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The Mentor, No. 47, Makers of Modern Opera




MAKERS OF MODERN OPERA

_By_ H. E. KREHBIEL

_Author and Music Critic_

[Illustration: WAGNER]

[Illustration: VERDI]

THE MENTOR

SERIAL No. 47

[Illustration]

DEPARTMENT OF FINE ARTS

    MENTOR GRAVURES

    VERDI · MASSENET · PUCCINI · STRAUSS · GOUNOD · HUMPERDINCK


The form of entertainment called opera had its origin a little more
than three centuries ago in an effort made by a company of scholars and
musical amateurs in Florence to rescue music from the artificiality
into which the composers, who were all churchmen, had forced it.

The Florentine group had convinced themselves by study that music
had been effectively linked with poetry and action in the Greek
stage-plays, and in striving to imitate these they created the art-form
which in time came to be called “opera”--though at first it was known
by names all more or less closely connected with the terms which the
composers of today use to describe their dramatic works,--lyric dramas,
musical dramas, and so forth. The new style quickly spread over Europe,
and inasmuch as Italy was the home of music, it retained for a time
the Italian language and the style of musical composition evolved
by its creators. Soon other nations, impelled by a desire to hear
the new lyric plays, began to translate the Italian books into their
own languages. This brought with it a recognition of the incongruity
between Italian music and the French, German, and English languages,
and the dramatic poets and musicians of these countries began to seek
more satisfactory idioms in which to express their ideals. Thus there
came into existence the three great schools of operatic composers whose
latterday representatives are here considered.

[Illustration: GAETANO DONIZETTI]

Two men mark the point of departure of the lyric drama of today from
the general style which characterized opera all the world over during
the first two centuries following its invention. They are Verdi
(vair-dee), the Italian, and Wagner (vahg´-ner), the German; and,
strangely enough, they were both born in 1813. The latter exercised an
influence which was universal, and Verdi fell under it.

[Illustration: GIOACHINO ROSSINI]


THE GLORY OF VERDI

But neither in precept nor in practice was the great Italian brought
to disavow the native genius of his people. That is the great glory of
Verdi. For decade after decade he kept pace with his German rival in
the march toward truthfulness and variety of expression in the lyric
drama; but never did he forget that the first, the elemental, appeal
which music makes is through melody. His conception of melody changed
as his artistic nature grew and ripened; but song, vocal melody, is as
dominant a factor in his first successful opera, “Nabuco,” performed
in 1842, as it is in “Falstaff,” which he gave to the world fifty-one
years later. Verdi’s music illustrates every step of progress which
Italian opera has taken, from the time when Rossini overcame the
taste formed by the last masters of the eighteenth century till the
advent of the impetuous champions of realism who disputed popularity
with him in the closing years of the nineteenth. His ideals when he
wrote “Oberto” in 1839 were those of his immediate predecessors,
Bellini (bel-lee´-nee) and Donizetti (don-nee-dzet´-tee); but his
voice was ruder,--so rude, indeed, as to lead Rossini (ros-see´-nee)
to describe him as a “musician with a helmet.” This rudeness was the
first expression of his desire for passionate and truthful expression,
a desire which at the height of his spontaneous creative powers reached
its finest flower in the final trio of “Il Trovatore” and final quartet
of “Rigoletto,” two examples of operatic writing which are as good in
their way as any that French or German opera has to show.

[Illustration: VERDI’S BIRTHPLACE AND HIS HOME]

It is no depreciation of the mature and perfect Verdi of “Otello”
and “Falstaff” to say that he reached the climax of his melodic
inventiveness in “Il Trovatore” (tro-vah-to´-re), “Traviata”
(trah-vee-ah´-tah), and “Rigoletto” (ree-go-let´-to), and that “Aïda”
(ah-ee´-dah), which is now his most universally admired work, is
such because it is a product of his combined melodic inspiration
and his marvelous judgment, skill, and taste, developed by study
and reflection. The greater charm which “Aïda” exerts now is due as
much to the advanced ideals of the public, which Wagner was largely
instrumental in creating, as to the refined and deepened sense of
dramatic propriety and beauty which Verdi discloses in its melody,
harmony, and instrumentation.

