Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
'"THE only absolute novelty of the operatic
*• season has been Signor Mancinelli's
opera, " Ero e Leandro," which, with its
two performances, has achieved a distinct
success and won a place in the estimation
of at least those music lovers who heard it.
The most important undertaking of Mr.
Grau and his associates was the presenta-
TELEPHONE NUMBER. 1745.--EIQHTEENTH STREET.
tion of the unabridged cycles of Wagner's
The musical supplement to The Review is
published on the first Saturday of each month. " Der Ring des Nibelungen." Two com-
plete series were offered, and were so suc-
cessful that a third was arranged, which
TO AN OLD PIANO.
drew fewer persons, but could not be called
How many hands have twinkled o'er thy keys
Ere time with sluggard touch had turned them a financial failure. Wagner, with or with-
out cuts, has formed the backbone of the
yellow?
How many hearts have voiced their ecstasies
season. With thirty-eight performances of
Upon thy cords when they were full and seven operas, against fifty-nine perform-
mellow?
ances of twenty operas by other composers,
How many sorrows know thy minor strains
the mighty originator of "Tristan" and
That unto human ears could not be spoken?
" The Nibelungs' Ring " seems to have had
How oft have thy soft notes sobbed out the pains his full share.
In sweet relief to maiden hearts near broken?
Nearest to Wagner comes Gounod, with
How many times has love his story told
sixteen performances of three operas, while
While fair hands roamed in fond improvisation,
Verdi follows with ten performances of four
And pictures of the future days unrolled
operas. Mozart and Meyerbeer are evenly
With all the grace of love's anticipation?
matched, with eight performances apiece,
Ah! keep thy secrets of the faded past;
the former having two operas in the reper-
Be faithful unto memories now fleeting;
tory
and the latter three. Rossini's "Barber
Rut of thy race know thou art not the last
of Seville" had five performances, while
For maids to-day are history repeating!
- Munsey's.
Bizet, with "Carmen," had three. Doni-
zetti's two repertory operas, "Lucia di
the season of gravid opera, which Lammermoor " and " L a Favorita," had
ended last week, it can be said that three presentations all told. Mancinelli is
never since opera was first introduced in represented by the two performances of his
America have New-Yorkers been privi- "Ero e Leandro," and Massenet with
leged to witness so brilliant a season. For "Manon," Flotow with "Martha" and
seventeen weeks the performances have Mascagni with " Cavalleria Rusticana,"
been attended, with very few exceptions, figured once apiece.
by crowds that tested the capacity of the
immense auditorium. During that period '"THE most popular operas, gauged by the
117 performances have been given, a total
*
number of performances, have been
which leads to the reflection that Mr.
" Faust " and " Lohengrin," which usually
Grau's army has been kept busy. There come out on top. This year, however, Mr.
have been fifty-one evening and seven- Grau has been unusually continent, "Faust"
teen afternoon subscription performances, and " Lohengrin " having had only eight
twelve representations in the three " Nibe- presentations apiece, instead of mounting
lung" cycles, three special benefit per- to twelve, which was the case with "Faust"
formances—the Purim Association, the during the difficult financial season of 1896-
German Press Club and the Seidl testi- 97. After this pair of operas, in the scale
monial—and seventeen Sunday concerts. of popularity, come Gounod's "Romeo et
No official figures are given out for pub- Juliette" and Wagner's " Tannhtiuser"
lication, but it is safe to guess that New- and " Die Walkure," with seven apiece. A
Yorkers will have paid for opera dviring total of five performances each was reached
the last four months about $800,000: and by Meyerbeer's " Les Huguenots," Ros-
what is more remarkable still, that perhaps sini's " Barber of Seville," Mozart's " Don
$100,000 of this will be net profit, in spite Giovanni," and Wagner's "Tristan und
of the unprecedented expensiveness of the Isolde." Verdi's " Aida" and Wagner's
company. This outcome is almost start- " Das Rheingold," " Siegfried " and "Got-
ling, since for generations it has been ac- terdammerung " had four apiece.
cepted as an axiom that grand opera can-
Mr. Grau this year added four operas to
not be properly given except at a loss, as the repertory established by himself and
witness the large subventions needed by his former associates, Messrs. Abbey and
and granted to the royal opera houses of Schoeffel, during the six opera seasons held
Continental Europe.
since they assumed control of the Metro-
A community willing to patronize opera politan in 1891. They are Mancinelli's
in such a manner is entitled to more than opera, "Eroe Leandro;" Rossini's "Barber
it has received in return. It has a right to of Seville" and Wagner's "Das Rheingold"
demand not only the services of the world's and "Gotterdammerung."
great singers, but also those of the best
It is doubtful if we shall ever have a
conductors, musicians, dancers, scene- more brilliant operatic winter than that
painters and stage managers.
which we have now enjoyed, although Mr.
Grand opera in New York is to-day a Grau says he will come back next Decem-
standard as far as the principals are con- ber with an equally fine company for a fif-
cerned; in its other elements it is still an teen weeks' stay at the Metropolitan.
Nearly all the artists have signed contracts
object of ridicule.
for next year, and the balance will no
doubt be on the list long before the Covent
Garden season is ended.
PEAKING of the relation between
American literature and American
nationality Hamilton W. Mabie holds that
while the lighter literature of the past two
decades, which abounds in peace, refine-
ment and charm, is needful \ve need still
more the substance and power of the
literature which is charged with national
or racial emotion, and which becomes, by
virtue of its representative quality, a veri-
table relation of what is in our life. The
American people have not yet come to full
national self-consciousness.
They have
come to sectional self-consciousness; and,
in New England, for example, that clear
realization of ideals and formative tenden-
cies found expression in a literature the
beauty and the limitation of which are sig-
nificant of New England character. But the
nation as a nation has not yet reached a
clear understanding of itself; it does not
know what is in its heart, although it re-
sponds with passionate intensity to every
appeal to its instincts and ideals. It has
found powerful expression of these in-
stincts and ideals on the side of action ; it
has found only partial and very inadequate
expression on the side of art. The time is
fast approaching, however, when the man
of letters will find his prime opportunity
in the ripeness of this vast population for
expression; and literature must find a
voice for this great dumb life or utterly
and disastrously fail to discharge its func-
tion and do its work.
*
T H E American people stand in need of
'
this adequate expression of their life.
The magnitude of its material resources
makes an intense and a highly organized
spiritual life a sovereign necessity in
America. It is an open question whether
w^e shall be makers of things or creators of
ideas and ideals. If we are to be material-
ists in the final character of our civilization,
we shall fill a great place in the activities
of the modern world; but we shall do noth-
ing for its spiritual fortunes; we shall fill
pages of statistics in the encyclopaedias,
but we shall have small space in the history
of art, culture, music, religion. The in-
grained idealism of the American nature
will probably preserve us from the dismal
fate of being rich without being significant
or interesting; but the idealism needs con-
stant classification and reinforcement. It
needs clear and commanding expression.
And that expression it must find mainly
in its literature; for literature, in its great-
er forms, is both a revelation of national
character and a force to form national char-
acter. Its influence, though not computable
by any external records, is diffused through
the atmosphere which people breathe.
*
T H E season grows small by degrees only,
*
and numberless recitals are to break
the suddenness of parting between stars of
the season and their cheering audiences.
Recitals are the order of the coming
month. That of David Bispham will be