This rhythm the kettledrum player simply could not grasp, no matter how patiently Bülow endeavored to instill it. He tried it slow, he tried it fast. Bülow got more and more excited and irritable, and finally, as a last resort, he fairly shouted to him on the rhythm of this theme the Italian word for kettledrum. At the top of his voice rose the word:
“Tym—pan—y! Tym—pan—y!”
A delighted smile broke over the face of the kettledrum player.
“Ah, capisco, capisco,” he shouted, and immediately proceeded to put his newly won knowledge to the practical proof.
Bülow told me that at one time he had adopted the habit of jotting down any strange or incongruous names that he found on the signs of shops in the various cities of the various countries that he visited. In a small little German town he found over a greengrocery, the name of “Seidenschwanz.” This appealed to him and he tucked it away in his memory, determined to find a given name to add that would, by its very contrast, fit it. For months he cudgelled his brains, but in vain, until one night in Venice he jumped up from his bed, shouting: “I have it.Caligula Seidenschwanz!” The name of the most cruel of Roman Emperors coupled with that of the little greengrocer!
Next morning he proceeded to an engraver and had visiting cards printed bearing the mysterious name of:
Caligula Seidenschwanz.
Caligula Seidenschwanz.
Shortly after, whenever Doctor Hans von Bülow paid a call on any one, instead of presenting his own card, he left that of Herr Seidenschwanz, thereby completely mystifying his friends.
I told this story years after while dining at the house of my dear friends, May Callender and Caro de Forest. Lilli Lehmann was one of the guests, and when I finished she jumped up and said:
“Walter, that is a very remarkable story, but it is absolutely true, as I happen to know. I was coloratura soprano at the Berlin Royal Opera at the time when Bülow paid us a visit one night when we performed Meyerbeer’s ‘Prophète.’ He was so disgusted with the performance that he wrote one of his indignant and cynical letters to a Berlin paper, in which he compared the Royal Opera to a circus, and then added insult to injury by apologizing to Herr Renz, owner of the greatest circus in Germany, saying that he meant no insult to him, as he had always been a great admirer of the Circus Renz. This letter aroused the old intendant, Baron von Hulsen, to such fury that he forbade Bülow further entrance into the opera-house and at the same time induced the oldEmperor to withdraw the title of ‘Pianist to His Majesty, the King of Prussia’ from von Bülow.”
Lilli Lehmann then continued to narrate that the morning after the performance she received a large basket of flowers in which a card had been tucked, on which was written “To the only bright spot in yesterday’s performance. In admiration,Caligula Seidenschwanz.”
Until that evening, when I explained the origin of the name, Lilli Lehmann had not known that the flowers had been sent her by von Bülow.
At the close of the summer session Bülow invited me to go with him to the Cologne Musical Festival. He told me that he had written to Brahms about me and wanted me to meet him, and I would also hear a fine performance of the Brahms “Requiem.” Needless to say I jumped at such an opportunity.
My father, who with that wonderful liberal attitude of his did not share the narrow attitude of other Wagnerians who hated Brahms, had been among the first to introduce his music in America and had given the first performance of the Brahms Symphony No. 1 in C minor in America. Bülow had become a similar propagandist for Brahms in Germany. I considered him the last great composer of modern times, doubly interesting because the great genius of Wagner, whom he admired greatly, left him untouched as far as his own creative work was concerned, and he is, perhaps, the only great modern composer whose works can show no influence of the Wagnerian school. To conduct his symphonies is to me still one of the greatest joys of the winter, and I continue to marvel how little the years have aged them and how noble in conception and rich in subtleties of feeling they continue to express in an unbroken line the highest ideals of the Beethoven symphonies.
In the hurly-burly of a festival, I had but little opportunity to see much of Brahms, who was there only a very few days, and I was too young and unimportant to claim any attention from him; but I was grateful to Bülow for the opportunity of meeting him, and can still see his wonderful and kindly eye turned on me as Bülow told him some nice things about me.
During our stay in Cologne I had an experience so curious, so extraordinary, that I must especially assure my readers that it is true in every particular.
One morning Bülow announced to me that he was going to cross the river in the afternoon to visit the widow of an old friend of his, Madame B——, who lived in a villa in Deutz. He asked me to accompany him, and we accordingly called on a rather attractive young widow, attired in the deepest mourning, who welcomed us very graciously. Her husband, a Belgian pianist of distinction, had been professor of piano at the Imperial Conservatory in St. Petersburg and had there married a young Russian pupil of his.
After chatting awhile, she proposed that we go into the garden for a cup of tea, and we followed her, accordingly, to a small stone building in the middle of the garden that looked like a chapel, but which, to my horror, I discovered, as we entered, to be a mausoleum. In the centre stood a sarcophagus on the top of which reposed a coffin, with a glass top, in which lay the body of B——! A footman in livery followed us with a samovar and the teacups.
It seems that the lady had thus endeavored to demonstrate her love for her departed husband. I confess that I became almost ill and hurriedly left the mausoleum to smell the roses in the garden, but Bülow punctiliously and courageously stuck it out and had his cup of tea under these unique conditions.
Many years after I heard through Mrs. Franz Rummel, whose husband had been a favorite pupil of B——, that his widow was again happily married and that B—— had been properly buried underground.
In 1889 I induced Mr. Leo Goldmark, brother of the Viennese composer, who was interested in music and the musical affairs of New York, to bring von Bülow to America for another visit, and more especially to give his Beethoven sonata cycle.
Bülow brought his second wife with him and the visit was a great success in every way. She had been a young actress of talent at the Meiningen Court Theatre and he had married her while he was conductor of the orchestra there.
The Beethoven recitals were given at the Broadway Theatre which was crowded to the doors, and press and public greeted the old master with such friendly enthusiasm that he was very much touched and became very enthusiastic about America. He also conducted my orchestra in a memorable concert at the Metropolitan Opera House in which he demonstrated his marvellous powers as a conductor. Among the works on the programme was the “Tragic Overture” by Brahms. Just before beginning the rehearsal of this he called out to the orchestra librarian, Russell, by name: “Where is the contrabassoon? Why is there no contrabassoon engaged?”
In vain were Russell’s protests that he had not been told to engage a contrabassoon, but suddenly Bülow’s anger subsided and he began the rehearsal. During it, as was his custom, he conducted without any orchestral score before him. His memory of what the individual instruments had to play was indeed remarkable, althoughI always felt that he enjoyed showing it off a little at rehearsals. After the rehearsal was over he called Russell to his side and, slipping him a five-dollar bill, whispered: “Do not say anything; it was my mistake, there is no contrabassoon in the Brahms Overture.”
