Great Singers on the Art of Singing Part 9

He taught one that to convince others one must first be convinced.

Indeed, he allowed a great variety of interpretations in order that one might interpret through one's own power of conception rather than through following blindly his own.

During my lessons with Gounod he revealed not only his very p.r.o.nounced histrionic ability, but also his charming talent as a singer. I had an accompanist who came with me to the lessons and when I was learning the various roles, Gounod always sang the duets with me. Although he was well along in years, he had a small tenor voice, exquisitely sweet and sympathetic. He sang with delightful ease and with invariably perfect diction, and perfect vision. If some of our critics of musical performances were more familiar with the niceties of p.r.o.nunciation and accentuation of different foreign languages, many of our present-day singers would be called upon to suffer some very severe criticisms. I speak of this because Gounod was most insistent upon correct p.r.o.nunciation and accent, so that the full meaning of the words might be conveyed to every member of the audience.

A HEARING AT THE OPERA

When I went to the opera for my hearing or _audition_, Gounod went with me and we sang the duets together. The director, M. Gailhard, refused my application, claiming that I was a debutante and could not expect an initial performance at the Grand Opera despite my ability and musical attainments. It may be interesting for aspiring vocal students to learn something of the various obstacles which still stand in the way of a singer, even after one has had a very thorough training and acquired proficiency which should compel a hearing. Alas! in opera, as in many other lines of human endeavor, there is a political background that is often black with intrigue and machinations. I was determined to fight my way on the merit of my art, and accordingly I was obliged to wait for nearly two years before I was able to make my debut. These were years filled with many exasperating circ.u.mstances.

I went to Brussels after two years' study with Marchesi, having been promised my debut there. I was kept for months awaiting it and was finally prevented from making an appearance by one who, pretending to be my friend and to be doing all in her power to further my career, was in reality threatening the directors with instant breaking of her contract should I be allowed to appear. I had this on the authority of Mr.

Gevaert, the then director of the Conservatoire and my firm friend. The artist was a great success and her word was law. It was on my return that I was taken to Gounod and I waited a year for a hearing.

Gounod's opera, _Romeo et Juliette_, had been given at the Opera Comique many times but there was a demand for performances at the Grand Opera.

Accordingly Gounod added a ballet, which fitted it for performance at the Opera. Apropos of this ballet, Gounod said to me, with no little touch of cynicism, "Now you shall see what kind of music a _Ga Ga_ can write" (Ga Ga is the French term for a very old man, that is, a man in his dotage). He was determined that I should be heard at the Grand Opera as Juliette, but even his influence could not prevent the director from signing an agreement with one he personally preferred, which required that she should have the honor of making her debut at the Grand Opera in the part. Then it was that I became aware that it was not only because I was a debutante that I had been denied. Gounod would not consent to this arrangement, insisting on her making her debut previously in _Faust_, and fortunate it was, since the singer in question never attained more than mediocre success. Gounod still demanded as a compromise that the first six performances of the opera should be given to Adelina Patti, and that they should send for me for the subsequent ones.

In the meantime I was engaged at the Opera Comique. There Ma.s.senet looked with disfavor upon my debut before that of Sybil Sanderson.

Ma.s.senet had brought fortunes to the Opera Comique through his immensely popular and theatrically effective operas. Consequently his word was law. I waited for some months and no suggestion of an opportunity for a performance presented itself. All the time I was engaged in extending my repertoire and becoming more and more indignant at the treatment I was receiving in not being allowed to sing the operas thus acquired. My year's contract had still three months to run when I received an offer from St. Petersburg. Shortly thereafter I received a note from M.

