THE first of September, without a word of German, I set out for Berlin. My mother had come over during the preceding Spring, to make her home in Paris with my sculptor brother Cecil and my sister. From this time on I went to them for the summers, and my sister joined me when I went to Metz, and has never left me since. It made it harder to leave both family and Paris behind and go into an unknown land, but I felt it to be the best way.
Lilli Lehmann's studio was my objective point. I found her address in a musical journal, and armed with that, and the address of an inexpensivepension, I took the train. Arrived in Berlin, I took aDroschke, directing the driver to my pension by showing him the street and number on a piece of paper. Somewhere between thatDroschkeand my room, my travelling clock got lost, and what a time I had to recover it! The apple-cheeked maid knew of theexistence of no other language beside her own. In vain I made a pendulum of my finger and tirelessly repeated "tick, tick"—no gleam of intelligence dawned in her Prussian blue eyes.
The first few days brought a series of disappointments. The Lehmann idea had to be abandoned. She was out of town and recommended me by letter to a certain Herr——, to whom she was sending every one who applied to her. I found him a dear old man indeed, but one who had nothing to say to me on the subject of voice production which I had not heard already. However, I decided to begin the study of German repertoire with him, painstakingly re-learning the operas I already knew in French, and adding the new ones required for a German engagement. Later I found a goodrépétiteur, who knew the operas thoroughly, quite sufficient and much cheaper, as he charged only four marks ($1.00) an hour. I studied the words of my rôles with Herr——'s wife, who had been an actress and a good one, and who laid the foundation of what I am proud to say is now a perfect German accent. These lessons were five marks an hour and were quite worth it. I would learn a rôle by heart, sentence by sentence, looking up every word in the dictionary and writing in the translation over the German, spending hours in fruitless search for a past participle whichdid not look as if it belonged to its infinitive, the only part of the verb, of course, to be given in the dictionary! Then, sentence by sentence, I would go over it with Frau——, repeating each word after her, sometimes twenty times! We also used those splendid books, known I found afterwards to every German actor, in which paragraphs of words with the same vowel sound or combination of vowel and consonants are given to be repeated over and over again. Besides this drudgery, I had German lessons for four months (at three marks or seventy-five cents) for which I had to translate and write exercises. All the labyrinths of the declension of articles, nouns and adjectives in three genders and plurals, lay before me to be explored. The datives and accusatives haunted my dreams by night, and by day I was reduced to the sign language.
I had left my first pension, and crushing down the temptation to live in one of the big, gay German-American pensions, where justice is tempered with mercy, so to speak, I moved myself and my piano into a real German one, where I was the only alien. It was one floor of a large house in a quiet side street—the top floor, and no elevator! I climbed eighty-seven steps by actual count every time I came home from a lesson. I had a huge room, heated by steam, with board for four marks a day. The meals wereecht Deutsch. Breakfast was set ready on the dining-room table at some unearthly hour, and the guests went in and helped themselves when they chose. The coffee and hot milk were kept warm over little alcohol flames, and there were delicious Berlin rolls and the best of unsalted butter. Dinner was at two, and was good in its plain way. We had some North German dishes which one had to learn to enjoy, like olives. Hot chocolate soup I grew quite fond of, but beer soup, sorrel soup, and cabbage soup with cherries in it were never exactly intimates of mine. One dish of baked ham with dumplings and hot plum jam sounds strange, but improves on acquaintance;Pumpernickel, andSchmierkaeseare better than their names, andKartoffelpuffen mit Preisselbeeren(potato cakes with cranberries) are delicious. We had good plain puddings and black coffee for dessert every day, and quite wonderful roast Pomeranian goose andEistortewith whipped cream on Sundays. Supper was at eight, and the menu was certainly a model for the simple life. Bread and butter with slices of sausage and cold ham, sometimes big dishes of roast chestnuts instead of cold meat, or potatoes in their jackets, or some of the endless variety of North-German cheeses—to drink, tea or beer, and that was all.
My fellow pensionnaires were nearly all teachers,or students preparing to be teachers. They all spoke German and nothing but German, and, at first, I used to think my mind would drown in the overwhelming floods of it that assailed my ears. Gradually it came to sound like individual words and phrases, and soon I dared occasionally to launch a small conversational barque upon it, avoiding the disastrous rocks of gender as skilfully as possible, though often at first, by the time that my genders and cases were all arranged for a sentence, the subject had changed, and I could not use it. We had a Fräulein Lanz, Fräulein Franz, and Fräulein Kranz, four or five other Fräuleins and no males at all.
Another American student of singing came to live there, and in the evening we used to go to the opera or to concerts together. Everything begins early in Berlin, and those who had tickets for some entertainment missed the eight o'clock supper. So plates ofbelegte Broedchen(rolls with cold meat) would be set out for them on the dining-table, and all the others would be sitting there with their needle-work, and would demand "Nun, wie war es?" when we came in. On Saturdays the evening paper announced the program at the opera for the week, and we could hardly wait to look at it. The cheaper seats are in great demand. Students wait for hours, sometimes from earliest dawn, outside the box office on Sunday morningswhen the sale for the week begins. We had an arrangement with the keeper of a little fruit and vegetable shop, to save ourselves the wait. We would decide what we wished to see and go over to his shop on Saturday evening to order the seats from him. He then went down early enough to secure the front row in the top gallery for us at two marks fifty, and we paid him twelve cents for his trouble. Sixty-two cents is quite a high price in comparison to those of the rest of the Opera House, for the orchestra chairs cost only eight marks. The top gallery is vast, and the back rows are much cheaper, but the authorities show their sense in keeping up the price of the front rows and I don't think there is ever an empty seat there. To concerts we were often admitted free, on saying that we were students, unless the artist was a great favourite, and in that case we could buy standing room, or seats in the gallery for one mark. We always went and came home in the street cars, paying the two cent fare with a one cent tip to the conductor, and dressing in our ordinary street clothes, with scarves over our hair. I used to go alone sometimes, and was never spoken to or molested in any way. No one looked at you twice, unless you looked at him three times.
On Sundays I would take a day off, and, in true German fashion, make an expedition; in bad weatherto some museum or picture gallery, in Autumn or Spring to some out-of-door restaurant. Sometimes I was too tired to go further than theTiergarten. Then I would stroll gently across it and have coffee and cakes at theZelt, or big open-air refreshment gardens where the band plays. They are the resort ofhoi polloiof Berlin in countless family groups: the father rather fat with hirsute adornments, the mother also rather massive, and their plump children, all drinking beer out of tall glasses and mugs, or coffee in inch-thick white cups, and eating wedges of highly decoratedTorte, with or without the addition of heaped-up whipped cream.
If I felt more strenuous, I would take a car out to the Grunewald, a villa-colony suburb, with roads winding through pine woods. I would sit under the trees and invite my soul. As I sat there, some girl or boy's school would come trooping by, singing aVolksliedof interminable verses, in four parts, having tramped all day for the pure joy of motion in the open air. Then I would have coffee and a triangle of cherry pie, and what cherry pie! at theHundekehle, an immense restaurant on the border of a small lake, accommodating I don't know how many fat Prussians at once with refreshments. Every German town has some such resort, where inexpensive creature comforts are the reward of a long walk. Such an expeditionof the whole family is their greatest treat, and one in which they have the sense to indulge as often as possible. Even on week day afternoons the housewives find time for a stroll, a reviving cup of coffee, and a little gossip, though of course that is not the same thing as goingen massewith Hans and the Kinder. Of course, this was long before the war.
