Scan 38
Musical Courier 1902-02-12: Vol 44 Iss 1142, 1902
68 lines. Read by computer on 22 September 2026. Printed page 39. See the scan on archive.org.
1IS THE OPERA HOUSE TOO BIG?
2Walter Damrosch on the Musical Situation Here.
3[Sunday Sun.]
5THE most perplexing question for the operatic impresario in this city is concerned with the repertory to be offered to the New York public. The stubbornness of the people in refusing to accept any new operas and thus enable the powers to extend the list of popular works is a stumbling block that will have more serious results in the future than it has to-day.
7For the present operatic way cannot last forever. Jean de Reszke is not going to be able to sing Romeo and Lohengrin forever. There must in the course of time be others Carmens than Madame Calvé, and Madame Sembrich will not always be here to keep alive the Mozart and Rossini repertory. Nor will audiences at the Metropolitan Opera House be able forever to enjoy the Elsa of Madame Eames or the Elizabeth and Isolde of Madame Ternina.
9So closely identified in the affections of New Yorkers are the opera and the popular interpreter that it is difficult to separate them, and decide what really is the popular opera of the local public. Perhaps the most accurate conclusion is that a very limited number of operas are popular on condition that they be sung by certain noted singers.
11The number of stars necessary depends on the innate hold of the work on the audiences. "Lohengrin," for instance, will draw a large audience with two of the foremost singers.
13The same is true of "Romeo et Juliette," and in a still greater degree of "Faust." "Carmen," if a French soprano from the Midi has the title role, needs but one star.
15"Aida" needs two stars, and then it is not certain that the public response will be large. "Les Huguenots" needs all the stars that can possibly be crowded into it, and even with that kind of treatment the opera finds the public cold to-day.
17Thus it will be seen that the number of operas which the public goes to hear for their own sake is small. The combinations of stars in the particular works must be manipulated adroitly and the people's liking for certain operas, such as "Faust," "Lohengrin" and "Tristan und Isolde," must not be forced by giving them too frequently. All of them have a variable degree of favor, dependent in all cases on the popularity of the singers that take part in them.
19Outside of this small set of operatic works that may in themselves be said to draw the public, there is no interest or tolerance for anything else. Maurice Grau is not a manager of any illusions on the matter of public taste. He knows by this time what the public wants, and long ago came to the conclusion that he will not be the person to try to make it take anything that it does not like.
21He continues to produce at the Metropolitan every season a certain number of novelties, not because he expects the public to come to hear them or because he has any idea that there is any widespread desire to hear them. He continues the work of introducing these new compositions here because he feels that it is due to his rank as an impresario and because these novelties reveal his singers favorably in new roles.
23For one of these operas he had some hope last year. The public of this city knows the play of Sardou called "La Tosca," for it has been acted here repeatedly in French and English, and only a few weeks before the Puccini opera based on the same work was given Sarah Bernhardt had made a revival of the play the most successful experiment of her French season with Coquelin at the Garden.
25So Mr. Grau dared to hope, possibly for the first time in his career as an impresario, that a new work might really interest the public. Madame Ternina, one of the most popular singers in the opera, was to have the title role, the music had been highly praised in Europe, where the work was the sensation of the operatic year, and the public was familiar with the action of the opera and its story.
27These circumstances led the manager of the Metropolitan to hope that the patrons of that temple of art might for once take some interest in a novelty. In that same season "La Bohème" had been a complete failure so far as the public was concerned, but that was based on an unknown text. It might be expected to take its chances, therefore, with the rest of the novelties.
29So Mr. Grau allowed himself to hope that "Tosca" might prove an exception and awaken some interest in the indifferent New Yorkers. But the opera fell just as flat as its long array of unappreciated predecessors, and the public remained valiantly away to await the appearance of "Lohengrin" and its stars, or some other equally familiar work.
31Mr. Grau has never since that time dared to hope that any other opera might succeed. The peculiar circumstances that existed in the case of "Tosca" temporarily blinded his judgment.
33His knowledge of the public taste was fortified by the experience, and although he continues to give novelties at the Metropolitan, it is not with the slightest misgivings as to what their fate will be. Sometimes, as in the case of "Tosca" and "Manru," he gives the best, and sometimes for the sake of variety, as in "Messaline," he gives the worst. But in every case he affords the public an opportunity to hear the recent operatic novelties of Europe, although it does not seem to care about them.
35This exclusiveness is not, of course, an indication of a great deal of taste for music, nor does it make the impresario's task easy. If the public could be brought to hear the other works in the repertory with as much appreciation as it does the few favorites so long as they are performed by certain singers, it would be much easier to arrange a season's repertory.
37Mr. Grau is just now wondering how in the world he is going to map out a repertory for seventeen weeks next season, which will probably be the length of the New York season of opera next winter. With the public indifference to all but a few works such an enterprise is difficult.
39Walter Damrosch is one of the persons who think that there exists a good reason for the apathy of the public in regard to new works and for its taste for only a few operas. He has been in the business of opera ever since his career as a musician began and he has had opportunities to study the system in this city as it exists to-day and as it was in the German régime at the Metropolitan, when his father and later Anton Seidl were the conductors. So Mr. Damrosch's theories on the operatic situation are interesting.
41"My theory of the operatic situation as it exists in New York and therefore at the Metropolitan to-day," Mr. Damrosch said, "is that the theatre is entirely too large. And I have been endeavoring to persuade Mr. Grau that it would be of great advantage to reduce the size of the building in a way that would be quite possible.
43"I am certain that the effect would be to make New Yorkers enjoy many more operas than they do to-day and thus place the opera on the basis on which it stands in the more musical cities of Europe. So long as the theatre remains so large as it is, it will be impossible for the public to enjoy more than a certain number of operas, and so long as that condition exists, opera will not be on the right basis.
45"It seems to me that the top gallery, or family circle, should be removed, and the ceiling made lower, while the orchestra stall level be raised until every person seated in an orchestra stall gets a view of the stage. The only loss involved in this would be giving up the standing room.
47"I was especially impressed with the importance of a smaller theatre for an opera company that gives a varied repertory like the Metropolitan when I was in San Francisco. There the success of the season was 'Le Nozze di Figaro,' and it was not to be wondered at, for the theatre allowed every point in the opera to have its full effect.
49"The acting and the music made such a delightful entertainment that I went to hear it the first time it was given at the Metropolitan this winter. The effect was not the same.
51"The same singers were there and the same excellence was no doubt in the performance. But the charm was somewhat dissipated in the vast auditorium, and it all seemed to be far off in the distance through an opera glass.
53"Now, if the theatre was smaller, Mozart's opera would be just as successful in New York as it was in San Francisco, where it was sung three times within three weeks to the largest houses of the engagement. There is no reason why the public here should not come to like the opera just as much if it had the same opportunity to enjoy its qualities, which are to a certain extent lost in the great auditorium of the Metropolitan.
55"And the opera house is too great even for the Wagner operas. I find it impossible sometimes to produce there a great orchestral climax, as in 'Tristan und Isolde.'
57"Before the sound reaches the audience it is dispersed, wasted throughout the building. The Wagner operas thus suffer just as much through the excessive size of the theatre, and they would benefit just as much as the lighter works if some change of the kind I have suggested were made.
59"It is only in this way that the opera will be put on a substantial basis and will not have to rely for its support on sensations or on one or two principal singers in every performance. The public will come to love the operas for themselves, just as they did during the days of the old German régime.
61"The present system of making the artist the principal feature of every performance has already had the effect of alienating many of the persons who were the most loyal supporters of opera.
63"Mr. Grau says that with the reduction of the capacity of the theatre it would not be possible to earn such receipts as now, and pay the singers the large salaries they demand. My answer to that argument is to reduce the capacity of the theatre, and at the same time the salaries of the singers. There need be no fear of their not coming back here; they are always glad to come to the Metropolitan, and even if it were necessary to reduce salaries their compensation here is still more."
65[The italics are our own.]
67These are Mr. Damrosch's opinions on the operatic situation in New York, and there are doubtless many other persons who agree with him. Two peculiarities of
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