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Camille Saint Saens - Musical Memories

C >> Camille Saint Saens >> Musical Memories




Again, in the great cathedral scene, instead of letting the orchestra
bring out through the voices the musical expression of Fides sobs: _Et
toi, tu ne me connais pas,_ he puts both the instruments and the voices
in the same time and on words which do not harmonize with the music at
all.

I need not speak of his immoderate love for the bassoon, an admirable
instrument, but one which it is hardly prudent to abuse.

But so far we have spoken only of trifles. Meyerbeer's music, as a witty
woman once remarked to me, is like stage scenery--it should not be
scrutinized too closely. It would be hard to find a better
characterization. Meyerbeer belonged to the theater and sought above
everything else theatrical effects. But that does not mean that he was
indifferent to details. He was a wealthy man and he used to indemnify
the theaters for the extra expense he occasioned them. He multiplied
rehearsals by trying different versions with the orchestra so as to
choose between them. He did not cast his work in bronze, as so many do,
and present it to the public _ne varietur._ He was continually feeling
his way, recasting, and seeking the better which very often was the
enemy of good. As the result of his continual researches he too
frequently turned good ideas into inferior ones. Note for example, in
_L'Etoile du Nord_, the passage, _Enfants de l'Ukraine fils du desert_.
The opening passage is lofty, determined and picturesque, but it ends
most disagreeably.

He always lived alone with no fixed place of abode. He was at Spa in the
summer and on the Mediterranean in the winter; in large cities only as
business drew him. He had no financial worries and he lived only to
continue his Penelope-like work, which showed a great love of
perfection, although he did not find the best way of attaining it. They
have tried to place this conscientious artist in the list of seekers of
success, but such men are not ordinarily accustomed to work like this.

Since I have used the word artist, it is proper to stop for a moment.
Unlike Gluck and Berlioz, who were greater artists than musicians,
Meyerbeer was more a musician than an artist. As a result, he often used
the most refined and learned means to achieve a very ordinary artistic
result. But there is no reason why he should be brought to task for
results which they do not even remark in the works of so many others.

Meyerbeer was the undisputed leader in the operatic world when Robert
Schumann struck the first blow at his supremacy. Schumann was ignorant
of the stage, although he had made one unfortunate venture there. He did
not appreciate that there is more than one way to practise the art of
music. But he attacked Meyerbeer, violently, for his bad taste and
Italian tendencies, entirely forgetting that when Mozart, Beethoven, and
Weber did work for the stage they were strongly drawn towards Italian
art. Later, the Wagnerians wanted to oust Meyerbeer from the stage and
make a place for themselves, and they got credit for some of Schumann's
harsh criticisms,--this, too, despite the fact that at the beginning of
the skirmish Schumann and the Wagnerians got along about as well as
Ingres and Delacroix and their schools. But they united against the
common enemy and the French critics followed. The critics entirely
neglected Berlioz's opinion, for, after opposing Meyerbeer for a long
time, he admitted him among the gods and in his _Traite
d'Instrumentation_ awarded him the crown of immortality.

Parenthetically, if there is a surprising page in the history of music
it is the persistent affectation of classing Berlioz and Wagner
together. They had nothing in common save their great love of art and
their distrust of established forms. Berlioz abhorred enharmonic
modulations, dissonances resolved indefinitely one after another,
continuous melody and all current practices of futuristic music. He
carried this so far that he claimed that he understood nothing in the
prelude to _Tristan_, which was certainly a sincere claim since, almost
simultaneously, he hailed the overture of _Lohengrin_, which is
conceived in an entirely different manner, as a masterpiece. He did not
admit that the voice should be sacrificed and relegated to the rank of a
simple unit of the orchestra. Wagner, for his part, showed at his best
an elegance and artistry of pen which may be searched for in vain in
Berlioz's work. Berlioz opened to the orchestra the doors of a new
world. Wagner hurled himself into this unknown country and found
numerous lands to till there. But what dissimilarities there are in the
styles of the two men! In their methods of treating the orchestra and
the voices, in their musical architectonics, and in their conception of
opera!

In spite of the great worth of _Les Troyens_ and _Benvenuto Cellini_,
Berlioz shone brightest in the concert hall; Wagner is primarily a man
of the theater. Berlioz showed clearly in _Les Troyens_ his intention of
approaching Gluck, while Wagner freely avowed his indebtedness to Weber,
and particularly to the score of _Euryanthe_. He might have added that
he owed something to Marschner, but he never spoke of that.

