Opera and its stars : a description of the music and stories of the enduring operas, and a series of interviews with the world's famous sopranos 1924

Front matter

Aa 2 by

Dorothy J. Easton oe @

© AIME DUPONT. N. Y.

Contents

FOREWORD . .

GALLI-CurcI—A Sonc-3 BIRD OF NIGHT!

WRIGOLETTO.

Foreword

THe normal child who makes early acquaintance with Grand Opera will, at the same time, acquire a wide knowledge of literature, history, and mythology, and an understanding of music in general. What is learned indirectly and of one’s own volition always makes the deepest impress. A child who hears the “Hamlet” of Thomas, soon after seeks out and reads with joy the “Hamlet” of Shakespeare. “Orfeo ed Furidice” turns him wonderingly to Greek myths; “Semiramide’ and “Aida” send him questing to the encyclopedia. ‘The Huguenots” starts an interest in French history. All the while, too, the language of music becomes clear to him: he learns and senses its boundless capacity to express and create emotion.

Turn him loose later on in the concert hall: symphonies, sonatas and tone-poems then will not deluge him as meaningless torrents of sound. His mind and ear and imagination will have become so responsive that the whole mighty art is panoramic and plain to him. Without learning a note or training a finger, he still finds himself at home and not a foreigner in the glorious realm of music. He will create his own imagery and see visions that reflect the glow of the passing harmonies.

To him, who thus listens to the noble and the great in music, life, even at its worst, can never be wholly drab or depressing. )

My own acquaintance with Grand Opera began early, and my enthusiasm and joy have never waned: the wonder of it steadily grows. | xi OPERA AND ITS SPARS

Many years ago, an editor-friend, Mr. Edgar S. Werner, of Werner's Magazine, marked the keen interest I showed as I listened to an opera-excerpt at a concert. He himself was not thrilled—but I was. He wondered why, and he asked me the reason.

So astonished was he at my ready tale about the operaselection just heard—its story, and the marvelous adequacy of the music illumining it—that he asked me to write out what I had told him.

This I did; penning my impressions of “Faust” from memory, without a glance at the score, for I had heard the opera eight or nine times. Mr. Werner promptly published the article and contracted with me for twelve more—one a month. I worked hard that year, for I found myself unfitted to dash off any other operadescription without minute study of the score. And the © more I delved into them the more I found to study. If my readers of that year learned as much as I did, I surely was something of a benefactor.

As a result of these articles I was asked to interview some of the stars. This indeed required courage: I was young and very worshipful of genius. Who was I that I should walk up to the throne of a Goddess and ask any question I chose! Madame Sembrich was the first who heeded my request. (She is ever the first to help others on their way.) Little she dreamed how trembling and adoring was the timid reporter-person who knocked at her door. I had once stood for hours in the snow at the stage-entrance of the Opera-house in Berlin, late at night, just for a glimpse of this great diva as she hurried to her carriage.

After achieving a talk with the supreme Sembrich I

FOREWORD Xill never had difficulty in meeting the other stars—save Mary Garden—but that is another story.

Later, I collected the two series of articles which were published in book-form. Since then, whenever I have had nothing urgent to do, I have found myself usually either attending an joperatic performance, or reading over the printed score; studying and loving it, and marveling more and more at the genius and patience that created it.

So my stories of the Operas, and of the stars that sing them, have multiplied and grown into the present volume. My knowledge has trailed along—but by no means, | fear, kept apace—with the astounding growth of Grand Opera in New York.

To the ultra music-pedant, however, Opera of any sort is anathema. Absolute-music is his demand: he delights in soul-soarings untethered to earth. But not all can at will thus disassociate their dual selves: they fail to find in absolute-music—music sans program-title or fanciful description—the key that ushers them “beyond the beyond.”’

Grand Opera it is that fills the want of giving expression to and revealing our encompassing soul-life—that palpitant reality, however veiled, which intermingles with, and participates in, every thought and action of this world.

