opera

Wednesday Mar 26

by

I have really intended to
spend the Eve. at home, but
(torn) Jack Breitbart upset my plans
by calling my to accompany
him to the Metr. Opera house
which gave me an opportunity
to listen for the first time
to, Le Roi de Lahore (in French)

It is a wonderful romance
with a still more wonderful
ballet.

————–

Matt’s Notes

The 1924 production of Le Roi de Lahore was regarded in its day as a spectacular trifle. The New York Times treated it as a curiosity because it had never been staged in New York and was early work by Jules Massinet (who after writing it went on to a long and storied career). In a cheeky review, the Times repeatedly described it as grand but unoriginal, notable for its bombast, spectacular sets, and (as Papa noted) its elaborate ballet:

The ballet was very elaborate and brilliant…The little children, with sprouting wings, made a pleasing episode, which could not have occurred upon the stage, in, for example the State of Massachusetts…Nor should the the admirable elephant of act four go unmentioned. His legs deserved the highest praise.

Irving Kolodin has less fun with the production in his The Story of the Metropolitan Opera (1883-1950) :

The total of works by Massenet seen in New York climbed steadily higher when Le Roi de Lahore (new in 1877) was introduced on February 29 amid and eye-filling decor by Boris Anisfeld. [Guiseppe] De Luca was an excellent Scandia, Delia Reinhardt a tasteful Sita, and Larui-Volpi sand Alim with fine vocal quality. [Louis] Hasselmans conducted acceptably, and [Rosina] Galli led an elaborate ballet with traditional charm. The fault, and it was a fundamental one, was with Massenet’s score, a weak suggestion of the man who was to write Manon. Four repetitions sufficed for Le Roi de Lahore.

Papa had a weakness for the corny and spectacular, so this story, set in 11th-Century India and full of war, palace scandal and glimpses of the afterlife, would have been a treat for him. (Especially since his friend invited him unexpectedly, kind of like the way I felt about seeing Lucinda Williams at Radio City the other night — I never would have gone on my own, but the tickets a co-worker dropped on me at the last minute softened me up quite a bit.)

——————

Additional references:

Saturday Mar 29

by

Well I had the sought pleasure
of the 20th Century girl to be with
me at the opera.

She is very nice, although poor
she likes only the high places,
she cannot mix with common
people, and is rather serious
minded, find she is fairly well
educated, fine manners in
conversation, has a passion
for cigarette smoking. peppy.

Her little slim figure is very
fascinating, that beautiful
face, those eyes of enchantment.

In conclusion she is beautiful
type worthy of admiration. —
I am glad to count her among
my friends.

This little adventure tonight
was rather expensive but worthwhile.

———

Matt’s Notes

Papa saw an opera double-feature on his date with the 20th Century Girl. The main attraction was Nicholas Rimsky-Korsakoff’s Le Coq d’Or, which concerns an Eastern European warlord (not unlike those who were making life miserable around the world for people like Papa) who gets his comeuppance for being a jerk. Papa certainly had a rooting interest in the outcome, and since I’m sure he knew the Pushkin poem, “The Golden Cockerel,” on which the opera’s based, he would have really enjoyed himself if he wasn’t too distracted by the “little slim figure” in the next seat.

Then again, if the 20th Century Girl’s education afforded her a working knowledge of opera, Papa would have had cause for worry; the performance apparently wasn’t that good. Though the New York Times had blessed the production, it had saved its highest praise for Rosina Galli-Curci. Alas, she was indisposed on the night of the 29th, thus casting a pall over the proceedings. Irving Kolodin, in his Story of the Metropolitan Opera, describes the consequences thus:

The large repertory was further varied by the return of Le Coq d’or on January 21 with Galli-Curci singing the Queen with excellent style and indifferent pitch, and Laura Robertson as the Voice of the Golden Cock. Giuseppe Bamboschek conducted a cast otherwise very much as before, and the production was Pogany’s…As one was to notice with increasing frequency, the heavy schedule often resulted in cast changes that not merely deprived the audience of a favorite voice, but substituted one of notably inferior quality. Thus, Sabinieeva for Gallie-Curci in Coq d’or…

