Part 7 (1/2)
He says that he is seventy-three years old. I must say that this is difficult to believe, for he does not look it by ten years. He never accepts any invitations. I know I have never seen him anywhere outside his own house, and it was a great surprise to see him now. We once ventured to invite him and his wife to dinner one evening, when the Prince and Princess Metternich were dining with us; and we got this answer: ”Merci, de votre invitation pour ma femme et moi. Nous regrettons de ne pouvoir l'accepter. Ma femme ne sort que pour aller a la messe, et moi je ne sors jamais de mes habitudes.” We felt snubbed, as no doubt we deserved to be.
Gounod played most enchantingly some selections from ”Romeo et Juliette,”
the opera he has just composed. I hear that he wants Christine Nilsson to sing it. The music seems to me even more beautiful than ”Faust.” Rossini talked a long time with Gounod, and Auber told me that Rossini said, patting Gounod on the back, ”Vous etes le chevalier Bayard de la musique.”
Gounod answered, ”Sans peur, non!”
Rossini said, ”Dans tous les cas, sans reproche et sans egal.”
Gounod is, I think, the gentlest, the most modest, and the kindest-hearted man in the world. His music is like him, gentle and graceful. Princess Mathilde asked me to sing again; but, as I had not brought any music, Auber offered to accompany me in the ”Song of the Djins,” from his new opera, which I had so often sung with him. It was not the song I should have selected; but, as Auber desired it, I was glad to gratify him, and was delighted when I saw Rossini compliment Auber, who (like the tenor before the drop-curtain, who waves his hand toward the soprano as if all the merit of the performance was due to her) waved his hand toward me, which suggested to Rossini to make me a reflected compliment.
This was a great occasion, seeing and hearing Rossini, Gounod, and Auber at the same time. I shall never forget that evening. I wonder that I had the courage to sing before them. Among the guests was an Indian Nabob dressed in all his orientals, who in himself would have been sufficient attraction for a whole evening, had he not been totally eclipsed by the three great artists. The Nabob probably expected more homage than he received; but people hardly looked at him.
I was presented to him, and he seemed glad to speak English, which was not of the best, but far better than his French. He told me a great deal about his journey, the attractions of Paris, and about his country and family.
I asked him, by way of saying something (I was not particularly interested in him or his family), how many children he had. He answered, ”Quite a few, milady.”
”What does your Highness call a few?” I asked.
”Well, I think about forty,” he replied, nonchalantly.
”That would be considered quite a large family here,” I said.
The Nabob, of course, did not appreciate the profundity of this remark.
A few days after, the Princess Mathilde sent me a lovely fan which she had painted herself, and Mr. Moulton is going to have it mounted. I am very happy to have it as a souvenir of a memorable evening, besides being an exquisite specimen of the Princess's talent as an artist. The Princess is what one might call miscellaneous. She has a Corsican father, a German mother, and a Russian husband, and as ”cavaliere servente” (as they say in Italy), a Dutchman. She was born in Austria, brought up in Italy, and lives in France. She said once to Baron Haussmann, ”If you go on making boulevards like that, you will shut me up like a vestal.”
”I will never make another, your Highness,” he answered.
Every one is very much excited about a young Swedish girl called Christine Nilsson, who has walked right into the star-light, for she really is a star of the first magnitude. She has studied with Wachtel only one year, and behold her now singing at the Theatre Lyrique to crowded audiences in the ”Flute Enchantee.” Her voice has a wonderful charm; she sings without the slightest effort, and naturally as a bird. She has some phenomenal high notes, which are clear as bells. She makes that usually tedious _grand aria_, which every singer makes a mess of, quite lovely and musical, hovering as she does in the regions above the upper line like a b.u.t.terfly and trilling like a canary-bird. A Chinese juggler does not play with his gla.s.s b.a.l.l.s more dexterously than she plays with all the effects and tricks of the voice. What luck for her to have blossomed like that into a full-fledged prima-donna with so little effort. I have got to know her quite well, as Miss Haggerty, who was at some school with her in Paris, invites her often to lunch and asks me to meet her.