Gailhard announcing that he wished to see me. I went and he informed me that Gounod was still insistent upon my appearance in the role of _Juliette_. I was irritated by the whole long train of aggravating circ.u.mstances, but said, "Give me the contract, I'll sign it." Then I went directly to the Opera Comique and asked to see the director. I was towering with indignation--indeed, I felt myself at least seven feet tall and perhaps quite as wide. I demanded my contract. To his "Mais, Mademoiselle--" I commanded, "Send for it." He brought the contract and tore it up in my presence, only to learn next morning to his probable chagrin that I was engaged and announced for an important role at the Grand Opera. The first performance of a debutante at the Grand Opera is a great ordeal, and it is easy to imagine that the strain upon a young singer might deprive her of her natural powers of expression. The outcome of mine was most fortuitous and with success behind me I found my road very different indeed. However, if I had not had a friend at court, in the splendid person of Charles Gounod, I might have been obliged to wait years longer, and perhaps never have had an opportunity to appear in Paris, where only a few foreigners in a generation get such a privilege. It is a great one, I consider, as there is no school of good taste and restraint like the French, which is also one where one may acquire the more intellectual qualities in one's work and a sense of proportion and line.

GOUNOD AS A MODERNIST

I have continually called attention to Gounod's idealism. There are some to-day who might find the works of Gounod artificial in comparison with the works of some very modern writers. To them I can only say that the works of the great master gave a great deal of joy to audiences fully as competent to judge of their artistic and aesthetic beauty as any of the present day. Indeed, their flavor is so delicate and sublimated that the subsequent attempts at interpreting them with more realistic methods only succeeds in destroying their charm.

It may be difficult for some who are saturated with the ultra-modern tendencies in music to look upon Gounod as a modernist, but thus he was regarded by his own friends. One of my most amusing recollections of Gounod was his telling me--himself much amused thereby--of the first performance of _Faust_. His friends had attended in large numbers to a.s.sist at the expected "success," only to be witnesses of a huge failure. Gounod told me that the only numbers to have any success whatsoever were the "Soldiers' Chorus," and that of the old men in the second part of the first act. He said that all his friends avoided him and disappeared or went on the other side of the street. Some of the more intimate told him that he must change his manner of writing as it was so "unmelodious" and "advanced." This seems to me a most interesting recollection, in view of the "cubist" music of Stravinsky and Co. of to-day.

In thinking of Gounod we must not forget his period and his public. We must realize that his operatic heroes and heroines must be approached from an altogether idealistic att.i.tude--never a materialistic one. See the manner in which Gounod has taken Shakespeare's _Juliette_ and translated her into an atmosphere of poetry. Nevertheless he constantly intensifies his dramatic situations as the dramatic nature of the composition demands.

His _Juliette_, though consistent with his idea of her throughout, is not the _Juliet_ of Shakespeare. As also his _Marguerite_ is that of Kaulbach and not the Gretchen of Goethe.

Of course, a great deal depends upon the training and school of the artist interpreting the role. In my own interpretations I am governed by certain art principles which seem very vital indeed to me. The figure of the Mediaeval Princess _Elsa_ has to be represented with a restraint quite opposed to that of the panting savage _Ada_. Also, the palpitating, elemental _Tosca_ calls for another type of character painting than, for instance, the modest, gestureless, timid and womanly j.a.panese girl in Mascagni's _Iris_. These things are not taught in schools by teachers. They come only after the prolonged study which every conscientious artist must give to her roles. Gounod felt this very strongly and impressed it upon me. All music had a meaning to him--an inner meaning which the great mind invariably divines through a kind of artistic intuition difficult to define. I remember his playing to me the last act of _Don Giovanni_, which in his hands gained the grandeur and depth of Greek tragedy. He had in his hands the power to thrill one to the very utmost. Again he was keenly delighted with the most joyous pa.s.sages in music. He was exceptionally fond of Mozart. _Le Nozze di Figaro_ was especially appreciated. He used to say, after accompanying himself in the aria of Cherubino the Page, from the 1st act, "Isn't that Spring? Isn't that youth? Isn't that the joy of life? How marvelously Mozart has crystallized this wonderful exuberant spirit in his music!"

ONE REASON FOR GOUNOD'S EMINENCE

One reason for Gounod's eminence lay in his great reverence for his art.