Oh well. Perhaps the 20th Century Girl’s “passion for cigarette smoking” had her too distracted with thoughts of bodice-ripping ashtrays and tumescent match heads for her to notice the compromised work up on the stage. If not, she at least would have enjoyed the one-act opera that preceded Le Coq: Franco Leoni’s L’Oracolo, a tale of murder and intrigue (a “brilliant little ‘shocker’,” according to the Times) set in San Francisco’s Chinatown. I’m listening to L’Oracolo as I write this, but since I don’t speak Italian and am also sitting on a loud plane with a distressingly chipper flight crew chatting away behind me, much of the dramatic effect is lost.

In any event, there’s plenty of drama building in Papa’s delightfully 19th Century-style account of the 20th Century Girl. The phrases he uses, like “those eyes of enchantment” and “she is worthy of admiration,” sound like the words with which an awkward-but-secretly-loaded Jane Austen hero might stoically torment himself. Papa, of course, was not secretly loaded, and we know the 20th Century Girl “cannot mix with common people.” If Papa were writing a novel instead of his own life’s story, this description of her low tolerance for the low-born would certainly give the experienced reader pause.

———————–

Additional Notes

I still can’t get over how Papa cites the 20th Century Girl’s “passion for cigarettes” as one of her standout qualities. I’ll have to remember to credit myself with a “passion for bourbon” the next time I feel Maker’s Mark-induced shame creeping up on me.

Meanwhile, I’ve tried to figure out how expensive Papa’s night at the opera really was, but I’ve yet to learn what ticket prices were like in his day. Good tickets nowadays run $200 or more — the equivalent of $16 in 1924 dollars — but I doubt he spent that much. I’ll have to keep poking around, but if anyone out there can tell me more, please write to me or drop a comment.

——-

My mother adds:

Papa must have seen Galli Curci other times, because I remember him mentioning her a lot; I guess in an effort to improve my musical taste, which in those days ran toward the top 40. I think Papa probably disapproved of the passion for smoking of the 20th century girl, but was listing her many fine attributes as well as some things not so good, like not mixing with the common people. The fact that he counts her among his friends does not bode well for romance.


————

Sources

Sunday Mar 30

by

Wrote to Henriette (the 20 C. girl)
a letter, asking for admission
into her circle of intimate friends.
She got me thinking of something

Visited Sister Clara at hospital
in afternoon saw the baby.

Saw some friends during day
in evening had a little
sociable game at my house
with Blaustein Friedman and
Zichlinsky.

The operas heard last
night were L’Cock D’or and
L. Oracolo

—————–

Matt’s Notes

I’ve found Papa’s writing style for the last couple of days to feel particularly formal, but this one really rings of 19th Century drawing-room drama. What does he mean when he says he wrote a letter to Henriette “asking for admission into her circle of intimate friends?” Has he given up on his prospects with her, or is this a euphemism for a love letter? (If it was a love letter, I wonder if it was euphemistic and oblique itself, or if he came right out and declared his intentions.) And why has he decided to refer to her by name, at last, instead of as the “20th Century Girl?” Is it just easier to write, or does it reflect his desire for deeper intimacy?

Questions, questions. Still, his abandoned sentence in the first paragraph — “She got me thinking of something — intrigues me most of all. What “something” did he decide not to write about? Or did he just cut his thought short because he needed space to talk about the other events of the day?


Wednesday Nov 5

by


Enjoyed Tanhauser
at Metropolitan Opera House

Coolidge Elected President
final returns.

———–

Matt’s Notes

The 1924-1925 Metropolitan Opera season saw a new conductor, Tullio Serafin, arrive in New York amidst much fanfare, scrutiny and expectation. (According to Irving Kolodin’s The Story of the Metropolitan Opera, Serafin “had been publicly considered the most desirable replacement when Toscanini left in 1915” and Met management expected him to “restore the high standards of the Toscanini era.”) The production of Wagner’s “Tannhauser” Papa mentions in this entry was only the second performance of the new season and the first to feature the headliner Maria Jeritza, so it must have been a hot ticket (perhaps less so for Papa, who was strictly a standing room patron and would remain so for the rest of his life.)