Nilsson is tall, graceful, slight, and very attractive, without being actually handsome. She acts well and naturally, and with intelligence, without exerting herself; she has the happy faculty of understanding and seizing things _au vol_, instead of studying them. She has a regal future before her. A second Jenny Lind! Their careers are rather similar. Jenny Lind was a singer in cafes, and Nilsson played the violin in cafes in Stockholm. She is clever, too! She has surrounded herself by a wall of propriety, in the shape of an English _dame de compagnie_, and never moves unless followed by her. This lady (Miss Richardson) is correctness and primness personified, and so _comme il faut_ that it is actually oppressive to be in the same room with her. Nilsson herself is full of fun and jokes, but at the same time dignified and serious.
Christine Nilsson gave Mrs. Haggerty a box at the Theatre Lyrique, where she is now playing ”Traviata” (I think it was the director's box), and I was invited to go with her and Clem. The box was behind the curtain and very small and very dark. But it was intensely amusing to see how things were done, and how prosaic and matter-of-fact everything was. If ever I thanked my stars that I was not a star myself it was then.
Everything looked so tawdry and claptrap: the dirty boards, the grossly painted scenery, the dingy workmen shuffling about grumbling and gruff, ordered and scolded by a vulgar superior. Of course the stars do not see all these things, because they only appear when the heavens are ready for them to s.h.i.+ne in.
The overture, so it sounded to us, was a clash of drums, trumpets, and trombones all jumbled together. After the three knocks of the director, which started up the dust of ages into our faces until we were almost suffocated, the curtain rose slowly with great noise and rumbling.
The audience looked formidable as we saw it through the mist of cloudy gas-light, a sea of faces, of color and vagueness. The incongruity of costumes was a thing to weep over. If they had tried they could not have made it worse. The lady guests, walking and chatting, in a _soi-disant_ elegant salon, were dressed, some in Louis XV. splendor, some in dogesses'
brocades, some in modern finery, with bows and ribbons and things looped up any way. Nilsson was dressed in quite modern style--flounces, laces, and fringes, and so forth, while Alfredo had donned a black velvet coat _a la_ something, with a huge jabot which fell over a frilled s.h.i.+rt-front. He wore short velvet trousers, and black-silk stockings covered his thin legs without the least attempt at padding.
The ”padre” was in a shooting-jacket, evidently just in from a riding- tour. He held a riding-stick, and wore riding-gantlets which he flourished about with such wide gesticulations that I thought he was going to hit Nilsson in the face.
We could not hear the singing so well from where we sat; but the orchestra was overpowering, and the applause deafening, like peals of thunder.
I laughed when the gang of workmen rushed on to the stage as soon as the curtain came down, and began sweeping and taking down one set of furniture and putting on another; especially in the last act, when Violetta's bed came on and the men threw the pillows from one to the other, as if they were playing ball. They hung up a crucifix, which I thought was unnecessary, and brought in a candlestick. I wondered if they were going to put a warming-pan in the bed. A mat was laid down with great precision.
Then Nilsson came in, dressed in a flounced petticoat trimmed with lace, a ”matinee,” and black slippers, and got into the bed.
After the performance was over the curtain was raised and the artists came forward to bow; the stage was covered with flowers and wreaths. And Nilsson, in picking up her floral tributes, was wreathed in smiles; but they faded like mist before the sun the minute the curtain was lowered, and she looked tired and worn out. Her maid was there, waiting with a shawl to wrap around the shoulders of the hot prima-donna, and the prim Miss Richardson ready to escort her to her room, while the army of s.h.i.+rt- sleeved men invaded the stage like bees, with brooms which, though anything but new, I hope swept clean. Then everything was dark and dismal, lit only by one or two candles and a solitary lantern. All that was so brilliant a moment before was now only a confused ma.s.s of disillusions.
Nilsson and her duenna drove to Mrs. H----'s and had supper with us. One would never have dreamt that she had been dying of consumption an hour before, to see her stow away ham, salad, and pudding in great quant.i.ties.