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Reviews — The New York Times
From the New York Times - November 9, 1909
OPERA SEASON OPENS
AT THE MANHATTAN
First Production in America of
Jules Massenet’s Opera
of “Herodiade.”
EXCELLENT PERFORMANCE
Unskilled Libretto Presenting Story of
Salome Ineffectively - Cavalieri, Ger-
ville-Reache, and Dalmores in Cast.
Salome Mlle. Lina Cavalieri Herodias Mlle. Gerville-Reache Slave Mlle. Carew John M. Charles Dalmores Herod M. Maurice Renaud Vitellius M. Crabbe Phanuel M. Vallier High Priest M. Nicolay A Voice M. Venturini Conductor - Mr. Henriques de la Fuente.Mr. Hammerstein opened the Winter season of opera in New York at his Manhattan Opera House last evening with an opera new to this city and to America, Massenet’s “Herodiade.” There was, of course, all the interest and excitement of an opening night at the opera; a large audience, brilliant, animated, eagerly curious about the new work; a performance in many ways excellent, bringing back some of the artists associated with some of the most successful efforts of the opera house, and introducing others who promise good service in the season now begun; a brilliant stage setting, the handsomest that Mr. Hammerstein has presented, and music possessing many of the characteristics that have made Massenet popular here in recent years.
In opening his season with a new opera Mr. Hammerstein once more recurs to the policy that he has set in motion at his Opera House and that has wrought a considerable change in the habits and point of view of New York operagoers - that of piquing the public curiosity as to new operas and of making a potent attraction of novelty in and of itself. Time was, and not so long ago, when the opposite policy meant success. “Herodiade” also has the added interest of having for its real heroine Salome, a personage about whom this public has been considerably stirred up in the last season or two.
The performance of “Herodiade” last evening was received with many evidences of pleasure, and in its most effective passages, especially in the gorgeous and sonorous finales of the second, third, and fourth acts there was something to feed the appetite of the eye and the ear for the spectacular in sight and sound. There are also many sweet and mellifluous airs and concerted passages in Massenet’s well-known lyric vein. There is ingenious and effective scoring for the orchestra, and there is the trace of the hand skilled in the manipulation of music from the theatrical point of view, for the purposes of operatic effect - even though “Herodiade” is only the second of that long tale of lyric dramas in the larger form that Massenet has so industriously produced.
The book of “Herodiade” is strangely and unskillfully constructed. It has little to do with the story of Herod’s wife as it is told by the Evangelists; but the authors have diverged in a different direction from Oscar Wilde, whose grisly and vivid presentation of the theme has been set by Strauss. It may be said, in fact, that they have wandered rather helplessly and have succeeded in evolving only a theatrical scene that is full of the weaknesses and commonplace absurdities of the traditional operatic libretto. Salome’s relationship to her mother, Herod’s wife, is not disclosed definitely till the very end. Herodias complains that she is without her child, whom she had to abandon to marry Herod, and the fact that he is now “all the family she has” she adduces as a sufficient reason for him to give her the head of John the Baptist, as a punishment for insulting her.
Salome, we soon learn, does not know who here mother is; she has come to Jerusalem to look for her. Yet she is shocked and horrified when she finds out that her stepfather and uncle is making desperate love to her. Salome, if she cannot find her mother, gains much consolation in finding the Prophet, with whom she is chastely in love, and whom she very frankly , but with perfect propriety, tells of it at every opportunity. John will not at first listen to her, because his lot leads him elsewhere, and he does not wish her to go on his stony road. He suggests that, instead she should love him “as one loves in a dream, in the mystical ardor of the ideal,” and they leave the matter unsettled at the end of the first act. In this act the most notable portion from a musical point of view is the air “Il est bon, il est doux,” that has long been familiar on the concert stage. The scene of Herodias’s complaint of John to Herod is expressed violently but uncharacteristically in the music and John’s taunt, which is to call her “Jezebel” several times, fails to thrill.
Herod, in the next act, is lovesick for Salome, lying on his couch and consoled by his slaves and Babylonian dancers in Oriental strains. There is necessity for an aria here, and he sings “Vision Fugitive” to supply it, another contribution of this opera to the repertory of the concert stage. He is called to other thoughts by the appearance of Phanuel, the Chaldaean, who is his agent in stirring up revolt against the Romans; the allies appear to acclaim Herod and cry death to the Romans. Just then Vitellius, the Roman pro consul, and his guards arrive, and there is a sudden cessation of this valorous shouting. This effect is wrought in the good old Meyerbeerian manner, suggestive at times, too, of “Aďda” and the Gate of Thebes, all the spaces of the stage filled with surging crowds singing sonorous choruses, magnificently armored Roman soldiers, trumpeters blowing fanfares on the great, bow-shaped Roman trumpets. In the midst of all this appear John and Salome, singing hosannahs, together with his following of Canaanites.
In the next act there is a scene between Phanuel and Herodias that adds very little to the dramatic movement of the piece, though it has declamatory strength - Phanuel by request interpreting the message of the stars about her future. The main portion of the act shows a part of the temple in front of the Holy of Holies. Salome is still bewailing John before the bars of his prison, when Herod appears, of course, well prepared with a love song imploring her favor. She repulses him with horror, telling him that she loves John - a fatal mistake, for Herod was intending to release him in order to further his plans against the Romans.
