Part 5

Des Grieux says in the story, "How I love her! My passion is so ardent that I feel I am the most unhappy creature alive. What have I not tried in Paris to obtain her release. I have implored the aid of the powerful. I have knocked at every door as a suppliant. I have even resorted to force. All has been in vain. Only one thing remains for me, and that is to follow her--go where she may--even unto the end of the world."

The scene of the third act shows the square near the harbour at Havre, with the sea and a ship in the distance. To the left is the barracks serving as a temporary prison, and at the gate a sentinel keeps guard. Des Grieux and the brother have evidently been keeping their vigil all through the night, and dawn is about to break. Very poignant and striking is the fevered agitation shown in the dialogue passages which open the scene. The brother has done his best to arrange for a rescue when his unhappy sister shall be brought forth and marched on board. The sentinel who now comes on duty has been bribed, and Des Grieux is able to hold a conversation with Manon through the barred window. As the night passes into day, the all too short interview ends, and Des Grieux gives some final instructions to Manon. But the plans for the rescue fail, and Lescaut comes back to tell Des Grieux of their failure as the clamour of citizens and soldiers is heard. After a spirited snatch of chorus, the roll on the drums gives the signal for the gate of the barracks to open, out of which the women, in chains, pass out to the ship. The chorus in some telling little abrupt phrases pass remarks as the various names are read out, and the vivacious comments and rough laughter heighten the effect of sadness as Manon and Des Grieux snatch their last farewell. Manon hangs behind a little, only to be roughly pushed on by a sergeant. Then it is that Des Grieux's despair gets the upper hand. "Kill me," he cries, "or take me along with you as your meanest servant." The captain is touched by his devotion, and in the bluff, good-natured fashion of the sailor, agrees to take Des Grieux.

In the fourth act the death of Manon puts an end to this sad but very human tragedy. The music is one long duet, full of the highest emotional expression, and musically reaches to the highest heights of pure tragedy. The scene shows us a desolate dreary plain on the outskirts of New Orleans. Manon and Des Grieux by their dress and manner show the destitution of their circumstances. "Lean all your weight on me, love," murmurs Des Grieux, as he supports his companion, worn out by fatigue and privation. Manon suffers from thirst, and Des Grieux, who can find no water in this arid waste, goes out to search farther afield. Memories of the life that is past now come to torture poor Manon, and when Des Grieux comes in again he finds her hopelessly distraught and at the point of death. Very touchingly does the music Manon sings picture the ebbing life, the faltering breath, the approach of the end; and, with a long, low phrase on one note, Manon, whose last words are that her love for Des Grieux will never pass although her sins will be cleansed away, sinks peacefully in her long last sleep. Bursting into tears Des Grieux falls senseless over her body.

It is inevitable to return to a comparison between this work of Puccini's and that of Massenet. Massenet remains supreme in his own place from the delicate and spirited characterisation of his music. His Manon is essentially French, entirely of the eighteenth century, bringing out in the music all the artificiality, all the airs and graces. While the story is not without flesh and blood, it remains as a thing apart, moving in its own sphere, full of its own special atmosphere. Puccini takes the same French story and gives us a moving lyric drama, which is on a far broader plane, is essentially human and common to every place, every race and all time, since it deals with purely elemental passions.

Since _Manon_ was the work by which Puccini's operatic music was first given to the English music-lovers, the following extracts from the critiques which appeared after its first performance in England will be of interest.

There is nothing which brings back the past so vividly as the fascinating process of turning up back files of daily papers. The actual day and all the "common round" come back like a living thing; so many of the "trivial tasks" seem to assume quite a special importance of their own. To read the advertisements, the announcements of concerts, theatres and picture galleries, is to remember events and pleasant moments which have long passed out of one's mind. Speaking as a journalist, the astonishing thing to me is that the daily paper of twelve years ago or so should seem such an old-fashioned thing to look at. One does not feel this with regard to the journals of a far more remote age. It is only these few recent years that seem to have rushed along at such a fearful pace.

The _Morning Post_ calls attention to the enterprise shown by producing a new work on the opening night of the season and promising another--Verdi's _Falstaff_ to wit--within the first week.

