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Authors: Charles Affron, Mirella Jona Affron
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with a masculine hand and has a sound and logical brain, such as is supposed to be the especial gift of the rougher sex. There is not a weak or effeminate note in Der Wald, nor an unstable sentiment.” The World bridled at “an hour of ultra-modern music, strident, formless.” The Times regretted that “Mr. Grau’s long and distinguished career as an impresario should be marked by a production of so little importance.” By then, in declining health, Grau had announced his retirement for the end of the 1902–03 season. The board named Conried to replace him. Five years later, the exasperated directors bought Conried out. High on the list of complaints was that he had strayed from the French path Grau had charted so profitably.
THE PARABOLIC FORTUNES OF THE FRENCH REPERTOIRE
In the Met’s inaugural year, France provided approximately one-third of the operas and performances given by the Grand Italian Opera. The French repertoire claimed an even higher quotient under Leopold Damrosch the following season, when Le Prophète and La Juive gave Tannhäuser and Lohengrin a run for their money. From 1885 to 1891, the six remaining seasons under the leadership and aesthetic bias of Stanton and Seidl, the Germanjuggernaut drove the French roster to a distant second place at 15 percent of the program. The era of French dominance came under the directorships of Abbey-Schoeffel-Grau, as we have seen, and then of Grau alone. Between 1891 and 1903, the Gallic repertoire accounted for one-third of the total performances; it led the box office in all but three seasons, in four exceeding 50 percent of the gross, and in 1893–94 reaching the top of the parabola with a stupefying 70 percent share. The institutional and performance history of the period exhibits the degree to which French opera shaped the Metropolitan’s âge d’or . Through the Conried, Gatti-Casazza, and Johnson years, French works would average around 15 percent of the performances, falling between 10 percent and 13 percent since then.
The inventory of Metropolitan titles from 1883 to 2013 includes sixty-one French works, a number far short of the ninety-eight Italian and slightly greater than the German forty-seven. But by the measure of titles that have tallied more than one hundred performances, only eight are French, while nineteen are German and twenty-nine Italian. Carmen and Faust have been presented regularly, which is to say, like Lucia di Lammermoor and Il Barbiere di Siviglia, for example, in half or more of 128 Met seasons. Six other works have persisted through good times and bad: Manon, Roméo et Juliette, Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Samson et Dalila, Pelléas et Mélisande, and La Fille du régiment. Werther, long dormant, has taken on new life in recent decades. Then there are those operas, once popular, that have been absent since the 1940s, some longer: Mignon, L’Africaine, Les Huguenots, Lakmé, Louise, Guillaume Tell . Neglected at the Met, they have been exhumed elsewhere, occasionally with considerable success. And finally, there are those such as Salammbô and Messaline that lapsed into virtual oblivion after their first exposures.
THREE
Opera Wars, 1903–1908
PARSIFAL, SALOME, AND THE MANHATTAN OPERA COMPANY
PREMIERES: 1903–1908
Seven of eleven premieres of Conried’s half-decade tenure, excluding Parsifal and Salome, were Italian. Of these, two looked to bel canto, and the five remaining to the contemporary generation of composers. Old or new, all seven were sung by Caruso. He had been an overnight sensation, the darling of audiences of all social and economic strata.
Bel Canto
The bel canto novelties were Gaetano Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’amore and his Lucrezia Borgia . None of Caruso’s thirty-seven Met roles better suited the tenor’s chunky physique and legendary sense of fun than the endearing bumpkin of the comic Elisir . His Nemorino and Sembrich’s Adina filled the Met’s coffers; they succeeded in the
THE PARABOLIC FORTUNES OF THE FRENCH REPERTOIRE
In the Met’s inaugural year, France provided approximately one-third of the operas and performances given by the Grand Italian Opera. The French repertoire claimed an even higher quotient under Leopold Damrosch the following season, when Le Prophète and La Juive gave Tannhäuser and Lohengrin a run for their money. From 1885 to 1891, the six remaining seasons under the leadership and aesthetic bias of Stanton and Seidl, the Germanjuggernaut drove the French roster to a distant second place at 15 percent of the program. The era of French dominance came under the directorships of Abbey-Schoeffel-Grau, as we have seen, and then of Grau alone. Between 1891 and 1903, the Gallic repertoire accounted for one-third of the total performances; it led the box office in all but three seasons, in four exceeding 50 percent of the gross, and in 1893–94 reaching the top of the parabola with a stupefying 70 percent share. The institutional and performance history of the period exhibits the degree to which French opera shaped the Metropolitan’s âge d’or . Through the Conried, Gatti-Casazza, and Johnson years, French works would average around 15 percent of the performances, falling between 10 percent and 13 percent since then.
The inventory of Metropolitan titles from 1883 to 2013 includes sixty-one French works, a number far short of the ninety-eight Italian and slightly greater than the German forty-seven. But by the measure of titles that have tallied more than one hundred performances, only eight are French, while nineteen are German and twenty-nine Italian. Carmen and Faust have been presented regularly, which is to say, like Lucia di Lammermoor and Il Barbiere di Siviglia, for example, in half or more of 128 Met seasons. Six other works have persisted through good times and bad: Manon, Roméo et Juliette, Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Samson et Dalila, Pelléas et Mélisande, and La Fille du régiment. Werther, long dormant, has taken on new life in recent decades. Then there are those operas, once popular, that have been absent since the 1940s, some longer: Mignon, L’Africaine, Les Huguenots, Lakmé, Louise, Guillaume Tell . Neglected at the Met, they have been exhumed elsewhere, occasionally with considerable success. And finally, there are those such as Salammbô and Messaline that lapsed into virtual oblivion after their first exposures.
THREE
Opera Wars, 1903–1908
PARSIFAL, SALOME, AND THE MANHATTAN OPERA COMPANY
PREMIERES: 1903–1908
Seven of eleven premieres of Conried’s half-decade tenure, excluding Parsifal and Salome, were Italian. Of these, two looked to bel canto, and the five remaining to the contemporary generation of composers. Old or new, all seven were sung by Caruso. He had been an overnight sensation, the darling of audiences of all social and economic strata.
Bel Canto
The bel canto novelties were Gaetano Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’amore and his Lucrezia Borgia . None of Caruso’s thirty-seven Met roles better suited the tenor’s chunky physique and legendary sense of fun than the endearing bumpkin of the comic Elisir . His Nemorino and Sembrich’s Adina filled the Met’s coffers; they succeeded in the
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