BY the first of December I had broken the back of the German declensions, understood a good part of an ordinary conversation, and had painfully acquired three or four rôles in German. The gadfly of my ambition began to torment me again, and I determined to look for a "job."
Students often ask me "How did you get your first engagement?" This is how. I went to see the best agent in Berlin, Herr Harder, a man of the highest reputation for fair dealing, who was the recognized head of his profession. Opinion as to the agent's powers of usefulness is divided among singers. Some maintain that they have made all their good engagements independently, others tell you that you are safe only in the hands of a reputable agent. I have closed contracts in both ways. The agent is not omnipotent. It is his business to watch the operatic field and notify you when there is a vacancy that he thinks would suit you. He is apt to know first where such vacancies are likely to occur. Directors who are looking for singers sometimes gostraight to their favourite agent. Then he, the agent, sends you word that Herr Direktor So and So will be at his Bureau on such a day to hear singers. When you respond, you may find yourself the only contralto among many other voices, or you may find yourself one of six or seven all wanting the same engagement. The agent keeps contract blanks in his office, and when he hears of a vacancy in an opera house, he fills in a blank with your name, the name of the theatre, and tentatively the salary he thinks they will pay, and sends it to you. You sign it if it suits you, and return it to the agent. This is really nothing more than a notification that there is, or will be, such a vacancy, and is not worth the paper it is written on. American girls, who do not understand this, will tell you that they have "been offered Berlin, or Vienna, or Munich," when they have merely received one of theseAgenten-Verträge. A contract is worth nothing as such, until it is countersigned by the director of the opera house, and yourself as singer. Even then, it is not valid until you have sung as many "trial performances" at the opera house as the contract calls for, and for which you may have to wait six months.
I told Herr Harder what I wanted—a chance to do big rôles somewhere, salary no particular object, as I should look upon the experience as the completion of my training. I sang for him, left with himmy repertoire and photographs, and he promised to let me know of the first opportunity that presented itself. In a short time, he sent for me to come and see the Director of the Theater des Westens, a Berlin theatre which at that time was the home of a sort of popular opera. I sang for the manager, and he was very complimentary. He offered to engage me at once, but he added, curiously enough, that I was too good for him! They gave only the older operas like "Trovatore," on which the copyright had expired, and of these only the ones which the Hofoper did not give, so that I should have no chance to sing my big parts. At the same time, he said he would very much like to have me. The offer did not suit my plans, and I decided to refuse it. I went on with my work until just before Christmas, when Herr Harder made me a second proposal. This was the position of first contralto in the garrison town of Metz in Alsace-Lorraine. The opera was a municipal one, that is it was subsidized by the town, they played a season of seven months, and gave a large repertoire including some of the Ring dramas. I was to go down there, sing for the management, and if they liked me, begin my engagement the following September, giving me time to make additions to my German repertoire. As I was a beginner of course I could not give the usual guest performances.
Vorsingenis a trying ordeal. The great theatres have regular days for hearing aspirants, but this was a small theatre. The appointment is usually made on the stage, sometimes during, sometimes just after a rehearsal. Groups of the singers regularly engaged in the opera house stand in the wings, and you feel a nameless hostility emanating from all of them, especially from the one whom you are going to try to supplant. The theatre is like a cavern, and the acoustic is of course totally unknown to you. Two or three pale spots down in the orchestra chairs indicate the whereabouts of the director and perhaps the stage manager and first Kapellmeister who have come to hear you. The overhead "rehearsal lights" are very unbecoming and you are quite conscious of it. If you are to sing with orchestra, the conductor presents you to the players, "Meine Herren, Fräulein——." You bow, and your insides slip a few inches lower. My firstVorsingenwas with the piano. It stood at one side of the stage, and a whipper-snapper of a third Kapellmeister dashed more or less accurately into the prelude of the second aria from "Samson et Dalila."
Then came a momentous interview in the Director's office. I had sung such good German, thanks to Frau——, that he had no idea that I understood only about three words in five of what he said. For form'ssake he kept saying, "Sie verstehen mich, Fräulein?" and when I answered "Ja," he was satisfied. His wife, who thought she spoke English, was present, and tried to say a great deal, but my German proved the more serviceable of the two. I gathered that I was offered a two season contract, to sing the leading contralto parts, at the princely salary of 150 marks a month! (about $35). There was noSpielgelt. Salaries are usually divided into so much per month down, and so much per performance, the number of performances per month guaranteed; that is, one is paid for a certain number whether one sings them or not, and any performances over and above this number are paid extra. If a performance is lost by one's own fault, through illness for example, theSpielgeltfor that performance is forfeited. Three days absence from the cast through illness, even though one may be scheduled to sing only once during those days, is counted as oneSpielgelt.
Illness is, in fact, almost a crime. In addition to losing your money, you have to have witnesses to prove that you are really ill, for theatre directors in Germany are a suspicious lot and take nothing for granted. If you wake on the morning of a performance with laryngitis, that dread enemy of the voice, or if you fall downstairs on your way to the theatre and sprain your ankle, you must notify the theatrebefore a certain hour in the day, perhaps ten or twelve, or four o'clock, that you cannot sing that night. Your word for it alone won't do. Every theatre has special doctors on its list, and you must call in one of these, whether he is your regular physician or not. He makes an examination and gives you a signed statement that you are unable to appear, adding, if the disorder be serious, how many days it will be in his opinion, before you can return to work. It often happens that the man most experienced in treating your illness, the best throat specialist in town, for example, is not on the books as "Theater-Arzt," and then if you wish to be treated by him, you sometimes have trouble with the theatre doctor. In the theatre in which I was first engaged, I had a disagreeable experience of this kind. I was ill with bronchitis, and sent word to the theatre the day before, that I should not be able to singMarta, in "Faust," on the night scheduled for it. I had already committed the deadly crime of illness once before that season, and this time my defection was particularly annoying to the management because they had to get a guest for "Faust" anyway, and they would be forced to send posthaste for another to sing theNurse. Their irritation with me was equalled, if not surpassed, by that of the regular theatre doctor, whose professional honour had been outraged the last timeby my insistence upon the services of a very clever throat specialist who lived in the town, and whose aid I had had the bad taste to prefer to his own. Between them, I was the corn between the upper and nether millstone. Next day the theatre sent word that they would accept nothing but a certificate from their own doctor, and the doctor shortly after appeared at my bedside. I could hardly speak out loud, but managed to whisper a request that he would write me an "Attest" for three days. To my surprise he began to hem and haw, and finally stammered out: "There is really no reason in my opinion, why you shouldn't sing this evening!" I was so furious I saw red. I sat up in bed, and whispered savagely:
"You say I can sing tonight! Very well, get out of my room, and I'll go to the theatre and sing this evening, with my voice in this condition, andyouwill be responsible for the consequences!" He got up, twisting his hat in his hands, and stammering something. I simply fixed my eyes on him, and fairly glared him out of the room. Then I dressed like a hurricane and rushed to the director's office.
"I have come to singMarta," I announced hoarsely.
"Oh!liebes Fräulein——" began the director, positively scared by my pale face and furious eyes, "Of coursewe don't want you to sing whenyou are so hoarse. Doctor—— was quite mistaken; please go home and take care of yourself. We'll get a guest for theNurseat once!"