[Illustration: GIUSEPPE VERDI

From a painting by Millicovitz.]

[Illustration: LA SCALA OPERA HOUSE

Where many of Verdi’s works had their first performance.]

If his mind was more impetuous in the sixth decade of the last century
than in the tenth, it was of infinitely finer fiber at the last. When
his creative impulses came to wait upon reflection his music showed
much nicer adjustment of the poetical and musical elements than had
prevailed in his works thitherto, his harmonies became richer, the
blatancy of his orchestration disappeared, and his instruments became
more beautiful and truthful associates in expression with the singers
of the drama than they had ever been. When he reached “Falstaff” and
“Otello” the last bit of slag which had vulgarized his earlier works
was cast aside, and he stepped forth as full an exemplar of national
art as Wagner. In this last incarnation of the Italian spirit he
was helped by his collaborator Boito (bo-ee´-to), a poet as well
as a composer, and therefore a type of the true dramatic artist as
he existed in ancient Greece, and as Wagner conceived him when he
projected his Artwork of the Future. It was Verdi’s association with
Boito which was largely responsible for the fact that he became the
successor as he had been the predecessor of Mascagni (mahs-kahn´-yee).

After the death of Verdi nobody was readier to concede how much he
had meant to Italian art than Mascagni, who had been the first to
profit by the revolt against Verdi which came with the advent of
Wagner’s art in Italy. When “Lohengrin” (lo´-en-grin) made its way into
Florence and other places many pupils at the conservatories forsook
Verdi and followed Wagner. The effect may have been a good one. There
can scarcely be a doubt but that it was to turn his hotheaded young
countrymen back to the path which he knew to be the only correct one
for them that Verdi made his supreme effort in his last two works.
Under the new influence the young Italians had plunged headforemost
into realism of the crassest sort, and that they might follow a vulgar
bent for lurid expression they went to the Neapolitan slums for their
subjects.

[Illustration: PIETRO MASCAGNI

Composer of Cavalleria Rusticana.]

[Illustration: RUGGIERO LEONCAVALLO

Composer of Pagliacci.]


REALISM IN OPERA

[Illustration: Copyright, A. Dupont.

GIACOMO PUCCINI]

Some of the first fruits of the tendency toward realism are
plays whose plots can scarcely be narrated without moral and
even physical nausea. Compared with them Mascagni’s “Cavalleria
Rusticana” (kah-vahl-lay-ree´-ah rus-tee-kah´-nah) and Leoncavallo’s
(lay-own-kah-vahl´-o) “Pagliacci” (pahl-yah´-chee) are sweet and sane.
After the taste for hot blood had been measurably satiated and the
failure of scores of operas in which lurid orchestration, violent
shriekings, and rough harmonies had supplanted the old national ideal
there came back again the reign of dramatic melody, albeit in a new
form, as we have it in the works of Mascagni, Leoncavallo, and Puccini
(poot-chee´-nee).

Puccini’s operas are not entirely purged of artistic coarseness (as
witness “Tosca” and “The Girl of the Golden West”); but he has been
true to his Italian mission as a melodist, and has besides widened the
Italian canvas to receive the new element of local color, which is an
essential element in “Madame Butterfly,” the most extraordinary feature
of which is the degree in which such stubborn material as Japanese
melody has been made to yield up a charm which it does not at all
possess in its native state.

[Illustration: GIACOMO MEYERBEER

1791-1864

Composer of Les Huguenots.]

Fifty years ago, so far as Americans were concerned, French opera
was practically summed up in “Les Huguenots” and “Faust.” Meyerbeer
(my´-er-bare) was not a Frenchman, but the embodiment of merely
sensuous tendencies which belonged no more to one people than to
another, but which found its fittest expression in the glamour of
Parisian life. That Gounod (goo-no´) should have prevailed against
these tendencies is to the great credit of the man and the people from
whose loins he was sprung.


