Part 8 (1/2)
As I recall the annual performances of this obscure troupe, they were surprisingly good. At least, so they seemed to me, and I can laugh even now at the excruciatingly funny fellow who sang the topical song, ”Bob up Serenely” in ”Olivette.” There was also a curious dance, I remember, that went with the song,--a spreading out simultaneously of arms and legs in jumping-jack fas.h.i.+on,--and we boys thought it vastly amusing. We clapped and stamped and whistled, and kept the poor comedian at work as long as our breath held out and long after his had gone.
The last time that I saw the Bennett and Moulton Opera Company was in ”Fra Diavolo,” and the prima donna--the term seems ridiculous and absurd as I think of the person to whom it is applied--was a golden-haired little creature, wonderfully ample, tremendously in earnest, and strangely fascinating, a dainty slip of a girl, who seemed, in truth, only a child. I can see her now as she sat on the edge of the bed in the chamber scene, unfastening her shoes, singing very sweetly and very expressively her good-night song, all unconscious of the bold brigands who were watching the proceedings from their places of concealment. She charmed me as no singer in light opera ever had before, and the impression that she made upon me has never been lost. The child was Della Fox, of whom at that time no one had ever heard--Della Fox in the humblest of surroundings, but to me more fascinating than in any of the brilliant settings that have since been hers.
I did not see Della Fox again until 1890, when she was playing Blanche in ”Castles in the Air” with DeWolf Hopper. She had changed greatly in the few years, though far less than she has since the days of ”Castles in the Air,” ”w.a.n.g,” and ”Panjandrum.” Her appealing, unsophisticated girlishness had gone, and in its place was self-possession and authority. She was charming in her daintiness, provoking in her coquetry, a tantalizing atom of femininity. Her archness was not bold nor unwomanly, and her vivacity was well within the bounds of refinement and good taste. Her singing voice, too, was musical, though not over strong.
Della Fox was born in St. Louis on October 13, 1872. Her father, A. J.
Fox, was a photographer, who made something of a specialty of theatrical pictures; and thus Della's babyhood was pa.s.sed, not exactly in the playhouse atmosphere, perhaps, but certainly in an atmosphere next door to that of the greasepaint and footlights. Her experience on the stage began when she was only seven years old as the mids.h.i.+pmate in a children's ”Pinafore” company, which travelled in Missouri and Illinois for a season. She was an astonis.h.i.+ngly precocious child, and many persons who watched her shook their heads and predicted that her talent had ripened too early, and that, as is the case with many promising stage children, she would never amount to anything.
Apparently this mids.h.i.+pmate experience firmly established in Miss Della's childish mind the intention to become an actress. Her parents, however, succeeded in keeping her in school for a few years longer, though she appeared in several local performances where a child was needed. When she was nine years old, for instance, she acted for a week in St. Louis the child's part in the production of ”A Celebrated Case”
of which James O'Neill was the star, and she was also at one time with a ”Muldoon's Picnic” company. Her first real professional experience, however, was obtained with an organization known as the d.i.c.kson Sketch Club.
This was gotten up by four St. Louis young men, W. F. d.i.c.kson and W. G.
Smythe, both of whom became prominent theatrical managers, Augustus Thomas, the playwright, and Edgar Smith, the author of several Casino pieces, and at present writer-in-ordinary to Weber and Fields. Mr.
Thomas made a one-act play of Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett's story, ”Editha's Burglar,” and the company also appeared in a musical farce called ”Combustion.” Della Fox was the Editha in the play and the soubrette in the musical piece, while Mr. Thomas acted Bill Lewis, the burglar, and Mr. Smith was Paul Benton. Miss Fox's impersonation of Editha was, according to report, very good indeed. At any rate, the success of the play was sufficient to encourage the author to expand it to three-acts. The result was ”The Burglar,” one of the first plays in which Mr. E. H. Sothern appeared as a star. In the three-act version Sothern acted Bill Lewis, the burglar, and Elsie Leslie was Editha.
Mr. d.i.c.kson, who is now connected with the business staff of the Alhambra in Chicago, referred not long ago to this early experience as a manager.
”Yes,” he said, ”that was 'Gus' Thomas's debut as a dramatic author.
'Gus' was in the box office with me at the Olympic in St. Louis, and he managed to find time during the leisure moments when he was not selling tickets to scribble ideas in dramatic form. He read me this little sketch, 'Editha's Burglar,' and asked me to give it a trial. Right across the street from the theatre lived Della Fox, daughter of a photographer, a precocious little miss, whose talents were always in requisition whenever there were any child's parts to be filled at the theatre. I used to send over for Della whenever there was a little part for her, and she was delighted to get away from school and skip and trip before the footlights. After 'Gus' had read the play to me, he suggested that Della should play little Editha, and as a result I was induced to put the piece on with the budding author in the princ.i.p.al role. It had a certain sort of success, and we went on a tour, using 'The Burglar' as a curtain raiser to another play called 'Combustion,' also from 'Gus'
Thomas's pen. Later 'The Burglar' was produced in New York as a curtain-raiser to William Gillette's comedy, 'The Great Pink Pearl.'
Gillette himself played the burglar, and Mr. Thomas was encouraged to expand his sketch into a pretentious three-act play, and it went on the road, making money for the managers and familiarizing the public with Augustus Thomas's name.”