"Very well," I said, "I will go home if you say so; but remember Doctor—— says I can sing, and I am ready to do so on his responsibility."
I went back after my illness to see the director, who to my surprise began to attack me violently about my absence. He stormed, and thumped the desk, and would listen to nothing I said. I tried to tell him he had no right to speak to me in that way, as I had really been ill, and had always done my duty when well. He raved back that I hadnotdone my duty, and it seemed to me so futile to argue, that I walked out without answering and left him raving. I went home and stayed there for five days, and at the end of that time the director sent his secretary "to explain" and ask me to return to my duty. It was an awkward interview for him, poor man, so I let him off easily, graciously accepted the somewhat disguised apology, and, as I was quite recovered and eager to sing again, signified my willingness to appear the following night.
To return to my first contract.—There was a formidable list of rôles which I must agree to have ready, and the director also insisted on my studying with a certain well-known woman teacher in Berlin!I conveyed to him as well as I could, that I would settle all this with my agent, as I had no intention of agreeing to all of it, and was afraid to trust my German to say so diplomatically. He added, "Of course you are too good for us, Fräulein." This was the second time I had been told I was too good for an engagement. Every one seemed to think I ought to aim at a secondary position in one of the big opera houses, rather than a leading one in a smaller place. The prospect of singing pages or confidants in a capital city, with perhaps one good rôle in a season, did not meet my needs at all; but no one seemed to sympathize with my ideas. I wanted to make a career in Germany, as if I were a German singer, having my own recognized place in the opera house in which I was engaged, singing the big rôles by right, without intriguing or fighting for them.
On returning to Berlin, I wrote to Herr Harder that I would learn a certain specified number of rôles in addition to those I already knew, making about twelve in all, and ignored the singing-teacher proposition altogether as I had formed the intention of going to coach with Jean de Reszke. On these terms the contract was returned to me signed by the director, and I was engaged.
“WHEN I make my début” was the phrase that I had heard so often on the lips of my American fellow students. Each one had chosen her opera house, and decided in which rôle she would dazzle a clamouring public. Sometimes one more modest would choose Monte Carlo in preference to Paris, or if she intended to make a career in Germany, she might hesitate between the rival merits of Dresden and Berlin. But that the theatre should be one of the half-dozen leading ones in the world, and the rôle her favourite, were foregone conclusions before she left America.
I CARMEN AS I USED TO DRESS ITI CARMEN AS I USED TO DRESS IT
In this respect, I quite shattered the tradition of the prima donna, for I sang my first part in a small provincial German opera house, at twenty-four hours' notice, and it was one of those which I have least pleasure in singing. I remember that a well-known American writer, living in Paris, said patronizingly to my mother à propos of my first appearance, "Let us hope that she will make a real début later, for thiscan hardly be called one, can it?" "Well, after all," answered my mother, "who knows where most of the great singers of today made their débuts?"
Contemporary fiction is full of opera singing heroines who jump into fame in a single night, like Minerva springing full armed from the head of Jupiter. Well, perhaps some of them do so—but I have never met a singer, even of the highest international reputation, who has not had some dark checkers of disappointment in his career. All his clouds may have had silver linings, but sometimes the silver gets mighty tarnished before he succeeds in struggling through the cloud, and sometimes another singer gets through first and steals the silver outright. I cannot say that I have ever been in great danger morally on the stage, but my courage, my nerve, has been sometimes severely threatened, and I have needed to summon the most dogged determination to keep it from failing altogether. I feel sure that all successful singers share my experience in greater or less degree, especially those who have been trained in foreign countries. Not all of them, by any means, have been through as severe a school as mine; few American singers at any rate, have made a career in a foreign country exactly as if they had been a native of it. Many have been engaged for special rôles in one of the larger opera houses, and after several years of experience, havesung but a few parts, all of which have been those most suited to them. I have sung, on the contrary, the entire repertoire of a typical German opera house, where operas are regularly given of which the Metropolitan audience has never even heard.
In my first season, I sang in all fifteen different rôles in the first seven months of my career. I have appeared in eighty-five, ranging from the Wagner music dramas to the "Merry Widow" and singing many of the rôles in three different languages. It has been "the strenuous life" in its severest form, but I do not regret any of it, nor feel that my effort has been wasted, for I know that I understand mymétier, comprehensively and in detail, and nothing can take away the satisfaction of that.
The beginning of the season found my sister and myself in the town of Metz, as according to contract we had arrived six days before the opening. The weather was hot and dusty, and the town seemed deserted, for the regiments which gave it life and colour was still away at the Autumn manœuvres. We felt very forlorn at first, strangers in a strange land with a vengeance, and without the least idea of what the immediate future might hold for us. My German had improved considerably since my interview with the director, but my sister did not know one word. Luckily for her there was almost as much Frenchspoken in the town as German. There were many shops of absolutely French character, where she was treated with great consideration as coming from Paris. Even the officials of the town, the post office employés, custom officers, and others with whom she came in contact, though rather deaf in their French ear, would make shift to understand her if necessary, adding an extra touch of rigidity to their already sufficiently severe manner, in order to nip any "French familiarity" in the bud.
We went to the hotel that had been recommended to us, as the principal one in the town was in the process of reconstruction and swarmed with plasterers and carpenters. It was rather a dreadful place, with enormous dark rooms, dingily furnished with heavy old-fashioned furniture; but it was very near the theatre and as we meant to find lodgings later, we tried not to be depressed by its gloominess.
Of course, the first thing we did was to visit the theatre. To reach it one crossed a bridge over the river, picturesquely bordered with old overhanging houses, then a cobblestone "Platz," and there, rather shabby but still quite imposing, it stood. On the way I read my name for the first time on a German poster, with a distinct thrill. I knew my way to the stage-entrance, and through it to the Direktor's Bureau, where several shocks awaited me. I learnedthat the man who had engaged me had been superseded by a new one, who had not yet arrived. Matters were in charge of the stage manager, a huge, towering creature, with a great bass voice, who was a rather remarkable actor. He had come down in the world, having begun life as a cavalry officer, and he had strange gleams of the gentleman about him, even then. He was, by the way, the one man in the profession who ever made me a questionable offer. He grew to admire me very much as time went on, and one day, after I had been there some time, he asked me to sign a further contract with the theatre.
"You'll never get anything very much better," he said, "as you are a foreigner. We'll make a good contract with you, and perhaps, later—who knows?—you may have a 'protection salary.'"
He paused to see the effect of his proposal, and was met with absolute non-comprehension on my part, as I really did not understand, at the time, the German words he was using. He dropped his proposal there and then, and the affair had no unpleasant consequences for me, as he never referred to it again. And that is the single instance of that sort which I have encountered. Nevertheless, I might possibly have had further trouble with him, for my appearance really seemed to appeal to him very much, later in the winter. Just before Christmas, however, he died, almostovernight, as we were in the midst of rushing a production of "Trompeter von Säkkingen." He had informed me on Friday night that I should have to sing theCountesson the following Tuesday. I did not know a word of it, and was on the way on Saturday morning to get the score, when I heard that he was dangerously ill—and by Sunday morning he was dead. Poor man! he had some good qualities and real talents, but it turned out that he was a great scoundrel and had been robbing the direction left and right, under the pretence of assisting the new director.
