Théâtre de l'Odéon

“ The Odéon is a very big theatre—old-fashioned and given up to long passages and bare rooms; it lacks the exquisite arrangements of the first artists’ boudoir, the colour schemes and artistic furniture of the more modern theatres, but to Jean it all seemed magnificent enough, and Liane’s room of white and gold, stiflingly hot and brilliantly lighted, with a small dressing-room leading out of it, astounded him by its importance. Nothing could be too important for her, but he had never known that artists’ dressing-rooms would be the least like this. ”

“ At present the Odéon is definitely classed as the second Théâtre Français, in which character it pays no rent and enjoys an annual subvention of 100,000 francs. No theatre during the last seventy years has rendered greater services to dramatic art. Here have been represented pieces by Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Alfred de Musset, Alfred de Vigny, Balzac, George Sand, Émile Augier, Octave Feuillet, Méry, Léon Gozlan, Theodore Barrière, Édmond Gondinet, Hippolyte Lucas, Michel Carré, Frédéric Soulié, François Ponsard, François Coppée, Alphonse Daudet, and a hundred others. ”

“ The Odéon is the theatre of tumultuous representations, but never has this terrible battle-field offered such a conglomeration of exclamations and confusing cries. The pit, like a sharp-shooter, took up an ambush behind the substantives and verbs, and slaughtered the play while it maimed the actors, who, brave though wounded, struggled on to the end with a praiseworthy and melancholy courage. At times the comedy, through its sudden flashes of originality 83 and abrupt cannonades of wit, seemed about to rout the enemy and wave aloft a tattered but victorious flag. ”

“ Will not the players who have been drawn off to block the first theatre (which pays them less for playing at it than for not playing any part at all) grow tired in the end of a state of things which reduces them from the status of parish priests to that of curates, or, rather, from being the bishops they were degrades them to the rank of millers? In conclusion, is there not a nucleus of a tragedy-playing company still left at the Odéon? ”

“ I have another theory: in any action, foolish or wise, either carry it through bravely when once undertaken, or refrain from undertaking it. I had not the wisdom to refrain, therefore I was compelled to imitate the folly of my friends; at dessert I even abused the invitation, and too often sought to drown sorrow in the ruby cup.
We started for the Odeon. Our entrance at the theatre caused quite an excitement. The ladies, cavalierly suspended on the arms of the two future Eastern ambassadors, sailed in with a conscious air of epicurean grace and dazzling beauty. ”

“ He contributed poetry and criticism to the French and Belgian reviews favourable to the extreme symbolists, and, with Catulle Mendès, he founded at the Odéon, the Théâtre Antoine and the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt, matinées for the production of the plays of the younger poets. ”

“ Upon the hill the drama of the gods went on: below it were performed the tragedy and comedy of man. One of these theatres, called the Odeon, was of Roman origin, built by the conquerors of Greece when they were masters of the world. Its rows of massive arches, climbing one above another up the cliff, remind us of the Colosseum. Above them was the classic Parthenon, which Phidias had built five hundred years 251 before. This theatre could accommodate eight thousand people, and doubtless was magnificent and imposing ”

“ The enterprising Sageret thereupon induced the homeless players to join forces with their former colleagues at the Théâtre Feydeau, and took over the management of the Odéon from Mlle. Raucourt, his intention being that the actors under his command should appear at either theatre in turn. But Sageret{189} became bankrupt and disappeared; the Odéon was completely destroyed by a fire, the cause of which was never discovered, and Paris found itself without a temple of the legitimate drama. ”

“ There are many institutions, professions, and classes which, after being originated on the left bank, have crossed the water to flourish on the right. Among these must be included the claque; though, from whatever quarter it may have sprung, there is now no theatrical district in Paris where it does not thrive.
It originated at the Comédie Française, when{262} that institution had its abode at the theatre now known as the Odéon, where, among other masterpieces, Beaumarchais’s Marriage of Figaro was produced in 1784. ”

