But Clotilde Bressler-Gianoli sang the part fifteen times in Oscar Hammerstein's first Manhattan Opera House season; the performance ofCarmenat this theatre, indeed, saved the first season, as Mary Garden and Luisa Tetrazzini saved the second. Mme. Bressler-Gianoli, who had been heard at the Paris Opéra-Comique in the rôle, and indeed once with the New Orleans Opera Company at the New York Casino, gave a delightful interpretation; its chief charm was its absolute freedom from self-consciousness; it was so natural that it became real. Calvé sang the part four times at the end of this season. Mme. Gerville-Réache was another Manhattan Opera House Carmen and Lina Cavalieri was a fourth. Mme. Cavalieri was particularly charming in the dances, but she made a very unconvincing gipsy. In no part that she has ever played before or since has she produced such an impression of girlish innocence. Mariette Mazarin sang Carmen here before she was heard inElektra. Her Carmen was brazen and diabolic, electric and strident; I think it might be included among the great Carmens; it was very original. Marguerite Sylva's Carmen is traditional and pleasant; in tone very like that of Zélie de Lussan. It has been sufficiently appreciated.... María Gay, the Spanish Carmen, attempted realistic touches such as expectoration; a well-sung, well-thought-out, consistent performance, but lacking in glamour.
Although the Century Theatre with Kathleen Howard and others, and sundry small Italian companies had offered Carmen in New York the work was missing from the répertoire of the Metropolitan Opera House for several seasons until Geraldine Farrar brought it back in 1914-15.[5]The scenery and costumes were new. By way of caprice the Spanish army was dressed in Bavarian blue although José is several times referred to ascanariin the text. Caruso sang José, as he had with Mme. Fremstad, and Mr. Toscanini conducted. With the public Carmen has become one of Mme. Farrar's favourite rôles, sharing that distinction with Butterfly.
Other Carmens who may be mentioned are Anna de Belocca, Stella Bonheur, Kirkby-Lunn, Ottilie Metzger, Emmy Destinn, Marie Tempest, Selina Dolaro, Camille Seygard, Alice Gentle, Eleanora de Cisneros, Jane Noria, Ester Ferrabini, Margarita d'Alvarez, Tarquinia Tarquini.... It might be said in passing that some Carmens do not get nearer to the Giralda Tower in Seville than Stanford White's imitation in Madison Square.
Although Mary Garden brought to America three of the best parts in her répertoire, Mélisande, Thais, and Louise, six rôles, at least, she has sung for the first time in this country, Sapho, Natoma, Dulcinée inDon Quichotte, Prince Charmant inCendrillon, Salome, and Carmen. She first identified herself with the Spanish gipsy at the Philadelphia Opera House on November 3, 1911. On February 13, 1912, with the Philadelphia Company, she was heard in Bizet's opera in New York. I attended both of these performances and found much to admire in each of them. Something, however, was lacking; something was wrong; nobody seemed to know exactly what. The general impression was that Mary Garden had failed at last and it was generally bruited about that she would never sing Carmen again. However, Miss Garden is not one of those who permits herself to fail; it may be that she remembers Schumann's saying, "He who sets limits to himself will always be expected to remain within them."... In any case I was not surprised to learn that Miss Garden was singing Carmen at the Opéra-Comique in Paris during the season of 1916-17. In the fall of 1917 she sang the part in Chicago and on February 8, 1918, with the Chicago Opera Company, she reappeared in the part in New York. Thisoccasion may be regarded as one of the greatest triumphs a singer has ever achieved. For Mary Garden had so entirely reconceived the rôle, so stepped into its atmosphere, that she had now made it not merely one of her great parts (it ranks with her Mélisande, her Monna Vanna, and her Thais) but also she had made itherpart. There is indeed no Carmen of the moment who can be compared with her.
A feral gipsy from Triana, this apparition; acigarrerain the Fábrica de Tobacos for the sake of the "affairs of Egypt"; a true gitana in hersaya"with many rows of flounces." Any day in the streets of Seville could you have seen her like, peering through the gratings into the patios, ready to tellbahi. "Eyes of a gipsy, eyes of a wolf" is a Spanish proverb, according to Mérimée, and Borrow tells us that a gitano can always be detected by his eye: "Its peculiarity consists chiefly in a strange staring expression, which to be understood must be seen, and in a thin glaze which steals over it when in repose, and seems to emit phospheric light."... So, did it seem to me, had become the eyes of Mary Garden. This discinct creature, instinctively paradoxical, would be equally at home in the spinnies of the arid Spanish plains, on the dirty stage of amaison de dansesat Triana, or, gaily bedecked and spangled,like a "bedizened butterfly of commerce" in a box of the Plaza de Toros. Sensuous and caline, as in the Seguidilla, rubbing her velvet back against thecanari; proud and magnetic (she must have carried a piece of thebar lachiabout with her), she drew her lovers to her side; she did not advance to meet them. White hot in anger: other Carmens have hurled the helmet after the departing José; Mary Gardenshotit at him like a bursting hand grenade. Fatalist: cabalistic signs smouldering in purple flame on her breast, in the end published this motto in Roman letters: "Je ne crains rien!" When she danced she scarcely lifted her feet from the floor, tapping her heels rhythmically and sensuously into the hidden chambers of our brains; so the inquisitors maddened their victims with the endless drop, drop, drop of water. Her manipulation of her fan, a monstrous Spanish fan, coral on one side and with tauromachian decorations on the other, was in itself a lesson in diabolic grace. She made the fan a part of herself, a part of her movement, as a Spanish woman would.... The climax was fitting enough; her answer to José in the last act, "Non, je ne t'aime plus," sung not with force, not in anger, but with a sort of amused contempt.... So does thegipsy regard the busno ...with a sort of amused contempt. Fatalist, humourist, enchantress, panther, savage,gamine, in turn, this Carmen suggested the virgin brutality of Spain, the austere portentous passion of Persephone, the frivolous devilments of Hell itself.
June 20, 1918.
June 20, 1918.