My Recollections Part 18

At the revival due to M. Albert Carre, _Werther_ had the great good fortune to have Leon Beyle as the protagonist of the part; later Edmond Clement and Salignac were also superb and thrilling interpreters of the work.

CHAPTER XVIII

A STAR

But to go back to the events the day after the destruction of the Opera-Comique.

The Opera-Comique was moved to the Place du Chatelet, in the old theater called Des Nations, which later became the Theatre Sarah Bernhardt. M.

Paravey was appointed director. I had known him when he directed the Grand-Theatre at Nantes with real talent.

Hartmann offered him two works: Edouard Lalo's _Le Roi d'Ya_ and my _Werther_ on sufferance.

I was so discouraged that I preferred to wait before I let the work see the light.

I have just written about its genesis and destiny.

One day I received a friendly invitation to dine with a great American family. After I had declined, as I most often did--I hadn't time, in addition to not liking that sort of distraction--they insisted, however, so graciously that I could not persist in my refusal. It seemed to me that perhaps my afflicted heart might meet something there which would turn aside my discouragements. Does one ever know?...

I was placed beside a lady who composed music and had great talent. On the other side of my neighbor was a French diplomat whose amiable compliments surpa.s.sed, it seemed to me, all limits. _Est modus in rebus_, there are limits in all things, and our diplomat should have been guided by this ancient saying together with the counsel of a master, the ill.u.s.trious Talleyrand, "_Pas de zele, surtout_!"

I would not think of telling the exact conversation which occurred in that charming place any more than I would think of giving the menu of what we had to eat. What I do remember is a salad--a disconcerting mixture of American, English, German, and French.

But my French neighbors occupied my entire attention, which gave me the chance to remember this delightful colloquy between the lady composer and the diplomat.

The Gentleman.--"So you are ever the child of the Muses, a new Orphea?"

The Lady.--"Isn't music the consolation of souls in distress?"

The Gentleman (insinuatingly).--"Do you not find that love is stronger than sounds in banis.h.i.+ng heart pain?"

The Lady.--"Yesterday, I was consoled by writing the music to 'The Broken Vase.'"

The Gentleman (poetically).--"A nocturne, no doubt...."

I heard m.u.f.fled laughter. The conversation took a new turn.

After dinner we went into the drawing room for music. I was doing my best to obliterate myself when two ladies dressed in black, one young, the other older, came in.

The master of the house hastened to greet them and I was presented to them almost at once.

The younger was extraordinarily lovely; the other was her mother, also beautiful, with that thoroughly American beauty which the Starry Republic often sends to us.

"Dear Master," said the younger woman with a slight accent, "I have been asked to come to this friendly house this evening to have the honor of seeing you and to let you hear my voice. I am the daughter of a supreme court judge in America and I have lost my father. He left my mother, my sisters, and me a fortune, but I want to go on the stage. If they blame me for it, after I have succeeded I shall reply that success excuses everything."

Without further preamble I granted her desire and seated myself at the piano.

"You will pardon me," she added, "if I do not sing your music. That would be too audacious before you."

She had scarcely said this than her voice sounded magically, dazzlingly, in the aria, "Queen of the Night," from the _Magic Flute_.

What a fascinating voice! It ranged from low G to the counter G--three octaves--in full strength and in pianissimo.

I was astounded, stupefied, subjugated! When such voices occur, it is fortunate that they have the theater in which to display themselves; the world is their domain. I ought to say that I had recognized in that future artiste, together with the rarity of that organ, intelligence, a flame, a personality which were reflected luminously in her admirable face. All these qualities are of first importance on the stage.

The next morning I hurried to my publisher's to tell him about the enthusiasm I had felt the previous evening.

I found Hartmann preoccupied. "It concerns an artist, right enough," he said. "I want to talk about something else and ask you, yes or no, whether you will write the music for the work which has just been brought me." And he added, "It is urgent, for the music is wanted for the opening of the Universal Exposition which takes place two years from now, in May, 1889."