This new director, who had never even heard my voice, had been a well-known Wagnerian singer in his day and intended to take some of the principal baritone rôles in his new position, to the intense disgust of the regularHeldenbariton. All the outstanding contracts had been taken over in his name. This sudden change of management, during vacation time, made a little trouble for me as it happened. None of the present staff had heard me sing. They knew only that I was a foreigner without experience, heard that my conversational German was not yet perfect (a much rarer accomplishment than a perfect accent in singing), and therefore doubted my ability to do the work of the first contralto. So they had engaged a native, which meant that it was "up to me" to prove myself capable at the first opportunity or lose thechance of doing first rôles or perhaps be dismissed altogether.
Our hotel was impossible for a long stay, and, of course, after my Berlin experience, my first idea was a good German pension. We went to theVerkehrsverein—the Information Bureau which is a feature of all German towns, and asked for a pension address. The man in charge shook his head. There was only one such place, he said, and he feared that it would not suit us, but we might go and see. We went accordingly, and found a nice-enough looking house in the newest quarter, quite the other side of the town from the theatre. The inside of the house, however, told its own story—concrete floors, whitewashed walls with garish religious prints on them, and deal furniture with red and white table covers much in evidence. The bedrooms were cell-like and garnished with mottoes, while a Bible and candlestick by each bedside were the only other decorations.
"What is this institution?" we asked.
"It is the German Young Ladies Evangelical Home, for Protestants only," we were told.
We thanked the Matron, and decided that we were neither German, Evangelical nor young enough for such a home, even though we might be ladies and Protestants.
Disappointed in our hope of finding a pension, wereturned to our friend of the Information Bureau, this time to ask for addresses of furnished rooms with a decent landlady to attend to them for us. He shook his head once more—it was very difficult in a garrison town, he said, to be certain of the character of a house which had furnished rooms to let.
"But where do the artists of the theatres usually live?" we asked.
"Oh! they either take furnished rooms, or bring their own furniture," he answered, "or live in the smaller hotels. But then they are Germans and used to judging in such cases. There is, however, an English lady living here who knows the town thoroughly, and you had better go to her and get her to find rooms for you."
As we felt that we could not possibly ask a totally unknown Englishwoman to find lodgings for us, my sister set out on the hunt alone. As a foreigner speaking no German, and a woman looking for rooms all by herself, she was received in a very curious manner by most of the landladies she visited, and evidently looked upon with strong suspicion. We were getting desperate, as the time of my début was coming nearer and nearer and we were still unsettled. Finally we resolved to throw ourselves upon the mercy of the unknown Englishwoman after all, and wrote her a note begging her assistance in finding two furnished roomsnear the theatre, with aHausfrauwho would look after them and serve our breakfast. We had to find a furnished apartment as we were not like some of my colleagues who possess their own furniture and pass their lives in a sort of singing journey through the country, always surrounded by their own household goods.
CARMEN AS I NOW DRESS ITCARMEN AS I NOW DRESS IT
EARLY the next morning, before we were up, our English friend kindly came to see us, and with her help we soon discovered just what we were looking for, in an eminently respectable house, where theHausfrauwas the wife of a policeman, so that we were under the shadow of the majesty of the law.
A young doctor had the rooms, but she assured us that he was moving immediately, and that we might send our trunks the following day. We duly arrived the next afternoon with an avalanche of baggage and found that the poor young man had had no intention of leaving before the end of the month and had even invited guests for that very evening! Floods of German ensued between him and theHausfrau, while we sat philosophically on our trunks in the hall and waited. Presently she emerged, rather heated of countenance, to say that it was all arranged, and to begin moving our things into the bedroom. The doctorcalled us into the sitting-room, waived aside our explanations and thanks for his gallantry, and shutting all the doors mysteriously, proceeded to the only revenge in his power—to defame the character and impugn the honesty of our future hostess.
"Keep things locked, I warn you, keep them locked!" he repeated earnestly, all the while cramming books, bottles and garments promiscuously into a trunk.
We made allowances for his need of reprisal, and took his warning with a grain of salt; and as a matter of fact our landlady never touched anything of ours except what she doubtless considered her proper "commission" levied upon our coal and kerosene. She was quite satisfactory on the whole, except that shewouldquarrel very noisily with her policeman from time to time, or rather he with her. When we remonstrated and said that we could not stand it and that she shouldn't, she answered that she would be only too glad to get out of her bargain, but that she had put her money into this marriage and therefore had to stay in it!
Her small boy was named Karl, but she always called him "Schweinsche'." She had a few wisps of greyish drab hair wound round a sort of steering-wheel of celluloid in the back. On Christmas my sister hunted for hours for a present for her, andfinally returned with a magnificent set of rhinestone-set haircombs. I have always wondered what the poor woman did with them, as her hair could not have covered an eighth of their prongs.
The reason for the summary dismissal of her former tenant was, of course, the extra money that she made out of our being foreigners who did not know the tariff, and the fact that there were two of us to be served. We paid sixty marks, fifteen dollars, a month for the rooms, service and breakfast of coffee and rolls, and little as this seems, I don't suppose the doctor had paid a penny over forty. Our colleagues thought us spendthrifts and gullible foreigners, as they paid about thirty marks and got their own breakfast.
My sister had two chafing dishes on which she cooked our supper, but the two o'clock dinner was a problem. I was too tired after the strenuous morning rehearsals beginning at ten o'clock, and the strain of trying to follow all the directions I received in German, to go to the Hotels or restaurants for dinner, as most of my colleagues did. Our landlady suggested that she should have it fetched from the officers' mess of the crack cavalry regiment, whose barracks were near by. She said this was a usual arrangement. We bought a sort of tier of enamelled dishes, fitting into each other and carried in a kind ofwickerwork handle. One contained soup, the next meat, the third vegetable, while bread or dessert reposed in the top. We can testify that even crack regiments are not unduly pampered in the Fatherland, for anything plainer, or more unappetizing than these dinners, I have never tried to eat. Perhaps they gained something when served hot in the officers'Casino, but we found it almost impossible to down them, eaten out of our enamel-ware dishes. After a time, when the newness of everything in the theatre had worn off a little, and I began "to feel my feet," we arranged to dine at the hotel where many of the colleagues met daily. This was a far better plan, as, in addition to a really hot meal, we had a splendid opportunity to improve our German. I was naturally making rapid progress in it, but my sister still had to confine herself to the shops where they understood French. One day when I came home from rehearsal, she told me that ourHausfrauhad repeated to her a long piece of gossip in German. Seeing by my sister's face that she had not understood, the woman said, "Oh, you don't understand, Fräulein. Well, I'll say it all over again in French." Then she proceeded to repeat it again, very loudly and slowly—in German!
Of course it is rather dreadful to be called just "Fräulein" by your landlady in Germany, but thesocial standing of the singers and players in a provincial theatre is usually not high enough to warrant anything else. A position in an opera house in a capital city, or in a Hoftheater, confers social importance enough upon its holder to entitle her to the prefixgnädiges(gracious) before the ignominiousFräulein, which in society is properly used to designate only a governess, a companion, or a saleswoman in a shop.
Titles and forms of address are a ticklish subject in the Fatherland, at any time. It is hard to comprehend the mazes of male progression from the simple "Rat," through the subsequent variations of Hofrat (court councillor), Geheimer Hofrat (privy court councillor), Geheimrat (privy councillor), Wirklicher Geheimrat (really truly privy councillor), to the lofty dignity of Excellenz.
