My Recollections Part 29

So _Don Quichotte_ came into my life as a soothing balm. I had great need of it. Since the preceding September I had suffered acute rheumatic pains and I had pa.s.sed much more of my existence in bed than out of it.

I had found a device which enabled me to write in bed.

I put _Bacchus_ and its uncertain future out of my thoughts, and day by day I advanced the composition of _Don Quichotte_.

Henri Cain, as is his way, built up very cleverly a scenario out of the heroic play by Le Loraine, the poet whose fine future was killed by the poverty which preceded his death. I salute that hero to art whose physiognomy resembled so much that of our "Knight of the Doleful Countenance."

What charmed me and decided me to write this work was Le Loraine's stroke of genius in subst.i.tuting for the coa.r.s.e wench at the inn, Cervantes's Dulcinee, the original and picturesque La Belle Dulcinee.

The most renowned French authors had not had that idea.

It brought to our piece an element of deep beauty in the woman's role and a potent poetical touch to our Don Quixote dying of love--real love this time--for a Belle Dulcinee who justified the pa.s.sion.

So it was with infinite delight that I waited for the day of the performance which came in February, 1910. Oh beautiful, magnificent premiere!

They welcomed our marvellous artists with great enthusiasm. Lucy Arbell was dazzling and extraordinary as La Belle Dulcinee and Gresse was an extremely comical Sancho.

In thinking over this work which they gave five times in the same season at Monte Carlo--a unique record in the annals of that house--I feel my whole being thrill with happiness at the thought of seeing again that dreamland, the Palace of Monaco, and his Serene Highness on the approaching occasion of _Roma_.

New joys were realized at the rehearsals of _Don Quichotte_ at the Theatre Lyrique de la Gaite, where I knew I should receive the frankest, most open and affectionate welcome from the directors, the Isola brothers.

The cast we had at Monte Carlo was changed and at Paris we had for Don Quixote that superb artist Vanni Narcoux and for Sancho that masterly comedian Lucien Fugere. Lucy Arbell owed to her triumph at Monte Carlo her engagement as La Belle Dulcinee at the Theatre Lyrique de la Gaite.

But was there ever unalloyed bliss?

I certainly do not make that bitter reflection in regard to the brilliant success of our artists or about the staging of the Isola brothers which was so well seconded by the stage manager Labis.

But judge for yourselves. The rehearsals had to be postponed for three weeks on account of the severe and successive illnesses of our three artists. A curious thing, however, and worthy of remark was that our three interpreters all got well at almost the same time, and left their rooms on the very morning of the general rehearsal.

The frantic applause of the audience must have been a sweet and altogether exquisite recompense for them when it broke out at the dress rehearsal, December 28, 1910, which lasted from one till five in the afternoon.

My New Year's Day was very festive. I was ill and was on my bed of pain when they brought me the visiting cards of my faithful pupils, happy at my success, beautiful flowers for my wife, and a delightful bronze statuette, a gift from Raoul Gunsbourg, which recalled to me all that I owed him for _Don Quichotte_ at Monte Carlo, for the first performances and the revivals of the same house.

The first year of _Don Quichotte_ at the Theatre Lyrique de la Gaite there were eighty consecutive performances of the work.

It is a pleasure to recall certain picturesque details which interested me intensely during the preliminary rehearsals.

First of all, the curious audacity of Lucy Arbell, our La Belle Dulcinee, in wanting to accompany herself on the guitar in the song in the fourth act. In a remarkably short time, she made herself a virtuoso on the instrument with which they accompany popular songs in Spain, Italy, and even in Russia. It was a charming innovation. She relieved us of that ba.n.a.lity of the artist pretending to play a guitar, while a real instrumentalist plays in the wings, thus making a discord between the gestures of the singer and the music. None of the other Dulcinees have been able to achieve this tour de force of the creatrix. I recall, too, that knowing her vocal abilities I brightened the role with daring vocalizations which afterwards surprised more than one interpreter; and yet a contralto ought to know how to vocalize as well as a soprano. _Le Prophete_ and _The Barber of Seville_ prove this.

The staging of the windmill scene, so ingeniously invented by Raoul Gunsbourg, was more complicated at the Gaite, although they kept the effect produced at Monte Carlo.

A change of horses, cleverly hidden from the audience, made them think that Don Quixote and the dummy were one and the same man!