“ The building itself, the Odeon, was the old Federal Street Theatre, and had its interesting associations.... To all there was now added, in the memory of the happy hearers, the association of the symphony concerts. ”

“ It was a letter from Duquesnel, who had just been appointed manager of the Odéon Theatre in conjunction with Chilly.
“They ask me for some young artistes to make up the Odéon company. Well, we must attend to this.” He got up, and, accompanying me to the door, said as I went away, “We shall succeed.”
I went back home and began at once to rehearse all my rôles in Racine’s plays. I waited very anxiously for several days, consoled by Madame Guérard, who succeeded in restoring my confidence. ”

“ A MEMORABLE SUPPER January 26, 1872, was an artistic fête for the Odéon. The Tout-Paris of first nights and the vibrating younger elements were to meet in the large, solemn, dusty theatre. Ah, what a splendid, stirring performance it was! What a triumph for Geffroy, pale, sinister, and severe-looking in his black costume as Don Salluste. Mélingue rather disappointed the public as Don César de Bazan, and the public was in the wrong. The rôle of Don César de Bazan is a treacherously good rôle, which always tempts artists by the brilliancy of the first act ”

“ Your little letter of the 4th of January, which came the very morning of the premiere of Aisse, moved me to tears, dear well- beloved master. You are the only one who shows such delicacies of feeling.
The premiere was splendid, and then, that is all. The next night the theatre was almost empty. The press, in general, was stupid and base. They accused me of having wanted to advertise by INSERTING an incendiary tirade! I pass for a Red (sic) . You see where we are!
The management of the Odeon has done nothing for the play! On the contrary. ”

“ It smacks of its period of modern Paris. I gulped a volume by Garcin de Tassy on Hindustani literature, to get clean. One can breathe, at least, in that.
You see that your Father Cruchard is not entirely stupefied by the theatre. However, I haven't anything to complain of in the Vaudeville. Everyone there is polite and exact! How different from the Odeon!
Our friend Chennevieres is now our superior, since the theatres are in his division. The theatrical people are enchanted.
I see the Muscovite every Sunday. He is very well and like him better and better. ”

“ In close proximity to the Palace is the Odéon, the Second Théâtre-Français, once the “Français” itself, built in 1782, on the site of the hôtel de Condé, burnt down in 1799, rebuilt by Chalgrin, reopened in 1808 as théâtre de l’Impératrice, badly burnt a few years later, restored as the théâtre Français, then again restored in 1875. The place surrounding the theatre and the streets opening out of it are rich in historic and literary associations. No. 1, Café Voltaire, was a meeting-place of eighteenth-century men of letters of every class and type. At No. ”

“ In 1819 his play Les vêpres Siciliennes was performed at the Odéon, then just rebuilt; it had previously been refused for the Théâtre Français. On the night of the first representation, which was warmly received, Picard, the manager, threw himself into the arms of his elated friend, exclaiming, “You have saved us! ”

“ Thus, on 26 April, 1822, the Odéon had produced Attila by M. Hippolyte Bis. On 5 June the Théâtre-Français played Lucien Arnault's Régulus. On 14 June the Odéon played the [Pg 399] Macchabées by M. Guiraud: Frédérick Lemaître, who belonged to the Cirque, played one of the brothers Macchabées. On 7 November the Théâtre-Français produced M. Soumet's Clytemnestre, in which Talma gave a realistic representation of the tragic and unhappy fate of Orestes. On 9 November the Odéon put on its boards the same author's Saül, in which Joanny first began to make his reputation. ”

“ He has emulators, and perhaps some one will soon outstrip him in zeal, overthrowing the whole shop of slashed and mangled opera-jingle, and erecting an Odeon, a consistently lyric edifice, in which poetry, music, action, and decoration unite in one. ”