The more we study the works of these two men of genius, the more we are
impressed by the tremendous difference between them. Their resemblance
is simply one of those imaginary things which the critics too often
mistake for a reality. The critics once found local color in Rossini's
_Semiramide_!

Hans de Buelow once said to me in the course of a conversation,

"After all Meyerbeer was a man of genius."

If we fail to recognize Meyerbeer's genius, we are not only unjust but
also ungrateful. In every sense, in his conception of opera, in his
treatment of orchestration, in his handling of choruses, even in stage
setting, he gave us new principles by which our modern works have
profited to a large extent.

Theophile Gautier was no musician, but he had a fine taste in music and
he judged Meyerbeer as follows:

"In addition to eminent musical talents, Meyerbeer had a highly
developed instinct for the stage. He goes to the heart of a situation,
follows closely the meanings of the words, and observes both the
historical and local color of his subject.... Few composers have
understood opera so well."

* * * * *

The success of the Italian school appeared to have utterly ruined this
understanding and care for local and historical color. Rossini in the
last act of _Otello_ and in _Guillaume Tell_ began its renaissance with
a boldness for which he deserves credit, but it was left to Meyerbeer
to restore it to its former glory.

It is impossible to deny his individuality. The amalgamation of his
Germanic tendencies with his Italian education and his French
preferences formed an ore of new brilliancy and new depth of tone. His
style resembled none other. Fetis, his great admirer and friend and the
famous director of the Conservatoire at Brussels, insisted, and with
reason, on this distinction. His style was characterized by the
importance of the rhythmic element. His ballet music owes much of its
excellence to the picturesque variety of the rhythms.

Instead of the long involved overture he gave us the short distinctive
prelude which has been so successful. The preludes of _Robert_ and _Les
Huguenots_ were followed by the preludes of _Lohengrin_, _Faust_,
_Tristan_, _Romeo_, _La Traviata_, _Aida_, and many others which are
less famous. Verdi in his last two works and Richard Strauss in _Salome_
went even farther and suppressed the prelude--a none too agreeable
surprise. It is like a dinner without soup.

Meyerbeer gave us a foretaste of the famous _leit-motif_. We find it in
_Robert_ in the theme of the ballad, which the orchestra plays again
while Bertram goes towards the back of the stage. This should indicate
to the listener his satanic character. We find it in the Luther chant in
_Les Huguenots_ and also in the dream of _Le Prophete_ during Jean's
recitative. Here the orchestra with its modulated tone predicts the
future splendor of the cathedral scene, while a lute plays low notes,
embellished by a delicate weaving in of the violins, and produces a
remarkable and unprecedented effect. He introduced on the stage the
ensembles of wind instruments (I do not mean the brass) which are so
frequent in Mozart's great concertos. An illustration of this is the
entrance of Alice in the second act of _Robert_. An echo of this is
found in Elsa's entrance in the second act of _Lohengrin_. Another
illustration is the entrance of Berthe and Fides in the beginning of the
_Le Prophete_. In this case the author indicated a pantomime. This is
never played and so this pretty bit loses all its significance.

Meyerbeer ventured to use combinations in harmony which were considered
rash at that time. They pretend that the sensitiveness of the ear has
been developed since then, but in reality it has been dulled by having
to undergo the most violent discords.

The beautiful "progression" of the exorcism in the fourth act of _Le
Prophete_ was not accepted without some difficulty. I can still see
Gounod seated at a piano singing the debated passage and trying to
convince a group of recalcitrant listeners of its beauty.

Meyerbeer developed the role of the English horn, which up to that time
had been used only rarely and timidly, and he also introduced the bass
clarinet into the orchestra. But the two instruments, as he used them,
still appeared somewhat unusual. They were objects of luxury, strangers
of distinction which one saluted respectfully and which played no great
part. Under Wagner's management they became a definite part of the
household and, as we know, brought in a wealth of coloring.