Old-fashioned ladies used to employ the feminized version of their husband's titles, and I once knew an old dame who insisted upon being addressed as "Frau Oberlandgerichtsräthin." The bourgeoisie used to copy the aristocracy in this respect, and at the afternoon Kaffeeklatsch, Frau Hofcondittor Meyer would inquire about the health of Herr Strassenbahnsinspektor Braun, from his wife the Frau Strassenbahnsinspektorin (street car inspectoress). Modern life is too crowded perhaps for such lengthy addresses,but Frau Meyer and Herr Braun are certainly less picturesque cognomens. Among the artistocracy the proper titles and forms of address have many pitfalls for the foreigner, though I used to dodge them fairly successfully by addressing every woman older than myself as "Gnädige Frau" irrespective of her "handle," and the men by no title at all, except in the case of a prince not of royal blood, who has to be called by the mouth-filling courtesy title ofDurchlaucht.
Of course in letter-writing this way round is not always possible, and here the complications are simply terrifying. The salutation of a lady without any title at all ranges all the way from "Wertes Fräulein" (Worthy Miss), almost an insult to a person of any gentility, to the punctilious "Hochvereherte und gnädige Frau" (Highly honoured and gracious lady) of high society. Even the envelope provides a subtle form of insult or of flattery. In Germany one is simply born, well-born, highly well-born, or high born as the case may be. If you are rightly entitled to the third, how irritating to be publicly branded on the outside of a letter as only well-born. On the other hand, if you really belong among the merely born, what a delicate attention to be acknowledged "Hochwohlgeborene" for all the world, including thePortier's Frauto see! Shops in writing to you (as long as your credit is good) love to employ the latteron the envelope, repeat it in the body of the letter which always begins "Highly honoured and gracious Miss" and sign themselves "Mit Vorzüglicher Hochachtung"—"with magnificent respect." Friends, of course, call you just Fräulein So-and-so, as we should say "Miss Brown," except if they are young men, when they usually stick to the "gracious Miss." You must never inquire for the members of a person's family without the Mr., Mrs., or Miss being added: "How is your Frau Mother, Herr Father, or Fräulein Sister?" There is a curious phrase for parents—"How are yourHerrenParents?" being the strictly correct form of question.
Yes! Etiquette is very complicated in Germany and requires a great deal of study from the "Out-lander."
To return to the theatre—we expected that my sister would have the run of my dressing-room, and that she might be present at the rehearsals. We found on the contrary that the most rigorous rules were enforced to forbid entrance to the theatre to any one not a regular member of the staff. No one else was allowed to pass the porter's lodge. There were regular dressers provided by the theatre, and my sister was present only once or twice at rehearsals during my two seasons in Metz and then only by special request.
The rehearsals for the next day were posted at the stage door. They were not printed or typed, but written in German script, with chalk on the blackboard. They would be placed there at six o'clock every evening, and my sister used to go over to find out for me what they were. She could not read German script at all, neither could I, very well; so she used to take paper and pencil and laboriously draw everything on the board, chorus calls and all, for fear of missing something. Then, letter by letter, we would puzzle it out, and find out the hours of my rehearsals, as if they had been written in cipher. She was always present at my performances.
I had to write, "I beg in the most polite manner for a seat for my sister for this evening's performance," and drop it into a special box before half past eleven in the morning. Then in the evening, if there were a vacant place in the orchestra chairs, she would have it. On Sundays the house was oftenausverkauft, sold out, so we generally bought a seat if I were singing on that night, so as to be on the safe side. The prices ranged from four marks for box seats, to five cents in the gallery. The orchestra chairs cost three marks (75 cents), but nearly every one had anAbonnement, or sort of season ticket, which made them much cheaper. The rates for officers were very low indeed. The chief cavalry regiments had theboxes between them, and the less important lieutenants of the infantry or the despised engineers had seats in the first balcony. Years ago, in the old unregenerate days, these boxes full of young cavalrymen furnished almost more entertainment than the stage. The boxes had curtains to be drawn at will, and the young rascals would order champagne served to them there, and drink toasts loudly to their favourite singers in the midst of their performances. Some of the frail fair ones of the town would visit them behind the drawn curtains, and there were high times generally. This has all come to an end, gone the road of other equally charming old customs, and I saw very little misbehaviour among the lieutenants, except sometimes when the provocation was really too strong for them. One evening a very solemn young White Dragoon, over six feet tall, coming in in the half darkness after the curtain was up, missed his chair and plumped down, sabre and all, on the floor of the box instead, to the joy of his comrades; and once in a Christmas pantomime, they all forgot their military dignity at the spectacle of a very fat young chorus girl, whom bad judgment on the part of the ballet mistress had costumed most realistically for the part of a white rabbit.
Sunday is usually chosen for the first night, as a larger proportion of the inhabitants is at liberty onthat day. At our theatre, performances of opera were given on Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday nights, with plays orPossen mit Gesang(farces with singing) on alternate nights. The bill changed every night, but each standard opera was repeated three or four times in the season. New operettas like the "Merry Widow" were also produced, and, if successful, ran eight or ten times during the seven months of the season. There was a company of singers consisting of a "high dramatic" soprano, a "young dramatic," a coloratura, and an "opera soubrette," all sopranos. There was a leading contralto, a second contralto to do the very small parts, who was usually a volunteer without pay, and a "comic old woman," who also took part in the plays. There was sometimes another volunteer soprano to do pages and the like. Then there was the "heroic tenor," who is a sort of King and is treated by the management with some of the ceremony used toward royalty, and the lyric tenor, quite humble in comparison, and a tenor-buffo for "funny parts," with sometimes a special operetta tenor when the theatre was prospering. There were two baritones, "heroic" and "lyric," a "serious" and a "comic" bass, and one or two other men of more or less anomalous position who "fill in" and act in the plays. The only singers who never did anything but sing, were the two "dramatic" sopranos, thefirst contralto, and the heroic tenor and baritone. There was a company of actors besides and all of these, no matter what their standing, were expected to appear in such operas as "Tannhäuser" in the singing contest, in the church scene of "Lohengrin," and asFlora'sguests in "Traviata," to help "dress the stage."
It is not the least of one's troubles as a beginner to stand on the stage asOrtrud, perhaps, and see these supercilious real actresses come filing out dressed as court beauties, cynically watching your attempt at acting.
Actors have their proper range of parts, calledFachin Germany, and special designations like the singers. The chief of them are theJugendlicher Heldor Young Hero, corresponding to the Heroic Tenor, and his partner theErste Heldin. Nearly as important, however, are theErster Liebhaber, or Young Lover, and theJugendliche Liebhaberin und Erste Salondame—Young Lovehaveress and First Drawingroom Lady. There are theHelden VaterandHeldin Mutter, theIntrigantor Villain, and theBon Vivant(pronounced Bong Vivong) who is a sort of general good fellow and occasional hero. TheErster Komikeris always a popular figure with the public and has his subordinate funnyman, usually much younger. There is a soubrette to do the saucy maidparts, aNaive, what we should call Ingenue, and aKomische Alte, or funny old woman; several "drawingroom ladies" and "gentlemen" and minor "Chargen Spieler" or character actors. The small parts are usually filled by chorus men and women, and the opera soubrette or the operetta tenor, have to double and do the cheeky maids or giggly school girls and giddy young officers in the plays. Many of the minor actors were, or were assumed to be, sufficiently musical to take small parts in operas requiring a large cast, appearing asTelramund'sfour nobles, and asMeisterin the first act of "Meistersingers" or as competitors in thePreissingenin "Tannhäuser." The opera gains very much by having these experienced actors in the small rôles.
