Reviews — The New York Times

From the New York Times - November 1, 1895

MASSENET’S NAVARRAISE A SKETCH
Calve’s Performance, Merely as a Player,
Could Not be Surpassed by Either
Sarah Bernhardt or Duse.

     Paris, Oct 7. - I have a friend who tells me constantly of the past glory of a country house “built around a grand piano.” Such is the case of the “Navarraise” of M. Massenet - the grand piano is Emma Calvé. I might say that she is the orchestra, soul and body; for the mere episode taken from a novel of M. Claretie is only a Neuville picture. The French would have liked the picture better were it signed Detaille. This and its foreign success, and the curious idea that the thought and its manifestation date from the “Cavalleria,” can explain a portion of the reasoning of the rather lukewarm criticisms.
     Without Calvé it would be difficult to predict any future for the musical score. But this would not be necessary. It was written, created, thought out, for her; just as “Carmen” would have been had Bizet known Calvé. I am not making comparison between the scores. “Carmen” is an opera; the “Navarraise” is a sketch. There is little for a voice to hang on to. A love duet, full of passion and tenderness, with delicious notes, for Calvé to breathe and caress. There is a Massenet nocturne dividing the two short acts when the curtain does not fall, and the Spanish troops sleep with picturesque immobility, and the snow-clad mountains of the background gild their outlines with the rising sun; the little village market place of Bilbao awakening once more to the thunder of the cannon and the sharp crack of the Carlist guns. The tenor enjoys a cantabile, which M. Jerome made the most of, and to his advantage. The soldier chorus joins in a Spanish jota and fandango mixed up, and there is little else but noise, drums, bell ringing, sharpshooting, and a horribly fascinating nightmare vision evoked by the marvelous tragedienne, Calvé.
     The short incident of the Carlist war taken - with much change - from M. Claretie’s novel “La Cigarette,” is the love story and death of Anita, the Navarraise, and Araquil, her lover, Sergeant in a Biscaye regiment. He wishes to wed Anita, but his father forbids the marriage because the girl has no money. She must bring two thousand duros. This she does, becoming a spy and killing the Carlist chief, Zuccaraga, receiving for this act the money from Gen. Garrido. The latter did not believe the girl would commit the deed, and to get rid of her, he promised. When the act is accomplished, he throws down the bank notes, scarcely glancing at the half-crazed Navarraise. Araquil is wounded shortly afterward and dies, cursing Anita for her self-sacrifice and useless devotion. The Navarraise gathers to her arms the beloved form of Araquil, and when she realizes her loss, with one prolonged hysterical laugh of utter desolation, she falls a corpse over the body of her lover.
     There is not much opera comique about it, and there is no let-up to the horror. It is grandly beautiful, nevertheless, and if Massenet is always and ever purely artificial, he had the good sense here not to embroider the gloomy background with musical numbers utterly unsuited to the situation. The operatic scene or vision lasts exactly forty-five minutes. The breathless audience - a French one, mark - watched every motion, not daring to applaud, fearing to lose a note, gunshot, or gesture. At the close rapturous enthusiasm told how the house rose to the work of satisfaction. As long as Calvé is there it will be all right; but when she sails, the real tug of the Carlist war will begin. No one can replace her. The astonishing freshness of her voice picks out note after note, and always with assured measure and effect. This charm is a lingering one, when you think it all over afterward, and the wonderment increases. How can she do it? For there is no repose in the heartbeating, the anxiety. The struggle of the girl’s life begins with the curtain rising. She stands with her back to the audience, arms raised. Her black robe of wool and the silken shawl - arranged like the yellow one of Carmen - out-line a tall figure of desolation. Her black hair is massed up high behind, falling low down over the ears, her face is beautiful, but full of agony and distress. The noise of the battle is fearful, and as the soldiers bear in the wounded, Anita watches every face with alternate hope and disappointment.
     Her lover is not there, and the girl snatches from her bosom the little silver image of the Virgin and begins, half singing, half murmuring, the monotony of her prayer. She turns again; Araquil holds her in his arms and the world is forgotten. The tenor, Jerome, is a funny, short man, with a lovely voice, but the scene is made so real by Calvé that no defects are noticed. Araquil is a weak lover, for when his father speaks he is silent, but he is loyal at heart, for when promoted to higher rank his first glance is for the Navarraise, who, more than ever, determines to have the money, even if all the laws of the earth were to be transgressed. She is a grand bold, lawless creature this Anita, loving and hating like a panther, an untutored child of nature, with all a woman’s tenderness and no restraining instinct. She kills the Carlist chief, because his death brings the price of her happiness; she did not even hate him, and when she comes back to claim her money, she wants it that minute, and describes her crime unconsciously, it would seem. Only the distant sound of the death knell seems to make her tremble. By wise gradation Calvé plainly proves that the child reasoning of her peasant intellect is giving way. Many trifling hints, the change of expression, her by play - all this never interfering with the complete mastery of both voice and vocal art - her tired, weary despair, suddenly dashing into some determined gesture of violence, give notice of the agony of mind struggle. There is nothing overdrawn, if there is a sentiment of relief when the tragedy is over. She cannot realize the curse of her lover - for what could he ever do to meet like change on her part? She understands nothing but that her sin, instead of making her happy and all Araquil’s own, has rather placed the world against her. If he will not let her caress his bleeding head it is because her touch is heavy. If he scorns her prayerful appeals, it is because he is sick and weak, and does not understand her.
     When the father rests the inanimate body of his son on the ground, Anita fairly grabs the head of her lover, trying to force open the half-closed eyes, to gather heat from the dead lips; and when, at last, the reality crushes all hope, again comes that cruel, high laugh, sweet and clear, melodious, yet terrible, and never to be forgotten, as Calvé, with open mouth, staring beautiful eyes, and that awful expression of the sudden realization of something new, unknown, and beyond, falls like a block, a mass, rolling over on the feet of her Araquil. Great artists, like Bernhardt and Duse, have reached such a climax, never surpassing it, I imagine, but no singer can ever create such emotion and unison withal, the sweet reliable songstress. As to the Spanish picture of Massenet, one must return to the Moorish wars - and the world has grown.

Last updated December 30, 2006