IX
In the spring of 1887 I sailed for Europe to spend the summer in study with Hans von Bülow, and on the steamer I met Andrew Carnegie and his young wife Louise. They were on their wedding trip and on their way to Scotland, where Mr. Carnegie had rented “Kilgraston,” a lovely old place near Perth. He had known my father and had invited him a few years before to a dinner given in honor of Matthew Arnold who had been in America on a lecture tour. Mr. Carnegie spoke of my father with great affection and respect, and expressed his delight that I had taken up my father’s work. He invited me to come for a visit to Scotland after my studies with von Bülow were over.
In the late summer, I accordingly sailed in a small steamer from Hamburg to Leith and was received with great friendliness by Mr. and Mrs. Carnegie at Kilgraston. Among their guests were James G. Blaine, his wife, and two of their daughters. My acquaintance with this remarkable family soon ripened very fortunately for me into close friendship and resulted finally in my marriage to Margaret, one of the daughters—but I am progressing too fast.
Mr. Blaine had been defeated for the presidency in 1884. Since that time he had been occupied in completing his book “Twenty Years of Congress,” and inthe spring of 1887 he and his family were taking a year’s holiday abroad.
Because of my youth and the exigencies of my profession, most of my life had been spent among musicians and those interested in music. This was the first time that I came into personal relations with a great statesman, at that time the foremost in our country, and I found to my amazement that, although an atmosphere of great dignity surrounded him, he was absolutely simple and gentle in his contact with other people.
His wife, a woman of singular strength of character, with a highly original mind and an absolute devotion to her husband and his ambitions, was in many ways as remarkable as he. Her knowledge of and interest in literature—poetry, history, memoirs—was very comprehensive, and the discussions thereon, which were constant at Mr. Carnegie’s table, interested me immensely and opened new worlds to me.
The two daughters, Margaret and Harriet, high-spirited and sharing the interests of their parents, gave them a devotion and love so partisan and intense in its character that it seemed at first to attract me toward them almost more than anything else. As a boy I had suffered agonies at seeing my father misunderstood and often attacked by men not worthy to tie his shoe-strings, and here I found similar conditions but on a much greater scale, as Mr. Blaine’s career had been national and his triumphs and defeats had enlisted the sympathies or execrations of millions of American citizens. Music had entered but little into the lives of the Blaine family—although since then my wife has become enthusiastically devoted to it—and I was really delighted that for the first time in my life I was compelled to establish relations from a purelyhuman standpoint and without the assistance of any of the “romantic glamour” of my profession. At this time, however, I got but a glimpse of the Blaines, as they stayed only a week after my arrival, but there were delightful rumors of a four-weeks coaching trip from London to Scotland which Mr. Carnegie was planning for the following summer and for which we were all to be invited.
Mr. Carnegie was at that time a generous supporter of Gladstone and the Liberal Party, and several of its leaders came to Kilgraston to visit him, among them John Morley, who impressed me immensely and for whom at his own and the Carnegies’ request, I played excerpts every evening from Wagner’s “Nibelungen Trilogy,” explaining the music and the text, as Mr. Morley had never heard the music before. I was very proud of being able to interest so fine a mind as his in Wagner’s music, and like to think that my Wagner lecture recitals, which in later years I gave all over America, had their origin in these informal talks in Scotland for Morley and the Carnegies.
Incidentally, Mr. Carnegie became more and more interested in the New York Symphony and Oratorio Societies and consented to become their president and chief financial supporter. The more intricate symphonic works did not appeal to him, but he had a natural and naïve love for music. Because of his study and intimate knowledge of Scotch literature, poetry especially, together with an intense affection for the country of his birth, he particularly loved the folk-songs of Scotland, and in a high, quavering, and somewhat uncertain voice could sing literally dozens of them from memory. To me these folk-songs were a revelation, and I still think that theyhave a variety and charm beyond those of any other race.
I even adore the Scotch bagpipes and am almost in sympathy with the Scotsman who says that his idea of heaven is “twenty bagpipers a’ playin’ t’gither in a sma’ room and each one playing a different tune.”
On our long walks and fishing excursions together, Mr. Carnegie talked continuously and freely regarding his many plans to better the world through liberal benefactions. He had already begun the founding of free libraries all over Great Britain and America, and would often tell me of his own great poverty as a child and the difficulty of obtaining the books and education which he craved. His imagination would kindle at the opportunities which his libraries would give the youth of to-day, and a constant optimism as to the future of the world seemed to direct all his plans.
The poor salaries paid to our teaching profession would especially arouse his ire, as he considered that the entire future of America lay in the hands of its teachers and that, therefore, the greatest minds of the country should be enlisted in the work and suitably rewarded. As the reader knows, this conviction finally culminated in his remarkable and comprehensive scheme of pensions to college professors who had served their calling a certain number of years.
As he would unfold to me his various dreams and plans, he became really eloquent. His little hands would clinch, and for a moment even his fishing-pole and a possible trout at the other end would be forgotten, especially when he talked of his greatest aversion—war—and of its hideous uselessness in settling any disputes.
As a boy he had had hardly any school education, buthe had inherited the Scotch passion for books. He had read omnivorously and, what is better still, remembered what he read. Burns and Shakespeare he knew by heart and could quote very aptly to clinch a point in his arguments.
His sympathy for suffering, especially that caused by poverty, was very great and expended itself in practical help in every direction. The hard struggles of his early youth had made him very understanding, and many widows left destitute received immediate help from him and the children were put through school and placed in business through his assistance.
His attitude toward religion was very curious. In those days he professed to be an agnostic, but he had old Scotch prejudices in favor of a “Scotch Sunday.” He despised theology and yet was really religious, but he did not care to define his God or to explore the mysteries or possibilities of a future life. His prejudices were as unyielding as the pig iron which he manufactured at his Homestead works, and no argument would move him if his mind was made up.
While Mr. Carnegie had a real admiration for music in its simpler forms, this never crystallized into as great a conviction regarding its importance in life as that which he had regarding the importance of science or literature, and though always generous in its support, his benefactions never became as great as in other directions. He could understand that a library, a school, or a hospital could not and should not be self-supporting, but I could not convince him that music should fall into the same category. He always insisted that the greatest patronage of music should come from a paying public rather than from private endowment. He built CarnegieHall in order to give New York a proper home for its musical activities, but he did not look upon this as a philanthropy, and expected to have the hall support itself and give a fair return upon the capital invested.
In the spring of 1888 I again sailed for Europe with the Carnegies, and on arriving at the Metropole Hotel in London we found the rest of the coaching party already assembled—the Blaine family, Mr. Henry Phipps a partner of Mr. Carnegie’s, and Mrs. Phipps, Gail Hamilton (Miss Dodge), a cousin of Mrs. Blaine’s well known as a writer; also a young Universalist clergyman, Doctor Charles Eaton, who was the pastor of Mrs. Carnegie’s church.
We left the Hotel Metropole June 8, in the morning, on top of Mr. Carnegie’s four-in-hand. There was a great crowd of people to see us off and wish us “Bon voyage,” among them John Morley and Lord Rosebery. All the men of our party looked very sporty in high gray top-hats which we had hurriedly acquired at a hatter’s in the neighborhood that morning.