Mr. Arthur Hervey, its critic, says: "Now that Italian composers have once more come to the fore we may expect to be well provided with operas from the quondam land of song, and now the home _par excellence_ of the melodramatic opera. Mascagni and Leoncavallo having been duly welcomed, it is now the turn of Puccini, the much applauded author of _Manon Lescaut_." After pointing out the differences in the two books, he says that they offer the same amount of similarity the one to the other as do those of Gounod's _Faust_ and Boïto's _Mefistofele_. "The seeds of Wagnerian reform have not fallen on barren ground. Puccini reveals himself in _Manon_ as a composer gifted with strong dramatic power, possessing an apparently innate feeling for stage effect and considerable melodic expression. His score is exempt from the crudities and vulgarities from which certain modern Italian operas are not free. The entire first act is treated with a wonderful lightness of touch. In the grand duet between Manon and Des Grieux in the second act, the composer has fully risen to the height of the situation. His music is full of melody and passion. It ends in a decidedly Wagnerian fashion which evokes recollections of _Tristan und Isolde_. We have only singled out a few salient features in a work that is remarkable from many points of view, not the least of which is its sincerity of purpose, and we cordially congratulate the composer upon having made so successful a _debut_ amongst us."

In contrast to the _Times_ critic, the writer says: "The inevitable intermezzo separates the second from the third act. It reproduces some of the motives heard in the above-named duet, and is extremely effective."

In the _Academy_ of May 19, 1894, Mr. J. S. Shedlock writes: "The composer has really something to say, and has said it to very great, though not the best, advantage. At present he is too strongly influenced by Wagner and by others to display his full individuality. The influence of Wagner is specially marked not so much in the use of representative themes as in phrases and melodies which recall _Die Meistersinger_, _Tristan_, and _Siegfried_. As, for example, the music in the first act, when Manon descends from the coach, or the opening of the intermezzo.... Of the four acts, the second and fourth appear to us the strongest ... the love duet between Manon and Des Grieux is a masterpiece of concentration and gradation, the fine broad phrase at the close, afterwards heard with imposing effect at the end of the third act and with tender expression in the fourth, ought alone to ensure the success of the work.... Of course, in a modern opera an intermezzo is indispensable. Puccini, however, gives to his distinct dramatic meaning: the coda with its orchestration is original and expressive."

The _Times_ said of _Manon_, on May 15, 1894, that in melodic structure and general cast of its phraseology the new work has many points of affinity with the most popular productions of the young Italian school; but it is far above these in workmanship, in the reality of its sentiment, and, above all, in the atmosphere. It supposes that Puccini is the author of his own book, and on the whole prefers Massenet's libretto, and points out that the climax of the piece, musically, if not dramatically, is the penultimate scene, outside the prison at Havre. The finale to this scene in which occur the comments of the crowd on the prisoners, some of whom are covered with confusion, while others are jauntily defiant, is hailed as the finest number in the work. The weakest thing in the opera is, according to this critic, the intermezzo, but an atonement is made by the opening of the third act. The work, he concludes, amply deserved the very enthusiastic reception it obtained.

Even at this short distance of time it is something of a curiosity to read that the National Anthem was sung, under Signor Mancinelli's direction, at the beginning of the evening by the choristers grouped round a bust of the Queen.

VII

"LA BOHÈME"

The mere fact that _La Bohème_, Puccini's fourth work, to which he gave the plain title of opera, is his most popular composition for the stage, makes one all the more inclined to search more minutely for weaknesses. But with repeated performances (for it has passed into the regular repertory of all opera houses wherever it has been played) its unity, both as an idea and an expression, comes out more and more with remarkable distinctness.

It captured the Italian ear and taste immediately, and babies were christened Mimi and Rodolfo just as ten years before, Santuzza and Turiddu, culled from Mascagni's _Cavalleria Rusticana_, were favourite baptismal appellations. It did not take long for England--represented, in this instance, by the comparatively limited number of opera-lovers--to take it to its heart. It delighted fastidious France and even satisfied hypercritical and essentially conservative Germany. Of all Puccini's work, it exhibits perhaps the most spontaneity, and as a piece of modern music--if the melodies themselves, apart from their very definite piquancy and freshness, do not rise to any vast heights of emotional expression--its absolute continuity is certainly a very high artistic achievement and stands unquestionably as its most striking feature.

Illica and Giocosa provided the book, and their idea in providing the framework is clearly indicated by the prefatory note to the vocal score. They begin with a quotation from the preface to Murger's _Vie de Bohème_, of which the thoroughly impressionistic opera is a most spirited musical expression. _The Bohemians_, under which title the opera was first presented in England, does not express by any means the exact nature of the work. It is the spirit of Bohemianism--that curious almost undefinable quality, which in reality simply means the absolute living for, and in, the mood of the moment, and is not by any means the entire monopoly of the artistic temperament--that is portrayed by the dramatic scheme. In the matter of following Murger's story, which as a novel is the most free in the whole range of modern literature, the librettists have been careful to give the spirit rather than the letter. They even roll two characters, Francine and Mimi, into one; for they find that although in Murger's book characters of each person are clearly defined, one and the same temperament bears different names and is incarnated, so to speak, in two different persons. "Who cannot detect," they say, "in the delicate profile of one woman the personality both of Mimi and Francine? Who as he reads of Mimi's little hands, whiter than those of the Goddess of Ease, is not reminded of Francine's little muff?"

