Musical Memories | Page 9

OF AN OPéRA-COMIQUE
Young musicians often complain, and not without reason, of the difficulties of their careers. It may, perhaps, be useful to remind them that their elders have not always had beds of roses, and that too often they have had to breast both wind and sea after spending their best years in port, unable to make a start. These obstacles frequently are the result of the worst sort of malignity, when it is for the best interest of everyone--both of the theatres which rebuff them, and the public which ignores them--that they be permitted to set out under full sail.
In 1864 one of the most brilliant of the reviews had the following comments to make on this subject:
Our real duty--and it is a true kindness--is not to encourage them (beginners) but to discourage them. In art a vocation is everything, and a vocation needs no one, for God aids. What use is it to encourage them and their efforts when the public obstinately refuses to pay any attention to them? If an act is ordered from one of them, it fails to go. Two or three years later the same thing is tried again with the same result. No theatre, even if it were four times as heavily subsidized as the Théatre-Lyrique, could continue to exist on such resources. So the result is that they turn to accredited talent and call on such men from outside as Gounod, Felicien David and Victor Massé. The younger composers at once shout treason and scandal. Then, they select masterpieces by Mozart and Weber and there are the same outcries and recriminations. In the final analysis where are these young composers of genius? Who are they and what are their names? Let them go to the orchestra and hear Le Nozze di Figaro, _Obéron_, Freischutz and _Orphée_ ... we are doing something for them by placing such models before them.
The young composers who were thus politely invited to be seated included, among others, Bizet, Delibes, Massenet, and the writer of these lines. Massenet and I would have been satisfied with writing a ballet for the Opéra. He proposed the Rat Catcher from an old German tale, while I proposed _Une nuit de Cléopatra_ on the text of Théophile Gautier. They refused us the honor, and, when they consented to order a ballet from Delibes, they did not dare to trust him with the whole work. They let him do only one act and the other was given to a Hungarian composer. As the experiment succeeded, they allowed Delibes to write, without assistance, his marvellous _Coppélia_. But Delibes had the legitimate ambition of writing a grand opera. He never reached so far.
[Illustration: The Paris Opéra]
Bizet and I were great friends and we told each other all our troubles. "You're less unfortunate than I am," he used to tell me. "You can do something besides things for the stage. I can't. That's my only resource."
When Bizet put on the delightful _Pêcheurs de Perles_--he was helped by powerful influences--there was a general outcry and an outbreak of abuse. The Devil himself straight from Hell would not have received a worse reception. Later on, as we know, Carmen was received in the same way.
I was, indeed, able to do something beside work for the stage, and it was just that which closed the stage to me. I was a writer of symphonies, an organist and a pianist, so how could I be capable of writing an opera! The qualities which go to make a pianist were in a particularly bad light in the greenroom. Bizet played the piano admirably, but he never dared to play in public for fear of making his position worse.
I suggested to Carvalho that I write a Macbeth for Madame Viardot. Naturally enough he preferred to put on Verdi's Macbeth. It was an utter failure and cost him thirty thousand francs.
They tried to interest a certain princess, a patron of the arts, in my behalf. "What," she replied, "isn't he satisfied with his position? He plays the organ at the Madeleine and the piano at my house. Isn't that enough for him?"
But that wasn't enough for me, and to overcome the obstacles, I caused a scandal. At the age of twenty-eight I competed for the Prix de Rome! They did not give it to me on the ground that I didn't need it, but the day after the award, Auber, who was very fond of me, asked Carvalho for a libretto for me. Carvalho gave me _Le Timbre d'Argent_, which he didn't know what to do with as several musicians had refused to touch it. There were good reasons for this, for, despite an excellent foundation for the music, the libretto had serious faults. I demanded that Barbier and Carré, the authors, should