Scan 6
Musical Courier 1893-06-21: Vol 26 Iss 694, 1893
65 lines. Read by computer on 29 September 2026, twice; the two readings disagreed in places. Printed page 7. See the scan on archive.org.
1The Musical Courier.
2PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY
3BY THE
4MUSICAL COURIER COMPANY,
5(INCORPORATED)
619 Union Square W., New York.
7ESTABLISHED JANUARY, 1880.
8No. 694.
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10MARC A. BLUMENBERG. OTTO FLOERSHEIM.
11JAMES G. HUNEKER. HARRY O. BROWN
12HUGH CRAIG.
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38NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21, 1893.
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40"TOWN TOPICS" is responsible for the statement that Felix Weingartner, of Munich, has been engaged by Colonel Higginson to conduct the Boston Symphony Orchestra at a salary of $40,000 a year. He is said to have secured a release from Munich and Glasgow, and if this is really so Boston has secured an exceptionally strong man. Though by no means the style of conductor many of the critics there have been craving, Weingartner is ultra-modern in his ideas, and Arthur Nikisch is old fashioned compared with him. Aesop's fable of "King Log" and "King Stork" is vividly recalled. Gericke was not good enough, Nikisch was too modern, too theatrical, and if the "Town Topics" is correctly informed Boston will get a man who often out-Herods Herod in his treatment of the classics. At all events one or two of the Boston journals who were inclined to poke fun at our Mr. Otto Floersheim's suggestion, that Weingartner would suit America better than Richter, had better shut up talking for a while. Felix Weingartner was Otto Floersheim's choice.
41WHEN Bach was once upon a time playing to the court at Weimar he and everybody else forgot the dinner hour. But the Ducal Maître d'Hôtel, in his quality of artist, was not going to have his work neglected, and informed the duke "dinner was served." The duke turned to Bach, "Master," he said, "I am sorry to interrupt you, but dinner is waiting. The fish and the rôti must be eaten hot." They went to the dining room and took their seats. Then Bach rose and returned to the music room. The duke followed, and saw Bach rush to the piano and strike the chord of C major. He then returned to his place in the dining room. "Highness," he said, "before indulging in the pleasures of the table I must satisfy my conscience as a musician. You interrupted me in a chord of the dominant seventh. This chord imperiously demanded to be resolved. The poor, delicate little B natural languishing for its C would have interfered with my digestion. Now after my chord of C I could go on with my dinner."
42MARIE MALIBRAN IN NEW YORK.
43IT was on November 29, writes Arthur Pougin, in "La Ménestrel," that Garcia's troupe appeared in the Park Theatre, giving as their first representation the "Barber of Seville," with the following cast:
44Rosina………………………………………………………..Marie Garcia
45Berta………………………………………………………..Mrs. Garcia
46Almaviva…………………………………………………….Garcia
47Don Basilio…………………………………………………Angrisani
48Bartolo………………………………………………………Rosick
49Figaro………………………………………………………Manuel Garcia
50Florillo………………………………………………………Crivelli
51It is impossible here to obtain thoroughly the precise accounts and circumstances of this representation, but all the chroniclers and all the biographers, echoing the American journals of that epoch, are unanimous in stating that a success, a brilliant success, was achieved by the European artists, and that the greatest part of the success was above all due to the young Marie Garcia, who, barely seventeen years of age, supported the whole weight of the répertoire, and already gave the first proofs of the talent which should before long render her so celebrated. The répertoire comprised "Otello," "La Donna del Lago," "Cenerentola," "Semiramide," "Don Giovanni," "Tancredi," "Il Turco in Italia," "Romeo e Giulietta," without counting two works which Garcia wrote expressly for his daughter, "L'Amante Astuto" and "La Figlia dell'aria."
52I have already said that with a legendary appearance like that of Malibran, it is necessary to be on our guard against certain anecdotes and certain accounts destined to augment still further that legendary character, and to give to that physiognomy something of extraordinary, and if we may say so of extra human, which touches on the marvelous. For instance, apropos of this sojourn in America, an anecdote sufficiently curious was rife on every side, and is sufficiently well known for Mr. Legouvé himself to have believed it his duty to take and reproduce it in his interesting notice consecrated to the illustrious artist. I repeat it, as told by Mr. Legouvé:
53"It was in New York, Garcia entered his daughter's room and said to her in that voice before which everybody trembled:
54"'You will appear with me on Saturday in 'Otello.'
55"'Saturday! Why that is in six days.'
56"'I know it perfectly.'
57"'Six days to rehearse a rôle like that of 'Desdemona,' to accustom myself to the piece!'
58"'I'll have no objections. You shall appear on Saturday, and you will be excellent; or, otherwise, in the last scene, when I am supposed to stab you with a poignard, I will stab you really!'