GOUNOD’S MUSIC

[Illustration: CHARLES FRANCOIS GOUNOD

1818-1893.]

Amiability was as marked a characteristic of Gounod’s music as it was
of his personality. He was graceful and winning, but not strong. He
was an emotionalist and a mystic. When his expression of passion ran
out into ecstasy he was at his best, and he could give expression
to an emotional state better than he could depict its development.
Essentially, therefore, he was a lyrical rather than a dramatic
composer. The two most perfect products of his genius both disclose the
climax of their beauty in scenes wherein ecstatic utterance asserts its
right. The gems in Gounod’s crown are the garden scene of “Faust” and
the balcony scene of “Roméo et Juliette.” Critics have placed a high
estimate upon the latter opera, and the lovers of sentimental church
music are fond of Gounod’s religious ballads (they are nothing else),
one or two of his masses, and the oratorio “The Redemption”; but to the
historian and the people of the future it is not likely that he will be
more than the composer of “Faust,” an opera which has a history that is
unique in operatic annals. It had been in the repertory of the Théâtre
Lyrique ten years when it was transferred to the Académie Nationale (or
Grand Opera, as it is popularly called) in 1869. When the transfer was
made it had already been performed four hundred times in Paris, and
before Gounod died in 1893 it had been performed nearly seven hundred
times more. No opera has had a record comparable with this, and there
is yet no evidence of loss of popularity in France, England, or America.

[Illustration: GOUNOD’S RESIDENCE IN PARIS]

As a musician Gounod may be described as an eclectic. Though his
genius was essentially lyrical, his models were the kings of dramatic
music,--Mozart, Weber (vay´-ber) and Wagner. To his love for the first
of these he raised a lovely monument in a book on “Don Giovanni”
(jo-vahn´-nee), which opera, he said, had influenced his whole life
like a revelation, and had remained from the beginning the embodiment
of dramatic perfection. He was one of the first of Wagner’s disciples
in France; but his lyrical trend did not permit him to follow the
German poet-composer to the logical outcome of his theories. Wagner’s
influence upon him stopped with “Lohengrin.” Thereafter, as Gounod
himself expressed it, he and Wagner traveled in diametrically opposite
directions, he seeking to grow more simple in his manner and more
desirous to achieve his ends by unaffected means and truthfulness of
feeling. At the end he was disposed to consider Wagner an aberration of
genius, a visionary haunted by the colossal, unable longer to estimate
aright his own intellectual powers, one who had lost the sense of
proportion.

So far as American people are concerned the operatic Gounod lives only
in “Faust” and “Roméo et Juliette.” There have been a few fitful
performances of “Mireille” (mee-ray´) and “Philémon et Baucis”
(Anglicized: fy-lee´-mon and baw´-sis); but all the other operas on his
list are a blank.

Very different is the case of the most popular of his successors,
Massenet (mahs-nay´); though it is more than likely that he too will
become a two-opera man. Massenet is the most popular of Gounod’s
successors, but not the greatest. A greater musical dramatist than he
was Bizet (bee-zay´); a greater musician and almost also as prolific
an opera writer was, or is, Saint-Saëns (sahng-song´). These two men
are represented in current opera lists by a single opera each; but of
Massenet’s works New Yorkers have heard no less than eleven,--“Werther”
(vare-ter) and “Manon” (mah-nong´), which are likely to endure, and
“Le Cid” (lay sid), “La Navarraise,” “Le jongleur de Notre-Dame”
(translated: The juggler of no´-tr dahm), “Thaïs” (tah-ees´),
“Hérodiade,” “Sapho” (sah-fo´), “Grisélidis,” and “Cendrillon”
(sang-dri-yong´) which are not likely to endure long.

[Illustration: AMBROISE THOMAS

Composer of Mignon.]

[Illustration: CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS

Composer of Samson and Delilah.]

[Illustration: LEO DELIBES

Composer of Lakmé.]