I had been appointed treasurer of the tour by Mr. Carnegie, “with no salary but all the usual perquisites,” as he put it.
The coachman, a stout, good-natured Scotsman of real ability, drove his four-in-hand with such skill and care that when we arrived in Invernesshire four weeks later, his horses were in even better condition than when we started.
It was certainly an ideal way to travel, and the pace was leisurely enough for us to see and enjoy the exquisite countryside of England and Scotland. Every night we stopped at a different inn but always carried our lunch in hampers, and at noontime halted at somepicturesque nook by the bank of a river or on some grassy meadow in the shade of the trees and enjoyed our meal in lazy fashion.
The discussions between Mr. Blaine and Mr. Carnegie at these picnic luncheons were certainly fascinating to listen to, and especially illuminating to an American musician whose horizon had perhaps been bounded too exclusively by his own ambitions and the problems of his own art. Mr. Blaine knew England, its history, and its great families far more intimately than any Englishman I have ever met. It is well known that he never forgot anything, and whenever we stopped either for luncheon or at an inn for the night, he would immediately proceed to add to his immense store of knowledge by questioning the local farmers, field workers, or innkeepers regarding the economic or political conditions of that part of the country.
An amusing opera-bouffe element of the entire coaching trip was added by the constant but furtive appearance and disappearance of four American newspaper reporters who had been sent by their respective papers to “shadow” Mr. Blaine because the Republican convention for the presidential nomination was about to be held in Chicago, and it was eagerly hoped that Mr. Blaine would accept the nomination again. He, and through him we, of course, knew that nothing was further from his mind, but in the dusk of evening, when we would arrive at our inn for the night, these four reporters, having travelled by train, would already be there and try directly or indirectly to obtain “inside information” regarding Mr. Blaine’s intentions. The reporters included Stephen Bonsal for theNew York Worldand Arthur Brisbane for theNew York Sun. The latter, wishing to combinepleasure with business, would sometimes scorn the train and hire a high dog-cart.
Our itinerary took in all the cathedral towns of the east coast of England. We were bound by no time-tables and, therefore, had every opportunity to see and study the mighty Gothic churches of Cambridge, Ely, Peterborough, York, and Durham.
I had agreed to conduct a concert in London on the 19th of June, and so very reluctantly said a temporary good-by to our party at York. This concert was given by Ovide Musin, an eminent young Belgian violinist, who wished to perform a concerto of my father’s which he had played in New York about eight years before under my father’s own direction. I had an excellent London orchestra of seventy-five players and also gave Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony and the Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody Number One. It was my first experience as a conductor in England, and as the concert passed off very well I was much elated, especially when, just before catching my train for Durham to rejoin the coaching party, I read some complimentary criticisms of the concert in theLondon TimesandTelegraph.
It was raining when I left the railroad station in Durham to walk to the road along which Mr. Carnegie’s coach was to appear. I well remember my thrill of joy when I heard a merry fanfare played on the coaching horn by one of the footmen—whom, by the way, I always envied for his virtuosity on this instrument—and shortly after, at a turn of the road, I saw the coach appear with everybody on top attired in gray rain-coats and waving a friendly welcome. My wife has always insisted to my children that on this entire trip I wore a double-breasted frock coat which had done previous duty at my matinéeconcerts in America, but I think this is a gross slander and not based on fact.
We crossed the border into Scotland and of course stopped at Walter Scott’s home and also visited the ruins of Linlithgow Castle, in which Mary Queen of Scots was born. And here the four reporters, who had been as constant as leeches and as inevitable as death and the taxgatherer, solemnly entered the ruins and gave Mr. Blaine a telegram which they had just received announcing Benjamin Harrison’s nomination at the convention. As Mr. Blaine had expected this for weeks, the news did not excite him greatly. He bade a friendly good-by to the four young sleuth-hounds, several of whom have since achieved fame in their profession, and we continued our journey farther north until we arrived at Mr. Carnegie’s home, Cluny Castle, on the evening of July 3.
It was bitter cold and the wind was whistling shrilly over the Dalwhinny Moors as we first caught sight of Cluny, but an American flag was floating proudly over its turrets, and inside warm fires and a delicious dinner were awaiting us.
Then began a summer of delights for me. Mr. Carnegie had a piper who, according to old Scotch custom, would walk around the outer walls of the house every morning to awaken us. My room was in the bachelor quarters and had a little fireplace in which a peat fire smouldered comfortably. The smell of peat and the sound of the piper as he drew nearer and nearer to my window and then again receded in the distance are always inseparably associated in my memory. In the mornings I usually worked at my studies in counterpoint and composition, but from luncheon on it was nothing but delightful entertainment or listening with keenestinterest to discussions of all kinds—political, economic, poetical. Miss Dodge was a most stimulating person. She had a mind that would accept nothing without analysis or proof, and the verbal duels between her and Mr. Carnegie were fascinating, for, although she was not Scotch, she, as much as Mr. Carnegie, typified the story of the two Scotsmen who meet each other and one says: “Where are you going, Donald?” “Oh, just doon to the village to contradict a wee.”
Occasionally I would accompany Mr. Carnegie to some lonely loch among the hills to fish for trout, but I have never developed into a very ardent disciple of Izaak Walton. I used to get more pleasure from lying on my back watching the marvellous Scotch sky with its low-hanging clouds framing the hills in their loving embrace, with perhaps now and then just a speck of blue shining through, than from the catching of the “finny monsters.” These, however, rarely measured over six inches in length, although I certainly enjoyed them the following morning, when we had them for breakfast, rolled in oatmeal flour and deliciously fried.
In the evenings I had to contribute my little quota toward the house-party by playing Beethoven and Wagner on an excellent Broadwood piano.
During all this time I was amazed at the extreme simplicity and gentleness which characterized Mr. Blaine’s demeanor toward all with whom he came in contact. Here was a man who at that time was the most loved and the most execrated American, and yet he had in him absolutely nothing of the “prima donna” manner of many of those in my profession who have achieved fame. His dignity, however, was innate and unconscious, and during the many years that I knew him and knew him intimatelyI have never seen any one who dared to presume on his simplicity and general cordiality of manner by undue familiarity. His power of abstraction from his surroundings was remarkable. He enjoyed working in the room in which his family were talking, laughing, and disputing on all manner of subjects, while he would sit in a corner concentrated on some problem of his own and work it out, absolutely oblivious to what was going on about him.
The Blaine family left Cluny all too soon, and not only I, but the entire household felt their absence keenly.
Other guests followed, among them John Morley, with whom I went on long and to me very interesting walks. He seemed a very lonely and perhaps a disappointed man. He was married, but childless, and told me once that the great regret of his life was that he had no son, as he would like to have brought him up and educated him according to a theory all his own as to what an Englishman’s training really should be. How many men have had such dreams and how few, if any, can really control the future of their children!
In March, 1889, Benjamin Harrison was inaugurated President and Mr. Blaine became his secretary of state.
