Scan 17
Musical Courier 1898-06-22: Vol 36 Iss 955, 1898
48 lines. Read by computer on 21 September 2026. Printed page 18. See the scan on archive.org.
1singer like Melba will interpolate the "Suwanee River" in a production of the "Barbier" and is not driven out of town that night it shows how inadequate our culture is to appreciate Rossini much less Richard Wagner when he is mutilated or not. All this false, this miseducation comes from the cultivation of the star system, and de Reszké will be the first one to agree with us on this. We go to hear the tenor or the soprano; no, not even do we go to hear them. We go to hear Melba or de Reszké. We never go to hear the work, for when it is mutilated it is all the same to us so long as Melba or de Reszké will only be kind enough to do the mutilating.
3But when this Spanish war is over we will endeavor to make a great change. A new era will open for the people and they will have some time at their disposal to take up these questions of art and of music and of painting and sculpture and culture, and the European adventurer will not be considered such a curiosity, particularly after one section shall have had a thorough beating from the Yankee pig, as one European nation, in the elegant and choice phraseology of its press, calls us.
5Patience is more than an opera by Gilbert and Sullivan; it is a real, solid American virtue when applied to the long suffering we have undergone with foreign operatic frauds led by American speculators. A change will come, and sooner than many of us expect.
7Later News.
9The Sunday Sun publishes the following cablegram on the subject:
11JEAN DE RESZKÉ IN LONDON.
13His Engagement at Covent Garden Was Not a Brilliant Success.
15(Special Cable Dispatch to the Sun.)
17LONDON, June 18.—Jean de Reszke found that he had presumed altogether too much upon his popularity in London when he refused to sing the uncut score of "Siegfried," according to his agreement. It fairly took the great tenor's breadth away when the Wagner Society promptly requested the management to substitute another singer. The penalty would have been still more severe if Jean had still proved recalcitrant. He would have had such a reception at his next and subsequent appearances as would probably have suggested to him that his career was at an end as far as London was concerned.
19Unhappily, much of his work in the present season suggests that the tenor's marvelous voice is sadly deteriorating.
21As long as Jean de Reszké gracefully submitted to the demand to sing Wagner in London without "cutting" as soon as he learned of the public desire there is only one thing to do, and that is to commend his action and point to it as an example for others to follow. That is what is called assimilation, the quality of adjusting oneself to the logic of the situation. We want the same thing here, and that is all THE COURIER has called for.
23De Reszke's voice sooner or later must deteriorate, and that is inevitable, and for that reason other and younger men should receive encouragement, and opportunities should be given to them to sing before the public. Art should not be compelled to depend upon one exponent, and that is just one other of the reasonable demands this paper has been repeatedly making. The whole struggle of THE COURIER against the foreign operatic invasion, the star system and the high salary crime growing out of it has been based upon reason and logic, and time will indorse it if it is not indorsed already.
25Jean de Reszké originally proposed to sing "Siegfried" here without "cutting," and as this is true it is necessary to say so in justice to him and everyone acquainted with the fact.
27Schmauk's Compositions.
29Among works by Emanuel Schmauk sung this month at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church were the Thirteenth Psalm and the soprano solo "O, My People," from the Holy Passion service. The quartet consists of Mrs. Wm. Weston Niles, soprano; Mme. Garrigue-Montecchi, contralto; Wm. Henry Walker, tenor, and B. I. Fenner, bass, with Emanuel Schmauk, organist and director.
31Gustave Kahn to a public that speedily forget them. To read these Confessions to-day is like stirring up stale musk. Especially funny are the remarks of this Gallicized Celt about Thomas Hardy and George Meredith, two giants whose little fingers are bigger than the entire Moore anatomy. There is an odd comminglement of slime and perfume in the book, and its author evidently had more to say.
33He said it in "A Mummer's Wife," one of the most disagreeable books I ever read. But, while the hands were Moore's, the voice was Zola's. Moore has always been the victim of methods. He has dissected Tolstoi, Tourgeneff, Flaubert, Balzac and the Goncourts to see how they do the trick, and as he possesses in a rare degree the mocking bird voice, his various books are echoes of his passionate delvings in the minds of others. "A Mummer's Wife" dealt with the English stage—certain phases of it. It was Zola Anglicized. Then followed the trilogy of brutal naturalistic novels, Spring Days," "A Modern Lover" and "Mike Fletcher," the last being the strongest. The writer exploited to the full his love for what he conceived to be the real, and there are certainly many telling passages in "Mike Fletcher." In all the undercurrent is nasty and cold. Moore has the coldest temperament of any writer alive. He calls it "objectivity," but it is just a plain want of human sympathy. This is especially evidenced by his lack of humor. Laughter in a Moore novel would seem obscene!
35The new man—he was very new then to the younger men—had the gift of gripping your hand with chilly, withal powerful fingers. He forced you to look at certain surfaces and see them the way he saw them. Because nature had imposed upon him so many restrictions he strove earnestly to see more clearly, and by dint of hard gazing he did see, and saw some extraordinary things. Like most decadents he is deficient in humanity, in breadth of vision, in a normal development of all the senses, so his seeing, hearing, touching, tasting and smelling are literary, not real. He must first, being profoundly imitative, have a literary model before he accomplishes anything.
37* * *
39Having studied "Germinie Lacerteux" until he had mastered her, George Moore transposed her into the key of Fielding. His "Esther Waters," by far the best of his books, best because simpler and healthier than the rest, is the Goncourts guttermartyr, Germinie Lacerteux, done into English. But it is admirably done, and its paraphrase became known to the novel reading world. There was a brief silence and "Celibates" appeared. Again we got the sensation of a whiff from a cold, musty cellar. There were things performed within its pages that sent shivers to your stomach. An outrageous theme was fashioned superbly. One story was a recurrence to Moore's favorite subject, the Roman Catholic Church. Whether he is a Catholic or not I cannot say—I fancy he is not, for he speaks of "Romanists"—but the Church literally obsesses him. Her ritual dominates his vision, and, like a sickly woman, he loves to finger fondly the gorgeous livery of the Lord. He continually returns to this topic. He is exercised, almost haunted, by the notion that outside of her pale salvation is impossible. "What if this be true?" cries George Moore as he arises from his midnight bed, fearing the dark and looking for some sign in the dawn!
41I suppose, being a product of our times, he enjoys this acrobatic flirting and balancing on the rope of faith swung over the chasm of doubt and despair.
43Religion is one of his leading motives, art the other.
45* * *
47Finding in Richard Wagner, as did D'Annunzio, traces of degeneration, George Moore pins his belief to the master of Bayreuth. He discovers in Wag-
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.