Next came Miss Fox's connection with the Bennett and Moulton Company, with which she appeared in the leading soprano roles of all the light operas,--”Fra Diavolo,” ”The Bohemian Girl,” ”The Pirates of Penzance,”
”Billie Taylor,” ”The Mikado,” and ”The Chimes of Normandy.” Her success with this minor organization brought her to the notice of Heinrich Conried, who was getting together an opera company to appear in ”The King's Fool.” She was given the soubrette part, and created something of a stir wherever the opera was given by her singing of ”Fair Columbia,”
one of the most popular songs of the piece. From Mr. Conried also she received about all the real instruction in dramatic art that she had ever had. When Davis and Locke, who had managed the Emma Juch Opera Company, decided to launch DeWolf Hopper as a star, they began to look about for a small-sized soubrette to act as a foil for Mr. Hopper's great height. George W. Lederer, of the New York Casino, suggested Della Fox, and accordingly she was engaged and opened with Hopper in ”Castles in the Air” at the Broadway Theatre, New York, in May, 1890.
Her success in this larger field was remarkable, and before the summer was over she was sharing the honors with Hopper and was just as strong a popular favorite as he. Her Blanche was a delightful creation throughout, but best remembered is the ”athletic duet” in which she and Hopper gave amusing pantomimic representations of games of billiards, baseball, and other familiar sports. Her Mataya in ”w.a.n.g,” which was brought out in New York in the summer of 1891, was another triumph. This was, perhaps, the most artistic of all her roles. She was cute, impish, and jaunty in turn as the Crown Prince, and, in addition, was a picture never to be forgotten in her perfect fitting white flannel suit, worn in the second act. It was in this act, too, that she sang the famous summer-night's song, which was whistled and hand-organed throughout the land.
Next Miss Fox created the princ.i.p.al soubrette role in Mr. Hopper's opera ”Panjandrum,” in which she continued to appear until she made her debut as a star in August, 1894, at the Casino, New York, in Goodwin and Furst's opera, ”The Little Trooper.” Her first season was extremely successful. The next year she was seen in ”Fleur-de-lis,” another Goodwin-Furst product. Writing of Miss Fox in this opera, Philip Hale said:--
”Disagreeable qualities in the customary performance of Miss Fox were not nearly so much in evidence as in some of her other characters. She was not so deliberately affected, she was not so brazen in her a.s.surance. Even her vocal mannerisms were not so conspicuous. She almost played with discretion, and often she was delightful. Her self-introduction to her father was one long to be remembered. No wonder that the audience insisted on seeing it again and again. All in all, Miss Fox appeared greatly to her advantage.”
His criticism of the opera is also interesting:
”It was March 31, 1885, that 'Pervenche,' an operetta, text by Duru and Chivot, music by Audran, was first produced at the Bouffes-Parisiens.
Mrs. Thuillier-Leloir was the Pervenche, Mauge the Count des Escarbilles, and Mesnacker the Marquis de Rosolio. The honors of the evening, however, were borne away by Mr. and Mrs. Piccaluga, who were respectively Frederick and Charlotte. The opera did not please, and it ran only twenty-nine nights. Nor has it been revived.
”In the time of Henry the Second, or Henry the Third, two nephews disputed the right to possess a castle in Touraine that had belonged to their late uncle, who died without will. Rosolio held the castle, and Escarbilles tried to dislodge him. By the will, found eventually, the castle belonged to Rosolio if Frederick, the son of Escarbilles, should marry Pervenche, the natural daughter of Rosolio.
”The performance was in the main poor, and the music of Audran was not distinguished, they say. A romance of Frederick, a pastorale Tyrolienne sung by Charlotte at the end of the second act, and a duet of menders of faience in the third act, said to be the best of the three, alone seemed worthy of remark.
”So much for 'Pervenche,' the libretto of which furnished the foundation for Mr. Goodwin's story and songs. Just how far Mr. Goodwin departed from the situations furnished by Messrs. Durn and Chivot, I am unable to say, for I never saw 'Pervenche' nor its libretto. However much he may be indebted, this can be truly said: he has written an entertaining book; the plot is coherent, and the situations laughable. The second act is admirable throughout. The colossal effrontery of the starved Rosolio in the castle manned by women disguised as soldiers, the reconciliation of the nephews, the exchange of reminiscences of gay student days in Paris, the discovery of the imposition, and the renewed hostilities,--these are amusing and well connected. Furthermore, the audience at the end of this act realizes at once the need of a third act, to clear up matters. Now this is rare in operetta of to-day. Even in the third act the interest never flags, although there was one dreadful moment, when it looked as though the old 'Mascotte' third-act business was to be introduced. Fortunately the suspicion was groundless, and the audience breathed freer and forgot its fears in the enjoyment of the delightful scenes between Des Escarbilles and the miller, and then the ghost.
”Not so much can be said in praise of the music. It is the same old thing that has served in many operettas. There is a jingle, there are the inevitable waltz tunes that always sound alike. But the music gives the comedians an excuse for singing and dancing. It thus serves its turn and is promptly forgotten until another operetta comes, and the hearer has a vague impression that he has heard the tunes before.”
”The Wedding Day,” with Della Fox, Lillian Russell, and Jefferson De Angelis in the cast, was brought out in the fall of 1897, and it revived to a degree old-time memories of players at the Casino. The opera itself proved to be of an order of merit recalling ”Falka,” ”The Merry War,”
and ”Nanon,” the like of which had not appeared for many, many seasons.