59"'How was it possible to resist such an argument? She rehearsed, she played, she had an immense success, and found at the end an effect altogether unexpected, above all for her father. Those who have seen Malibran as 'Desdemona' will remember what a new character she gave to that personage. Mrs. Pasta was sublime, but she played the rôle as a woman of twenty; Malibran made her sixteen. She was almost a young girl. Hence a delicious charm of innocence, of touching feebleness, of infantine naïveté mixed with explosions of indignation or of terror which made the house shiver. In the last scene when 'Otello' marches on 'Desdemona' with lifted poignard, 'Pasta' went to meet the blow, strong in her virtue and her courage; Malibran fled distracted, she ran to the windows, to the doors; she filled that room with the bounds of a young terrified fawn! On the day of her début, when her father seized her in the middle of her flight, and pulled out his weapon, she entered so profoundly into her double personage of artist and daughter, the terrifying expression of the cross eyes of her terrible father seemed so like her death sentence, that, catching the hand about to strike her, she bit it till the blood ran. Garcia gave a low cry of pain which passed for a cry of fury, and the act finished amidst a delirium of applause."
60Many reasons lead me to doubt the truth of this anecdote. In the first place I notice that the Garcia troupe did not make their début with "Otello," as Mr. Legouvé believed, but, as we have seen, with the "Barber;" in the second place a member of the family of Beriot has assured me in the most positive fashion that the fact stated in this story, and so often repeated, was invented in every detail; and finally, as regards the incident of the "Otello" representation, I remark that the Countess Merlin gives an utterly different version, which without doubt is as fanciful as the first. The young Marie Garcia was not happier with her father in America than she had been in Europe. (This, as we shall see, was one of the causes that determined her marriage.) The Countess gives this incident after her fashion, in the following terms: * * * "The family life became stormy. Mrs. Garcia, a gentle woman, like an angel of peace, tried to calm the violent character of her husband; but the tempest grew stronger day by day. One night they played 'Otello.' The morning had been marked by violent scenes. Maria sang the rôle of 'Desdemona,' and her father that of the Moor. At the moment where he, with contracted muscles and flashing eyes, approaches his mistress in order to kill her, Maria perceived that the poignard which shone in the hand of her father was a real poignard. She recognized it; the blade was good * * * her father had bought it from a Turk and examined it before her but a few days before. Marie believed she already felt the chill of the iron in her chest. * * * Terrified, beside herself, she cried (in Spanish): 'Papa! Papa! Por Dios, no me mate.' There was nothing in it, as you may believe; the property dagger had been broken, and Garcia had simply substituted his own."
61The incident takes here, we may see, almost a dramatic character. But I repeat, I believe that there is no reason for attaching more importance and more credence to this story than to the preceding one.
62The representations of the Garcia troupe were continued in New York at the rate of two a week during nearly nine months, that is to say, until the month of August, 1826, without their success diminishing for an instant. In spite of this success Garcia saw himself obliged to abandon North America, "the rigor of the climate," says a biographer, "injuring the voice of the singers." Although this reason appears singular, it is certain he quitted New York to go with his troupe to Mexico, where, after almost a year and a half's sojourn, he was about to return to Europe, not without having been the victim of a dramatic event, which his Spanish biographer relates thus: "After spending eighteen months in the capital of Mexico he felt the need of rest, and wished to return to Europe; he gathered together all the valuables that he had and set out for Vera Cruz, where he was to embark; but his convoy was stopped on the way and pillaged by a band of brigands, who deprived him of everything he possessed, among other things of value a cash box containing 1,000 ounces of gold."
63But in going to Mexico Garcia had left his daughter in New York, whom marriage had released from his brutalities, and who already had ceased to be a member of his troupe. The details relative to that marriage have always remained a little obscure on account of the country where it was contracted, and it is difficult enough to make them known in a precise manner. All that we know is that a French banker, or supposed to be one, Mr. François-Eugène Malibran, established in New York, was taken with Marie Garcia, and in spite of the enormous difference of age, which separated them, since he was fifty and she but seventeen, she did not repulse his addresses. There were two reasons for this: The first was that in spite of the successes which she had obtained in America, she felt at that time, it seems, a strange repugnance for the theatre, which later on she was to love to the point of madness, and that the first effect of the union which presented itself to her was to make her abandon a career which for the moment seemed odious to her. The second reason, and perhaps the strongest, was the ardent desire to escape by marriage from the violent authority of her father, who never ceased to crush her in the most cruel and painful fashion. The situation of Mr. Malibran seemed very brilliant to * * * eyes, and in appearance he was a parti more than suitable. Garcia, strongly indisposed at first, finished by consenting, even according to his daughter a dot of 50,000 frs. In short, after some family combats, the marriage was decided on, and was carried out before the French Consul in New York, March 25, 1826, that is to say the very day after Miss Garcia had completed her eighteenth year.
64But in changing her master, in quitting her father for a husband, the poor girl had but transformed her misery, and she was not late in feeling it. In reality,
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