farrar's Konigsfynder
in 1911 showed unusual vivacity before the performance because of the
presence of mice under the stage. (At least they made less disturbance than
the elephants once left behind by a circus.) Full dress in the audience was a
rarity. The Leader commented loftily: "We do not wish to encourage that
sort of thing."
At the beginning of the 'twenties a Cleveland real estate broker who had
once sung in the Metropolitan chorus ardently desired to bring the opera to
his home town. Philip Miner met only denial from Kahn and Ziegler until
Public Auditorium became a reality in 1923. Then the Metropolitan signed
for seven performances the first year, ten each the second and third. Kahn
made a dedicatory speech at the opening in 1923, complimenting cities "with
clean operatic slates and unsophisticated audiences for taking the leadership."
By the end of 1926 it was apparent that Miner, the short redhead with the
tall ambitions, had built on shaky foundations, which fell away from under
others' feet as well as his own. It required frantic effort to shore up the
structure.
The machinery runs smoothly now, but no one is inclined to take the
Metropolitan for granted. Emergencies may lie just around the corner.
Sidlo's death threw the committee into a quandary until Vernon Stouffer,
head of the chain of restaurants and a member of the Metropolitan's National
160 OPERA CARAVAN
Council, was elected to fill the post. The 1955 season, unaccountably shy at
the box office, used up much of the reserve fund. Fortunately, 1956 proved
a good vintage year for Cleveland's opera wine.
Top stars one to an opera, preferably two and favorite operas spell bliss
for Cleveland, Senator Bulkley still maintains. Departure from either abso-
lute threatens the box office. When 8,000 people agreed with the Plain Dealer's
Herbert Elwell that "nothing short of an iron will could resist Jepson's radi-
ance of personal charm as Thais" and that "Flagstad is a miracle," all was
well. Arthur Shepherd continued the joyous paean in the Press when Pons
sang with the "God-given, blithesome ease of a bird in the first flush of
spring," and when a "non-Wagnerian star like Stevens came along, with a
38" bust, a 27" waist and 38" hips, a gay smile and mischief in her eyes."
Cleveland takes a chance now and then on a "novelty," perhaps remember-
ing the pleasant fate of Peter Ibbetson* To date ("knock on wood," adjures
Johnny Miskell) no scheduled opera has been changed, although the normal
number of replacements among singers occur. The psychology of substitu-
tions works well, particularly for an unknown, Senator Bulkley believes. The
public is usually sympathetic; the newcomer gives his best. Swarthout's last-
minute assumption of the role of Adalgisa in Norma in 1931 without re-
hearsal Is still cited as a Cleveland highlight.
The substitution of one well-known star for another creates problems
among their respective fans. John Brownlee, called on to sing Germont for
Baritone X in a matinee Traviata, found cabs scarce and gladly accepted a
ride to the Auditorium with two girls. The two had come from Buffalo to
hear X, they informed him. They raved about X. Finally Brownlee informed
them that he was sorry they wouldn't hear X. They were desolated to learn
that a substitute would take their idol's place. "Who would dare try?" one
wailed as they drew up to the Auditorium stage door.
"I would," said Brownlee, politely assisting them from the cab.
The story goes that the two startled girls sent a new favorite a bunch of
flowers after the performance.
No official parties command the presence of staff and stars nowadays the
Opera Balls of the past have been abandoned in favor of intimate luncheons
and suppers. Senator Bulkley gave an announcement party for Marion Telva
when the contralto became engaged to Elmer R. Jones in 1928. The warm
friendliness, the red carpets, the flowers, the large gestures and small atten-
tions Cleveland bestows on the visiting opera troupe make it one of the most
pleasant stopovers.
On the way home from Cleveland in 1923 the Metropolitan paused to
renew acquaintance with a city it had not seen for more than twenty years.
A personal invitation had been extended by Rochester's leading philanthro-
pist, George Eastman, who had made "Kodak" a word accepted by Webster,
and had heightened his own and Rochester's fame by building a music school
and theatre.