Our chorus was composed of about thirty members, and the orchestra of from forty to fifty, reinforced in the brass and wind instruments from the local military bands. Three Kapellmeisters held sway over them: the First Kapellmeister an autocrat with arbitrary power who directed the important operas, the second who lead the old stagers like "Martha" and "Trovatore" and the operettas, and the third who was usually a volunteer learning his profession, and who acted as répétiteur for the soloists and directed pantomimes, the songs in the farces, and "Haensel und Gretel" once a year if he was good.He was always on duty during performances to direct any music behind the scenes. In good theatres there are several of these young men, as in "Rheingold" for example each Rhine daughter ought to have one to herself, and there is a special répétiteur for the chorus or chorus master besides.
Our ballet was composed of a solo dancer and about sixteen coryphées, directed by aBalletmeisterinwho also shared the leading parts with the solo dancer. One of the girls,—Irene, was a big handsome creature who usually danced the boy's parts. She had a little girl of about six, who had apparently no father. During the second year I was told one day: "This is Irene's wedding day; will you say something to her?" It appeared she and her clown husband had been devoted to each other for years, but had neglected the ceremony as they neither of them could earn enough alone to support the two. The clown ("August," of course) could not find an engagement in the theatre and so they had just waited. He had just returned from a long world tour and now they were to be married. Every one was delighted.
Last but not least, came the supers, called in GermanyStatisten, who held spears in "Aida" and returned victorious in "Faust." They were drawn from the infantry regiments and received thirtypfennigs (7½c) a night. They arrived with theirUnteroffizieran hour before they were wanted and were turned into a big room to be made into warriors, captives, or happy peasantry. The result was sometimes amusing. In "Aida" they used to put on their pink cotton tights over their underwear, so that one saw the dark outline of socks and the garters gleaming through, and they all kept on their elastic-sided military boots, with the tabs to pull them on by, sticking out before and behind. Fortunately the audience had but a brief glimpse of them before they were ranked in a conglomerate mass at the back of the stage. Sometimes on our walks we would meet these men on sentry duty, or in batches with theirUnteroffizier, who would call out, "Au-gen rechts!"(Eyes right!) and give us the officers' salute with mighty grins of recognition.
The principals of the opera are usually talented young singers on the way up, or older singers of some reputation on the way down, with perhaps a sprinkling of those who have obtained their engagements by influence. The contracts are usually for from two to three years, and are not very often renewed. The talented ones go on to better engagements, and it is "better business" for the theatre to have a change of principals. Great favourites remain longer unless they get something better. Manyof those who were engaged with me in Metz have made careers. Two were at the Charlottenburg Opera House in Berlin at the outbreak of the war, and one in Hamburg, both in leading positions. One was a stage-manager at the Volksoper in Vienna, and one teacher in a conservatory.
IHAD to singAzucena, my first part on any stage, without rehearsal. The reason for this dawned upon me afterwards. Though I sang German well by this time, my conversational powers still left something to be desired. I have explained that the present director had never heard my voice; no one knew of what I was capable, and they quite expected that I would prove incompetent, and had engaged a native born contralto to provide for this contingency.
When I heard one evening, that I should have to singAzucenaon the next, I confess that something rather like panic assailed me for a few minutes. The stage manager called me onto the stage, and spent half an hour in showing me the entrances and exits, and giving me the merest outline of the positions. That is all the preparation I had for my so-called début. The other members of the cast had sung the opera together many times the year before, which made the performance possible. The lyric tenor was a decent enough colleague, though an absolutepeasant in behaviour, with an extraordinary high voice which was rapidly degenerating from misuse. The baritone was of the tried and true type, and a great favourite, and the soprano was easy to get on with. They were all nice enough to me, if somewhat uninterested and indifferent, for I had had as yet so little to do with them that we hardly knew each other. They thought me a rich dilettante at that time I fancy. I was so horribly nervous all that day that I fainted whenever I tried to stand up, and when I began to sing my sister did not recognize my voice. However, I was very well received indeed, all the criticisms the next day were favourable, and there was no question after that as to who should sing the leading rôles.
It was fortunate for me that I succeeded in pulling myself together sufficiently to make a success, as at that time the old system ofKündigungwas still in force. I have said that a contract was not valid until the singer had successfully completed the number of guest performances stated therein. I had not been called upon for theseGastspielebecause I was a beginner, but they are almost invariably included in the contract. Now-a-days your engagement is settled after you have successfully made these trial appearances, and you then remain in that engagement for a full season; and the management must let youknow before February first (sometimes January first) whether you are to be re-engaged or not. This is in order to give the singer time to make arrangements for the coming season. When I was engaged in Metz the management of a theatre had the right to dismiss any singer after three weeks, whether he had made his guest appearances beforehand or not, if he had failed in that time to make good with the public. He was also liable to dismissal after his first appearance, if he proved quite impossible. This was what they were expecting in my case. The arrangement was most unfair to the poor singer, leaving him stranded (with practically no chance of work that year) after he had moved all his possessions and thought himself established for the season. The big artists' society, theGenossenschaft, which is the only protective institution for singers in Germany, has at last succeeded in abolishing this unjust condition of affairs. There was a flagrant case of this kind in the theatre during the first three weeks of my engagement. The "high dramatic" soprano had finished the first three weeks of her engagement, during which she had had to learn two new parts, providing costumes, at her own expense, for a rôle which she had not expected to have to sing. She had had a fair success and thought herself secure. In the meantime, the management had had no idea of keepingher on permanently, but had merely engaged her to fill in the time, while they were waiting for another singer, who was filling an out-of-season engagement elsewhere, and could not report for three weeks. When she was free, they told the first one that she had not pleased sufficiently and dismissed her. The good theatres did not take advantage of this privilege of course, even while it still existed.
My second rôle was a very small one, one of the court ladies of "Les Huguenots." A native first contralto would probably not have been asked to do such a small part, but there being no regular part for my voice in the opera, I think they were glad to use my good stage appearance, and of course, as a beginner I made no protest, being glad of every chance to become more used to the stage. The part was sprung upon me suddenly, and I had no dress for it. The second contralto also had a court lady to do, and the good creature offered to lend me a gorgeous Elizabethan dress of white satin and silver (which, she told me, she also intended to wear asAmneris!) and she would "go in black." I was touched, but I could not deprive her of her splendour, so we arranged something out of the pointed pink bodice of one of my other gowns, and the long white skirt of a summer dress, with a ladder arrangement of pink velvet bands sewn on up the front.
I remember as I made my entrance, looking up suddenly and seeing the sinister eyes of Carlhof the stage manager, fixed on me from the wings. He proceeded to mock my walk, which was no doubt very American, and not that of a court lady at all. I never forgot the mental jolt it gave me and the sudden realization that every rôle should have a different walk.
