Part 8 (1/2)

Let those who do not appreciate the virtuosity of this undertaking attempt to write as successful a scene in a similar vein. Even if they are able to do so, and I do not for a moment believe that there is another dramatic author in America who can, they will be the first to grant the difficulty of the achievement. With an apparently inexhaustible fund of fantasy and wit Mr. Hopwood pa.s.ses his wand over certain phases of so-called smart life, almost always with the happiest results. With a complete realization of the independence of his medium he often ignores the realistic conventions and the traditional technique of the stage, but his touch is so light and joyous, his wit so free from pose, that he rarely fails to establish his effect. His pen has seldom faltered. Occasionally, however, the heavy hand of an uncomprehending stage director or of an aggressive actor has played havoc with the delicate texture of his fabric. There is no need here for the use of hammer or trowel; if an actress must seek aid in implements, let her rather rely on a soft brush, a lacy handkerchief, or a sparkling spangled fan.

Philip Moeller has achieved distinction in another field, that of elegant burlesque, of sublimated caricature. His stage men and women are as adroitly distorted (the better to expose their comic possibilities) as the drawings of Max Beerbohm. Beginning with the Bible and the Odyssey (_Helena's Husband_ and _Sisters of Susannah_ for the Was.h.i.+ngton Square Players) he has at length, by way of Shakespeare and Bacon (_The Roadhouse in Arden_) arrived at the Romantic Period in French literature and in _Madame Sand_, his first three-act play, he has established himself at once as a dangerous rival of the authors of _Caesar and Cleopatra_ and _The Importance of Being Earnest_, both plays in the same _genre_ as Mr. Moeller's latest contribution to the stage. The author has thrown a very high light on the sentimental adventures of the writing lady of the early Nineteenth Century, has indeed advised us and convinced us that they were somewhat ridiculous. So they must have appeared even to her contemporaries, however seriously George took herself, her romances, her pa.s.sions, her petty tragedies. A less adult, a less seriously trained mind might have fallen into the error of making a sentimental play out of George's affairs with Alfred de Musset, Dr. Pagello, and Chopin (Mr. Moeller contents himself with these three pa.s.sions, selected from the somewhat more extensive list offered to us by history). Such an author would doubtless have written _Great Catherine_ in the style of _Disraeli_ and _Androcles and the Lion_ after the manner of _Ben Hur_! Whether love itself is always a comic subject, as Bernard Shaw would have us believe, is a matter for dispute, but there can be no alternative opinion about the loves of George Sand. A rehearsal of them offers only laughter to any one but a sentimental school girl.

The piece is conceived on a true literary level; it abounds in wit, in fantasy, in delightful situations, but there is nothing precious about its progress. Mr. Moeller has carefully avoided the traps expressly laid for writers of such plays. For example, the enjoyment of _Madame Sand_ is in no way dependent upon a knowledge of the books of that auth.o.r.ess, De Musset, and Heine, nor yet upon an acquaintance with the music of Liszt and Chopin. Such matters are pleasantly and lightly referred to when they seem pertinent, but no insistence is laid upon them. Occasionally our author has appropriated some phrase originally spoken or written by one of the real characters, but for that he can scarcely be blamed. Indeed, when one takes into consideration the wealth of such material which lay in books waiting for him, it is surprising that he did not take more advantage of it. In the main he has relied on his own cleverness to delight our ears for two hours with brilliant conversation.

There is, it should be noted, in conclusion, nothing essentially American about either of these young authors. Both Mr. Hopwood and Mr. Moeller might have written for the foreign stage. Several of Mr.

Hopwood's pieces, indeed, have already been transported to foreign climes and there seems every reason for belief that Mr. Moeller's comedy will meet a similarly happy fate.

_November 29, 1917._

De Senectute Cantorum

_”All'eta di settanta Non si ama, ne si canta.”_

Italian proverb.

De Senectute Cantorum

”I am not sure,” writes Arthur Symons in his admirable essay on Sarah Bernhardt, ”that the best moment to study an artist is not the moment of what is called decadence. The first energy of inspiration is gone; what remains is the method, the mechanism, and it is that which alone one can study, as one can study the mechanism of the body, not the principle of life itself. What is done mechanically, after the heat of the blood has cooled, and the divine accidents have ceased to happen, is precisely all that was consciously skilful in the performance of an art. To see all this mechanism left bare, as the form of a skeleton is left bare when age thins the flesh upon it is to learn more easily all that is to be learnt of structure, the art which not art but nature has. .h.i.therto concealed with its merciful covering.”

