CHAPTER XXII

WORK! ALWAYS WORK!

At the beginning of the preceding winter, Henri Cain proposed to Henri Heugel a text for an opera based on Alphonse Daudet's famous romance _Sapho_. He went to Heugel in order that I might the more certainly accept it, for he knew the influence my publisher had with me.

I had gone to the mountains with a light heart. There was to be no directing the Conservatoire and no more classes; I felt twenty years younger. I wrote _Sapho_ with an enthusiasm I had rarely felt up to that time.

We lived in a villa, and I felt far removed from everything, the noise, the tumult, the incessant movement and feverish activity of the city. We went for walks and excursions through the beautiful country which has been praised so much for the variety of its scenery, but which was still too much unknown. The only accompaniment of our thoughts was the murmur of the waters which flowed along the roadside; their freshness rose up to us, and often it was from a bubbling spring which broke the quiet of luxuriant nature. Eagles, too, came down from their steep rocks, "Thunder's abode," as Lamartine said, and surprised us by their bold flights as they made the air echo with their shrill, piercing cries.

Even while I journeyed, my mind was working and on my return the pages accumulated.

I became enamored with this work and I rejoiced in advance at letting Alphonse Daudet hear it, for he was a very dear friend whom I had known when we were both young.

If I insist somewhat of speaking of that time, it is because four works above all others in my long career gave me such joy in the doing that I freely describe it as exquisite: _Marie Magdeleine_, _Werther_, _Sapho_, and _Therese_.

At the beginning of September of that year an amusing incident happened. The Emperor of Russia came to Paris. The entire population--this is no exaggeration--was out of doors to see the procession pass through the avenues and boulevards. The people drawn by curiosity had come from everywhere; the estimate of a million people does not seem exaggerated.

We did what everyone else did, and our servants went at the same time; our apartment was empty. We were at the house of friends at a window overlooking the Parc Monceau. The procession had scarcely passed when we were suddenly seized with anxiety at the idea that the time was particularly propitious for burglarizing deserted apartments and we rushed home.

When we reached our threshold whispers were coming from inside, which put us in a lively flutter. We knew our servants were out. It had happened! Burglars had broken in!

We were shocked at the idea, but we went in ... and saw in the salon Emma Calve and Henri Cain who were waiting for us and talking together in the meantime. We were struck in a heap. Tableau! We all burst out laughing at this curious adventure. Our servants had come back before we had, and naturally opened the door for our friendly callers who had so thoroughly frightened us for a moment. Oh power of imagination, how manifold are thy fantastic creations!

* * * * *

Carvalho had already prepared the model of the scenery and the costumes for _Cendrillon_, when he learned that Emma Calve was in Paris and put on _Sapho_. In addition to the admirable protagonist of _La Navarraise_ in London and in Paris, our interpreters were the charming artiste Mlle. Julia Guiraudon (later the wife of my collaborator Henri Cain) and M. Lepreste who has since died.

I have spoken of the extreme joy I experienced in writing _Sapho_, an opera in five acts. Henri Cain and dear Arthur Bernede had ably contrived the libretto.

Never before had the rehearsals of a work seemed more enrapturing. The task was both easy and agreeable with such excellent artists.

While the rehearsals were going on so well, my wife and I went to dine one evening at Alphonse Daudet's. He was very fond of us. The first proofs had been laid on the piano. I can still see Daudet seated on a cushion and almost brushing the keyboard with his handsome head so delightfully framed in his beautiful thick hair. It seemed to me that he was deeply moved. The vagueness of his short sightedness made his eyes still more admirable. His soul with all its pure, tender poetry spoke through them.

It would be difficult to experience again such moments as my wife and I knew then.

As they were about to begin the first rehearsals of _Sapho_, Danbe, who had been my friend since childhood, told the musicians in the orchestra what an emotional work they were to play.

Finally, the first performance came on November 27, 1897.

The evening must have been very fine, for the next day the first mail brought me the following note:

_My dear Massenet:_

I am happy at your great success. With Massenet and Bizet, _non omnis moriar_.

Tenderly yours, ALPHONSE DAUDET.

