James Henry Mapleson

“ We have some twenty or thirty theatres in London without one school of acting; which is possibly a mistake. But it is not such a bad mistake as to have four large music schools without one lyrical theatre. Nothing can be more preposterous. Yet there is at this moment more chance of a fifth music school being established than of an Opera-house being founded at which the shoals of composers and vocalists shot out every year would have an opportunity of pursuing their profession. ”

“ Outside of the Columbia Theatre, with the McCaull people there has been nothing to talk about but the Colonel. There are times when Mapleson, unconsciously, perhaps, appeals to sympathy. He is the only living man to-day with nerve enough to go into the business at all, who can govern and control the average opera singer. The latter is the most trying beast on earth. Male or female, Italian or Greek, German or 'American,' they are all alike. A more obstreperous, cantankerous, and altogether unreasonable being than an opera singer it is hard to find in any other walk of life. ”

“ It was nothing less than the freedom of the City of Chicago—a compliment I can say with safety that has never been paid to any other Englishman, and what is more, is never likely to be. Chicago, as everyone at all connected with America must know, will within a very few years be the first city in the United States, and probably in the world. ”

“ Parry and the choristers being at the same time handed over to me.
Shortly after my arrival in New York I was honoured with a serenade in which no less than five hundred musicians took part. The sight alone was a remarkable one. I was at my hotel, on the point of going to bed, when suddenly I heard beneath my window a loud burst of music. The immense orchestra had taken possession of the street. The musicians were all in evening dress; they had brought their music stands with them, also electric or calcium lights; and, as I have before said, they occupied the road in front of the hotel. ”

“ The hatred sometimes conceived by one singer for another of the same class of voice and playing the same parts, is, if not more reasonable, at least more intelligible. I shall never forget the rage which the tenor Fancelli once displayed on seeing the name of the tenor Campanini inscribed on a large box at a railway station with these proud words appended to it: "Primo Tenore Assoluto, Her Majesty's Opera Company." ”

“ Patti, of course, was smothered with bouquets, and the Italian residents of the city sent a huge globe of violets, supported on two ladders, with the Italian and American flags hanging over each side. At the end of each act huge stands and forms of flowers were sent up over the footlights and placed on the stage. To name the fashionable people in the audience would be to go over the invitation lists of the balls given in the very best houses in the city. It would be useless to describe a performance of la Diva, with which everyone is already familiar. ”

“ ALTHOUGH an operatic impresario cannot reasonably count on making his own fortune, it is often a source of satisfaction to him to reflect that he in his lavish expenditure makes the fortune of singers, officials, and various people in his service. At the time when I was in my greatest trouble through the disappointments I had to put up with from some of my leading singers, I heard that an enterprising Italian who had been employed by me for many years had taken the New York Academy of Music for a brief season, and that he was actually performing the duties of manager. ”

“ It cannot be a disgrace even for a musician to be an Englishman, or so many foreign musicians of eminence would not so readily have called themselves "Mr."
An English vocalist, on the other hand, will not hesitate to pass himself off, so far as a name can assist him in his enterprise, as some sort of foreigner. My old pal, Jack Foley, becomes Signor Foli, and the Signor sticks to him through life. We have a Signor Sinclair, a name which seems to me as droll as that of Count Smith at the San Francisco Hotel. ”

“ To one who has stood on Mission Street, opposite the Grand Opera-house, yesterday forenoon, and 'viewed the battle from afar,' as it might be said, it seemed that a large number of people had run completely mad over the desire to hear Patti sing. Such an excited, turbulent, and, in fact, desperate crowd never massed in front of a theatre for the purpose of purchasing tickets. ”

“ What wonder that she should be so popular among Christians when she is everywhere recognized as the patroness of the loveliest of arts, an art which lives beyond the bounds of time and can never die! Like the immortal souls of men, there is nothing destructive about music. It is music which illustrates the relation between art and religion. ”

“ The auditorium was quite dazzling with a bewildering mass of laces, jewels, and fair faces. Every available place was taken. Outside in the street there must have been thousands of people all clamouring for tickets, whilst the broad steps of the church opposite were occupied by persons anxious to catch a glimpse of the toilettes of the ladies as they sprang out of their carriages into the vestibule.
The season opened with Lucia di Lammermoor, in which Mdme. Etelka Gerster appeared as the ill-fated heroine. ”