It is an open question whether it was Meyerbeer or Scribe who planned
the amazing stage setting in the cathedral scene in _Le Prophete_. It
must have been Meyerbeer, for Scribe was not temperamentally a
revolutionist, and this scene was really revolutionary. The brilliant
procession with its crowd of performers which goes across the stage
through the nave into the choir, constantly keeping its distance from
the audience, is an impressive, realistic and beautiful scene. But
directors who go to great expense for the costumes cannot understand why
the procession should file anywhere except before the footlights as near
the audience as possible, and it is extremely difficult to get any other
method of procedure.

Furthermore, the amusing idea of the skating ballet was due to
Meyerbeer. At the time there was an amusing fellow in Paris who had
invented roller skates and who used to practise his favorite sport on
fine evenings on the large concrete surfaces of the Place de la
Concorde. Meyerbeer saw him and got the idea of the famous ballet. In
the early days of the opera it certainly was charming to see the skaters
come on accompanied by a pretty chorus and a rhythm from the violins
regulated by that of the dancers. But the performance began at seven and
ended at midnight. Now they begin at eight and to gain the hour they had
to accelerate the pace. So the chorus in question was sacrificed. That
was bad for _Les Huguenots_. The author tried to make a good deal out of
the last act with its beautiful choruses in the church--a development of
the Luther chant--and the terror of the approaching massacre. But this
act has been cut, mutilated and made generally unrecognizable. They even
go so far in some of the foreign houses as to suppress it entirely.

I once saw the last act in all its integrity and with six harps
accompanying the famous trio. We shall never see the six harps again,
for Garnier, instead of reproducing exactly the placing of the orchestra
in the old Opera, managed so well in the new one that they are unable to
put in the six harps of old or the four drums with which Meyerbeer got
such surprising effects in _Robert_ and _Le Prophete_. I believe,
however, that recent improvements have averted this disaster in a
certain measure, and that there is now a place for the drums. But we
shall never hear the six harps again.

We must say something of the genesis of Meyerbeer's works, for in many
instances this was curious and few people know about it.


II

We might like to see works spring from the author's brain as complete as
Minerva was when she sprang from Jove's, but that is infrequently the
case. When we study the long series of operas which Gluck wrote, we are
surprised to meet some things which we recognize as having seen before
in the masterpieces which immortalize his name. And often the music is
adapted to entirely different situations in the changed form. The words
of a follower become the awesome prophecy of a high priest. The trio in
_Orphee_ with its tender love and expressions of perfect happiness
fairly trembles with accents of sorrow. The music had been written for
an entirely different situation which justified them. Massenet has told
us that he borrowed right and left from his unpublished score, _La Coupe
du Roi de Thule_. That is what Gluck did with his _Elena e Paride_ which
had little success. I may as well confess that one of the ballets in
_Henry VIII_ came from the finale of an opera-comique in one act. This
work was finished and ready to go to rehearsal when the whole thing was
stopped because I had the audacity to assert to Nestor Roqueplan, the
director of Favart Hall, that Mozart's _Le Nozze di Figaro_ was a
masterpiece.

Meyerbeer, even more than anyone, tried not to lose his ideas and the
study of their transformation is extremely interesting. One day Nuitter,
the archivist at the Opera, learned of an important sale of manuscripts
in Berlin. He attended the sale and brought back a lot of Meyerbeer's
rough drafts which included studies for a _Faust_ that the author never
finished. These fragments give no idea what the piece would have been.
We see Faust and Mephistopheles walking in Hell. They come to the Tree
of Human Knowledge on the banks of the Styx and Faust picks the fruit.
From this detail it is easy to imagine that the libretto is bizarre.
The authorship of this amazing libretto is unknown, but it is not
strange that Meyerbeer soon abandoned it. From this still-born _Faust_,
Scribe, at the request of the author, constructed _Robert le Diable_. An
aria sung by Faust on the banks of the Styx becomes the _Valse
Infernale_.

The necessity of utilizing pre-existing fragments explains some of the
incoherence of this incomprehensible piece. It also explains the
creation of Bertram, half man, half devil, who was invented as a
substitute for Mephistopheles. The fruit of the Tree of Human Knowledge
became the _Rameau Veneree_ in the third act, and the beautiful
religious scene in the fifth act, which has no relation to the action,
is a transposition of the Easter scene.

So Scribe should not be blamed for making a poor piece when he had so
many difficulties to contend with. He must have lost his head a little
for Robert's mother was called Berthe in the first act and Rosalie in
the third. However, the answer might be that she changed her name when
she became religious.