The librettists were content to string together four more or less detached scenes from the story. Save for the death of Mimi at the close, there is no real climax to any of the four acts. In the first act, the two chief characters go off and sing their final high note in the passage; in the third, where they part more in sorrow than in anger, the situation is varied between a similar device of finishing the duet "off" or by quietly sitting up at the back of the scene. These two, out of many points of subtlety, are mentioned merely as showing Puccini's mastery in catching the essential spirit of the dramatic scheme, which is atmospheric, or purely impressionistic. The supremacy of his art is shown in a very marked way by the preservation of the continuity of the idea by the musical expression. In this _La Bohème_ stands as a very notable modern work solely because of its absolute keeping to the idea which dominates it. Leoncavallo set the same story to music, writing the book himself. As a mere adaptation of a novel for stage purposes, the dramatic portion of this opera, which keeps the stage in France and Germany, may be pointed to as offering certain points of superiority. But the music is certainly not atmospheric nor impressionistic, and the two works never really come into rivalry. Puccini's _La Bohème_ is absolutely on its own plane, and in its own particular way supreme.

_La Bohème_ was composed partly at Torre del Lago and partly in a villa which Puccini took for a time at Castellaccio, near Pescia. It was given for the first time at the Teatro Regio, Turin, on February 1, 1896, Toscanini being the conductor, and cast as follows:

_Rodolfo_ GORGA. _Marcello_ WILMANT. _Schaunard_ PINI-CORSI. _Colline_ MAZZARA. _Benoit_ } _Alcindoro_ } POLONINI. _Mimi_ FERRANI. _Musetta_ PASINI.

Its first appearance in England was interesting from the rare fact that a new opera should not only be produced within a year of its production in its native land, but that an English company should be the first to present it in our native tongue. With the title _The Bohemians_ it was given at Manchester on April 22, 1897, at the Theatre Royal, by the Carl Rosa Company, conducted by Claude Jacquinet, and cast as follows:

_Rodolfo_ ROBER CUNINGHAM. _Marcello_ WILLIAM PAUL. _Schaunard_ CHAS. TILBURY. _Colline_ ARTHUR WINCKWORTH. _Mimi_ ALICE ESTY. _Musetta_ BESSIE MACDONALD.

It was given at Covent Garden in English, in the October of the same year, with practically the same cast. Madame Alice Esty, from whom I learnt several interesting particulars, not only of the production of the opera, but of the work in general, and some of the past history of the wonderful organisation which is still doing such excellent work in keeping alive the love for opera in English, was the first English Mimi, although she was born in Boston. There were many difficulties in the production, and, strange to say, the part of Mimi was first offered to Mdlle. Zelie de Lussan, the well-known exponent of the part of Carmen, not only in English, but in French as well. The photograph of Mdme. Alice Esty shows her in the last Act of _La Bohème_; and it will be noticed that she wears, not the customary black gown of the little seamstress, but one of some pretensions to magnificence. She followed, she told me, the idea of the composer, who particularly wished to bring out the fact that Mimi, after parting with Rodolfo, had formed an alliance with a rich viscount. This little incident, it will be remembered, is duly referred to by Musetta in the text.

I have also talked with Puccini about this first English performance of _La Bohème_. "I always feel about past performances," he said, "in the same way as dead people. Let us say nothing about them but good. But I shall never forget the shock it was to me on arriving at the theatre to find the disposition of the orchestra in a fashion which I have never seen except at a circus. Out of two boxes at each end the bass brass on the one side and the drum on the other gave forth detached blares and pops which really frightened the life out of me. They did not seem to have anything to do with the general musical scheme. I heard this band rehearsal start, and then I saw that the right idea, simply because of the square-cut idea as to the tempi on the part of the conductor was absolutely away from the spirit of the work. I asked the band to take a rest and then took two rehearsals with the piano myself. It was not long before the artists, all of them sincerely concerned with the proper interpretation of my ideas, and myself got into complete accord. I was very pleased on the whole with the way it eventually went, and although I did not see the subsequent London production, Ricordi told me that the Manchester performance was far more spontaneous."