“ The Times, in an article published just after the close of the last season, showed that Col. Mapleson had been unfortunate. While the good people of the West, who are popularly supposed to possess but a tithe of the culture that animates the East, flocked to the Opera as if they really knew that they were not likely, as the Boston Theatre stage carpenter expressed it, to hear any better singing than that of Patti and Scalchi this side of heaven, the people of New York and Philadelphia failed to regard the entertainment in the same light. ”

“ She was afterwards recalled innumerable times, and on reappearing she brought on with her Mdme. Scalchi. At the close of the opera a carriage with four milk-white steeds which I had arranged for was standing to convey its precious burthen to her hotel. Following this we had 100 torch-bearers, for the most part admirers and supporters of the opera. Mounted police were on each side of Patti's carriage. At the end of the procession was a waggon full of people letting off Roman candles and large basins of powder, which, when ignited, made the streets and sky look most brilliant. ”

“ What an unfair clause, too, is that by which, if the manager does not pay in advance to the prima donna at the exact time prescribed the whole of the sum payable to her for all the performances she binds herself to give, he will by such failure render himself liable for the entire sum without the prima donna on her side being called upon to sing at all. ”

“ How much the art of music adds to the profound mystery of religion! How in the hour of exalted triumph it chants its pæans! The Festival of St. Cecilia is a festival of music; and music becomes more beautiful still when it is emblemized through such a life as that of this saint. Enviable is that professional art which has such a saint for its patron." At the close of his sermon Father Flattery expressed his own and the sincere thanks of the congregation to the manager and his artists who in their generosity had done so much for the cause of religion ”

“ On forcing my way gradually down the street and approaching Sherman and Clay's establishment, I saw, to my great astonishment, that there was not a single pane of glass in any of the windows, whilst the tops of the best pianos and harmoniums were occupied by dozens of people standing upon them in their nailed boots, all clamouring for Patti tickets. Messrs. Sherman and Clay solicited me earnestly either to remove Patti from the town, or, at least, not to entrust them with the sale of any more tickets, the crowd having done over £600 of damage to their stock. ”

“ They are intensely conceited and abominably selfish, and regard an impresario as their natural prey. The sums that Ravelli has received from Mapleson in the last few years are beyond question sufficient to maintain the tenor in comfort and luxury for the rest of his life. Yet the moment he fails to receive his quid pro quo he refuses to render his services, denouncing his manager as a swindler, and abandons him at a moment when by loyalty and a little patience he could have aided in relieving the ill-fortune which must inevitably be anticipated in operatic affairs. ”

“ At home, as everybody knows, in their own country they receive in about a year as much as they are paid in a month in America, the streets of which the average Italian singer imagines to be paved with gold coins. As to the success or failure of the venture of the impresario they are supremely indifferent, but pertinaciously continue to demand the utmost farthing, no matter how badly things may be going. Lyric artists are, as a rule, the most grossly ignorant people on all subjects, except their own special art, and money. ”

“ Theodore Thomas's unrivalled orchestra paying a visit to London, where its presence, apart from all question of the musical delight it would afford, would show our public what a good orchestra is, and our musical societies how a good orchestra ought to be formed and maintained. ”

“ The public has but little idea of the difficulties by which the career of an opera manager is surrounded. An ordinary theatrical manager brings out some trivial operetta which, thanks in a great measure to scenery, upholstery, costumes, and a liberal display of the female form divine, catches the taste of the public. The piece runs for hundreds of nights without a change in the bill, the singers appearing night after night in the same parts. ”

“ It costs £8 to get an Italian chorus singer from his native land to England; and this seems money wasted when one reflects that just as good voices are to be found in this country as in Italy. If such a thing as a permanent Opera could be established in London arrangements might be made by which it would look for its chorus to one or more of our numerous musical academies, which at present seem to exist and to be multiplied solely to deluge the country with music teachers, whose keen competition lessens daily the value of their services. ”