He believed in the cultivation of reverence for one's art, as the religious devotee has reverence for his cult. To Gounod his art was a religion. To use a very expressive colloquialism, "He never felt himself above his job." Time and again we meet men and women who make it a habit to look down upon their work as though they were superior to it. They are continually apologizing to their friends and depreciating their occupation. Such people seem foreordained for failure. If one can not regard the work one is engaged upon with the greatest earnestness and respect--if one can not feel that the work is worthy of one's deepest _reverence_, one can accomplish little. I have seen so much of this with students and aspiring musicians that I feel that I would be missing a big opportunity if I did not emphasize this fine trait in Gounod's character. I know of one man in particular who has been going down and down every year largely because he has never considered anything he has had to do as worthy of his best efforts. He has always been "above his job." If you are dissatisfied with your work, seek out something that you think is really deserving of your labor, something commensurate with your idea of a serious dignified occupation in which you feel that you may do your best work. In most cases, however, it is not a matter of occupation but an att.i.tude of mind--the difference between an earnest dignified worker and one who finds it more comfortable to evade work.

This is true in music as in everything else. If you can make your musical work a cult as Gounod did, if you have talent--vision--ah! how few have vision, how few can really and truly see--if you have the understanding which comes through vision, there is no artistic height which you may not climb.

One can not hope to give a portrait of Gounod in so short an interview.

One can only point out a few of his most distinguis.h.i.+ng features. One who enjoyed his magnificent friends.h.i.+p can only look upon it as a hallowed memory. After all, Gounod has written himself into his own music and it is to that we must go if we would know his real nature.

MME. FLORENCE EASTON

BIOGRAPHICAL

Mme. Florence Easton was born at Middleborough, Yorks.h.i.+re, England, Oct.

25, 1887. At a very early age she was taken to Toronto, Canada, by her parents, who were both accomplished singers. She was given a musical training in youth with the view of making her a concert pianist. Her teacher was J. A. D. Tripp, and at the age of eleven she appeared in concert. Her vocal talents were discovered and she was sent to the Royal Academy at London, England, where her teachers were Reddy and Mme. Agnes Larkom, a pupil of Garcia. She then went to Paris and studied under Eliot Haslam, an English teacher resident in the French metropolis. She then took small parts in the well-known English Opera organization, the Moody-Manners Company, acquiring a large repertoire in English. With her husband, Francis Maclennen, she came to America to take the leading roles in the Savage production of _Parsifal_, remaining to sing the next season in _Madama b.u.t.terfly_. The couple were then engaged to sing for six years at the Berlin Royal Opera and became wonderfully successful.

After three years at Hamburg and two years with the Chicago Opera Company she was engaged for dramatic roles at the Metropolitan, and has become a great favorite.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MME. FLORENCE EASTON.

Mishkin.]

THE OPEN DOOR TO OPERA

MME. FLORENCE EASTON

What is the open door to opera in America? Is there an open door, and if not, how can one be made? Who may go through that door and what are the terms of admission? These are questions which thousands of young American opera aspirants are asking just now.

The prospect of singing at a great opera house is so alluring and the reward in money is often so great that students center their attentions upon the grand prize and are willing to take a chance of winning, even though they know that only one in a very few may succeed and then often at bitter sacrifice.

The question is a most interesting one to me, as I think that I know what the open door to opera in this country might be--what it may be if enough patriotic Americans could be found to cut through the hard walls of materialism, conventionalism and indifference. It lies through the small opera company--the only real and great school which the opera singer of the future can have.

THE SCHOOL OF PRIME DONNE

In European countries there are innumerable small companies capable of giving good opera which the people enjoy quite as thoroughly as the metropolitan audiences of the world enjoy the opera which commands the best singers of the times. For years these small opera companies have been the training schools of the great singers. Not to have gone through such a school was as damaging an admission as that of not having gone through a college would be to a college professor applying for a new position. Lilli Lehmann, Schumann-Heink, Ruffo, Campanini, Jenny Lind, Patti, all are graduates of these schools of practice.