Mr. Symons, of course, had an actress in mind, but his argument can be applied to singers as well, although it is safest to remember that much of the true beauty of the human voice inevitably departs with the youth of its owner. Still style in singing is not noticeably affected by age and an artist who possesses or who has acquired this quality very often can afford to make lewd gestures at Father Time. If good singing depended upon a full and sensuous tone, such artists as Ronconi, Victor Maurel, Max Heinrich, Ludwig Wullner, and Maurice Renaud would never have had any careers at all. It is obvious that any true estimate of their contribution to the lyric stage would put the chief emphasis on style, and this is usually the explanation for extended success on the opera or concert stage, although occasionally an extraordinary and exceptional singer may continue to give pleasure to her auditors, despite the fact that she has left middle age behind her, by the mere lovely quality of the tone she produces.

In the history of opera there may be found the names of many singers who have maintained their popularity and, indeed, a good deal of their art, long past fifty, and there is recorded at least one instance in which a singer, after a long absence from the theatre, returned to the scene of her earlier triumphs with her powers unimpaired, even augmented. I refer, of course, to Henrietta Sontag, born in 1805, who retired from the stage of the King's Theatre in London in 1830 in her twenty-fifth year and who returned twenty years later in 1849. She had, in the meantime, become the Countess Rossi, but although she had abandoned the stage her reappearance proved that she had not remained idle during her period of retirement. For she was one of those artists in whom early ”inspiration” counted for little and ”method” for much.

She was, indeed, a mistress of style. She came back to the public in _Linda di Chaminoux_ and H. F. Chorley (”Thirty Years' Musical Recollections”) tells us that ”all went wondrously well. No magic could restore to her voice an upper note or two which Time had taken; but the skill, grace, and precision with which she turned to account every atom of power she still possessed,--the incomparable steadiness with which she wrought out her composer's intentions--she carried through the part, from first to last, without the slightest failure, or sign of weariness--seemed a triumph. She was greeted--as she deserved to be--as a beloved old friend come home again in the late sunnier days.

”But it was not at the moment of Madame Sontag's reappearance that we could advert to all the difficulty which added to the honour of its success.--She came back under musical conditions entirely changed since she left the stage--to an orchestra far stronger than that which had supported her voice when it was younger; and to a new world of operas.--Into this she ventured with an intrepid industry not to be overpraised--with every new part enhancing the respect of every real lover of music.--During the short period of these new performances at Her Majesty's Theatre, which was not equivalent to two complete Opera seasons, not merely did Madame Sontag go through the range of her old characters--Susanna, Rosina, Desdemona, Donna Anna, and the like--but she presented herself in seven or eight operas which had not existed when she left the stage--Bellini's _Sonnambula_, Donizetti's _Linda_, _La Figlia del Reggimento_, _Don Pasquale_; _Le Tre Nozze_, of Signor Alary, _La Tempesta_, by M. Halevy--the last two works involving what the French call 'creation,' otherwise the production of a part never before represented.--In one of the favourite characters of her predecessor, the elder artist beat the younger one hollow.--This was as Maria, in Donizetti's _La Figlia_, which Mdlle. Lind may be said to have brought to England, and considered as her special property....

With myself, the real value of Madame Sontag grew, night after night--as her variety, her conscientious steadiness, and her adroit use of diminished powers were thus mercilessly tested. In one respect, compared with every one who had been in my time, she was alone, in right, perhaps of the studies of her early days--as a singer of Mozart's music.”

It was after these last London seasons that Mme. Sontag undertook an American tour. She died in Mexico.

The great Mme. Pasta's ill-advised return to the stage in 1850 (when she made two belated appearances in London) is matter for sadder comment. Chorley, indeed, is at his best when he writes of it, his pen dipped in tears, for none had admired this artist in her prime more pa.s.sionately than he. Here was a particularly good opportunity to study the bare skeleton of interpretative art; the result is one of the most striking pa.s.sages in all literature:

”Her voice, which at its best, had required ceaseless watching and practice, had been long ago given up by her. Its state of utter ruin on the night in question pa.s.ses description.--She had been neglected by those who, at least, should have presented her person to the best advantage admitted by Time.--Her queenly robes (she was to sing some scenes from _Anna Bolena_) in nowise suited or disguised her figure.

