My Recollections Part 10

My face was still moist from those lavish embraces and I was planning to go home to the country when I was stopped on the corner of the Rue de la Paix by M. Halanzier, the director of the Opera. I was surprised the more, for I believed that I was only moderately thought of at the Great House as a result of the refusal of my ballet, _Le Preneur de Rats_.

But M. Halanzier had a frank and open mind.

"What are you doing?" he asked. "I hear nothing of you."

I may add that he had never spoken to me before.

"How could I dare to speak of my work to the director of the Opera?" I replied, thoroughly confused.

"And if I want you to?"

"Well, I have a simple work in five acts, _Le Roi de Lah.o.r.e_, with Louis Gallet."

"Come to my house, 18 Place Vendome, to-morrow and bring your ma.n.u.script."

I rushed to tell Gallet, and then went home to Fontainebleau, carrying my wife the two bits of news, one obvious in my b.u.t.tonhole, and the other the greatest hope I had ever had.

I was at the Place Vendome the next morning at nine o'clock. Gallet was there already.

Halanzier lived in a beautiful apartment on the third floor of the superb mansion which formed one of the corners of the Place Vendome.

I began the reading at once. Halanzier stopped me so little that I went right through the whole of the five acts. My voice was gone ... and my hands were useless from fatigue.

As I put my ma.n.u.script back into my old leather portfolio and Gallet and I prepared to go:

"Well! So you leave me no copy?"

I looked at Gallet in stupefaction.

"Then you intend to perform the work?"

"The future will tell."

I was scarcely reinstalled in our apartment in the Rue du General Foy on my return to Paris in October, than the morning's mail brought me the following bulletin from the Opera:

_Le Roi 2 heures----Foyer_

The parts had been given to Mlle. Josephine de Reszke--her two brothers Jean and Edouard were to ornament the stage later on--Salomon and La.s.salle, the last creating a role for the first time.

There was no public dress rehearsal. It was not the custom then as it is nowadays to have a rehearsal for the "couturieres," then for the "colonelle" and, finally, the "general" rehearsal.

In spite of the obviously sympathetic demonstrations of the orchestra and all the personnel at the rehearsal, Halanzier announced that as they were putting on the first work of a debutant at the Opera, he wanted to look after everything himself until after the first performance.

I want to record again my deep grat.i.tude to that singularly good director who loved youth and protected it.

The staging, scenery and costumes were of unheard-of splendor; the interpretation of the first order....

The first performance of _Le Roi de Lah.o.r.e_, the twenty-seventh of April, 1877, was a glorious event in my life.

Apropos of this I recall that on that morning Gustave Flaubert left his card with the servant, without even asking for me. On it were these words:

"This morning I pity you; to-night I shall envy you."

These lines show so well the admirable understanding of the writer of _Salammbo_ and that immortal masterpiece _Madame Bovary_.

The next morning I received the following lines from the famous architect and great artist Charles Gamier:

"I do not know whether it is the hall which makes good music; but, _sapristi_, what I do know is that I lost none of your work and found it _admirable_. That's the truth.

"Your

"CARLO."

The magnificent Opera had been opened sixteen months previously, January 5, 1875, and the critics had considered it their duty to attack the acoustics of that marvellous house built by the most exceptionally competent man of modern times. It is true that the criticism did not last, for when one speaks of Garnier's magnificent work it is in words which are eloquent in their simplicity, "What a fine theater!" The hall obviously has not changed, but the public which pays to Garnier his just and rightful homage.

CHAPTER XII

THE THEATERS IN ITALY

The performances of _Le Roi de Lah.o.r.e_ were running on at the Opera and they were well attended and finely done. At least that is what I heard for I had already stopped going. Presently I left Paris where, as I have said, I devoted myself to giving lessons, and went back to the country to work on _La Vierge_.

In the meantime I had learned that the great Italian publisher Guilio Ricordi had heard _Le Roi de Lah.o.r.e_ at the Opera and had come to terms with Hartmann for its production in Italy. Such a thing was really unique, for at that time the only works translated into Italian and given in that country were those of the great masters. And they had to wait a long time for their turn, while it was my good fortune to see _Le Roi de Lah.o.r.e_ played on the morrow of its first performance.

The first house in Italy at which this honor fell to me was the Regio in Turin. What an unexpected good fortune it was to see Italy again, to know their theaters from more than the outside, and to go into their wings! I found in all this a delight which I cannot express and in this state of rapture I pa.s.sed the first months of 1878. Hartmann and I went to Italy on the first of February, 1878.

With the Scala at Milan, the San Carlo at Naples, the Communal Opera at Boulogne, the old Apollo at Rome--since demolished and replaced in popular favor by the Costanzi--with the Pergola at Florence, the Carlo Felice at Genoa, and the Fenice at Venice, the beautiful Regio Theater, built opposite the Madame Palace on the Piazza Castella, is one of the most noted in all Italy. It rivaled then--as it does now--the most famous houses of that cla.s.sic land of the arts to which it was always so hospitable and so receptive.

The manners at the Regio were entirely different from those at Paris and were, as I discovered later, much like those in Germany. Absolute deference and punctilious exactness are the rule, not only among the artistes but also among the singers of the minor roles. The orchestra obeys the slightest wish of the director.

The orchestra at the Regio at that time was conducted by the master Pedrotti who was subsequently the director of the Rossini Conservatory at Pesaro. He was known for his gay, vivacious melodies and a number of operas, among them _Tutti in maschera_. His death was tragic. I can still hear honest Pedrotti saying repeatedly to me:

"Are you satisfied? I am so much."

We had a famous tenor of the time, Signor Fanselli. He had a superb voice, but a mannerism of spreading his arms wide open in front of him with his fingers opened out. In spite of the fact that an excessive fondness for this method of giving expression is almost inevitably displeasing, many other artists I have known use it to express their feelings, at least they think they do, when, as a matter of fact, they feel absolutely nothing.

His open hands had won for this remarkable tenor the nickname, _Cinque e cinque fanno dieci!_ (Five and five make ten!)

Apropos of this first performance I will mention the baritone Mendioroz and Signorina Mecocci who took part in it.

Such goings about became very frequent, for scarcely had Hartmann and I got back to Paris than we had to start off again for Rome where _Il Re di Lah.o.r.e_ had the honor of a first performance on March 21, 1879.

Here I had still more remarkable artists: the tenor Barbaccini, the baritone Kashmann, both singers of great merit; then Signorina Mariani, an admirable singer and tragedienne, and her younger sister who was equally charming. M. Giacovacci, the director at the Apollo, was a strange old fellow, very amusing and gay, especially when he recalled the first performance of _The Barber of Seville_ at the Argentine Theater in the days of his youth. He drew a most interesting picture of the young Rossini and his vivacity and charm. To have written _The Barber of Seville_ and _William Tell_ is indeed a most striking evidence of wit personified and also of a keen mind.

I profited by my stay in Rome to revisit my dear Villa Medici. It amused me to reappear there as an author ... how shall I say it? Well (and so much the worse) let us say, an enthusiastically applauded author.