Grand Opera bestows upon us a temporary clairvoyance. By means of the unceasing music—music that reflects and shares in every emotion or event portrayed— we are enabled to perceive, unconsciously to sense, the mighty truth that we live and have our being in a higher sphere right now—however mundane may appear all things about us. In Grand Opera we catch the comple-

XIV OPERA AND ITS STARS ment of life, the soul-harmony or discord—the melody or tumult—our every thought and act evokes. The characters in Grand Opera can never evade’ or elude the glory or damnation of the music they live in; the music called forth by their own deeds, thoughts and purposes. —

This symbolism in Grand Opera may not be recognized or realized by half or a third, or a tenth, of the audience. But it is there none the less and its power is felt. In the words of James Gibbons Huneker, prosepoet, savant and musician:

“Symbolism, a soft green star, is but a pin-prick in the inverted bowl of the night, but it sings like a flame » in thin glass.” |

Elsewhere he says: “The world will find wholesome reaction in the study of music from its spiritual side; its inner life.” P

And last but most noteworthy is his assertion that: “The marvelous intuition of Pythagoras was correct, that music is the basis of all human development.” —

So in spite of some of the Wise Men of Music; they who know the stars but who fail, it seems to me, to recognize the beneficent and ultimate purpose of their influence —1in spite of these, | maintain and herald my belief that Grand Opera fills a human need that is far and away beyond that of giving pleasure.

I joy, too, in boldly claiming that my views are verified by the steady growth of Grand Opera—its hold on the people. Kings and kingdoms may fall, wars may crumble and devastate empires, but Grand Opera pursues its own harmonious way: for the Song of Humanity, life’s overtone, as depicted on the lyric stage, must and always will be heard.

MABEL WAGNALLS.

AMELITA

GALLI-CurcI

CHAP Rel

GALLI-CURCI—A SONG-BIRD OF THE NIGHT

HERE was war over all the land: darkness of

spirit enveloped the earth: the heart of the

| world was sad—when, all unheralded, a new star appeared. Galli-Curci!

Her name was suddenly on every one’s lips. Such a stunning, easy, lilting, yet determined sort of name: you liked to speak it just to make it known that you knew how Italian vowels and consonants should be spoken. It was fun to feel superior to the crowd who called it “Cursi.” Yes—the name was everywhere, but as yet no one had heard her, and there was no fanfare of European fame. Whence, then, the great acclaim ?—the resounding echo of that strange new name in music?

At last we discovered her—not the singer—but her voice. A shower of “Victor” records had been released to scatter beauty and surprize throughout‘the land. Each one of those round disks held within them a glowing miracle of brightness, like gleaming raindrops. In their magic whirl they mirrored the very stars of heaven, so vari-colored, high and clear were the tones of Galli-Curci in those records.

It is probably the first time in history that a great | 1 prima donna has become world-famous before making her début in the world’s center—which, of course, is New York. The little matter of being famous in Italy or France or even England no longer counts—to New Yorkers.

Her records began to be talked of like the latest bestseller in books. Not to have heard her “Caro Nome” made you as déclassé as not to have read “Main Street”

or “This Freedom.” And then came news of a début - in Chicago—a great success, etc.

But this was all wrong—not at all as it shawl be. Tho the Star of Bethlehem chose to rest above a stable, no star of music ever yet had sought the zenith from the region of the stock-yards. New York shrugged its shoulders—but we still could not ignore those Galli- Curci records. I think they sort of infuriated us. That Chicago affair rankled. ‘Let her come’—was the New York attitude.—“We will listen, but if she doesn’t come up to those records—!’ As one paper threateningly stated—“All that Galli-Curci has to do is to equal her own records!’ No slight requirement this—tho the layman might suppose that if she could do it once she could do it every time. Oh—the unthinking uninitiate! To him who does not know—let me explain. When making a record—if one note is a shade sharp, or a shade flat; or a soupcon too long; or too brief; or too loud or too soft; or too suddenly attacked; or too suddenly let go; or too bright; or too breathy; or—tho the tone itself be as desired—if the syllable that goes with it is not superlatively enunciated; or if it is so sharply sibilated as to mar the attack on the next tone; or if the tone, tho of perfect quality, be crescendoed or diminuendoed with not quite your best art; or (getting away

GALLL-CURCI 3 from that particular tone) if one of your pauses fails to fit perfectly with the accompaniment; or if at one point the accompaniment overbalances your voice; or if your voice overweighs the accompaniment; or your staccatos are a bit blurred; or your legatos not smooth, or if—, or if—but there is no end to these “ifs.” However, when they occur in making a record you have another try, but on the stage there is no come-back. And all artists know this—oh, how they know it! —and how they think of it just before they step upon the stage! No wonder they are nervous, temperamental, ready to shriek if a feather blows by, or they encounter the unexpected in any form whatever before an important appearance.