Her hair-dresser had done some tremendous thing or other with her head--or rather had left everything undone. A more painful and disastrous spectacle could hardly be looked on.--There were artists present, who had then, for the first time, to derive some impression of a renowned artist--perhaps, with the natural feeling that her reputation had been exaggerated.--Among these was Rachel--whose bitter ridicule of the entire sad show made itself heard throughout the whole theatre, and drew attention to the place where she sat--one might even say, sarcastically enjoying the scene. Among the audience, however, was another gifted woman, who might far more legitimately have been shocked at the utter wreck of every musical means of expression in the singer--who might have been more naturally forgiven, if some humour of self-glorification had made her severely just--not worse--to an old _prima donna_;--I mean Madame Viardot.--Then, and not till then, she was hearing Madame Pasta.--But Truth will always answer to the appeal of Truth. Dismal as was the spectacle--broken, hoa.r.s.e, and destroyed as was the voice--the great style of the singer spoke to the great singer. The first scene was Ann Boleyn's duet with Jane Seymour. The old spirit was heard and seen in Madame Pasta's _Sorgi!_ and the gesture with which she signed to her penitent rival to rise. Later, she attempted the final mad scene of the opera--that most complicated and brilliant among the mad scenes on the modern musical stage--with its two _cantabile_ movements, its s.n.a.t.c.hes of recitative, and its _bravura_ of despair, which may be appealed to as an example of vocal display, till then unparagoned, when turned to the account of frenzy, not frivolity--perhaps as such commissioned by the superb creative artist.--By that time, tired, unprepared, in ruin as she was, she had rallied a little. When--on Ann Boleyn's hearing the coronation music of her rival, the heroine searches for her own crown on her brow--Madame Pasta turned in the direction of the festive sounds, the old irresistible charm broke out;--nay, even in the final song, with its _roulades_, and its scales of shakes, ascending by a semi-tone, the consummate vocalist and tragedian, able to combine form with meaning--the moment of the situation, with such personal and musical display as form an integral part of operatic art--was indicated: at least to the apprehension of a younger artist.--'You are right!' was Madame Viardot's quick and heartfelt response (her eyes were full of tears) to a friend beside her--'You are right! It is like the _Cenacolo_ of Da Vinci at Milan--a wreck of a picture, but the picture is the greatest picture in the world!'”

The great Mme. Viardot herself, whose intractable voice and n.o.ble stage presence inevitably remind one of Mme. Pasta, took no chances with fate. The friend of Alfred de Musset, the model for George Sand's ”Consuelo,” the ”creator” of Fides in _Le Prophete_, and the singer who, in the revival of _Orphee_ at the Theatre Lyrique in 1859, resuscitated Gluck's popularity in Paris, retired from the opera stage in 1863 at the age of 43, shortly after she had appeared in _Alceste!_ (She sang in concert occasionally until 1870 or later.) Thereafter she divided her time princ.i.p.ally between Baden and Paris and became the great friend of Turgeniev. His very delightful letters to her have been published. Idleness was abhorrent to this fine woman and in her middle and old age she gave lessons, while singers, composers, and conductors alike came to her for help and advice. She died in 1910 at the age of 89. Her less celebrated brother, Manuel Garcia (less celebrated as a singer; as a teacher he is given the credit for having restored Jenny Lind's voice. Among his other pupils Mathilde Marchesi and Marie Tempest may be mentioned), had died in 1906 at the age of 101. Her sister, Mme. Malibran, died very young, in the early Nineteenth Century, before, in fact, Mme. Viardot had made her debut.

Few singers have had the wisdom to follow Mme. Viardot's excellent example. The great Jenny Lind, long after her voice had lost its quality, continued to sing in oratorio and concert. So did Adelina Patti. Muriel Starr once told me of a parrot she encountered in Australia. The poor bird had arrived at the n.o.ble age of 117 and was entirely bereft of feathers. Flapping his stumpy wings he cried incessantly, ”I'll fly, by G.o.d, I'll fly!” So, many singers, having lost their voices, continue to croak, ”I'll sing, by G.o.d, I'll sing!”

