Paris Opera

“ The opera was a social rather than a musical function, and the old foyer, until the fall of the Second Empire, was the favourite meeting-place during the season of royal and distinguished personages, courtiers, ministers, ambassadors, and, indeed, of all French society of the male persuasion. Such was the passion for the opera during the reign of Louis XVI. that fashionable devotees would journey from Brussels to Paris in time to see the curtain rise and return to Brussels when the performance was over, travelling all night. ”

“ Your excellency, attended by his gentlemen-in-waiting (who apparently never eat, never want to eat) , in the intervals of the ceremonious collation will gaze with interest at the Opéra, final legacy of the Empire to the Republic. A great nation owes it to itself to possess a splendid opera-palace. Art must be fostered. The gracious amenities of life must be maintained. And this is the State’s affair. The State has seen to it. The most gorgeous building in Paris is not the legislative chamber, nor the hall of the University, nor the clearing-house of charity. It is the Opéra. ”

“ It touches what in the artistic, if not in the general, sense must be looked upon as the heart of Paris—the New Opera, that is to say, standing in the centre of the place which bears its name and the streets called after those operatic {133} celebrities, Scribe, Auber, Halévy, and Meyerbeer ”

“ Indeed, some of the wretched, slipshod performances that have been given under the name of grand opera in America, would be hissed from the stage in London, Paris, or Italy. In operatic performances in America, we have the parts of two or three principals well done, but all else slipshod and imperfect, and the effect of the opera itself too frequently marred by the outrageous cuttings, transpositions, and alterations made by managers to adapt it to their resources. ”

“ The idea that dramatic poetry should represent human nature in its naked reality, which had emanated from the encyclopedists, found its realisation in the drama of common life, and had considerable influence on the development of the comic opera.
The strict line of demarcation between opera seria and buffa did not exist in Paris. The effort to give more dramatic interest and freer scope to operatic music led to the portrayal of the deeper and noble emotions, and opera approached more and more nearly to serious comedy in plot, situations, and psychological intention. ”

“ It ceases to be an imitation, and becomes a reproduction. We will be bound to say, at no saturnalia in the opera ball-room of Paris was there ever exhibited a wilder scene of revelry and debauch—women, indelicately clothed in male attire, whirl in fantastic attitudes to a noisy crash of music—their voices in the mad excitement of the moment are joined to the noise of the orchestra ”

“ Yet some operas have of late years been performed in English. "In Paris, the Italian opera is patronized by the Government, as a school of vocal music; and the managers are careful to maintain a complete and skilful company." In an opera, the music is the most important part, while at the theatre the music is subordinate to the play. ”

“ But in Paris a new opera necessitates a large outlay, besides which—and particularly in the case of a foreigner—a famous reputation and influential patronage are requisite for the acceptance of any great operatic work. ”

“ Three of the orchestras can be called first-rate: that of the Academy, the Italian Opera, and the Theâtre Feydeau.
OPERA IN PARIS. Rossini is director of the Italian Opera, which is undoubtedly now the best in Europe. Lablache, 229 Rubini, Santini, Pasta, Malibran, and Schröder-Devrient perform three times a week for the delectation of the élite. Nourrit, Levasseur, Derivis, Mme. Damoreau-Cinti, and Mlle. Dorus are the stars of the Grand Opera. Chollet and Mlle. Casimir Prévost are much admired at the Comic Opera; in a word, only in Paris can one learn what singing really is. ”

“ Although none of them are spoken of very highly, they will, in all probability, succeed in a certain degree; for a piece scarcely ever has a complete fall at the opera. This theatre has so many resources in the decorations, music, and dancing, that a new piece is seldom destitute of something worth seeing. ”

“ Several German opera companies have visited Paris; have begun well, and finished badly. And here our most brilliant singers would meet the same fate, because they would be allowed to sing nothing but German music; and German operas are not listened to in Paris. But if it were possible, with only a moderately good German company, to give Norma, the Barber, Robert the Devil, the Huguenots, and Mozart's operas, (omitting the dialogue,) that company, supported by a good orchestra, and performing in a decent theatre, would carry all before them, and return to Germany laden with fame and gold. ”