Gunsbourg's inspiration in staging the fifth act was also a happy chance. Any artist, even though he is the first in the world, in a scene of agony wants to die lying on the ground. With a flash of genius Gunsbourg cried, "A knight should die standing!" And our Don Quixote (then Chaliapine) leaned against a great tree in the forest and so gave up his proud and love lorn soul.

CHAPTER XXVII

A SOIReE

In the spring of 1910 my health was somewhat uncertain. _Roma_ had been engraved long before and was available material; _Panurge_ was finished and I felt--a rare thing for me--the imperative need of resting for some months.

But it was impossible for me to do absolutely nothing, to give myself up completely to _dolce farniente_, delightful as that might be. I looked around and found an occupation which would weary neither my mind nor heart.

I have told you that in May, 1891, when the house of Hartmann went under, I entrusted to a friend the scores of _Werther_ and _Amadis_. I am speaking now only of _Amadis_. I went to my friend who opened his strong box and brought out, not banknotes, but seven hundred pages (the rough draft of the orchestration) which formed the score of _Amadis_ and which had been composed at the end of 1889 and during 1890. The work had waited there in silence for twenty-one years!

Amadis! What a pretty libretto I had in _Amadis_! What a really novel viewpoint! The Knight of the Lily is poetically and emotionally attractive and still remains the type of the constant, respectful lover.

The situations are enchanting. In short what resurrection could be more pleasing than that of the n.o.ble heroes of the Middle Ages--those doughty, valiant, courageous knights.

I took this score from the safe and left in its place a work for a quartet and two choruses for male voices. _Amadis_ was to be my work for that summer. I began to copy it cheerfully at Paris and went to egreville to continue on it.

In spite of the fact that this work was easy and seemed to me such a soothing and perfect sedative for the discomfort I felt, I found that I was really very ill. I said to myself that I had done well in giving up composing in my precarious state of health.

I went to Paris to consult my physician. He listened to my heart, and then, without hiding from me what his diagnosis had revealed, said,

"You are very sick."

"What," I exclaimed, "it is impossible. I was still copying when you came."

"You are seriously ill," he insisted.

The next morning the doctors and surgeons made me leave my dear quiet home and my beloved room.

A motor ambulance took me to the hospital in the Rue de la Chaise. It was some consolation not to leave my quarter! I was entered on the hospital records under an a.s.sumed name for the physicians feared interviews, however friendly, which would have been demanded and which I was absolutely forbidden to grant.

My bed, through a most gracious care, was in the best room in the place and I was much moved by this attention.

Surgeon Professor Pierre Duval and Drs. Richardiere and Laffitte gave me the most admirable and devoted care. And there I was in a quiet which wrapped me in a tranquillity the value of which I appreciated.

My dearest friends came to see me whenever they were allowed. My wife was much upset and had hurried from egreville bringing me her tender affection.

I was better in a few days, but the compulsory rest imposed on my body did not prevent my mind working.

I did not wait for my condition to improve before I busied myself with the speeches I would have to deliver as president of the Inst.i.tute and of the Academie des Beaux-Arts (the double presidency fell to me that year) and though I was in bed packed in ice, I sent directions for the scenery of _Don Quichotte_.

Finally I got back home.

What a joy it was to see my home again, my furniture, to find the books whose pages I loved to turn, all the objects that delighted my eyes and to which I was accustomed, to see again those who were dear to me, and the servants overflowing with attentions. My joy was so intense that I burst into tears.

How happy I was to take up again my walks, although I was still uncertain from weakness and had to lean on the arm of my kind brother and on that of a dear lady! How happy I was during my convalescence to walk through the shady paths of the Luxembourg amid the joyous laughter of children gamboling there in all their youthfulness, the bright singing of the birds hopping from branch to branch, content to live in that beautiful garden, their delightful kingdom....

egreville, which I had deserted when I so little dreamed of what was to happen to me, resumed its ordinary life as soon as my beloved wife, now tranquil about my fate, was able to return.

The summer which had been so sad came to an end and autumn came with its two public sessions of the Inst.i.tute and the Academie des Beaux-Arts, as well as the rehearsals of _Don Quichotte_.

An idea of real interest was submitted to me between times by the artiste to whom the mission of making it triumph was to fall later. I turned the idea to account and wrote a set of compositions with the t.i.tle proposed by the interpretess, _Les Expressions Lyriques_. This combination of two forces of expression, singing and speaking, interested me greatly; especially in making them vibrate in one and the same voice.