So at last Galli-Curci came to conquer the City of Dreadful Might. Her advance-fame induced us to fill the Lexington Avenue Opera House: to condescend to consider the possibility of real art appearing on the “East Side’—the Abomination of Desolation to the Diamond Horseshoe crowd. We condescended to. come, and, worse yet, to listen to the opera “Dinorah!” This was asking a good deal of a Wagner-fed audience with a decided taste for Rimsky-Korsakoff and Prokoffief. No one had ever heard ‘“Dinorah,”’ tho of course we knew the “Shadow Song’”’—all the albums of. Grand Opera Arias prized in our youth, “Opera Treasures,’ “Pearls of the Opera,” etc., included this aria. But what of the plot? No one knew this. It is not fashionable nowadays to study librettos; one goes to opera-recitals.

As for the plot of “Dinorah”—even a Grand-Opera recitalist would have trouble making it clear. With your utmost endeavor all you can remember of the story after

4 OPERA AND. TTSeT Ae hearing the opera is a vague impression of a moonstruck girl with a goat. Yes,—it is a live goat! This goat is always at Dinorah’s heels, and she is forever wandering over the scenery—over mountains and brooks and things. She even wanders up on the roof of the cottage she lives in, the goat always following her. (Goats are good climbers, that’s why it had to be a goat.) The girl and the goat wander around for some time on that sloping, precarious roof. I believe this particular perambulation is intended to indicate madness. It does! Of course she sings all the time she is wandering. She comes off the roof at last, and then spying her shadow in the moonlight she invites it to dance with her. Now follows the famed “Shadow Song’—‘Shadow Dance,” it is “sometimes called. About the only time in the opera that Dinorah stands still is while singing this aria which constantly affirms she is blithely dancing. The trouble lies in the fact that the music is unmercifully difficult, and to be “blithe” in your feet becomes an impossibility when a devil’s dance of high notes is going on in your throat. Even the goat is non grata in this scene; it is discreetly called out, or pulled out, of sight.

So Galli-Curci stood still and alone on the Lexington Avenue Opera House stage that memorable night when she startled New York with the “Shadow Song” of Dinorah. And—ye Gods!—what she did with that song! There she stood calm and still as a sibylline statue—so effortless was her art that she did not seem to be singing at all. Just a nod, a smile, and music materialized all about her; the air was full of it, teeming, dancing, shot through, swirling with scales and chromatics, with high notes left swinging in the heavens, and trills that laughed at you, made merry and echoed

GALELCURCI 5 back at you, after you thought them long ended and done for.

We were all out of breath when she finished—out of breath from the sheer tensity of listening. We supposed that she who had sown the whirlwind must be quite beyond recall—I mean this literally. Imagine our amaze when she came before the curtain and with smiling ease, in full glare of the footlights, gave us again the entire “Shadow Song”—that night-bloom among arias, heavyweighted and bowed down with its tropical overgrowth of colorature.

There was no longer any doubt about Galli-Curci: she was not only a new star—but a fixed star. It was no longer a condescension to trail over to Lexington Avenue; it was a luxury. It was no uncommon thing to pay twenty-five dollars for the privilege of a seat when she sang. And this during the war, when our hearts and our pocket-books were bleeding. One enraptured poet in a glowing sonnet thanked God for sending us this gleam of brightness—Galli-Curci—during our days of darkness. And, most notable of all tributes, other prima donnas came to hear her and were not ashamed to tell it. Geraldine Farrar generously acclaimed her and said that her tone-qualits’ was lovely as the heart of a pansy.

Galli-Curci, as I have said, became at once a fixed star. But however “fixed” these high lights may be in music’s firmament, on terra firma, be it known, they flit about like will-o’-the-wisps. You think they are here and you find they are there. You read of “Dinorah’ in New York, write a letter the next day and receive answer the next week from New Mexico. Not telescopes but telegrams are needed when searching for these stars.