“ What, at the present day, proves the greatest attraction to the opera, is the dancing. How bad soever may be a piece, when it is interspersed with fine ballets, it is sure of having a certain run. Of these I shall say no more till I come to speak of that department.
The weakest part of the performances at the opera is the singing. All are agreed as to the mediocrity of the singers at this theatre, called lyric. No one can say that, within the last ten or twelve years, they are improved. ”

“ All of the swell clubs have boxes and the society folk who can afford it subscribe, yet the opera is not so important an item of the social year in Paris as in New York, and one will usually see more elaborate toilettes and more fashionable women in any one of the popular theatres than at the Opera. ”

“ Something like their pretty opéra comique may exist elsewhere; we have our comic opera, and Italy has her buffa; the opéra Italien, too, may be rather more than rivalled at the Haymarket: but where out of Paris are we to look for anything like the Académie Royale de Musique? ... le grand opéra? ... l'opéra par excellence?—I may safely answer, nowhere.
It is an institution of which the expenses are so enormous, that though it is more constantly and fully attended perhaps than any other theatre in the world, it could not be sustained without the aid of funds supplied by the government. ”

“ The Italian Opera in Paris is considered to be managed with great perfection, the company is much the same with regard to the principal singers as our own, consisting of Grisi, Persiani, Albertazzi, Lablache, Tamburini, Rubini, Mario, etc., as they can be obtained, according to their engagements in London or elsewhere, and the operas performed are also similar, therefore any description of either would be superfluous; altogether, the enjoyment afforded is not so great as at our own, as no ballet is given, and the coup-d'œil is not so splendid as in ours. ”

“ The new Opera House, commenced under the Empire and finished under the Republic, is the most complete building of the kind in the world and in many respects the most beautiful. No European capital possesses an opera house so comprehensive in plan and execution, and none can boast an edifice equally vast and splendid. ”

“ There is a small theatre opposite the opera house, where they give French comedy and light operas, three or four times a week, and give them very well. The opera and ballet are very popular with the ladies of the Khedive’s harem; they prefer the music and dancing of the Occident to that of the Orient, just as they prefer the fashions of Paris to those of Bagdad and Khiva. ”

“ The lower classes are civil,—the higher very haughty.
‘Yet notwithstanding the distress and poverty of the country, there are no less than 26 theatres open and crowded every night in Paris, independent of shows, jugglers, etc. Nobody can form an idea of what an Opera is, unless they have seen the present style of one in Paris—so superb. ”

“ It is likely that their interest in the performance was mingled more or less with curious questionings touching the attitude which local opera-lovers would assume toward it. There is a vast difference in the mood in which Americans go to public entertainments in Paris and at home. ”

“ Thus it happens, that if the musician has more art than the poet, he effaces him; and the actor, seeing the spectator sacrifice the words to the music, sacrifices in his turn theatrical gesture and action to song and brilliancy of voice, which transforms a dramatic entertainment into a mere concert....
"Such are the defects which the absolute perfection of music, and its defective application to language, may introduce into the Opera. ”

“ To be in continual motion for four hours, and to direct the motions of others by the wagging of a finger, to be not only an object of important attention to the stage and orchestra, but (in his own imagination) to pit, boxes, and gallery, as the pivot on which the whole grand machinery of that grandest of all machines, the French Opera, turns—this is indeed, for a Parisian, the acme of felicity! Every nerve must thrill with electrical satisfaction, and every pore into which vanity can creep tingle with self-conceit! ”

“ For the sake of enjoying the pleasures of music and of the drama in combination, we must adopt certain conventions, and must assume that song is the natural language of the men and women that we propose to show in our operas; as we assume in tragedy that they all talk in verse, in comedy that they are all witty and yet are perpetually giving one another opportunities for repartee; in the ballet that they all dance and are unable to speak at all. ”