To get an idea of what Papa might have heard that night, check out this recording of Maria Jeritza singing an aria from “Tannhauser,” courtesy of our friend the Internets:

It’s slightly odd, considering how closely associated Wagner would later become with Nazi Germany, to learn that Papa “enjoyed” his work, though “Tannhauser” would have been right up Papa’s alley: The music is soaring, the story is inspired by the work of the great Jewish poet Heinrich Heine1, and the plot, about a man who is torn between the realm of fantasy and the real world’s practical pleasures, probably struck a chord with Papa who, as we’ve discussed before, struggled with his own tendency to daydream about what life should be rather than pursue what life could be. (Maybe this is a little stretch since Papa was never the lover of Venus, like Tannhauser was, but I think I’m on to something anyway.)

——–

References for this post:

  • Check out this YouTube video of Herbert Von Karajan conducting the opening of Tannhauser:

—————–
Image sources: Venus und Tannhäuser from Richard-Wagner-Postkarten

Saturday Nov 22

by


awful slushy day today
Went to opera
(Madame Butterfly)
and then to district.

———–

Matt’s Notes

I know that Papa’s diary isn’t a novel, but it’s sometimes hard for me not to look at it critically, as if the episodes he reports on and the details he reveals aren’t planted there by an author for dissection, debate and interpretation. Madame Butterfly, for example, is the story of someone who would rather live in fantasy and memory than construct real life for herself with what’s available to her.

(A quick review if you don’t remember the story: It’s 1904 and Lieutenant Pinkerton, a rakish American naval office on tour in Japan, marries a 15-year-old Geisha named Cho-Cho San — a.k.a. Butterfly — and then leaves for America with no intention of returning. Cho-Cho San, meanwhile, gives birth to his child and spends the next three years convinced he will keep his promise to return, obsessively reliving the few heady days she spent with him before his departure. Though another suitor offers to marry her and make her a rich woman, her heart lies with Pinkerton. When Pinkerton finally returns, he is accompanied by his new, American wife, who offers to adopt Cho-Cho San’s child and raise it as her own. Humiliated and crushed, Cho-Cho San gives up her child and kills herself.)

Already idealistic and predisposed toward sentimental art, Papa must have been doubly absorbed by such a story, for he had struggled all year with is own attachment to the past, his own tendency to prefer the poetry of longing to the practicality of living. He had, for years, believed he might see his family again and experience the simplicity, the sense of belonging, he knew as a boy in the old country. This belief grew so strong he began to think of his life in America, where he was already considered an alien, just a temporary stopover on the way to some unspecified but more perfect place. His thoughts of romance followed a similar path, in which the idealized woman of his dreams overshadowed the real women of his world. Is it too much of a stretch to compare him to Madame Butterfly, a figure living for a lost time and pining for a love who never really existed?

Papa’s ending was happier, of course, but how could he have known it would be, as he sat and watched Cho-Cho San succumb to the folly of her stasis, the shocking death of her dream? Hadn’t Papa’s own dream died with his father six months earlier, ending any thought of his family’s restoration? Did he compare the profundity of Butterfly’s disappointment to his own? Could he have held back his tears as Butterfly surrendered to the emotions he felt so keenly? Could he have felt any better as he slogged off through the slushy mess of New York’s streets when the opera was over?

I recently went to see Madama Butterfly for myself, hoping to see what Papa saw and join him in some way (I hoped to reproduce, in fact, the feeling of having him with me that I experienced when I saw Pagliacci, also mentioned in his diary, a few months ago.) It didn’t quite happen that way, though. I’m entirely sure my viewing of Madame Butterfly was quite different from his, unless he saw a high-tech production with 21st Century lighting and special effects, and unless there was a nutcase sitting behind him who talked the whole evening in a Rip Taylor voice and who decided, for some reason, that Madame Butterfly’s suicide wasn’t dramatic enough and would benefit from him screaming, at the top of his lungs, “Oh my God, it’s so beautiful!!!” just as Butterfly plunged the knife into her neck.