In America there seems to have existed for years a kind of prejudice, bred of ignorance, against all opera companies except those employing all-star casts in the biggest theatres in the biggest cities. This existed, despite the fact that these secondary opera companies often put on opera that was superior to the best that was to be heard in some Italian, German and French cities which possessed opera companies that stood very high in the estimation of Americans who had never heard them.

It was once actually the case that the fact that a singer had once sung in a smaller opera company prevented her from aspiring to sing in a great opera company. America, however, has become very much better informed and much more independent in such matters, and our opera goers are beginning to resemble European audiences in that they let their ears and their common sense determine what is best rather than their prejudices and their conventions regarding reputation. It was actually the case at one time in America that a singer with a great reputation could command a large audience, whereas a singer of far greater ability and infinitely better voice might be shut out because she had once sung in an opera company not as pretentious as those in the big cities. This seemed very comic indeed to many European singers, who laughed in their coat sleeves over the real situation.

In the first place, the small companies in many cities would provide more singers with opportunities for training and public appearances. The United States now has two or three major opera companies. Count up on your fingers the greatest number of singers who could be accommodated with parts: only once or twice in a decade does the young singer, at the age when the best formative work must be done, have a chance to attain the leading roles. If we had in America ten or twenty smaller opera companies of real merit, the chances would be greatly multiplied.

The first thing that the singer has to fight is stage fright. No matter how well you may know a role in a studio, unless you are a very extraordinary person you are likely to take months in acquiring the stage freedom and ease in working before an audience. There is only one cure for stage fright, and that is to appear continually until it wears off. Many deserving singers have lost their great chances because they have depended upon what they have learned in the studio, only to find that when they went before a great and critical audience their ability was suddenly reduced to 10 per cent., if not to zero. Even after years of practice and experience in great European opera houses where I appeared repeatedly before royalty, the reputation of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York was so great that at the time I made my debut there I was so afflicted by stage fright that my voice was actually reduced to one-half of its force and my other abilities accordingly.

This is the truth, and I am glad to have young singers know it as it emphasizes my point.

Imagine what the effect would have been upon a young singer who had never before sung in public on the stage. Footlight paralysis is one of the most terrifying of all acute diseases and there is no cure for it but experience.

THE BEST BEGINNING

In the Moody Manners Company in England, the directors wisely understood this situation and prepared for it. All the singers scheduled to take leading roles (and they were for the most part very young singers, since when the singer became experienced enough she was immediately stolen by companies paying higher salaries) were expected to go for a certain time in the chorus (not to sing, just to walk off and on the stage) until familiar with the situation. Accordingly, my first appearance with the Moody Manners Company was when I walked out with the chorus. I have never heard of this being done deliberately by any other managers, but think how sensible it is!

Again, it is far more advantageous for the young singer to appear in the smaller opera house at first, so that if any errors are made the opera goers will not be unforgiving. There is no tragedy greater than throwing a young girl into an operatic situation far greater than her experience and ability can meet, and then condemning her for years because she did not rise to the occasion. This has happened many times in recent years.

Ambition is a beautiful thing; but when ambition induces one to walk upon a tight rope over Niagara, without having first learned to walk properly on earth, ambition should be restrained. I can recollect several singers who were widely heralded at their first performances by enthusiastic admirers, who are now no longer known. What has become of them? Is it not better to learn the profession of opera singing in its one great school, and learn it so thoroughly that one can advance in the profession, just as one may advance in every other profession? The singer in the small opera company who, night after night, says to herself, "To-morrow it must be better," is the one who will be the Lilli Lehmann, the Galli-Curci, or the Schumann-Heink of to-morrow; not the important person who insists upon postponing her debut until she can appear at the Metropolitan or at Covent Garden.

Colonel Henry W. Savage did America an immense service, as did the Aborn Brothers and Fortune Gallo, in helping to create a popular taste for opera presented in a less pretentious form. America needs such companies and needs them badly, not merely to educate the public up to an appreciation of the fact that the finest operatic performances in the world are now being given at the Metropolitan Opera House, but to help provide us with well-schooled singers for the future.

NECESSITY OF ROUTINE