The Earl of Mount Edgc.u.mbe, himself a man of considerable years when he published his highly diverting ”Musical Reminiscences,” gives us some extraordinary pictures of senility on the stage at the close of the Eighteenth Century. There was, for example, the case of Cecilia Davis, the first Englishwoman to sustain the part of prima donna and in that situation was second only to Gabrielli, whom she even rivalled in neatness of execution. Mount Edgc.u.mbe found Miss Davies in Florence, unengaged and poor. A concert was arranged at which she appeared with her sister. Later she returned to England ... too old to secure an engagement. ”This unfortunate woman is now (in 1834) living in London, in the extreme of old age, disease, and poverty,” writes the Earl. He also speaks of a Signora Galli, of large and masculine figure and contralto voice, who frequently filled the part of second man at the Opera. She had been a princ.i.p.al singer in Handel's oratorios when conducted by himself. She afterwards fell into extreme poverty, and at the age of about seventy (!!!!), was induced to come forward to sing again at the oratorios. ”I had the curiosity to go, and heard her sing _He was despised and rejected of men_ in _The Messiah_. Of course her voice was cracked and trembling, but it was easy to see her school was good; and it was a pleasure to observe the kindness with which she was received and listened to; and to mark the animation and delight with which she seemed to hear again the music in which she had formerly been a distinguished performer. The poor old woman had been in the habit of coming to me annually for a trifling present; and she told me on that occasion that nothing but the severest distress should have compelled her so to expose herself, which after all, did not answer to its end, as she was not paid according to her agreement. She died shortly after.” In 1783 the Earl heard a singer named Allegranti in Dresden, then at the height of her powers. Later she returned to England and reappeared in Cimarosa's _Matrimonio Segreto_. ”Never was there a more pitiable attempt: she had scarcely a thread of voice remaining, nor the power to sing a note in tune: her figure and acting were equally altered for the worse, and after a few nights she was obliged to retire and quit the stage altogether.” The celebrated Madame Mara, after a long sojourn in Russia, suddenly returned to England and was announced for a benefit performance at the King's Theatre after everybody had forgotten her existence. ”She must have been at least seventy; but it was said that her voice had miraculously returned, and was as good as ever. But when she displayed those wonderfully revived powers, they proved, as might have been expected, lamentably deficient, and the tones she produced were compared to those of a _penny trumpet_. Curiosity was so little excited that the concert was ill attended ... and Madame Mara was heard no more. I was not so lucky (or so unlucky) as to hear these her last notes, as it was early in the winter, and I was not in town. She returned to Russia, and was a great sufferer by the burning of Moscow.

After that she lived at Mitlau, or some other town near the Baltic, where she died at a great age, not many years ago.”

Here is Michael Kelly's account of the same event: ”With all her great skill and knowledge of the world, Madame Mara was induced, by the advice of some of her mistaken friends, to give a public concert at the King's Theatre, in her seventy-second year, when, in the course of nature her powers had failed her. It was truly grievous to see such transcendent talents as she once possessed, so sunk--so fallen. I used every effort in my power to prevent her committing herself, but in vain. Among other arguments to draw her from her purpose, I told her what happened to Monbelli, one of the first tenors of his day, who lost all his well-earned reputation and fame, by rashly performing the part of a lover, at the Pergola Theatre, at Florence, in his seventieth year, having totally lost his voice. On the stage, he was hissed; and the following lines, lampooning his attempt, were chalked on his house-door, as well as upon the walls of the city:--

_'All' eta di settanta Non si ama, ne si canta.'”_

W. T. Parke, forty years princ.i.p.al oboe player at Covent Garden Theatre, is kinder to Madame Mara in his ”Musical Memoirs,” but it must be taken into account that he is kinder to every one else, too.

There is little of the acrimonious or the fault-finding note in his pages. This is his version of the affair: ”That extraordinary singer of former days, Madame Mara, who had pa.s.sed the last eighteen years in Russia, and who had lately arrived in England, gave a concert at the King's Theatre on the 6th of March (1820), which highly excited the curiosity of the musical public. On that occasion she sang some of her best airs; and though her powers were greatly inferior to what they were in her zenith, yet the same pure taste pervaded her performance.

Whether vanity or interest stimulated Mara at her time of life to that undertaking, it would be difficult to determine; but whichsoever had the ascendency, her reign was short; for by singing one night afterwards at the vocal concert, the veil which had obscured her judgment was removed, and she retired to enjoy in private life those comforts which her rare talent had procured for her.”