This lovemaking is interrupted by the onset of another grand and dazzling ensemble, again, suggestive of “Aďda” and “Le Prophete,” the crowd of Jews entering the Temple, thronging before the Holy of Holies, The Veil of the Sanctuary is raised. A religious dance is performed, and Vitellius, again noisily trumpeted by his soldiers, returns. John is brought out and is interrogated; Herod is about to set him free if he will save his projects, but he refuses, and the appearance of Salome at this moment, asking to share his fate, decides the jealous Tetrarch to pronounce the sentence of death. John is in his prison in the next act, where he is surprised by the entrance of Salome; more mellifluous love-hymning. At last John weakens. Knowing that his end is at hand, he yields himself to his love for Salome, and the duet ends as a passionate love song.
In the great hall of the palace the Roman soldiers are assembled with the rulers. There is dancing - Salome bursts in to plead for John’s life. He kneels at Herodias’s feet, who recognizes her as her daughter - but the executioner comes in, bearing, not the Baptist’s head, but a bloody sword that tells the story. Salome, in an excess of rage, throws herself with a dagger upon Herodias, who cries to her that she is her mother, whereupon Salome kills herself.
And in this picture we are able to see the figure of John the Baptist, the swarm of locusts, the scourge of Herodias, the stern and impassive prophet of a new order, and of Salome, the cold and serpentine daughter of Herodias, who danced for Herod’s pleasure and, “bring before instructed of her mother,” demanded John the Baptist’s head in a charger! As was pleasantly remarked after the Brussels performance of this opera, Salome is the cause of his losing his head instead of having it cut off. It is obvious how conventional the libretto is and how powerless the librettists were to make anything out of the incident in New Testament history without turning it into an operatic love story.
Massenet’s music is very much Massenet. There are elegant and seizing melodies in it; well written cantilenas for the solo voice, ballet music that has charm and allurement. But there is too much elegance, too much dripping syrup. Herodiade demands John’s head in a cantabile air as smooth as that in which Salome celebrates his goodness and sweetness. The duets between John and Salome in the first act please the ear; that in the fourth act almost equally does so. Herod’s reflections as to the fugitive vision of Salome are expressed in phrases of caressing melody. But the trouble with all this music is that there is next to no characterization in it. One of the personages of the drama is much like the others, so far as is denoted by the music - and the music is one of the potent means by which the lyrical dramatist is enabled to give color, life, and living traits to his personages, when he can.
The ensembles are built up with a certainty of effect, so far as sonority is concerned; but they are more sonorous than distinguished in their specifically musical quality. The scene in the temple is much above the rest of the music of this sort; the religious march, the intoning of the Hebrew chant, “Schemah Israel,” the religious dances, and other passages here, are of real individuality. Much of Massenet’s orchestration is of more than ordinary beauty, delicately colored and traced with a hand certain of its effects. In this, as in some other of his operas, there are vestiges of an attempt to suggest certain of the characters by “leading motives.” Thus there is a mounting phrase that recurs frequently in relation to John; and there are a few others. But they are used only in a tentative manner, with insistent repetition rather than development, and the composer has gained very little dramatic efficiency of his half-hearted experiment.
There is, notwithstanding her faults and weaknesses that are obvious to an intelligent scrutiny of “Herodiade,” enough in the opera to make it appeal to the public taste. The sustained melodies, the suggestion of mystic poesy and amorous reverie which Massenet seldom dispenses with, all have their appeal, and the imposing finales make a stunning effect. There was much applause last evening.
The production served to introduce to New York one of Mr. Hammerstein’s new conductors, Mr. de la Fuente. he showed himself to be a man of real power and authority, and especially a musician of fine feeling and poetic gifts. Many things that he did last evening showed a refined and subtle taste and finesse in orchestral coloring and expression.
Mme. Cavalieri, who sang the part of Salome, has gained something in the beauty and quality of her voice since she sang here last, and perhaps even something in her skill in vocalization. In both respects there was evidence of an intelligent effort at improvement. She has still much to learn as to acting; her bodily contortions expressive of Salome’s trails, griefs, longings, supplications, were not only excessive but also awkward. There was, indeed, room to suspect that she was trying to model her impersonation on the Salome of Miss Garden - an attempt that the total difference in the two characters foredoomed to failure, if nothing else did.
Mr. Dalmores sang superbly as John the Baptist and made all there was to be made of the part in distinctive characterization; but he had not the appearance of the prophet who came from the desert, with a leather girdle about his loins, and who lived on locusts and wild honey. As Herod Mr. Renaud had little to give much scope for his accomplished dramatic skill, and even he could not make the part seem vivid. Miss Greville-Reache was below her own standard as to voice in the part of Herodias, but acted it effectively. Mr. Crabbe was the Roman proconsul Vitellius. there was a newcomer in the part of Phanuel, Mr. Vallier, whose bass voice made an agreeable impression and who gave promise of being a valuable addition to the company. The chorus singing was vigorous and well controlled, and the management of the choral masses on the stage very efficient.
After the third act Mr. Hammerstein was dragged before the curtain to make his usual first-night speech. He said:
“I do not know why I should be made to speak. I will do the best I can this season for the love of the cause, the love of music, and the love of you people for me. I thank you.”
The final curtain fell a little before midnight.
Last updated December 29, 2006