Thirty Years of Musical Life in London, 1870-1900

urn:iso:std:iso:639:ed-3:eng

261-3

text excerpt

I went to Paris expressly to attend this most interesting premiere, which took place on November 28, 1888. Seats were not only at a high premium but virtually unobtainable, and I owed the possession of mine to the courtesy of Jean de  Reszke. Many a time I have looked upon the  heavily gilded and slightly sombre interior of the  Paris Opera-house, but never when it contained such an audience, such a gathering of famous men, of elegant, jewel-bedecked women, as appeared  there on that memorable night. The grandes  dames of the French aristocracy were present, displaying a sartorial splendor that recalled the  halcyon days of the Second Empire, and what that implied I can only leave my fair readers to guess.  On taking the conductor's seat, Gounod was overwhelmed with acclamations. His calm, serene  countenance wore an encouraging smile, and no one would have dreamed that the veteran composer was as anxious as though it were the first  performance of a brand-new opera. At the outset, indeed, every one was nervous.  Many years had elapsed since Mme. Patti had appeared at the Opera, and, often as she had enacted  Juliette - this was the first time she had sung the  part in French; in the waltz air — long one of her favorite concert-pieces — she did what was for her the rarest imaginable thing: she made a slip  that carried her four bars ahead of the accompaniment (“Elle sautait quatre mesures!” as  Gounod subsequently put it). Yet, thanks to her extraordinary presence of mind, the great prima donna regained her place so quickly that probably  not twenty persons in the audience noticed the  error. Moreover, she sang the whole waltz with such grace and entrain that an encore was inevitable, and on the repetition her rendering of it was  the most brilliant I have ever heard her give. The  youthfulness and charm of her assumption were  astounding, while her fine acting in the more tragic  scenes indicated a startling advance in histrionic  force over her effort in the same opera ten years  earlier.   The new Romeo proved worthy of his association with this perfect Juliette. The mere fact that it was Jean de Reszke may be deemed sufficient guarantee of that to-day; it is not easy, however, to convey an idea of the striking revelation which his impersonation offered as, step by step, scene by scene, it unfolded itself for the first time upon  the same plane with Patti's exquisite conception.  Every attribute that distinguished the one arose, strong and clear-cut, in the other. Never before,  at least in their operatic mold, had the hapless  Veronese lovers been so faultlessly matched. Where was “monotony”, where was “tedium”, now? The interest of that delicious sequence of love-duets acquired a fresh intensity, and became  “cumulative" in such a degree that the final scene  in the tomb formed a veritable climax of musical  as well as dramatic grandeur. The genius of  Gounod stood in a new light; and his personal triumph on this occasion was a fitting corollary to  that of the great artists who were his chief interpreters. Again and again did they appear before the curtain, hand in hand, an illustrious trio, —  to be converted into an illustrious quartet after Edouard de Reszke had invested with his own  unique organ notes the grateful phrases of Frere  Laurent. From first to last, it was a historic performance.

excerpt from 'Thirty Years of Musical Life in London, 1870-1900' pp. 261-3 (572 words)

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1438428449081