Then again, perhaps Papa was distracted in his way because the “small voiced” Thalia Sabanieeva sang the title role, certainly in disappointing contrast to her beloved co-stars, Beniamino Gigli and and Antonio Scotti (then in his twenty-sixth season with the Met). Here’s a clip of Gigli, who could be found singing in films until the early 1950’s, belting out “O Solo Mio”:

And here’s a clip of Scotti singing “Tosca” (from a fantastic YouTube series featuring a Victrola playing old opera recordings):

—————-

References:

Monday Nov 24

by


Heard Mefistofele
with Chaliapin in the
title role at the Metropolitan
Opera House very good

————

Matt’s Notes

If Papa had told an opera fan in later years that he saw Chaliapin in Mefistofele, it would have been like telling a baseball fan that he saw Babe Ruth swing a bat. Feodor Chaliapin was the most famous bass of his day, and he’d earned living legend status not only for the quality of his voice and his rise from humble Russian roots, but because he set new standards for stage presence and acting style. He “would have been an actor of world-wide reputation if he had been unable to sing,” read a New York Times editorial tribute to Chaliapin after his death in 1938, “he linked together, as few singers of any era, the potencies of drama with song.”

The Times reviewer Olin Downes was complementary toward the Mefistofele production Papa saw, though only grudgingly so; he seems to have disliked Arrigo Boito, the composer who based Mefistofele on Goethe’s Faust. “That it is the work of a dilettante need not be denied,” wrote Downes. “It is even questionable whether Boito was responsible for the orchestration.” Still, he did find much to admire about the opera and thought it “well suited to Chaliapin’s powers.” I imagine that Chaliapin’s portrayal of Mefistofele was, in fact, the best imaginable, no doubt a welcome relief to Papa, who had seen an unremarkable performer in the title role of Madame Butterfly a couple of days earlier.

Let’s go back to the YouTube well once again for this recording of Chaliapin singing “Ave Signori (Hail, Sovereign Lord)” from Mefistofele.

———–

——–

References for this post:

———

Image Sources:

Top: Chaliapin in Mefistofele (1924). Library of Congress # LC-USZ62-53994

Bottom: Chaliapin in Mefistofele (1895). From Wikimedia Commons.

Friday Dec 5

by


This afternoon Martha
at Metropolitan Opera House
evening at home & Sisters

————

Another day, another opera, this time a light comedy suitable for a matinee (allmusic.com describes Martha as “conventional and accessible,” though possessed of an “excellent libretto.” I haven’t seen it, but I’ve listened to it and find it a bit bouncy for my tastes, though I prefer darker stuff and am certainly no opera critic.) I’m not quite sure why Papa was able to join the daytime crowd on a Friday, though lately he’s had a few days off here and there due to his factory’s slack season.

This performance gave Papa his second look of the season at the beloved Met fixture (and future musical film star) Beniamio Gigli, and his first at Frances Alda, also a longtime Met presence. I can’t find any clips of Gigli and Alda singing Martha, but I’ve harvested a few fruits from the Internets that might help us understand what Papa’s experience was like on this day:

Here’s the great Giovanni Martinelli, who Papa had seen the previous day in Carmen, singing the well known aria “M’appari tutt’amor” from Martha:

In the original German, this aria is known as “Ach so fromm.” Helge Roswaenge takes a crack at it in this German film adaptation of Martha from 1936.

And for good measure, here’s Caruso’s take on it:

Frances Alda joins Caruso in the clip below to sing a duet from Verdi’s Trovatore:

Alas, I haven’t found any recordings of Gigli singing Martha, but here he is singing “Vesti la Giubba” from Pagliacci (which Papa also saw earlier in the year.)

————-

References: