Part 10

But Fiora! What a triumph! What a volcano! I have never been able to find any pleasure in listening to the music of Montemezzi's _l'Amore dei Tre Re_, although it has a certain pulse, a rhythmic beat, especially in the second act, which gives it a factitious air of being better than it really is. The play, however, is interesting, and subtle enough to furnish material for quibble and discussion not only among critics, but among interpreters themselves. Miss Bori, who originally sang Fiora in New York, was a pathetic flower, torn and twisted by the winds of fate, blown hither and thither without effort or resistance on her part. It was probably a possible interpretation, and it found admirers. Miss Muzio, the next local incumbent of the role, fortified with a letter from Sem Benelli, or at least his spoken wishes, found it convenient to alter this impersonation in most particulars, but she was not, is not, very convincing. Her intentions are undoubtedly good but she is no instrument for the mystic gods to play upon.

But Miss Garden's Fiora burned through the play like a flame. She visualized a strong-minded mediaeval woman, torn by the conflicting emotions of pity and love, but once she had abandoned herself to her passion she became a living altar consecrated to the worship of Aphrodite and Eros. Such a hurricane of fiery, tempestuous love has seldom if ever before swept the stage. Miss Garden herself has never equalled this performance, save in Melisande and Monna Vanna, which would lead one to the conclusion that she is at her best in parts of the middle ages, until one reflects that in early Greek courtesans, in French cocottes of several periods, in American Indians, and Spanish gipsies she is equally atmospheric. Other Fioras have been content to allow the hand of death to smite them without a struggle. Not this one. When Archibaldo attempts to strangle her she tries to escape; her efforts are horrible and pathetic because they are fruitless. And the final clutch of the fingers behind his back leave the most horrible blood-stains of tragic beauty in the memory.

V

What is to become of Mary Garden? What can she do now? What is there left for her to do? Those who complain of some of the dross in her repertoire can scarcely have considered the material available to her. In _Pelleas et Melisande_, _Louise_, and _Salome_ she has given much to the best the contemporary lyric stage has to offer. On other occasions she has succeeded in transfiguring indifferent material with her genius. _Monna Vanna_ is not a great opera, but she makes it seem so. But where is there anything better? Can she turn to Puccini, whose later operas seem bereft of merit, to Mascagni, to Strauss, to any other of the living opera composers?

Ravel's one opera is not particularly suited to her, but why, I might ask, does not Ravel write something for her? Why not Strawinsky? Why not Leo Ornstein? Why not John Carpenter? The talented composer of _The Birthday of the Infanta_ might very well write an opera, in which her genius for vocal experimentation might have still further play.

In the meantime I can make one or two suggestions. I have already begged for Isolde and Isolde I think we shall get in time. But has it occurred to any one that the Queen in _The Golden Cockerel_ is a part absolutely suited to the Garden genius? Not, of course, _The Golden Cockerel_ as at present performed, with a double cast of singers and pantomimists but as an opera, in the form in which Rimsky-Korsakow conceived it. And I hope some day that she will attempt Gluck's _Armide_, perhaps one of the Iphigenies, and Donna Anna. Why not? Of all living singers Miss Garden is the only one who could give us the complete fulfilment of Mozart's tragic heroine. Oscar Hammerstein, whose vision was acute, once considered a performance of _Don Giovanni_ with Maurice Renaud in the title part, Luisa Tetrazzini as Zerlina, Lina Cavalieri as Elvira, and Mary Garden as Anna. It was never given. But I hope at the next revival of the work at the Opera-Comique Miss Garden will undertake the part, and I see no reason why the opera should not be added to the already extensive repertoire of the Chicago Opera Company.

Her stride, her lithe carriage, her plastic use of her arms and her body, give Mary Garden a considerable advantage over a sculptor, who can in the course of a lifetime only capture perhaps ten perfect examples of arrested motion, while in any one performance she makes her body a hundred different works of art. Of course, some of us, fascinated by the mere beauty of the Garden line, more slender now than it was even in her most youthful past, delighted with her irreproachable taste in dress, would rest content to watch her walk across the scene or form exquisite pictures in any part, in any opera. But unless one of the best of the moderns writes a great role for her, it would be a great satisfaction to see her in one of the noble classic parts of the past, and that satisfaction, I hope, will be vouchsafed us.

_March 18, 1920._

_New York._

On the following pages you will find descriptions of two other interesting books by Mr. Van Vechten.

THE MERRY-GO-ROUND

(12mo., 343 pages, $2.00 _net._)

CONTENTS: In defence of bad taste; Music and supermusic; Edgar Saltus; The new art of the singer; Au bal musette; Music and cooking; An interrupted conversation; The authoritative work on American music; Old days and new; Two young American playwrights; De senectute cantorum; The Land of Joy; The new Isadora; Margaret Anglin produces As You Like It; The modern composers at a glance.

"Carl Van Vechten has the jauntiest pen that ever graced the ear of a literary gentleman. He uses it as D'Artagnan used his sword, with sheer joy in the wielding of it, a sharp accuracy of aim, and a fine musketeering courage back of it. His pen is a pen of the world, a cosmopolitan pen which is at home in the marts of Irving Berlin, as well as in the rarefied heights of Igor Strawinsky. It knows how to turn a phrase or a reputation. In The Merry-Go-Round his pen has the time of its life. So will you when you flip a ride on the whirligig."--Fanny Butcher in _The Chicago Tribune_.

ALFRED A. KNOPF, PUBLISHER, NEW YORK

IN THE GARRET

(12mo., 347 pages, $2.00 _net._)

CONTENTS: Variations on a theme by Havelock Ellis; A note on Philip Thicknesse; The folk-songs of Iowa; Isaac Albeniz; The holy jumpers; On the relative difficulties of depicting heaven and hell in music; Sir Arthur Sullivan; On the rewriting of masterpieces; Oscar Hammerstein; La Tigresse; Mimi Aguglia as Salome; Farfariello; The Negro Theatre; The Yiddish Theatre; The Spanish Theatre.

"When he surveys the American scene we go all the way with Mr. Van Vechten. He celebrates his attachment to New York as ecstatically as Charles Lamb's his to London, in a chapter called La Tigresse. This is the best thing in the book. And Mr. Thomas Burke, in England, alone has caught this peculiar gusto."--_The London Times._

ALFRED A. KNOPF, PUBLISHER, NEW YORK

FOOTNOTES:

[A] Madame Fremstad has appeared in concert in New York but not in opera.

[B] The fault is really typical of that school of criticism which is always comparing, instead of searching out an artist's intention and judging whether or not he has realized it.

[C] Maurice Maeterlinck broke a promise to Georgette Leblanc of seventeen years' standing to witness a performance of Debussy's lyric drama on January 27, 1920, when, with the new Madame Maeterlinck, he sat in a box, remaining till the final curtain, at the Lexington Theatre in New York. After the fourth act, responding to Miss Garden's urge and the applause of the audience, he rose to bow.

Typographical error note of transcriber of this etext:

choregraphy has not been corrected

overwhemingly=>overwhelmingly