Finally I captured Galli-Curci at the Hotel Ambassador. By way of experiment I asked below stairs for Mrs. Homer Samuels—the elevator boys knew at once whom I meant. Above, at her apartment, it was Mr. Homer Samuels who greeted me at the door. This imparted a new thrill to a seasoned prima-donna interviewer. For the first time in my life I was to have the experience of interviewing a singer and her husband together. I had met French maids at such interviews, and French poodles, and mothers sometimes—these latter always interested and interesting—and other artists have been present and other interviewers, but never yet a husband. Mr. Samuels, a straightforward, friendly voiced plain American, was not present as an interpreter, for Madame Galli-Curci speaks fluent English. No, it was clear at once that he was present for no other reason than that he is always present. On the concert stage he is her accompanist, and off the stage they are constantly working together. When preparing new roles and studying new music he—thorough musician that he is—is always at her side studying with her, considering each phrase, advising, encouraging, counseling. Mutual work, mutual need of each other’s abilities—there you have it!—the secret, the only one, to insure a happy marriage.

Flashlight-photos of Madame were bette taken when I arrived; I had to wait a few moments in her bedroom. My chief impression of this room was a battlement of open wardrobe-trunks—their contents bursting forth; an upheaval of flaming colors; creations in yellow, orange, and rose, with comet-like tails trailing over the parapets; there were whole cloud-banks of chiffon and tossed-up tulle.

These artists, it would seem, live, breathe, and have

GALLECURCI 7, their being in full-dress evening garb. Madame had sung the night before in Philadelphia, the next night she was to appear at the Hippodrome. What a racing, hurricane life it is: work—work—work, some repose between, then again—work—work—work.

The photographer, having finished his flashing, made a formidable exit considerably impeded by his lightingmachine, camera, tripod, and plates. Madame herself opened the door for him. I mention this to show how democratic she has become. Descendants of the Spanish nobility (she is this on her mother’s side) do not usually open doors for others; they rarely do it for themselves.

Without any ceremony the diva soon had me seated beside her on a sofa in her salon. She is an easy talker; almost intuitive. Her first remark was a startling sequence to my recent thoughts:

“Work is everything in life. To have something urgent to do every moment—this is the secret of happiness.”’

Madame Galli-Curci can say this with the voice of authority. She began work at the piano, hard work— hours every day—when she was five years of age. Yes —they do this in Europe; they know there that art is long. Here we wait until the young aspirant is ten years old or more and then we consider the idea of having “her take up music,” sweetly unconscious that it is already years and years too late.

But the little Amelita’s parents knew better. They were musicians. Her grandparents, too, had pursued the art strenuously; had aimed at the stars and attained the spotlight. Her grandmother was a prima donna and her grandfather directed the orchestra. (I foresee Mr. Samuels with his: back to the audience. )

So our little Signorina—who was born in Milan— began hard work at five, and eleven years later made her’ public début as a pianist. This was no school-girl graduatiom performance. Indeed, I doubt whether a Milanese audience could be induced to listen to a mixed program of class-room achievements, for Milan is the heart and home of all that is highest in art, religion, and music. There historic La Scala guards the art of song —a perpetual mother to Grand Opera: there religion is upheld by the Duomo—that immortal dream in tender stone before whose portals even an atheist feels impelled to bow.

And there Leonardo’s “Last Supper” in dim, hushed majesty proclaims what the art of painting has been and should be.

Yes, Milan knows the best, and judges all comers accordingly. So it means much to make a successful début there. It means much to play there the “Abegg”’ of Schumann or the great “Fantaisie” by Chopin: both of these were on that first program of Signorina Galli—pianist—who had no idea then of ever becoming a prima donna in Grand Opera. To be a world-famous pianist—that was her dream. But the young débutante was a frail little body and the hard steady labor of eight hours a day—union-work of hand, heart, and mind— was wearing upon her. You, who have not known the experience—just try it one day—try sitting eight hours at the keyboard, conscientiously striving to improve each note that you strike, and to memorize them, too, as you go along: try it one day as an experiment, just to learn how long—how unendingly long—that last eighth hour can be.