I was, as usual, terribly busy that winter with the opera, concerts, and Wagner lecture recitals, and there were times when Washington seemed very far away, but Margaret Blaine had good friends in New York whom she visited occasionally, also a sister, the wife of Colonel Coppinger of the United States army, who was stationed at Governor’s Island in New York harbor. Whenever she stayed with Mrs. Coppinger I was a very frequent passenger on the little ferry-boat which seemed to memaintained by our beneficent War Department for the sole purpose of enabling young men like myself to reach this picturesque though antiquated military fortress.
Mr. Carnegie was absolutely unconscious of my aspirations regarding Margaret Blaine, and the following summer he suggested a visit to Bar Harbor, where Mr. Blaine had built a summer home. I accepted with an alacrity which he mistook as springing only from the same source as his own desire to see again the friends who had contributed so much toward the delights of the coaching trip and Cluny Castle. When I afterward told him of my hopes and that they had received some encouragement during our Bar Harbor visit, he was very much put out and vowed that if he had ever suspected anything of the kind he would never have taken me with him. He told me that he had hoped I would not think of marriage for many years, but would remain as a kind of semi-attached musical member of his household, which at that time consisted only of himself and his wife. Of course I listened to his many arguments absolutely unconvinced, and obstinate though he always was, he found his equal in me. I must confess, however, that when he saw how much in earnest I was, he not only completely receded from his position, but accepted my engagement and marriage with absolute good humor and approval.
My engagement to Margaret Blaine was announced in October of the following year at the wedding of her brother, Emmons, to Anita McCormick, of Chicago.
Mr. Blaine had bought the old Seward mansion on Lafayette Square, very near the White House, and Mrs. Blaine, who had a remarkable flair for harmonious house furnishings and decorations, proceeded to make it into a dignified and charming house, the special feature ofwhich was a large drawing-room on the first floor, created by changing two rooms into one.
I have told elsewhere how in those days I was compelled, because of my youth, to confine myself at the Metropolitan to the conducting of such operas as “Le Prophète,” “La Juive,” and “Trovatore.” Seidl, my older colleague, completely monopolized the Wagner operas, which I was of course particularly anxious to conduct. Against “Trovatore” I had at that time a particularly strong and unreasonable aversion, although it was partly justified in that we did not have a cast in our German Opera Company that could do justice to its Italian atmosphere or its vocal demands.
Whenever good luck would have it that the Saturday matinée was a Wagner opera, I would ask for and obtain from Director Stanton the permission to leave for Washington on Friday night, as this would enable me to spend Saturday and Sunday with my fiancée. On one of these Fridays, just after I had received my permission, my brother Frank came to me and urged me to take the first train to Washington that I could catch, as he had just heard that the tenor who was to sing in “Siegfried” on Saturday afternoon was ill, and that in all probability the opera would be changed to “Trovatore.” I quickly took the hint, and when the message came that I was to conduct “Trovatore,” I was nowhere to be found and Anton Seidl was compelled to conduct it. He was furious, as he had no greater love for it than I, and my brother told me afterward that he conducted the entire opera with a black scowl on his face, which was bent low over the score and from which he never lifted his eyes once to give a sign to singer or orchestra.
During the following winter, tragedies began to overwhelmthe Blaine family. Walker, the eldest son, a young man of great talent who had inherited much of his father’s personal charm and who had become a great help to Mr. Blaine in the State Department, died, to be followed shortly after by the oldest daughter, Mrs. Coppinger.
These two tragedies, following so closely upon each other, were the first break in that perfect family circle, and this affected Mr. Blaine’s spirit and health to such an extent that I do not think his vitality ever recovered from it.
I was married to Margaret Blaine on May 17, 1890. I should like to write much more than a chapter about the thirty-two wonderful years of our married life, but as my wife has sternly forbidden me to even mention her name in these memoirs, this chapter must close with the best left unsaid, though the most deeply felt.
X
With the return of Abbey, Schoeffel, and Grau in 1891, Wagner virtually disappeared from the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House as their entire energies were turned toward producing operas of the French-Italian School. It was a natural reaction from the seven years of opera in German and the pendulum swung far to the other side. A company of truly great singers had been assembled by the new managers; the audiences revelled in theirbel canto, and as Abbey, Schoeffel, and Grau assumed the entire financial responsibility of the enterprise, the directors of the opera-house were also well satisfied. They had become tired of the growing deficits of the German opera.
The head and controlling spirit of the firm was Henry Abbey, a magnificent and honorable gambler in “stars” whom he paid so liberally that, while he sometimes gained large profits, he many times lost more heavily. The chances of profit were too small and generally it was too much like the roulette tables at Monte Carlo, with the odds in favor of the stars.
John Schoeffel was not much more than the hyphen between Abbey and Grau. I never could see that he did anything except, perhaps, arrange for the advertisements of the opera company when it visited Boston, where he lived as lessee of the Tremont Theatre.
The actual direction of the opera season, the arranging of the repertoire, the engagement of the artists, and the handling of them was in the hands of Maurice Grau, whohad developed into a first-class opera manager. He claimed but little knowledge of things artistic, but he was astute and had a real flair, up to a certain point, for giving the public what it wanted. He was honorable in his dealings with the artists and in a grudging way (which operatic artists often have) they liked him, although they tortured him incessantly. He used to sit in his office like a spider from morning until night, working out repertoires, quarrelling with the singers or placating them, and altogether having no interests in life beyond that—except, perhaps, the national game of poker, in which he and a small group of cronies used to indulge—and a great affection for his little daughter.
With the exception of “Lohengrin,” which had sporadic performances in the Italian language, poor Wagner was virtually boycotted, and with my great adoration for him I chafed under this condition more and more.
The winter of 1893-94 I had been asked to arrange something original in the way of an entertainment for a charity in which I was interested, and as Materna, Anton Schott, and Emil Fischer were at that time in America, I conceived the idea of giving a stage performance of the “Götterdämmerung” at Carnegie Hall. Materna was old and fat, but her voice was still glorious; Anton Schott still made a personableSiegfried, and Emil Fischer was at the height of his vocal and histrionic powers. The scenery, though simple, was well improvised and part of it specially painted, and the weapons and other properties were borrowed from the Metropolitan Opera House.
The success was so remarkable that we repeated the work several times and added “Walküre.” This seemed to me conclusive proof that the American public were more than ready for the return of Wagner, and I calledon Abbey and Grau to suggest that they include a certain number of Wagner performances in German in their repertoire. They threw up their hands in horror at the idea, saying that Wagner spelled ruin, but as they were very kindly disposed toward me (I had conducted many orchestral concerts for some of their instrumental stars) they suggested that if I wanted to be foolish enough to give Wagner performances myself, they would gladly rent the Metropolitan Opera House to me in the spring and on easy terms. Almost irresistibly I was drawn into the resolve to take their suggestion seriously, although it was made laughingly and sceptically as to its outcome. I consulted a number of devoted friends who shared my optimism and finally decided to make the plunge, and, in order to finance my mad scheme properly, I sold my house on West 55th Street.
At the home of Miss Mary Callender and Miss Caro de Forest, both of them true friends and music lovers, a “Wagner Society” was formed, the purpose of which was to help the sale of subscription seats for my venture and to spread the propaganda for the project in every way. At the first meeting of this society so many seats were subscribed for that the success seemed assured, and, besides this, the directors of the Metropolitan Opera House, although they were entitled to the free use of their boxes, suggested to me very generously that as Abbey and Grau would charge a nominal rental of five hundred dollars a night for my performances they would pay me that amount for the use of their boxes, so that I should have the house virtually rent free.
Abbey and Grau, who looked on me as a kind of foolish boy who was plunging madly toward destruction, told me with equal generosity that I could have whatever oftheir enormous stock of costumes and properties might prove of use for the Wagner operas.
About this time I received a letter from Mr. William Steinway, then the head of the house of Steinway & Sons, and a great lover of music, asking me to come down to see him, as he was very much interested in my project for the return of Wagner to the Metropolitan. I did so and found him at his desk crippled with gout but very cheerful and happy over my venture, for which he prophesied great success. He suggested, however, that while he realized that the idea and the venture were entirely mine, and that I was entitled to every credit and advantage from it, it would be a very generous act on my part if I invited Anton Seidl to share the conducting of the Wagner operas and music-dramas. He pointed out that Seidl was looked on by the American public as a great Wagner conductor, and his co-operation would show that I intended to found my project on the broadest and most generous lines. He said that if I would agree to his suggestion, he would arrange a meeting for Seidl and myself at his office for the following day, and I could be sure of his heartiest personal and financial support.
I thought well of his idea, and, while Seidl and I had never been on cordial personal terms during the old German opera days, nor afterward when we went our separate ways as concert conductors, I felt that the project might be much strengthened by a combination, and accordingly met Seidl, together with William Steinway, in the latter’s office the following day. I outlined my project to Seidl, told him of the support I had already gained, of my arrangement with Abbey and Grau, and that I was financing the scheme myself, but that, with full admiration for his work in America during the years of German opera aftermy father’s death, I should be glad to divide the Wagner operas with him. I showed him a list of the eight I intended to produce. They were, as I remember, as follows:
“Rhinegold”“Walküre”“Siegfried”“Götterdämmerung”“Tristan and Isolde”“Meistersinger”“Lohengrin”“Tannhäuser”
“Rhinegold”“Walküre”“Siegfried”“Götterdämmerung”“Tristan and Isolde”“Meistersinger”“Lohengrin”“Tannhäuser”
“Rhinegold”
“Walküre”
“Siegfried”
“Götterdämmerung”
“Tristan and Isolde”
“Meistersinger”
“Lohengrin”
“Tannhäuser”
I suggested to him that he should pick out the four which he preferred and that I would conduct the other four. Steinway pronounced this offer extremely fair and generous and urged Seidl to accept it, but Seidl said he would have to think it over and would notify Steinway of his decision.
The next day he called on Steinway at nine o’clock in the morning and told him that he had come to the conclusion that he would not divide the conducting of the Wagner operas with any one and, therefore, preferred not to have anything to do with the venture. Steinway was furious, and when he told me of this he said: “I am now with you heart and soul and here is my check for twenty-five hundred dollars for which I will take subscription seats for your season in different parts of the house.”
I arranged for a season of eight weeks at the Metropolitan and a tour of five weeks which should take us as far west as Kansas City, as this Far Western outpost had immediately put in a generous bid for three performances.
I went abroad that spring to engage my artists and succeeded in gathering a notable company of Wagneriansingers: Rosa Sucher, of the Berlin Royal Opera for theBrunhildesandIsolde; a young singer of twenty-three, Johanna Gadski, who sang for me in Berlin, forElsaandElizabeth; Emil Fischer, of the Dresden Royal Opera, forWotanandHans Sachs, and Max Alvary, the handsomest and most dramatic ofSiegfriedsand a truly knightlyTristan. He had studied the latter rôle at Bayreuth and had sung it there at the first performances. At Bayreuth I also found a highly gifted English singer, Marie Brema, who was then almost unknown but who was the possessor of a rich and expressive mezzo-soprano. Her talent for acting was remarkable and her vocal range so great that I thought I could use her not only forOrtrudeandBrangäne, but, if necessary, for theBrunhildesas well.
A great deal of the scenery for “Tristan” and the “Nibelung Trilogy” as well as for “Tannhäuser” I had especially painted in Vienna by the firm of Kautsky and Briosky. They were at that time at the head of their profession, and such beautiful foliage as, for instance, in the forest scene of “Siegfried,” had never before been seen on an American stage. Our New York painters gathered around it in amazement when it had been unpacked and properly mounted and hung.
Such an expert on naval matters as William J. Henderson, the eminent music editor of theNew York Sun, deservedly criticised the architecture and rigging of the ship that boreTristanandIsoldeacross the Irish seas to Cornwall. Vienna, the home of my scene-painters, is not a seaport, and the gorgeous tent ofIsolde’s, and the sails and mast, while very picturesque, completely hid the course of the ship fromTristanat the helm, and if he had not been an operatic sailor, who knew exactly wherethe ship was going to land at the end of the act, he undoubtedly would have sent it crashing against the white-chalk cliffs of England instead of guiding it safely into the harbor of Cornwall.
In the meanwhile, the subscriptions for seats at our New York office had gone up by such leaps and bounds that the financial success of my “crazy venture” was assured before the box-office opened for the single sale of tickets.
I had chosen “Tristan” for the opening performance. It was in 1895. The general rehearsal had gone well and an immense audience filled every available space of the opera-house and greeted me warmly as I appeared on the conductor’s stand. I was just about to begin the prelude when a whisper reached me that the English horn player was not in his place. It was old Joseph Eller, who had played in the Philharmonic under my father many years before. He had, incredible to relate, forgotten his instrument and, discovering this only on his arrival at the Metropolitan, had rushed home but had not yet returned. Imagine my agitation! Everything was ready, the lights turned down and the audience expectant, and I finally did not dare to wait any longer. I assigned the English horn part to the third French horn player and we began the long-drawn sighs of the violoncellos of the introductory bars of the prelude. To my great relief I saw Eller slip into his place a few minutes later, and the performance moved well and dramatically toward a triumphant close, in which Alvary, especially, distinguished himself by his marvellous acting and impassioned singing in the scene preceding the arrival of the ship bearingIsolde. Sucher investedIsoldewith a gentle, womanly dignity, but vocally she was no longer quite in herprime and did not, I think, equal Lilli Lehmann or Klafsky and Ternina, whom I brought to America the following year.
To re-enter the Metropolitan on such a Wagnerian wave after German opera had been so ignominiously snuffed out five years before, was a great triumph and satisfaction for me, more especially because my father had laid the foundation eleven years before.
I produced the other Wagnerian operas in quick succession, and as the houses were sold out for every performance the profit was considerable.
Madame Marie Brema proved herself such a valuable member of the company, both asOrtrudeandBrangäne, that I felt it would be wise to give her the opportunity to singBrunhildein “Walküre” as well. I, therefore, quietly began to train her in that rôle. Unfortunately, during a rehearsal which I had with her alone on the stage, Madame Sucher happened to saunter in and, hearing the familiar music coming from my piano, she suddenly beheld another woman singingBrunhilde. She gave me one indignant but comprehensive glance and then majestically sailed off the stage. A few hours later I received a letter in which she announced to me that she wished to return to Germany on the next steamer, as she had not been accustomed until then to have “her” rôles sung by another as long as she was in the company.
This was the first letter of the kind that I had received during my short career as opera impresario, but it was but the prototype of many similar ones that followed each other like snowflakes in a storm during my various opera seasons.
I, of course, immediately sent Madame Sucher a large bouquet of roses and wrote to her that, quite apart fromcontractual obligations, I could not understand how she would want to leave America after she had “sung herself so gloriously into the hearts of my countrymen.” I do not know whether my letter or the roses had any effect, or whether wiser counsels prevailed, but she stayed with me and continued her work with great good nature and even endured the hated sight of having Marie Brema singBrunhildeat several of the subsequent performances.
In Kansas City we ended our stay with a matinée performance of “Siegfried,” Madame Sucher asBrunhildeand Max Alvary, the handsome, asSiegfried. My readers will remember the great scene in whichBrunhildeis awakened from her slumber of years by the kiss ofSiegfried, who bends over her in that delightful but difficult position for a long time until a certain bar in the music denotes that the kiss is ended. The house was crowded and the greater part of the audience were women. Suddenly, while I was conducting the exquisite music accompanying the extended kiss, some one in the gallery inclined to facetiousness imitated very distinctly the smacking sound of kissing, and, to my horror, little ripples of feminine laughter rose and fell, awoke and died, to be renewed again. Alvary was wonderful. He raised his handsome head, gazed with calm eyes at the audience until a death-like silence reigned and then, with equal calm, returned to his previous occupation. It was certainly a triumph of man over woman, or rather women, and at the end of the act they greeted this young god with special and adoring enthusiasm.
The entire profits of my first venture as owner and director of an opera company for thirteen weeks amounted to about fifty-three thousand dollars. (Alas! I did not retain this quickly gained fortune a long time.)
I had again planted the flag of Wagner firmly in American ground and naturally did not wish to see it pulled down again. I therefore called on Abbey and Grau and—as I had no desire for managerial honors, the artistic side of it only interesting me—begged them to add a German department to their really splendid galaxy of French and Italian artists and to let me take care of it for them. But at that time they did not seem ready to alter their traditional operatic scheme, and my suggestion did not meet with a favorable response. I then decided that I would go on myself. My first season had taught me a great deal. I had acquired a considerable stock of scenery, costumes, and properties, and I knew where I could still further improve the artistic personnel of my company. I thought that by arranging for a longer season of five months I should be able to give my singers and orchestra better contracts financially and also introduce the Wagner operas over a greater territory.
All my friends except one urged me to go on with the work. The one exception was Andrew Carnegie who said, with that canny business acumen which made him one of the world’s richest men:
“Walter, you have made a great success, artistically as well as financially; your profits have been enormous. But such a success rarely repeats itself immediately. You rightly divined the desire of the public for a return of Wagner opera, but this current has drawn into it many people who have come for curiosity only, and to whom Wagner is still a closed book. Many of these will not come back another time. Be contented to rest on your laurels.”
Of course I would not listen to such good business advice and accordingly engaged a company of singersfor the following year, who made a really remarkable ensemble. Among the newcomers was Madame Katherine Klafsky whose overwhelming impersonations ofBrunhilde,Isolde, and especially ofFidelio, still vibrate in my memory. This last opera gave me such joy to conduct that, although it never drew within a thousand dollars as much as any of the other operas, I would insist on keeping it in the repertoire. This proves conclusively that the artist in me was much stronger than the impresario and that I really had no business to engage in the latter occupation.
Fidelio(Leonore), in the second act, liberates her husband from his shackles in the prison, and he says to her, “O, my Leonore, how much hast thou done for me!” She answers, “Nothing, nothing, my Florestan,” and the orchestra begins a soft murmur, upon which the two voices rise in an ecstatic duet of love. Klafsky gave this scene with such tenderness that the entire orchestra, as well as myself, were by this time almost choking with emotion, and it was all that I could do to lift my baton to give the signal for the beginning of the duet.
Madame Ternina, another newcomer, was prevented by illness from appearing in Chicago, but in Boston she created a genuine sensation. The public divided itself into two factions, the one extolling the almost elemental dramatic vehemence of Klafsky, who fairly poured out her glorious voice, while the other proclaimed Ternina the greater artist because of her more intellectual conception and a certain noble artistic reticence.
Part of the summer of 1894 I had spent in beginning the music of an opera on Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter.” The subject had always fascinated me and I had years before prepared a dramatic scenario for whichI finally induced Hawthorne’s son-in-law, George Parsons Lathrop, to prepare a libretto. I completed the composition of the music the following summer and decided to produce it during the season 1895-96 with the Damrosch Opera Company in Boston, where the scene of the original novel is laid, in the old Colonial days of Governor Endicott.
I gave the rôle ofHester Prynneto Johanna Gadski. David Bispham playedRoger Chillingworth, and Barron Berthold sang the clergyman,Arthur Dimmesdale.
The first performance took place February 10, 1896. American audiences are proverbially kind to authors on first nights, and Boston was especially interested in this opera because of Hawthorne’s novel. The scenery presented old Boston in very picturesque fashion, and I had spent a good deal of time with my stage-manager and costumer in the different Boston collections of Colonial belongings in order to give a correct picture of that period. Early portraits were consulted for the “make-up” of Governor Endicott and other old Boston celebrities, and the “company of ancient and honorable artillery” who appeared in the last act carried an exact copy of the banner which still hangs, I think, in Faneuil Hall.
Gadski gave a very touching impersonation ofHester, and Bispham fairly revelled in the fiendish machinations ofRoger Chillingworth. The artists and composer received numberless recalls and the members of my company united in presenting me with several charming mementos of the day.
Mrs. John L. Gardner, who had already in those days become a real and loyal friend and supporter, and who has, according to her wonderful capacity for friendship, continued as such during these many years, sent a hugelaurel wreath to the stage for me, the centre of which contained a large scarlet letter “A”! The reader may imagine what jokes were cracked at my expense about that very prominently displayed letter.
The music was, I think, well written and orchestrated, but so much of it had been conceived under the overwhelming influence of Wagner, that I am afraid Anton Seidl was right when, after hearing the work in New York, he confided cynically to his friends that it was a “New England Nibelung Trilogy.”