“ Up to this time the Opera had been constituted as it alone could be; for what better use, at the theatre, could be made of a kind of music which could paint nothing than by employing it in the representation of things which could not exist? But as soon as music learnt to paint and to speak the charms of sentiment, it brought into contempt those of the Wand; the theatre was purged of its garden of mythology, interest was substituted for astonishment; the machines of poets and of carpenters were destroyed; and the lyric drama assumed a more noble and less gigantic character. ”

“ The opera, where night after night the wealth of glorious voices is flung upon the air till its every vibration is melody, and the spirit drinks it in as it would the incense of rare flowers, is to her not so exquisite a luxury as the choice songs, warbled in a concert room, to which you may listen but few times in the year; such pleasure palls in repetition, on the common mind, for nature's favourites are among the poor, and gold, with all its magical power, can never attune the ear to music, nor the taste to an appreciation of that which is truly beautiful in nature or art. ”

“ It would perhaps be superfluous to here dwell, at least more than incidentally, upon the deep pleasure enjoyed by the lovers of music and of dramatic art when witnessing the performance of a good opera. At such a time their truly musical souls enjoy a delicious, a sumptuous feast of melody; while the kaleidoscopic prospect, formed by richly-costumed actors, and appropriate, beautiful scenery, fills them with delight. The harsh realities of every-day life are so much relieved by the poetic charms of the ideal, that they live amidst a scene of fairy-like enchantment. ”

“ Hence the origin of airs, choruses, symphonies, and of that enchanting melody which often embellishes modern music at the expense of its poetic accompaniment.
"At the birth of the Opera, its inventors, to elude that which seemed unnatural, as an imitation of human life, in the union of music with speech, transferred their scenes from earth to heaven, and to hell. Not knowing how to make men speak, they made gods and devils, instead of heroes and shepherds, sing. Thus magic and marvels became speedily the stock in trade of the lyrical theatre. ”

“ This anarchy of the arts, where music, dancing, and decoration endeavour to surpass each other by the most profuse display of dazzling charms, constitutes the very essence of the Opera. What sort of opera music would it be, where the words should receive a mere rhythmical accompaniment of the simplest modulations? The fantastic magic of the Opera consists altogether in the luxurious competition of the different means, and in the perplexity of an overflowing superfluity. ”

“ Indeed, when I sometimes think in my own mind that I may look on my opera as a certainty, I feel quite a fiery impulse within me, and tremble from head to foot, through the eager desire to teach the French more fully how to know, and value, and fear the Germans. Why is a great opera never intrusted to a Frenchman? Why is it always given to a foreigner? ”

“ Under the accepted operatic form, however, it has relative truth, as the main musical purpose of opera seems, hitherto, to have been less to furnish expression for exalted emotions and thoughts, or exquisite sentiments, than to grant the vocal virtuoso opportunity to display phenomenal qualities of voice and execution. But all opera, however it may stray from the fundamental idea, suggests this dramatic element in music, just as mere lyricism in the poetic art is the blossom from which is unfolded the full-blown perfection of the word-drama, the highest form of all poetry. ”

“ The old English tragic drama, robust, fierce-hearted and unadorned, has faded before it; the theatre, as a reunion of wits, and an arena for marvelous histrionic effects, as a subject of elegant criticism, and a nucleus for universal sympathy, may be said not to exist; while the Opera has become the scene of display, elegance, and pleasure on the one hand, and of the highest triumphs on the other. ”

“ If the opera succeeds it will be because a larger public has discovered that the music which has been consorted with the old pictures, actions, and words has added to them an element either of charm or expressive potentiality hitherto felt to be lacking. Is that true? Has a rock of offense been removed? Has a mephitic odor been changed to a sweet savor by the subtle alchemy of the musical composer? Has a drama abhorrent, bestial, repellent, and loathsome been changed into a thing of delectability by the potent agency of music? ”