The strain was too great for Signorina Galli in those

GALLE CURGI 9 days—especially the heavy chord-practise and crescendos. The realization of this must have been’a hard blow after so many years of work. But she was too merry-hearted by nature to weep over it. By all the saints, no! no!— she sang instead.

A pretty moral lies here, well applicable to all life. She was always singing—and thought nothing of it.

In Italy, every one sings. You never hear whistling on the streets of Milan, but any moment, anywhere, you hear singing—glorious singing. In the middle of the night, or the middle of the day, you may hear a laborer at his work, or returning from it, trolling an opera aria, a barcarole or a serenade, like a young Caruso—and he thinks nothing of it. So, too, little Amelita was always singing—and giving it never a thought.

Mascagni, an old friend of the family, was the first to suggest that she develop her voice: he knew she had the other qualifications so necessary to a singing career—a knowledge of music, of interpretation, of sight-reading. She had also the habit of regular work. Mascagni, you may be sure, knew the value of this—the foundation of all achievement.

There is lassitude in the air of Italy: the average Italian has more of repose in his nature than of purpose. But Amelita Galli had the urge of the artist-instinct— a lashing whip that drives one on to a dogged persistent endeavor. They all know this. Farrar has taken the public into her confidence and splendidly confessed, “Others have voices as good as mine—and talent, and health, and good looks—but J worked.”

Other little girls in Milan were good singers; maybe one in the next home to Amelita had a natural voice as ringing as hers, but that possible rival did not have the if) OPERA AND. ITS STARS inborn ambition—the unfaltering will that bids one refrain from all activities and pleasures that do not contribute to the cherished art. If you:still have any doubts as to Galli-Curci’s compelling all-conquering perseverance, listen to this:

“I still practise at actual tone-placing two hours every day of my life. I still am learning and improving— always making discoveries, finding new resonance-chambers for the tone, little shades of difference in the timbre. Oh, there is no end to art. If you think you are finished’’—she threw up her hands—“then you are finished! You are dead!’

Again speaking of work, she told of her début in Grand Opera two years after she began voice-study. Let all incipient prima donnas remember that this was thirteen years after her music-study began.

“Gilda in ‘Rigoletto’ was my first role. I learned the part in eight days. I couldn’t do that now—or I : wouldn't do it! When one is young one attempts anything.” This début in “Rigoletto” took place in Otranto.

I looked blank—my geography failing me. She kindly explained.

“Otranto is down in the heel of the boot—the lowest point in Italy.” |

“She began at the bottom and worked up,” Mr. Samuels threw in cheerily.

I was curious about her recent unconventional uprising out of the West. Musicians of renown, like the Magi of old, were wont to come from the East. The mystery was made clear. She had been singing in South America. |

We Northerners are prone to forget South America except when there is an earthquake down there or the

GALELEURCI II rumble of a revolution. We forget that it is a region of bright colors and song-birds, and of some civilizations ancient beyond compute. They have music there too— opera-houses, where they wildly adore you if you sing well, and damn you forever if you don’t. Galli-Curci sang well—lI take it—for she came forth serene with a smile on her face, and a “Victrola” contract in sight. A “Victor” agent in that lower hemisphere was so 1mpressed by her singing that he made a quick leap across the equator, came to Camden and told of his find. Thus it happened that Galli-Curci became known to us first as a disembodied voice on the “Victor.”

After her record-making stop-over in Camden, she came to New York for a brief rest before returning to Spain where she soon was to sing. Galli-Curci enjoyed those few days of relaxation—spending some of her South American money, seeing the sights and being one of the crowd. It is not a bad thing sometimes to let go of high flights and submerge oneself in the multitude. In a crowd sometimes we meet Fate. Destiny dons many guises. Galli-Curci on Broadway met an old singing teacher she had known in Milan.

“What are you doing here?’ he asked. “Unknown and unheralded—this won’t do.” He piloted her at once to Campanini, who was then directing Chicago’s opera. The rest followed naturally.

Madame Galli-Curci may once have been frail, but she does not look so now. Great singing—or, is it success P— always agrees with one. I asked whether her great reputation did not add to her nervousness each time she appeared.

