Confessions of an Opera Singer Part 4

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 often _ausverkauft_, 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 an _Abonnement_, or sort of season ticket, which made them much cheaper. The rates for officers were very low indeed. The chief cavalry regiments had the boxes 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 on that day. At our theatre, performances of opera were given on Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday nights, with plays or _Possen 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" ba.s.s, 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, the first 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 "Tannhauser" in the singing contest, in the church scene of "Lohengrin," and as _Flora's_ guests in "Traviata," to help "dress the stage."

It is not the least of one's troubles as a beginner to stand on the stage as _Ortrud_, 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, called _Fach_ in Germany, and special designations like the singers. The chief of them are the _Jugendlicher Held_ or Young Hero, corresponding to the Heroic Tenor, and his partner the _Erste Heldin_. Nearly as important, however, are the _Erster Liebhaber_, or Young Lover, and the _Jugendliche Liebhaberin und Erste Salondame_--Young Lovehaveress and First Drawingroom Lady.

There are the _Helden Vater_ and _Heldin Mutter_, the _Intrigant_ or Villain, and the _Bon Vivant_ (p.r.o.nounced Bong Vivong) who is a sort of general good fellow and occasional hero. The _Erster Komiker_ is always a popular figure with the public and has his subordinate funnyman, usually much younger. There is a soubrette to do the saucy maid parts, a _Naive_, what we should call Ingenue, and a _Komische 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 a.s.sumed to be, sufficiently musical to take small parts in operas requiring a large cast, appearing as _Telramund's_ four n.o.bles, and as _Meister_ in the first act of "Meistersingers" or as compet.i.tors in the _Preissingen_ in "Tannhauser." The opera gains very much by having these experienced actors in the small roles.

Our chorus was composed of about thirty members, and the orchestra of from forty to fifty, reinforced in the bra.s.s 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 repet.i.teur 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 repet.i.teur for the chorus or chorus master besides.

Our ballet was composed of a solo dancer and about sixteen coryphees, directed by a _Balletmeisterin_ who 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 Germany _Statisten_, who held spears in "Aida" and returned victorious in "Faust." They were drawn from the infantry regiments and received thirty pfennigs (7-1/2c) a night. They arrived with their _Unteroffizier_ an 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 ma.s.s at the back of the stage. Sometimes on our walks we would meet these men on sentry duty, or in batches with their _Unteroffizier_, who would call out, "_Au-gen rechts!"_ (Eyes right!) and give us the officers' salute with mighty grins of recognition.

The princ.i.p.als 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 princ.i.p.als. Great favourites remain longer unless they get something better. Many of 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.

CHAPTER X

MY DeBUT AND BREAKING INTO HARNESS

I had to sing _Azucena_, 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 sing _Azucena_ on the next, I confess that something rather like panic a.s.sailed 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 debut. 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 absolute peasant 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 roles.

It was fortunate for me that I succeeded in pulling myself together sufficiently to make a success, as at that time the old system of _Kundigung_ was 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 these _Gastspiele_ because 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 you know 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, the _Genossenschaft_, which is the only protective inst.i.tution for singers in Germany, has at last succeeded in abolis.h.i.+ng 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 role 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 keeping her 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 role 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 as _Amneris_!) 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 role should have a different walk.

The range of parts that one is called upon to perform is astonis.h.i.+ng.

Formerly the limits of a _Fach_ (line of parts) were more rigidly observed than at present, when the personality of a singer in relation to a role is more often taken into consideration. Still, if a role definitely belongs to the _Fach_ of 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 ba.s.s, but mix up the voice range and styles of singing indiscriminately in one part. My second real part was _Fricka_ in "Walkuere," in which I had a great success vocally, but unfortunately looked a great deal younger than the portly _Brunnhilde_ and far more like her daughter than her stepmother.

Then came the _Third Lady_ in "Magic Flute," the _Third Grace_ in "Tannhauser," _Martha_ in "Faust," _Orlofsky_ in "Fledermaus," _Frau Reich_ in the "Merry Wives of Windsor," the _Grafin_ in "Trompeter von Sakkingen," _Pamela_ in "Fra Diavolo," _Witch_ in "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, except _Fricka_ and _Carmen_, and the latter in French.

The three graces in "Tannhauser" were done by the beauties of the theatre, two premieres 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 beautiful _Bergcrystal_ necklace, 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 the _Third Lady_, for there are spoken pa.s.sages 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! _Pamela_ nearly gave me nervous prostration. They were determined that I should do it because she had to speak German with an English accent, 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, rehea.r.s.e 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 ma.n.u.script 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 studying _Pamela_ the Kapellmeister told me at least ten times, how the contralto who played the _Pamela_ in his father's theatre and who was also an English-speaking woman, had so caught his father's fancy in that role, that from then on he had a tremendous affair with her.