How wonderfully Puccini is able, by playing a score of his on the piano and by his eloquent directions as to interpretation, to convey his subtlest meaning to an artist, I can speak from actual knowledge. I have heard him take a singer through a good deal of this very opera. Under his almost magical hands, a well learned interpretation is transformed into a genuinely spontaneous interpretation. Puccini in the present year of grace, when I told him that I had seen an important opera revived in the provinces with the same strange disposal of the orchestra which had caused him such distress, threw back his head and roared with laughter, not in the least unkindly. "You are a delightful people and seriously artistic, but you will keep on doing such funny things."

For a long time, however, Mdme. Melba, who in this country has invariably, since her first performance of the part in Italian here, been seen in the character, has appeared in the final scene in much the same plain dress as in the opening Act, the reason, doubtless, being that Mimi's loneliness and poverty should be emphasised. Lately, however, Mdme. Melba has reverted to the original method of dressing the part, and appears in the last scene in an even more elaborate evening gown of pale blue satin, with a cloak, and dispenses with a hat.

_La Bohème_ was brought to London after its first production, as we have seen, and was played about twenty times that season. The Covent Garden production in Italian was two years later, on June 30, 1899, when Mancinelli conducted, the cast being as follows:

_Rodolfo_ DE LUCIA. _Marcello_ ANCONA. _Schaunard_ GILIBERT. _Collins_ JOURNET. _Benoit_ } DUFRICHE. _Alcindoro_ } _Mimi_ MELBA. _Musetta_ ZELIE DE LUSSAN.

It will be noticed that the gifted lady who was in the mind of the Carl Rosa authorities, for their initial production, as Mimi, was then seen in the particular part for which her temperament fitted her. By substituting Caruso as the Rodolfo--it is one of the very finest parts of this tenor--and Scotti as the Marcello, we have practically the same cast as that with which this opera at the present time fills Covent Garden; invariably one of its most brilliant audiences.

In June 1898 Paris saw _La Bohème_ at the Opera Comique, for which performance the composer visited the French Capital, for the first time, to superintend some of the first rehearsals. It went to America in the December of the same year, when it was mounted at the Academy of Music, Philadelphia, and sung in Italian. Melba was the Mimi, De Lussan the Musetta, and Pandolfini the Rodolfo.

New York had seen it, in English, at the American Theatre, in the previous month. This production, in which the Rodolfo was J. F. Sheehan; the Mimi, Yvonne de Treville; and the Musetta, Villa Knox, was by Henry W. Savage's Castle Square Opera Company. It was given in French at New Orleans in the winter of 1900 by Barrich's Company. It was first given in Germany at the Ander Wren Theatre, Vienna, Frances Saville being the Mimi and Franz Naval the Rodolfo.

Coming to the story, which with the music is by this time so familiar to opera-goers, the composer, in characteristic fashion, plunges us at once, without scarcely as much as a few bars of prelude, into the midst of things. At the outset the atmosphere is established by the restless, vivacious, detached and spirited phrase which, if it hardly ever assumes the proportions, musically considered, of a leading theme, at least flavours very strongly the whole musical fabric. It may well be taken to represent the free unrestrained spirit of the VIE DE BOHÈME. The curtain rises quickly, and we see an attic, inhabited by the quartet of gay spirits, those bold adventurers, as Murger calls them, who are stopped by nothing--rain or dust, cold or heat. Every day's existence is a work of genius, a daily problem. Now abstemious as anchorites, now riding forth on the most ruinous fancies, not finding enough windows whence to throw their money. Truly, as Murger puts it, a gay life yet a terrible one!

Rodolfo, the poet, gazes pensively out of the window, Marcello, the artist, is painting the passage of the Red Sea. It is Christmas Eve, and the cold is bitter: and to keep the stove alight, they burn up a MS.--a drama--of Rodolfo's.

All through this scene of colloquial and snappy dialogue, the music runs with remarkable movement. Soon Schaunard the musician comes in. He has been lucky enough not only to find a job but to get paid for it; and he tells us it was an Englishman who employed him. He has bought provisions with the spoil, and they spread the feast, in true Bohemian fashion, with a newspaper for table cloth. They begin the meal with light-hearted merriment, when the landlord comes in to collect his much overdue rent. That worthy is amazed to find his tenants can pay it, and after taking a glass with them, and chatting about his _amours_, the four irresponsibles get rid of him. They then decide on a visit to the café Momus in the Latin quarter, and leave Rodolfo behind for a space, as he has to finish an article for the _Beaver_. "Be quick, then," says Marcello, "and cut the _Beaver's_ tale short."