“Oh, yes, indeed. I feel the responsibility of it; the knowledge that I must come up to the expectation of the te OPERA AND ITS, STARS audience. It is a terrific strain. We must keep very calm, but we are only human—and each time we fear something may happen to upset us, something mar the repose without which we can not do justice to ourselves or the composer. Every artist must work out his own method of safeguarding his art. He must think of it all the time; it must always come first. Just as a mother instinctively guards a child before it is born, so we prepare for each performance; each one is a creation. We must manage somehow to think pleasant thoughts, and be peaceful.”

There’s a creed for you! Who dares to deny that Great Art is close kin to Religion? The artist—truly great—must captain his own soul. And this isa mastery that can not pretentiously be assumed; the cloven foot would conspicuously stamp forth. No—the great artist unconsciously, but always, speaks as one having authority—the authority that is born of self-mastery. An authority that bears with it—strange to say—an atmosphere of genuine simplicity and absence of self-consciousness or posing. Of course, I have Madame Galli- Curci particularly in mind as I write this. A more charming, genial, gentle personality it has never been my privilege to meet. Her face is luminous; it lights up, and is far more beautiful than her pictures. She has youth—one must be near to judge of this—photos can deceive; so can the footlights. Her heavy hair is untinted—her complexion is exquisite, her eyes and smile know no art beyond the brightness of a glowing spirit.

But do not suppose that a singer who has soared to the zenith is therefore immune from terrestrial influences far from heavenly. The higher one gets the more one encounters of subterfuge. Madame Galli-Curci admitted

GATETCURCI 13 this, but added firmly: “People I don’t like, I don’t think about. I will not remember the unpleasant things.”’

I descended from the starry regions of the Hotel Ambassador’s twentieth floor with these parting words still singing in my brain. The great Galli-Curci had unconsciously culled from her own life’s struggle a motto it were well to print upon the tablet of one’s heart.

Chapter II “rigole Tao"

VERYONE knows “Rigoletto.” It is difficult to KE think of anything in the way of real music that out-rivals it in popularity. You might call it a monumental achievement in broadcasting: Verdi forefathered the radio when he wrote it, for its melodies literally spread in all directions—were known everywhere at once—after the first performance at Venice in 1851. The Italians are quick at the trick of catching a new tune and speeding it on its way.

How gracious, how beneficent, how endearing, are the immortal melodies that greet us and meet us as we pass through the grim canyon of Life: fleet-footed they flit by us—yet still tarry with us. Once heeded—we are free to dismiss them or recall them at will. Close to our consciousness unnoticed they may be for years, yet ever they hover about us—these gladsome, uplifting, swift-winged messengers of Heaven. Who willingly would forego the sweet thrill of recognition that livens the heart whenever “La Donna é Mobile” is heard? Imagine, if you can, the dry dullness of life sans these happy encounters with the world’s master melodies—melodies so great that they never tire. True music—the genuinely inspired—be it classic, romantic or futuristic, never fails at each hearing to discover new beauty: true music is eternally young.

Ask ony one you meet—a passer-by on the street— what he knows of “Rigoletto” and he will name at once several arias and the quartette: he may even prove his statement by whistling or humming them—all this even 14 ss POP PO

“RIGOLETTO” of tho he never has heard the opera. But try asking even a confirmed opera-goer about the plot! You will find him so familiar with “Rigoletto” that he has never bothered to look it up. He will answer you somewhat in this fashion—Why everyone knows the story of ‘Rigoletto’ —the Court Jester—they steal his daughter—she’s the one that sings ‘Caro Nome’—and then in the last act— after the quartet she is killed by mistake when Rigoletto tries to revenge himself on the Duke—he’s the one, that sings ‘La Donna é Mobile.’ ”

That’s about as much as you will get from the average Metropolitan subscriber. Opera-plots are thus handed down in the old families from one generation to the next, together with the parterre seats and boxes. At least it was formerly so—and maybe it was a good idea to avoid the specific when preparing the young heir and heiress to attend some of these life-dramas. But in this day of grace, when the merry flapper forestalls all subtle information, make the story clear by all means and perchance the moral—that attaches to all works of greatness—the moral, too, may linger.