This he repeated to me again and again, but I never seemed to take the hint.

As _Erda_ in "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 the _Wanderer's_ first 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 from _Hunding_ in "Walkuere," from _Daland_ in "Hollaender," from "Fidelio." He rolled about the stage and lurched in my direction with his spear pointed at me, shouting _Pogner's_ advice to _Eva_ while I was singing _Erda's_ responses. It seemed to go on for ages, but at last _Siegfried_, 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 and no 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 it _must_ have 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 gla.s.s of wine to steady one's shaking nerves; later a gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s.

"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 it _ohne 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 the _Dutiful Wife_. There was plenty of variety in my work. I would sing _Carmen_ on Sunday, _Orlofsky_ in "Fledermaus" on Tuesday, speaking German with a Russian accent, _Pamela_ on Thursday night with an English accent, and _Frau Reich_ on Friday night with no accent at all! I dressed _Frau Reich_ in 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, are _you_ supposed to represent?" "I am playing Shakespeare's _Frau 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.

CHAPTER XI

SOME STAGE DELIGHTS

We had also what is known as _Abstecher_, 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, princ.i.p.als second cla.s.s and chorus third. Our fare was paid, and the generous management allowed us two marks apiece (50c) extra for expenses! As we left at five P.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 (3-1/2c) for beer. Our _Abstecher_ was 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, as _Nancy_, 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 princ.i.p.als 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 cafe of the station. I was looked upon as recklessly extravagant because I would order a _Wiener Schnitzel mit Salat_ for sixty pfennigs (15) and when I took two cents' worth of b.u.t.ter too, they would raise their eyebrows and murmur, "_Diese Amerikaner!_" Sometimes the Director came with us, and then the princ.i.p.als 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 hoa.r.s.e 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 debuts 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 repet.i.tions 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. The _Heldentenor_ may 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 necessitated by 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 relations.h.i.+p between princ.i.p.als and chorus, _erste und zweite Krafte_ (princ.i.p.als of first and second rank) singers and the management, grows more conventional and regulated according to the cla.s.s of the theatre. Those in authority may exact perfect obedience, but they must ask for it properly; and while an individual is ent.i.tled 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 princ.i.p.als dress alone, at least when they have a big role 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 gla.s.s at 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 "Fraulein Miss"--p.r.o.nouncing the latter like the German word _miess_ which 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-s.h.i.+fter, fireman and all the other workers whose co-operation is necessary for a good _ensemble_. 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. A _Korbtrager_ (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 s.e.x, men's costumes are provided in opera houses of 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 most _recherche_ French 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 containing _Anna's_ letter aria opens with the company at supper in _Frau Reich's_ home. The wives are explaining their tricks and plotting _Falstaff's_ final discomfiture in spoken dialogue. One night when I was singing _Frau Reich_ in Metz there was a particularly attractive dish of real apples on the stage supper table. The _Herr Reich_ was the serious ba.s.s, a thrifty individual who couldn't bear to 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 the _regisseur_ very 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 "Divorcons" for example or in the "Anatol Cyclus" of Schnitzler.

Our property man in Metz, with the historic Shakespearean name of Mondenschein, (Moons.h.i.+ne) 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 portieres, 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 white light festooned upon a mantel-piece, or above a doorway, they could be depended upon to supply the appropriate setting of the _Erste Naive's_ most 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 j.a.panese 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.

It is a curious thing to note in this connection, how archaic the arrangement of such details remains in operatic performances even on the best stages. How in "Carmen" for example, the singers must pretend to drink to _Escamillo_ out of perfectly dry tin cups, instead of using real wine and gla.s.ses, as a quite second-rate dramatic company would do.

How _b.u.t.terfly_ and _Suzuki_ are never given real tea to serve to the _Consul_ or _Yamadori_. Or how the girls in "Thais" bring up their water-jars out of the well with the outsides quite dry.

Of course in theatres of the Metz cla.s.s matters of costuming are simplified, and historical accuracy is not one of the aims. For example, everything before Christ is done in fur rugs and winged helmets for the men, and flannel nightgowns and long hair for the women. Any period up to the thirteenth century is costumed in mantles and gowns of furniture brocade, after that it is _Alt-deutsch_ (old German), or _Spanisch_ (Shakespearean--mostly black velvet and jet or white satin and silver), until it turns safely into _Rococo_, which means white wigs. After that it is all _Modern_, and even the chorus has to supply its own modern clothes. The men princ.i.p.als have their historical costumes, with the exception of wigs, tights, and shoes, supplied to them, but the women must have their own. The collection of men's clothes in an old theatre is sometimes quite remarkable, some of the suits of a hundred years ago being actually of the period.