I learned that my beloved friend and famous collaborator had been present at the first performance, at the back of a box, although he had stopped going out save on rare occasions.

His appearance at the performance touched me all the more.

One evening I decided to go to the playhouse, in the wings, and I was shocked at Carvalho's appearance. He was always so alert and carried himself so well, but now he was bent and his eyes were bloodshot behind his blue glasses. Nevertheless his good humor and gentleness toward me were the same as ever.

His condition could but cause me anxiety.

How true my sad presentiments were!

My poor director was to die on the third day.

Almost at the same time I learned that Daudet, whose life had been so admirably rounded out, had heard his last hour strike on the clock of time. Oh mysterious, implacable Timepiece! I felt one of its sharpest strokes.

Carvalho's funeral was followed by a considerable crowd. His son burst into sobs behind his funeral car and could scarcely see. Everything in that sad, impressive procession was painful and heartrending.

Daudet's obsequies were celebrated with great pomp at Sainte Clotilde. _La Solitude_ from _Sapho_ (the entr'acte from the fifth act) was played during the service after the chanting of the _Dies Irae_.

I was obliged to make my way almost by main force through the great crowd to get into the church. It was like a hungry, eager reflection of that long line of admirers and friends he had during his lifetime.

As I sprinkled holy water on the casket, I recalled my last visit to the Rue de Bellechasse where Daudet lived. I had gone to give him news of the theater and carried him sprays of eucalyptus, one of the trees of the South he adored. I knew what intense pleasure that would give him.

* * * * *

Meanwhile _Sapho_ went on its way. I went to Saint Raphael, the country where Carvalho had liked to live.

I relied on an apartment which I had engaged in advance, but the landlord told me that he had let it to two ladies who seemed very busy. I started to hunt another lodging when I was called back. I learned that the two who had taken my rooms were Emma Calve and one of her friends. The two ladies doubtless heard my name mentioned and changed their itinerary. However, their presence in that place so far from Paris showed me that our _Sapho_ had necessarily suspended her run of performances.

What whims will not one pardon in such an artiste?

I learned that in two days everything was in order again at the theater in Paris. Would that I had been there to embrace our adorable fugitive!

Two weeks later I learned from the papers in Nice that Albert Carre had been made manager of the Opera-Comique. Until then the house had been temporarily under the direction of the Beaux-Arts.

Who would have thought that it would have been our new manager who would revive _Sapho_ considerably later with that beautiful artiste who became his wife. But it was she who incarnated the Sapho of Daudet with an unusually appealing interpretation.

Salignac, the tenor, had a considerable success in the role of Jean Gaussin.

At the revival Carre asked me to interweave a new act, the act of the Letters, and I carried out the idea with enthusiasm.

_Sapho_ was also sung by that unusual artiste Mme. Georgette Leblanc, later the wife of that great man of letters Maeterlinck.

Mme. Brejean-Silver also made this role an astonishingly lifelike figure.

How many other artists have sung this work!

The first opera put on under the new management was Reynaldo Hahn's _L'Ile de Reve_. He dedicated that exquisite score to me. That music is pervading for it was written by a real master. What a gift he has of wrapping us in warm caresses!

That was not the case with the music of some of our confreres. Reyer found it unbearable and made this image-raising remark about it:

"I just met Gretry's statue on the stairs; he had enough and fled."

That brings to mind another equally witty sally which du Locle made to Reyer the day after Berlioz's death,

"Well, my dear fellow, Berlioz has got ahead of you."

Du Locle could permit himself this inoffensive joke for he was Reyer's oldest friend.

I find this word from the author of _Louise_ whom I knew as a child in my classes at the Conservatoire and who always felt a family affection for me:

Midnight, New Year's Eve.

_Dear Master_:

Faithful remembrance from your affectionate on the last day which ends with _Sapho_ and the first hour of the year which will close with _Cendrillon_.

GUSTAVE CHARPENTIER.

_Cendrillon_ did not appear until May 24, 1899. These works presented one after another, at more than a year's interval however, brought me the following note from Gounod:

"A thousand congratulations, my dear friend, on your latest fine success. The devil! Well, you go at such a pace one can scarcely keep up with you."