Eastman wanted the Metropolitan in his handsome theatre, and he was
willing to pay the bills. This strange, shy man made friends cautiously and
never married He hired a string quartet for Sunday evenings and a full-time
GATTI'S QUARTER CENTURY 161
organist to play to him at breakfast every morning at 7 130 on the pipe organ
installed in his residence. Employing the Metropolitan was much the same
kind of gesture except that 3,000 people could enjoy it with him, instead of
the select few at his Sunday evenings, over which presided as hostesses a
succession of society leaders.
The cost of the Metropolitan's two-day visits in 1923 stunned the populace
although there were no deficits to pay. "The expense of one performance
would maintain the average high class attraction for more than a week,"
marveled the Democrat-Chronicle. A. J. Warner, arbiter of musical taste for
many years from the columns of this paper as well as the Times-Union,
honored his city for assuming "a cosmopolitan and metropolitan aspect that
must have caused many a citizen to wonder if he were really awake."
Eastman died in 1932, but his personal touch had been withdrawn from
certain of his beneficiaries a few years before; and the Metropolitan con-
tinued its Rochester visits under the sponsorship o the Civic Music Associa-
tion, an administrative group formed to channel Rochester's musical activi-
ties in many directions.
A single opera now sufficed for Rochester. Quite naturally, when Howard
Hanson's Merry Mount experienced its year of glory at the Metropolitan,
Rochester loyally demanded the opus of its chief musical citizen. Hanson, as
director of the Eastman School and conductor of many orchestral events,
was the hero of 1934.
Goddard Lieberson, a Columbia recording executive of today, wrote in the
Journal that the Metropolitan "might have been kinder to the authors in
the scenery they supplied," and that "Leonora Corona brought a good deal
visually to her role."
Jack F. Dailey has succeeded the late Arthur M. See as manager of the
Civic Music Association, and desires to keep the Metropolitan as a regular
visitor to Rochester, deploring the one or two recent lacunae in its annual
record.
In the same year that Cleveland established the firm Metropolitan base
on which it rests today ? a "charter member" returned to the fold. Baltimore
had welcomed Abbey in 1884 and Grau and Conried after him, but after its
plethora of opera in 1910 the city lost interest for a decade. Its opera house
languished for an equal period under Kahn's absentee ownership. One day
Kahn's representative told A. R. Doehme over a Baltimore luncheon table
that the Lyric was to be sold for a garage. Doehme sprang into action, en-
listed a group of citizens to sell $25 shares in a Lyric Company, headed by
Dr. Hugh R. Young, whose father-in-law had performed a parallel service
for the original theatre, then named Music HalL By dint of strenuous cam-
paigning, the new champions won a battle that was touch-and-go up to the
last minute before a November i deadline.
Baltimore, the first and until recently the only city to offer music official
support, can also boast the only municipal director of music, the celebrated
Frederick R. Huber. When "Freddie" was appointed director of the Lyric
in 1920 he had already been publicity director for Peabody Conservatory, had
helped organize the Baltimore Symphony and assisted "Baltimur," as its
162 OPERA CARAVAN
loving natives know the city, to be the first to adopt a flag and anthem.
The Metropolitan had wanted to include Baltimore on its 1923 tour, but
local guarantors had moved too sluggishly. By 1927 the omens were pro-
pitious. Within four days fifty-five guarantors gave $1,000 each toward four
performances.
The Chicago Opera had become a frequent caller of late, and was to end
its current season on February 18. Huber tried to hold back the Metropolitan
news until the Chicago engagement was secure, but it leaked out and with-
out mention of Kahn's name. One of Kami's close friends, A. Davies War-
field, president of Seaboard Air Line (he was fond of attaching his private
car to the opera train for the trip to Atlanta) immediately withdrew his
support. Huber coaxed Warfield back to the guarantors' committee. The
Baltimore season would have missed the sparkle of the lavish entertainments
at his home, Manor Glen, where opera stars indulged in milking contests
among other diversions.
When the Lyri 