Reviewing the work critically myself after these many years, I would say that it showed sufficient talent and musicianly grasp to warrant a composer’s career, but life and its exigencies willed otherwise, and all the “might have beens” are but idle speculation.
An evil star seemed to shine over that winter’s opera season from the financial standpoint. The entire country was suffering from a severe financial depression and my company was large and expensive. I had to travel continually, and during the entire five months carried a company of one hundred and seventy people, including an orchestra of seventy men, as I considered so large an aggregation my solemn duty as a Wagner disciple and propagandist.
As Abbey and Grau finally decided to embark on a German opera department of their own, adopting my suggestion when it was too late for me to combine with them, they very naturally shut me out of the Metropolitan Opera House and I was compelled, for my New York season, to lease the old Academy of Music which had become a house for cheap theatrical productions and had lost its high fashionable estate of other years.
My seasons in Chicago and Boston had been profitable,but many cities in the South, with the exception of New Orleans, which gave me a wonderful welcome, could not pay expenses, as the theatres were too small and my company too large and literally too good.
In New Orleans we played an entire week at the old St. Charles Theatre. The dressing-rooms for the chorus were in the cellar and just before the first performance the women of the chorus ran shrieking up on the stage, vowing that they would not return, as rats as large as good-sized rabbits were scampering around the cellar. I could not believe them until I went down and saw those horrible creatures with my own eyes.
Our last performance was to have been on Saturday night, but on that day I received a petition signed by a number of citizens asking whether we could give them a “Fidelio” performance with Madame Klafsky on Sunday morning. As our train was to leave at three P. M. on that day, we had to begin this performance at eleven o’clock in the morning. The announcement that this extra performance was to be given was made only the night before and in the Sunday morning papers. By eleven o’clock the house was sold out.
I took the company as far west as Denver and everywhere virtually introduced for the first time the “Trilogy,” “Tristan,” and “Die Meistersinger” to the public.
I remember a performance in Providence, Rhode Island, where, in default of a theatre, the armory had been adapted for us by an improvised stage which was, however, so low that the orchestra could easily see what was going on. The opera was “Lohengrin,” and just before the scene in the last act, whenGodfrey, the little brother ofElsa, appears in place of the magic swan to rush into the outstretched arms ofElsa, the stage-manager suddenly discoveredthat the little ballet girl who always assumed the rôle was not present. What to do? In the emergency he grabbed Hans, son of my prompter and at that time a kind of assistant to everybody as call-boy, assistant librarian, etc., etc. He was only fourteen and small of stature but with the excessive length of arms and legs characteristic of that age. By some painful process he was forced into the costume ofGodfreyand pushed on the stage just in the nick of time. I suddenly noticed a commotion among my orchestra, and as I followed their astonished but delighted gaze I saw the uncanny apparition of Hans as a counterfeitGodfreystanding on the stage evidently frightened out of his wits. Gadski, who sangElsa, with great presence of mind, stretched her arms wide and not only welcomed, but extinguished him beneath the voluminous folds of her cloak and I doubt whether the public realized that the real princely brother had not made his appearance.
When we finally arrived in New York, I had already lost a great deal of the large profits of the year before, and this loss was further increased by my season at the Academy of Music.
During the New York season my wife and I stayed at the stately old house of our dear friends, Sophie and Tina Furniss, on Fifth Avenue and Fortieth Street. With characteristic kindness, they not only took a large proscenium box for every performance, but, having heard that affairs had not gone well financially, insisted that we must be their guests for the entire New York season, in order, I suppose, that I should not have to incur the extravagance of an hotel.
These elderly ladies, together with a married sister, Mrs. Zimmermann, were the daughters of an old EastIndia merchant who, in the earlier part of the nineteenth century, had amassed a fortune. Their house was full of lovely old furniture and mementos of a bygone age and they dispensed within its walls a very generous and dignified hospitality.
An old colored coachman named Brown had been with them for forty years. He always, together with a young colored footman, sat high up on their carriage in great state and solemnity. The young footman having been sent away in disgrace during our stay, Brown was instructed to procure another boy to take his place. A week elapsed and the new boy had not been found, and when Miss Sophie said to him: “Brown, why haven’t you gotten us a new boy? Are they difficult to find?” he answered:
“No, Miss Sophie, there’s plenty o’ boys, but ah find it so hard to ma’ch mah colah.”
He evidently was a great stickler for unanimity, not only in the color of the livery but of the skin as well.
Miss Sophie, the oldest of these three delightful ladies, had an incredible vitality, and although bodily infirmities and advancing years did their best to curb her, she remained active, cheerful, and undaunted until the end. Almost every night during my opera season of six weeks she would hobble from the carriage to her proscenium box, supported by her cane on one side and the footman on the other, and she listened to the Wagnerian music-dramas with unflagging attention. Not even the length of “Götterdämmerung” or “Meistersinger” would phase her, and after the performance, during supper, she would proudly repeat, while her eyes fairly snapped with laughter, some remark of mine that I had made two years before at their country place in Lenox, during my deliveryof a series of explanatory recitals on the “Nibelung Trilogy.”
Another fellow guest was Doctor Sturgis Bigelow, an enthusiastic admirer of Madame Ternina’s art, who had come to New York especially to be present at all of her appearances. She was to have made her farewell to America in the “Götterdämmerung” and Doctor Bigelow had ordered enough flowers from half a dozen of the florists of Broadway and Fifth Avenue to fill the entire Academy, but unfortunately Madame Ternina became ill and her place had to be taken at the last moment by her rival, Madame Klafsky. Doctor Bigelow had no desire to present the floral testimony of his adoration to this rival singer, and therefore proceeded on the difficult task of cancelling his many orders, but as many of the wreaths and lyres had already been prepared, his bill for “damages” was quite large.
Before Ternina sailed for home she told me that she intended to stay away for a few years. I had paid her five hundred dollars an appearance which was a fair honorarium at that time, as she was absolutely unknown and therefore had not yet developed a sufficient “drawing power” to warrant a higher fee, but she said she would not come back to America until she could command a fee of a thousand dollars. This decision she adhered to, and when she did return a few years later, Maurice Grau cheerfully paid her the thousand dollars and she was immediately proclaimed one of the greatestIsoldesof our time.
My New York season opened on March 4, 1896, with Beethoven’s “Fidelio.” The audience was a distinguished one, containing a great many of the old Academy habitués. Grand opera had not been given there since 1888,when the tenor, Italo Campanini, had brought over an Italian opera company.
Of Klafsky I have already spoken, but my new barytone, Dimitri Popovici, also made a sensation. I had found him in Bayreuth, where he had sungTelramundandKurvenal.