The range of parts that one is called upon to perform is astonishing. Formerly the limits of aFach(line of parts) were more rigidly observed than at present, when the personality of a singer in relation to a rôle is more often taken into consideration. Still, if a rôle definitely belongs to theFachof a certain singer, he is supposed to have first right to it. Difficulties arise in apportioning the parts in very modern operas, whose composers seem no longer disposed to write definitely for a coloratura soprano or a serious bass, but mix up the voice range and styles of singing indiscriminately in one part. My second real part wasFrickain "Walkuere," in which I had a great success vocally, but unfortunately looked a great deal younger than the portlyBrünnhildeand far more like her daughter than her stepmother. Then came theThird Ladyin "Magic Flute," theThird Gracein "Tannhäuser,"Marthain "Faust,"Orlofskyin "Fledermaus,"Frau Reichinthe "Merry Wives of Windsor," theGräfinin "Trompeter von Säkkingen,"Pamelain "Fra Diavolo,"Witchin "Haensel und Gretel"; and finally "Carmen." All these before Christmas of my first year. I did not have one of them on my repertoire when I arrived in Metz, exceptFrickaandCarmen, and the latter in French.
The three graces in "Tannhäuser" were done by the beauties of the theatre, two premières danseuses and myself! We were to dress in white Greek draperies with jewels, and of course, as we were to be seductive, pink roses. I wore my beautifulBergcrystalnecklace, made for me in Paris. The ladies could not contain their jealousy and said of course, "aufgedonnert" (thundered out) like that I naturally would stand out from them. Annoyed at their pettiness I removed the diamonds and flowers and all ornaments. They then said of course to go without any ornaments was palpably the best way of all to make myself conspicuous. So I let it go at that.
I well remember theThird Lady, for there are spoken passages in this opera, and I had to speak German for the first time before an audience of critically listening natives, and Mozartian German at that!Pamelanearly gave me nervous prostration. They were determined that I should do it because she had to speak German with an Englishaccent, so they said it was made for me. As a matter of fact, after the months I had spent in carefully eradicating my English accent it was difficult suddenly to exaggerate it to order. I had to learn, rehearse and play the entire part in five days, and I thought I should go mad. I had never seen the wretched thing, so the baritone who played my husband kindly came over to help me with the business. Otherwise my sister and I hardly left the piano to eat and sleep. The dialect part of the libretto was in an ancient manuscript copy, torn, marked and dog's-eared, and written in an almost illegible German script. I could not take time enough to puzzle it out, so my sister spent hours poring over it, deciphering the German letters literally one by one by aid of a key, and writing it again in Latin script. I had no clothes for it, as it was not on my repertoire and it plays in 1820, but they costumed it for me in modern dress, so again my summer wardrobe was called into service.
I learned it so quickly that the colleagues called me "Die Notenfresserin" or note-eater, but the strain was awful. I remember when I was studyingPamelathe Kapellmeister told me at least ten times, how the contralto who played thePamelain his father's theatre and who was also an English-speaking woman, had so caught his father's fancy in that rôle, that fromthen on he had a tremendous affair with her. This he repeated to me again and again, but I never seemed to take the hint.
AsErdain "Siegfried" I had a most trying experience. The director had been, as I have said, a well-known Bayreuth singer, and he thought no one could sing Wagner but himself. Unfortunately he had a strong tendency to "look upon the wine," and when he had a part to sing nervousness attacked him to such an extent that he began drinking in self-defence to enable him to stand the strain. Perhaps his beverages were more potent than usual, but that night he was decidedly irresponsible. He struggled through theWanderer'sfirst scene, and conscious that he was doing it badly, he sent out for a bottle of champagne as a bracer. The consequence was that in our scene in the third act, he was utterly incapacitated. He sang all kinds of things not in the text, bits fromHundingin "Walkuere," fromDalandin "Hollaender," from "Fidelio." He rolled about the stage and lurched in my direction with his spear pointed at me, shoutingPogner'sadvice toEvawhile I was singingErda'sresponses. It seemed to go on for ages, but at lastSiegfried, waiting for his cue in the wings, realized that he must save the scene, entered and escorted his befuddled relation from the stage. I had made up with a creamy white grease paint andno red. My sister said, "Why did you make up with rouge and not have the pallor we agreed upon?" My cheeks were so scarlet from mortification that no grease paint would have paled them.
The audience took it splendidly, I must confess, and refrained from any expression of disapproval or joy—though itmusthave been funny! The next day there were announcements in all the papers that he had had a temporary lapse of memory owing to grief over the sudden death of his mother, who, as the stage manager cynically informed us, had reached out a hand from the grave to save her son, she having been dead for ten years! The director went to Berlin and stayed there for weeks. We afterwards learned that it was a plot, deliberately planned and put through by Carlhof to gain the direction of the theatre. I can see him now stalking around, six foot four, chewing his rag of a dyed moustache, his face pale and his eyes glittering with anxiety as to the success of his plan to encourage the director to drink. The director once told me the hours between the last meal and the time to go to one's dressing room to begin making up are the dangerous ones. He said, "First one takes a glass of wine to steady one's shaking nerves; later a glass is not enough so it becomes a bottle, then two bottles and so on till control is lost." It is easy for any singer to understand,and the best remedy is to omit that first glass.
"Carmen" was the second opera which I had to do without rehearsal. The soprano had failed in it and it was promised to me to keep if I could do itohne probe(without rehearsal). I sang it for the first time, quaking with nerves, on Christmas Day, and my nick-name after that was "Die schoene Carmen." After Christmas we produced the "Merry Widow" which was new then, and I was cast for theDutiful Wife. There was plenty of variety in my work. I would singCarmenon Sunday,Orlofskyin "Fledermaus" on Tuesday, speaking German with a Russian accent,Pamelaon Thursday night with an English accent, andFrau Reichon Friday night with no accent at all! I dressedFrau Reichin a gown of the time of Henry V while the rest of the cast "went Shakespearean." We were far too busy for dress rehearsals of an old opera, and I supposed of course that it would be costumed in the real period of the play. When I appeared on the stage, they all demanded "And what, pray, areyousupposed to represent?" "I am playing Shakespeare'sFrau Reich," I answered with dignity—"and I am the only person on the stage who is properly dressed." But you have to know your colleagues well before you can make an answer like that successfully, without their hating you for it.
WE had also what is known asAbstecher, on off nights. That is, performances in a neighbouring and still smaller town about once a month. We would travel altogether, taking our costumes and make-up with us, principals second class and chorus third. Our fare was paid, and the generous management allowed us two marks apiece (50c) extra for expenses! As we left at fiveP.M.returning at one or two in the morning, this allowance was not excessive for food alone, but the thrifty took black bread and sausage with them, and expended only fifteen pfennigs (3½c) for beer. OurAbstecherwas a village with a cavalry barracks, a railroad station, and not much else. The theatre was built over a sort of warehouse and stable combined, and we fell over bales and packing cases at the entrance. The dressing rooms were tiny boxes, with a shelf, one gas light in a wire globe, and a red-hot stove in each room, and no window. We dressed three in a room. The stage was so small that once, asNancy, I played a whole scene with the tail of my train caught in the door by which I had entered, and never knew it! We were always given a rapturous welcome. Sometimes one of the principals would miss the train and be forced to come on by a later one, and then the sequence of scenes in the opera would be changed quite regardless of the plot, for we would play all the scenes, in which he did not appear, first, and do his afterwards. After the opening chorus, the soprano would go on for her aria, and while she was singing it, we would decide what to give next. "I'll do my aria!" "Oh no! Not the two arias together!" "Let's have the duet from the third act, and then the soprano and tenor can just come in casually and we'll do the big quartet, and then you can do your aria!" We would see the audience hunting in a confused sort of way through their libretto, with expressions rather like Bill the Lizard. This happened once in the "Merry Wives," which is confusing at best.