Later, Scribe was put to another no less difficult test with _L'Etoile
du Nord_. When Meyerbeer was the conductor at the Berlin Opera, he wrote
on command _Le Camp de Silesie_ with Frederick the Great as the hero and
Jenny Lind as the musical star. As we know, Frederick was a musician,
for he both composed music and played the flute, while Jenny Lind, the
Swedish nightingale, was a great singer. A contest between the
nightingale and the flute was sure to follow or theatrical instinct is a
vain phrase. But in the piece Scribe created, Peter the Great took
Frederick the Great's place and to give a motive for the grace notes in
the last act it was necessary for the terrible Tsar, a half savage
barbarian, to learn to play the flute.

It is not worth while telling how the Tsar took lessons on the flute
from a young pastry cook who came on the stage with a basket of cakes on
his head; how the cook later became a lord, and many other details of
this absurd play. It is permitted to be absurd on the stage, if it is
done so that the absurdity is forgotten. But in this instance it was
impossible to forget the absurdities. The extravagance of the libretto
led the musician into many unfortunate things. This extremely
interesting score is very uneven, but there are a thousand details worth
the attention of the professional musician. Beauty even appears in the
score at moments, and there are charming and picturesque bits, as well
as puerilities and shocking vulgarities.

Public curiosity was aroused for a long time by clever advance notices
and had reached a high pitch when _L'Etoile du Nord_ appeared. The work
was carried by the exceptional talents of Bataille and Caroline Duprez
and was enormously successful at the start, but this success has grown
steadily less. Faure and Madame Patti gave some fine performances in
London. We shall probably never see their equal again, and it is not
desirable that we should either from the standpoint of art or of the
author.

_Les Huguenots_ was not an opera pieced together out of others, but it
did not reach the public as the author wrote it. At the beginning of the
first act there was a game of cup and ball on which the author had set
his heart. But the balls had to strike at the exact moment indicated in
the score and the players never succeeded in accomplishing that. The
passage had to be suppressed but it is preserved in the library at the
Opera. They also had to suppress the part of Catherine de Medici who
should preside at the conference where the massacre of St. Bartholomew
was planned. Her part was merged with that of St. Pris. They also
suppressed the first scene in the last act, where Raoul, disheveled and
covered with blood, interrupted the ball and upset the merriment by
announcing the massacre to the astonished dancers.

But it is a question whether we should believe the legend that the great
duet, the climax of the whole work, was improvised during the rehearsals
at the request of Norritt and Madame Falcon. It is hard to believe that.
The work, as is well known, was taken from Merimee's _Chronique du regne
de Charles IX_. This scene is in the romance and it is almost impossible
that Meyerbeer had no idea of putting it into his opera. More probably
the people at the theatre wanted the act to end with the blessing of the
daggers, and the author with his duet in his portfolio only had to take
it out to satisfy his interpreters. A beautiful scene like this with its
sweep and pleasing innovation is not written hastily. This duet should
be heard when the author's intentions and the nuances which make a part
of the idea are respected and not replaced by inventions in bad taste
which they dare to call traditions. The real traditions have been lost
and this admirable scene has lost its beauty.

The manner in which the duet ends has not been noted sufficiently.
Raoul's phrase, _God guard our days. God of our refuge!_ remains in
suspense and the orchestra brings it to an end, the first example of a
practice used frequently in modern works.

We do not know how Meyerbeer got his idea of putting the schismatic John
Huss on the stage under the name of John of Leyden. Whether this idea
was original with him or was suggested by Scribe, who made a fantastic
person out of John, we do not know. We only know that the role of the
prophet's mother was originally intended for Madame Stoltz, but she had
left the Opera. Meyerbeer heard Madame Pauline Viardot at Vienna and
found in her his ideal, so he created the redoubtable role of Fides for
her. The part of Jean was given to the tenor Roger, the star of the
Opera-Comique, and he played and sang it well. Levasseur, the Marcel of
_Les Huguenots_ and the Bertram of _Robert_, played the part of
Zacharie.