I took the ma.n.u.script and I had scarcely run through a scene or two than I cried in an outburst of deep conviction, "I have the artiste for this part. I have the artiste. I heard her yesterday! She is Mlle. Sibyl Sanderson! She shall create Esclarmonde, the heroine of the new opera you offer me."

She was the ideal artiste for the romantic work in five acts by Alfred Blau and Louis de Gramont.

The new director of the Opera-Comique, who always showed me deference and perfect kindness, engaged Mlle. Sibyl Sanderson and accepted without discussion the salary we proposed.

He left the ordering of the scenery and the costumes entirely to my discretion, and made me the absolute master and director of the decorators and costumers whom I was to guide in entire accordance with my ideas.

If I was agreeably satisfied by this state of affairs, M. Paravey for his part could not but congratulate himself on the financial results from _Esclarmonde_. It is but just to add that it was brought out at the necessarily brilliant period of the Universal Exposition in 1889. The first performance was on May 14 of that year.

The superb artists who figured on the bill with Sibyl Sanderson were Mm.

Bouvet, Taskin, and Gibert.

The work had been sung one hundred and one consecutive times in Paris when I learned that sometime since the Theatre Royal de la Monnaie at Brussels had engaged Sibyl Sanderson to create _Esclarmonde_ there. That meant her enforced disappearance from the stage of the Opera-Comique, where she had triumphed for several months.

If Paris, however, must needs endure the silence of the artiste, applauded by so many and such varied audiences during the Exposition, if this star who had risen so brilliantly above the horizon of the artistic heavens departed for a time to charm other hearers, the great provincial houses echoed with the success in _Esclarmonde_ of such famous artistes as Mme. Brejean-Silver at Bordeaux; Mme. de Nuovina at Brussels, and Mme. Verheyden and Mlle. Vuillaume at Lyons.

Notwithstanding all this, _Esclarmonde_ remained the living memory of that rare and beautiful artiste whom I had chosen to create the role in Paris; it enabled her to make her name forever famous.

Sibyl Sanderson! I cannot remember that artiste without feeling deep emotion, cut down as she was in her full beauty, in the glorious bloom of her talent by pitiless Death. She was an ideal Manon at the Opera-Comique, and a never to be forgotten Thas at the Opera. These roles identified themselves with her temperament, the choicest spirit of that nature which was one of the most magnificently endowed I have ever known.

An unconquerable vocation had driven her to the stage, where she became the ardent interpreter of several of my works. But for our part what an inspiring joy it is to write works and parts for artists who realize our very dreams!

It is in grat.i.tude that in speaking of _Esclarmonde_ I dedicate these lines to her. The many people who came to Paris from all parts of the world in 1889 have also kept their memories of the artiste who was their joy and who had so delighted them.

A large, silent, meditative crowd gathered at the pa.s.sing of the cortege which bore Sibyl Sanderson to her last resting place. A veil of sorrow seemed to be over them all.

Albert Carre and I followed the coffin. We were the first behind all that remained of her beauty, grace, goodness, and talent with all its appeal. As we noted the universal sorrow, Albert Carre interpreted the feeling of the crowd towards the beautiful departed, and said in these words, eloquent in their conciseness and which will survive, "She was loved!"

What more simple, more touching, and more just homage could be paid to the memory of her who was no more?

It is a pleasure to recall in a few rapid strokes the happy memory of the time I spent in writing _Esclarmonde_.

During the summers of 1887 and 1888 I went to Switzerland and lived in the Grand Hotel at Vevey. I was curious to see that pretty town at the foot of Jorat on the sh.o.r.es of Lake Geneva and which was made famous by its Fete des Vigerons. I had heard it praised for the many charming walks in the neighborhood and the beauty and mildness of the climate.

Above all I remembered that I had read of it in the "Confessions" of Jean Jacques Rousseau, who, at any rate, had every reason to love it,--Mme. de Warens was born there. His love for this delightful little city lasted through all his wanderings.

The hotel was surrounded by a fine park which afforded the guests the shade of its large trees and led to a small harbor where they could embark for excursions on the lake.