After the performance there was no place in which to wait but the café of the station. I was looked upon as recklessly extravagant because I would order aWiener Schnitzel mit Salatfor sixty pfennigs (15¢) and when I took two cents' worth of butter too, they would raise their eyebrows and murmur, "Diese Amerikaner!" Sometimes the Director came withus, and then the principals would be invited to his table and treated to (German) champagne. But we were always glad when he stayed at home, because we were much freer over our beer. There are always one or two members of the company who are extremely amusing, and their antics, imitations and reminiscences make the time fly. There was one little chap, the son of a Rabbi, who lived on nothing a day and found himself, and was an extraordinary mimic. His imitations of a director engaging singers, the shy one, the bold one, the beginner; and his marvellous take-off of the members of the company kept us in roars of laughter. He could imitate anything—a horse, a worn-out piano—and is now one of the most successful "entertainers" in Berlin. The ones in whose compartment he travelled on the train thought themselves lucky and often arrived so hoarse from laughing that they could hardly sing.
All this experience is invaluable for the beginner, his self-consciousness melts like snow in July, and it gives him, as nothing else can, that poise and authority on the stage which are almost as important as the voice itself. But the work, especially for a foreigner, is killing. It is not so much the performances themselves, great as the strain of these actually is, but the constant, never-ceasing learning by heart, and the drag of continuous rehearsing. The "room rehearsals" of the music alone, take place, in a theatre of this kind, in one of the dressing rooms where there is a piano. The room is almost always small and very close, and there are eight or ten people packed into it, all singing hard and exhausting the little air there is. The stage rehearsals with the almost invariable and inevitable shouting and excitement are very trying to the nerves, especially when one is making two or three débuts a week, that is, singing a new part for the first time almost every other night as I did, at the beginning of my career. The better the theatre, of course, the greater the smoothness and lack of confusion at stage rehearsals. The singers and orchestra men are more experienced, and more competent, and the manners of the Kapellmeister improve in ratio to the importance of the opera house. A little extra excitement is permissible when a new production is being put on, but at the rehearsals of repetitions undue exhibitions of "temperament" on either side are discouraged, and the powers that be have to mind their manners and stick to the conventional forms of address. TheHeldentenormay sometimes have to allow his artistic nature to get the better of him for a moment, but no one else may claim such license.
The stage during rehearsals is like a workshop—a certain amount of noise and confusion is necessitatedby the labour going on in it, but no one has time to spare from his share of the job in hand, and the discipline in a good theatre is remarkable. The native German is trained, of course, both to give and take orders well, the result of the whole system of government, both of the family and of the nation. Stage etiquette and the relationship between principals and chorus,erste und zweite Kräfte(principals of first and second rank) singers and the management, grows more conventional and regulated according to the class of the theatre. Those in authority may exact perfect obedience, but they must ask for it properly; and while an individual is entitled to proper consideration, he must never forget that he is but a unit of the whole.
The dressing-room arrangements in Metz were rather primitive. The theatre was 100 years old, for one thing, and no one had ever had the money to install new conveniences. In a good German theatre, the dressing rooms are rarely used for rehearsing, and the principals dress alone, at least when they have a big rôle to sing. In Metz I shared my room with several other women and had only a corner of it which I could call my own. Long shelves with lockers under them ran down two sides of the room, with lights over them at intervals, and under every light a singer "made up." There was a long glassat one end of the room, but we had to provide individual mirrors for ourselves. There was no running water, only a couple of jugs and basins stood in one corner of the shelf. Good routined dressers were provided by the theatre. Mine was an Alsatian who loved to speak French with me, but whom I discouraged as I wanted all the practise I could get in German. She used to call me "Fräulein Miss"—pronouncing the latter like the German wordmiesswhich means mediocre, but she meant to be particularly respectful. I have always found that it pays a hundred fold to make friends of the dressers, stage-doorkeeper, property-man, carpenter, head scene-shifter, fireman and all the other workers whose co-operation is necessary for a goodensemble. It is usually quite easy to be on good terms with them, and they have unlimited opportunities for making things go smoothly for you, or the reverse.
Women's costumes are not kept in the theatre; as they are the personal property of the singer they must be kept at home, and be sent over to the theatre on the morning of a performance. AKorbträger(basket carrier) is usually provided to whom you give from 75 cents to $1.00 a month, and who performs this service for you—but many singers send their maids. With the usual discrimination against our sex, men's costumes are provided in opera housesof all grades. In the largest theatres the women's are furnished also, and you even have to have special permission to wear your own.
The scenery and costumes in Metz were often surprisingly good when one considered that so few "sets" must do such varied things. Our property man was an inventive genius at making something out of nothing. He prided himself upon certain realistic details. If the piece called for coffee, the real article, though of some dreadful variety unknown to contemporary culinary science, was provided, and really poured into the cups. If a meal were to be served on the stage, some sort of real food was there for the actors to eat, even if it were only slices of bread served elaborately as the mostrecherchéFrench supper, though usually it was ladyfingers. Eating scenes are usually confined to the drama, though there are some operas in which a meal "comes before" as the Germans say. In the "Merry Wives of Windsor" for example, the scene containingAnna'sletter aria opens with the company at supper inFrau Reich'shome. The wives are explaining their tricks and plottingFalstaff'sfinal discomfiture in spoken dialogue. One night when I was singingFrau Reichin Metz there was a particularly attractive dish of real apples on the stage supper table. TheHerr Reichwas the serious bass, a thrifty individual who couldn't bearto let a penny's worth of anything escape him. As his guests rose to go he picked up the dish of apples and pressed it upon them.
"Here," he improvised, "take these home to the children. Oh! You have no children—well, take them anyway—the children will come later."
His hospitable wishes were received with bewilderment by the audience, but as he made his exit with his guests and immediately began to eat the apples, he bore his scolding from therégisseurvery philosophically. On some stages where the provisions are more elaborate, the actors in certain plays make a regular practise of eating their suppers on the stage. In "Divorçons" for example or in the "Anatol Cyclus" of Schnitzler.
Our property man in Metz, with the historic Shakespearean name of Mondenschein, (Moonshine) was an ardent lover of drapery. An artistocratic interior, to his mind, must be entirely filled with as many different materials as possible, all hanging in folds. He had three pairs of near-silk portières, bright pink, dull green, and pale yellow, and the combinations that he made with those six curtains were endless. Garlands of roses, too, were a great resource of his—draped round a couch with a fur rug upon it, and a red light over all, they transformed the scene into the bower of a Messalina. In a whitelight festooned upon a mantel-piece, or above a doorway, they could be depended upon to supply the appropriate setting of theErste Naive'smost appealing scene. The young lovehaveress and first salon lady, had to receive them, wired together into a bunch, with the same delightful surprise, and put them into the same Japanese jar without any water in it, in play after play. But the property man always squandered a perfectly new, uncreased piece of paper for every performance with which to make a cornucopia for them, in the approved German style. He was quite a specialist in such matters as the colour of telegrams in different countries, and in the manner of folding newspapers, points which are sometimes neglected in many better theatres. Of course his talents in this direction had a better chance in the dramatic than in the operatic productions.