As I have said, the score of _Cendrillon_, written on a pearl from that casket of jewels "Les Contes de Perrault," had been finished a long time. It had yielded its turn to _Sapho_ at the Opera-Comique. Our new director Albert Carre told me that he intended to give _Cendrillon_ at the first possible chance, but that was six months away.

I was staying at Aix-les-Bains in remembrance of my father who had lived there, and I was deep in work on _La Terre Promise_. The Bible furnished a text and I got out an oratorio of three acts. As I said, I was deep in the work when my wife and I were overcome by the terrible news of the fire at the Charity Bazaar. My dear daughter was a salesgirl.

We had to wait until evening before a telegram arrived and ended our intense alarm.

A curious coincidence which I did not learn until long afterwards was that the heroine (Lucy Arbell) of _Persephone_ and _Therese_, as well as the beautiful Dulcinee (in _Don Quichotte_) was also among the salesgirls. She was only twelve or thirteen at the time, but in the midst of the general panic she found an exit behind the Hotel du Palais and succeeded in saving her mother and several others. This showed rare decision and courage for a child.

Since I have spoken of _La Terre Promise_, I may add that I had an entirely unexpected "hearing." Eugene d'Harcourt, who was so well thought of as a musician and a critic, the greatly applauded composer of _Tasse_ which was put on at Monte Carlo, proposed to me that he direct a performance at the church of Sainte Eustache with an immense orchestra and chorus.

The second part was devoted to the taking of Jericho. A march--seven times interrupted by the resounding outbursts from seven great trumpets--ended with the collapse of the walls of that famous city which the Jews had to take and destroy. The resounding clamor of all the voices together was joined to the formidable thunder of the great organ of Saint Eustache.

With my wife I attended the final rehearsal in a large pulpit to which the venerable cure had done us the honor of inviting us.

That was the fifteenth of March, 1900.

* * * * *

I return to _Cendrillon_. Albert Carre put on this opera with a stage setting which was as novel as it was marvellous.

Julia Guiraudon was exquisite in the role of Cendrillon. Mme. Deschamps Jehin was astonishing as a singer and as a comedienne, pretty Mlle. Emelen was our Prince Charming and the great Fugere showed himself an indescribable artist in the role of Pandolphe. He sent me the news of "victory" which I received the next morning at Enghien-les-Bains, which with my wife I had chosen as a refuge near Paris from the dress rehearsal and the first performance.

More than sixty continuous performances, including matinees, followed the Premiere. The Isola brothers, managers of the Gaite, later gave a large number of performances, and a curious thing for so Parisian a work was that Italy gave _Cendrillon_ a fine reception. This lyric work was given at Rome thirty times--a rare number. The following cablegram came to me from America:

_Cendrillon hier, success pheno menal_.

The last word was too long and the sending office had cut it in two.

* * * * *

It was now 1900, the memorable time of the Great Exposition.

I had scarcely recovered from the fine emotion of _La Terre Promise_ at Saint Eustache than I fell seriously ill. They were then going on with the rehearsals of _Le Cid_ at the Opera which they intended to revive. The hundredth performance was reached in October of the same year.

All Paris was en fete. The capital, one of the most frequented places in the world, became even more and better than that: it was the world itself, for all people met there. All nations jostled one another; all tongues were heard and all costumes were set off against each other.

Though the Exposition sent its million of joyful notes skyward and could not fail to obtain a place of honor in history, at nightfall the immense crowd sought rest from the emotions of the day by swarming to the theaters which were everywhere open, and it invaded the magnificent palace which our dear great Charles Gamier had raised for the manifestations of Lyric Art and the religion of the Dance.

Gailhard had come to call on me in May when I was so ill and had made me promise to be present in his box at the hundredth performance which he more than hoped to give and which as a matter of fact took place in October. That day I yielded to his invitation.

Mlle. Lucienne Breval and Mm. Saleza and Frederic Delmas were applauded with delirious enthusiasm on the night of the hundredth performance. At the recall at the end of the third act, Gailhard, in spite of my resistance, pushed me to the front of his box....

It is easy to imagine what happened on the stage, in the Opera's superb orchestra, and in the audience packed to the roof.