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Reviews — The New York Times
From the New York Times - April 21, 1913
MASSENET’S ’GHOST’
SEEN AT REHEARSALS
Singers and Stage Hands of the
Paris Gaiete-Lyrique Swear
They Behold an Apparition
ACTS AS IF LEADING OPERA
Outsiders Unable to See Anything
on Stage where composer’s Last
Work is Being Made Ready.
PARIS, April 20. - What is regarded by the Paris artistic world as the chief musical event of the season, the première of “Panurge,” the last work of Massenet, scheduled to be given on Tuesday at the municipal Opera House, the Gaiété-Lyrique, has taken on additional interest because of the assertions of singers and stage hands that the stage is haunted at every rehearsal by the ghost of the composer.
The extraordinary affair has been kept secret for a fortnight, but just leaked out, with the result that the Gaiété has been besieged by musicians, opera lovers, and friends of Massenet, eager for details of his alleged appearance.
“I first noticed the apparition at the second rehearsal,” said the baritone, M. Marcoux, to THE NEW YORK TIMES correspondent. “It appeared at the end of the second act at the right-hand corner of the stage. At first I thought it was a hallucination on my part, but, try as I might, I could not keep my eyes from the figure, which I could see distinctly, clad in the familiar gray frock coat, beat time with its hands and shake its head in approval or disapproval. I said nothing, for fear of being ridiculed, and as the ghost or whatever it might be, did not appear again that day, I took a dose of bromide to steady my nerves.
”Next day Mlle. Lucy Arbell, who has the principal rôle, clutched my arm suddenly during the duet in the second act and whispered, in a terrified voice, ‘Look! Look!’ There, in the same place, stood the strange figure, going through the motions of conducting an orchestra. I must confess our voices sounded shaky as we continued singing.
“During the interval several stage hands approached the stage manager and told him that they had seen the ghost of Massenet.
“At every rehearsal we saw the apparition, always in the same spot, but not always in the same act.
“The strange thing about it is that those not connected with the theatre are unable to see the ghost, even at the very time when it appears plainest to us. M. Isola, the Director, had a camera placed on the stage one day with an operator standing by and ready, but although he snapped at the exact moment when four of us saw the figure plainly, the negative when developed showed a blank.
“I cannot explain the mystery. I could have doubted my own eyes, but there is the testimony of others.”
“I wish I were a spiritualist to explain the apparition,” said M. Isola. “The history of the Gaiété-Lyrique, dating back for centuries, contains many extraordinary incidents, including ghosts. Some of the old employees of the theatre are quite ready to accept the theory that the theatre is haunted by still another uncanny visitor. Personally, I haven’t any theory whatever, but at one time I feared I would be unable to continue the rehearsals, everybody was so absorbed in the extraordinary phenomenon.”
Marcel Simond, General Secretary of the theatre, was another witness of the strange manifestations. He said that at first the women members of the company were tremendously impressed and hysterical and the tenors and basses were as nervous as schoolgirls, while the stage hands refused to go near the haunted corner, but in the course of a few days they appeared to accustom themselves to the strange apparition and the work is now going on as usual.
“At the beginning,” he continued, “I was inclined to believe that it was a practical joke and started an investigation, all to no result. Some one advanced the theory that an illusionist was amusing himself by throwing the singers into consternation. I had every nook and corner looked into and kept watch on everybody in the theatre. The result was negative. The ghost is still with us.”
The correspondent of THE NEW YORK TIMES spent this afternoon on the stage of the theatre, but, although M. Marcoux and others pointed to an alleged spectre, the correspondent was unable to see the slightest trace of it.
Last updated December 30, 2006