I produced my own opera, “The Scarlet Letter,” during the second week, and the reception accorded it was more than cordial. As the Symphony Society of New York wished to present me with an exquisitely bound copy of Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter” as a memento, Richard Welling, the secretary and an old friend, suggested to Anton Seidl, who was in the audience, that he be spokesman, but as he refused Welling presented the book to me himself.
While the balance-sheet of the five months’ season showed a “loss of forty-three thousand dollars,” the larger part of my gains of the year before, I cannot say that my wife and I were very much cast down. Youth is optimistic, and the loss of money is, in itself, not such a dreadful calamity if one still has enough to pay one’s debts; and all this time I was adding to my experience and artistic stature.
After a long consultation with my wife we both decided that the conditions under which I had worked that disastrous winter were not normal, and that we could well risk another season. Two factors influenced me greatly in this decision: one, that a group of Philadelphia citizens had come forward and desired me to consider their Academy of Music as my artistic home, and said that they would give every possible assistance to a regular season there, and the other was that Abbey and Grau frankly confessed to me that they had made a mistakein not accepting my offer of a combination. They had not been fortunate in the choice of their German singers and had lost a hundred and fifty thousand dollars on their German operas, which was nearly four times as much as I had lost. Grau suggested for the following season an interchange of certain artists, and if I would occasionally lend him Madame Klafsky, whom he admired greatly, he would in turn give me Madame Calvé for a few performances of “Carmen.” This arrangement seemed admirable to me, as I was beginning to feel that Wagner opera alone was not sufficient to give a well-balanced opera season, and that for a longer season Philadelphia would demand a more varied repertoire.
For the following season of 1897-98 affairs moved much easier for me. The Philadelphia committee gave me a guarantee for a regular opera season at the Philadelphia Academy of Music. This assured me a home and a permanent place for my large store of scenery, costumes, and properties. Rehearsals also were thus made easier and, for my New York season in the spring, Abbey and Grau again rented the Metropolitan Opera House to me.
I had re-engaged Madame Klafsky, but to our great sorrow she died, and the problem of finding a successor was a serious one. Madame Gadski, who had charmed our audiences withElsa,Elizabeth, andSieglinde, was rather young for the heavy dramatic rôles, although I had begun to train her in the “Walküre” and “Siegfried”Brunhildes. I began negotiations with Lilli Lehmann and was successful in obtaining her wonderful services for the following year—but of this I have written in detail in another chapter.
The financial results of this season were quite satisfactory, but I was beginning to chafe more and more underthe unsympathetic task of manager. To rehearse singers and orchestra from morning until night was a pleasure, because there was an artistic ideal to be achieved and because there were all manner of musical difficulties to be overcome. That was part of my work as a musician and conductor, and the fatigues and worries connected with this were easily endured. But the managerial duties annoyed me, and the constant intrigues among the singers, directed sometimes against each other and at other times against the management, often seemed to me unbearable.
In the spring of 1898 Madame Nellie Melba, the golden-voiced, told me that she would like to join my company for the following winter, and suggested that her manager, Mr. Charles Ellis, well known as the manager of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, form a partnership with me, the company to be called The Damrosch-Ellis Opera Company, half of the repertoire to be devoted, as before, to the Wagner operas and the other half to the performance of French-Italian operas with herself as the principal singer. We were to pay her fifteen hundred dollars a night, ten times a month, guaranteed. The suggestion seemed to me reasonable and advantageous, and arrangements were made accordingly. This combination aroused great indignation on the part of Mr. George Haven, the president of the Metropolitan Opera House. Mme. Melba had been one of the principal singers there for several years and he felt that it was an act of ingratitude on her part to leave the Metropolitan, and on mine to take her into my company, as I had myself been associated with the Metropolitan during so many years while he was president. I did not think that his anger was justified, as a great deal of water had flowed down-stream since thosedays; and, as Melba, for reasons of her own, had definitely decided to sever all connections with the Metropolitan, I could not see why I should not make her a member of my company. But he could not, or would not, see my side of the controversy, and vowed that as long as he was president of the Metropolitan I should never set foot in it again in a professional capacity. This vow, however, was subsequently not adhered to, as I not only gave performances there later with my own company, but during the seasons of 1900-01 and 1901-02 officiated again as conductor of the Wagner operas for Maurice Grau, who had then become the sole director and lessee of the Metropolitan.
The combination of Wagnerian operas with the operas of the French-Italian school, of which Melba was the glorious star, proved successful from a popular and financial standpoint, and the season showed a handsome profit for Ellis and myself, although a great part of this was dissipated by a spring tour in which Melba, supported by a small company of singers, chorus, and orchestra, toured the Western cities. This tour was managed by my partner, Ellis, and I did not accompany them, as my services as conductor were not needed for the French operas. I had by that time definitely decided to give up all further connection with opera as manager and devote my future life absolutely to purely musical work as a symphonic conductor and, as I hoped, also as composer. The harassing occupation of “managing” singers proved increasingly distasteful to me, and I felt that I was too good a musician and artist to waste my time with such things in which the only advantage could be a possible pecuniary gain.
I found that many singers were like children with noclear conception of right or wrong. Their constant life in close proximity to each other at rehearsals and performances often begets an exaggerated conception of themselves and their importance to the world. They think that as their contact with the public is only over the footlights, where they receive enthusiastic acclaim for their artistic representations, the public literally exists only for the purpose of hearing them sing, and they willingly ignore the fact that the public may have other interests, such as family, finance, politics, or religion to claim its attention. As it is important for a manager not only to maintain a balance in his ledger but to seek the best results that a disciplined ensemble may attain, he cannot always be in harmony with all the individual desires and demands of his artists. He must often cast his opera in opposition to their personal pride, and I have letters to-day from several of the greatest artists of my company insisting that they must leave or break their contracts because I had wounded their deepest sensibilities in putting so and so in the rôle which they claimed for their very own.
I found that some of them even indulged in occasional efforts at petty blackmailing. One of my tenors, who shall be nameless, had a clause in his contract that he should not be called upon to singTristanthe day after a very long railway journey. We had played in Cleveland, giving a “Lohengrin” performance in which, however, the other tenor had appeared, and took a night train in comfortable sleeping-cars in one of which my tenor occupied a drawing-room to Pittsburgh, which is, as my reader is aware, a distance of only 150 miles or so. As we left Cleveland my friend the tenor appeared in my drawing-room, and, calling attention to the clause in hiscontract relating toTristanand a “long” railway trip, insisted that he could not singTristanthe following day in Pittsburgh without endangering his voice. But if I would pay him five hundred dollars extra he would take the great risk of injuring his voice and would agree to sing. Naturally I was furious and told him politely but firmly what I thought of him, and then sent for my other tenor and told him that his rival was trying to blackmail me and I suggested to him that if he would singTristanfor me in spite of his having sungLohengrinthe night before, I would consider it as a performance outside of his guarantee. Needless to say he jumped at the opportunity of gaining an extra six hundred dollars and at the same time “putting one over” on his hated rival. I then went to bed and slept soundly on a pillow made downy by a deed well done.