“ Mme. Viardot took a lively interest in the reading. She followed it like an artist well acquainted with the composition. She was a marvellous singer and lyric tragedienne and more than an artist; she was a great musician, a woman marvellously endowed and altogether unusual.
On the eleventh of April the Odéon received the public which always attends dress rehearsals and first nights. The theater opened its doors to All Paris, always the same hundred persons who think it the most desirable privilege in the world to be present at a rehearsal or a first night. ”

“ As Odo, in mask and travesty, stood observing the fantastically-dressed audience, the pasteboard theatre adorned with statuary, and the nuns flitting across the stage, his imagination, strung to the highest pitch by his own impending venture, was thrilled by the contrast between the outward appearance of the scene and its underlying reality. From where he stood he looked directly at the abbess, who was seated with the Nuncio and his suite under the tall crucifix in the centre of the garden. ”

“ The receipts fell to forty dollars one night.
A newspaper wit wrote, “Last night the crowds on Broadway were so dense that a man was accidentally pushed into the Odeon Theater.” On another day he said, “Last night during a performance of Sir Ralph Incledon’s masterpiece some miscreant entered the Odeon Theater and stole all the orchestra chairs.”
The slow death of a play is a miserable process. The actors began to see the nobilities of the work once the author was removed from in front of it. They regretted its passing, but plays cannot live in a vacuum. ”

“ It was late when they entered their box, and several masks were already capering before the footlights, exchanging lazzi with the townsfolk in the pit, and addressing burlesque compliments to the quality in the boxes. The theatre seemed small and shabby after those of Turin, and there was little in the old-fashioned fopperies of a provincial audience to interest a young gentleman fresh from the capital. Odo looked about for any one resembling the masked beauty of the market-place ”

“ How, during the performance of the Passion Play, they act and sing and stand about upon the uncovered stage without taking the slightest notice of the downpour of water that is soaking their robes and running from their streaming hair, to make great pools upon the boards; and how the audience, in the cheaper, unroofed portion of the theatre, sit with equal stoicism, watching them, no one ever dreaming even of putting up an umbrella—or, if he does dream of doing so, experiencing a very rude awakening from the sticks of those behind. ”

“ I will not speak to you of the music; you know it. But you can form no idea of the frightful cries, the long bellowings with which the theatre resounds daring the representation. One sees actresses nearly in convulsions, tearing yelps and howls violently out of their lungs, closed hands pressed on their breasts, heads thrown back, faces inflamed, veins swollen, and stomachs panting. I know not which of the two, the eye or the ear, is most agreeably affected by this ugly display; and, what is really inconceivable, it is these shriekings alone that the audience applaud. ”

“ Shakespeare said, "All the world's a stage." If this is true, do we not owe the stage the same courtesy, respect and honor that we owe the world of fellow-men? Be as well-mannered and courteous at the theater and opera as you would in the most fastidious drawing-room. ”

“ Our only theatre must accommodate itself, and represent, at the same time, the Theatre Français, the grand Opera, the Vaudeville, and Saint-Martin; it must comprehend all kinds of theatrical entertainments. The same actors who to-day appear in tragedy, must to-morrow show themselves in a comedy or vaudeville. We have actors who might compare themselves with the best in Paris—only one is above all ours, but, also, above all whom I have seen in Europe, and this one is Mademoiselle Mars. ”

“ Theatre so much as a Ghost, especially when he appears in a bloody Shirt. A Spectre has very often saved a Play, though he has done nothing but stalked across the Stage, or rose through a Cleft of it, and sunk again without speaking one Word. ”

“ My petite dame, Mme. Guérard, was with me nearly all day and I dined every evening with my mother.
124 CHAPTER IX
I RETURN TO THE STAGE
I was still on friendly terms with an actor from the Porte Saint Martin Theater, who had been appointed stage manager there. Marc Fournier was at that time manager of this theater. A piece entitled “La Biche au Bois” was then being played. It was a fairyland story, and was having great success. A delicious actress from the Odéon Theater, Mlle. Debay, had been engaged for the principal rôle. She played tragedy princesses most charmingly. ”

“ 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. ”