_Le Prophete_ was enormously successful in spite of the then powerful
censer-bearers of the Italian school. We now see its defects rather than
its merits. Meyerbeer is criticised for not putting into practice
theories he did not know and no account is taken of his fearlessness,
which was great for that period. No one else could have drawn the
cathedral scene with such breadth of stroke and extraordinary
brilliancy. The paraphrase of _Domine salvum fac regem_ reveals great
ingenuity. His method of treating the organ is wonderful, and his idea
of the ritournello _Sur le Jeu de hautbois_ is charming. This precedes
and introduces the children's chorus, and is constructed on a novel
theme which is developed brilliantly by the choruses, the orchestra and
the organ combined. The repetition of the _Domine Salvum_ at the end
of the scene, which bursts forth abruptly in a different key, is full of
color and character.

[Illustration: Meyerbeer, Composer of _Les Huguenots_]


III

The story of _Le Pardon de Ploermel_ is interesting. It was first called
_Dinorah_, a name which Meyerbeer picked up abroad. But Meyerbeer liked
to change the titles of his operas several times in the course of the
rehearsals in order to keep public curiosity at fever heat. He had the
notion of writing an opera-comique in one act, and he asked his favorite
collaborators, Jules Barbier and Michael Carre, for a libretto. They
produced _Dinorah_ in three scenes and with but three characters. The
music was written promptly and was given to Perrin, the famous director,
whose unfortunate influence soon made itself felt. A director's first
idea at that time was to demand changes in the piece given him. "A
single act by you, Master? Is that permissible? What can we put on after
that? A new work by Meyerbeer should take up the entire evening." That
was the way the insidious director talked, and there was all the more
chance of his being listened to as the author was possessed by a mania
for retouching and making changes. So Meyerbeer took the score to the
Mediterranean where he spent the winter. The next spring he brought back
the work developed into three acts with choruses and minor characters.
Besides these additions he had written the words which Barbier and Carre
should have done.

The rehearsals were tedious. Meyerbeer wanted Faure and Madame Carvalho
in the leading roles but one was at the Opera-Comique and the other at
her own house, the Theatre-Lyrique. The work went back and forth from
the Place Favart to the Place du Chatelet. But the author's hesitancy
was at bottom only a pretext. What he wanted was to secure a
postponement of Limnander's opera _Les Blancs et les Bleus_. The action
of this work and of _Dinorah_, as well, took place in Brittany. In the
hope of being Meyerbeer's choice, both theatres turned poor Limnander
away. Finally, _Dinorah_ fell to the Opera-Comique. After long hard
work, which the author demanded, Madame Cabel and MM. Faure and
Sainte-Foix gave a perfect performance.

There was a good deal of criticism of having the hunter, the reaper, and
the shepherd sing a prayer together at the beginning of the third act.
This was not considered theatrical; to-day that is a virtue.

There was a good deal of talk about _L'Africanne_, which had been looked
for for a long time and which seemed to be almost legendary and
mysterious; it still is for that matter. The subject of the opera was
unknown. All that was known was that the author was trying to find an
interpreter and could get none to his liking.

Then Marie Cruvelli, a German singer with an Italian training, appeared.
With her beauty and prodigious voice she shone like a meteor in the
theatrical firmament. Meyerbeer found his Africanne realized in her and
at his request she was engaged at the Opera. Her engagement was made the
occasion for a brilliant revival of _Les Huguenots_ and Meyerbeer wrote
new ballet music for it. To-day we have no idea of what _Les Huguenots_
was then. Then the author went back to his Africanne and went to work
again. He used to go to see the brilliant singer about it nearly every
day, when she suddenly announced that she was going to leave the stage
to become the Comtesse Vigier! Meyerbeer was discouraged and he threw
his unfinished manuscript into a drawer where it stayed until Marie Sass
had so developed her voice and talent that he made up his mind to
entrust the role of Selika to her. He wanted Faure for the role of
Nelusko and he was already at the Opera, so he had the management engage
Naudin, the Italian tenor, as well.

But Scribe had died during the long period which had elapsed since the
marriage of the Comtesse Vigier. Meyerbeer was now left to himself, and
too much inclined to revisions of every kind as he was, re-made the
piece to his fancy. When it was completed--it didn't resemble anything
and the author planned to finish it at the rehearsals.

As we know, Meyerbeer died suddenly. He realized that he was dying and
as he knew how necessary his presence was for a performance of
_L'Africanne_ he forbade its appearance. But his prohibition was only
verbal as he could no longer write. The public was impatiently awaiting
_L'Africanne_, so they went ahead with it.

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