THE QUALITY OF MASSENET

So many operas ought to speak well of Massenet’s versatility, as it
surely does of his productiveness and industry; but the individuality
of this composer, which is incontestable, is an individuality of
style which leans heavily on sameness. The French wits who thought it
clever to dub him “Mademoiselle Wagner” twenty years ago never got
the opportunity to call him _Madame_ Wagner. He never grew up to that
estate. He did not grow older in thought or riper in creative ability;
but only more facile in expression.

[Illustration: JULES MASSENET. 1842-1913]

All of Massenet’s operas are essentially illustrative of the
sentimental spirit of French art. Whether Gounod attempts to write an
oratorio on so sublime a subject as the fall and redemption of man,
or Massenet tries to picture the touching faith and piety of an honest
mountebank, it is all one: the music is bound to run out into a strain
of religious balladry. But French music as represented by Gounod and
Massenet is ingenuous also in its persistent pursuit of beauty. The
northern ideal of strength before beauty, or truth before convention,
is not for the French, with their devotion to elegance of utterance,
and this fact has saved their lyric stage from the deplorable tendency
exhibited by the most notable, and probably greatest, German composer
since Wagner, namely, Richard Strauss (strous). Oscar Wilde, though
English, wrote his “Salomé” in French; but it had to wait for the
coming of a German for a musical glorification of its morbid attraction
toward dead bodies. Nor is Electra’s bestial ferocity, as pictured by
Hoffmansthal and Strauss, likely soon to find favor among the French.
Thus much must be said in favor of the artistic tendency of a people
who are still willing to hark back to a miracle-tale like that of “Our
Lady’s Juggler,” or to a legend like that of “The Patient Grizel,” for
operatic material.

[Illustration: MASSENET IN HIS STUDIO IN 1891]

Between Gounod and Massenet there stands at least one French dramatic
composer who accomplished much, but promised more in respect of the
development of the lyric drama. Bizet’s “Carmen” has won heartier
recognition in Germany than even Gounod’s “Faust.” Perhaps the
qualities which conquered this distinction were against it when it
first appeared in its native land. It may have been a feeling of its
approach to an extra-national ideal which made the French people, who
with all their enthusiasm for art are yet strongly predisposed in favor
of their own ideals, scent an objectionable Teutonism in “Carmen” and
give it only tardy recognition; perhaps also more than a touch of
jealous patriotism.

The Franco-Prussian War had a twofold effect upon music in France,--it
threw the people back upon an appreciation of some of their own
composers,--Berlioz (bear-lee-oze), for instance,--and also turned
them against not only the German, but also all of their own composers
in whom they thought they recognized German influences. The feeling
was not only strong to taboo Wagner, but everybody in whose music
they scented _Wagnerisme_. Their conception of the term was amusingly
vague. They did not recognize it in the freedom of form manifested in
“Faust”; but felt it in the truthful and forceful dramatic expression
which marked “Carmen,” and especially in Bizet’s use of the typical
phrase, the _Leitmotiv_. Wagnerism had to be purged by time before
Charpentier (shahr-pong-tee-ay) could triumph with “Louise,” and
Debussy (day-boos-see´) with “Pelléas et Mélisande” (pale-lay-ahs´
ay may-lee-sahnd´), works in which the Wagnerian system is much more
extensively and frankly used than in “Carmen.”

[Illustration: GEORGES BIZET--1838-1875

Composer of Carmen.]

[Illustration: GUSTAVE CHARPENTIER

Composer of Louise.]

[Illustration: CLAUDE DEBUSSY

Composer of Pelléas et Mélisande.]


THE INFLUENCE OF WAGNER

French, German, Italian, Russian, and English composers have for half a
century been under the domination of Wagner’s influence. In France and
Italy he put a new spirit into opera; but the composers did not attempt
to follow him slavishly in both practice and precept. In Germany, on
the other hand, many of his disciples made the attempt and failed. Two
only have created living works--Engelbert Humperdinck (hoom´-per-dingk)
and Richard Strauss. The more interesting phenomenon of the two is
presented by Humperdinck, who has not only applied Wagner’s theories
to the musical score of his masterpiece, “Hänsel und Gretel” (hen´-zel
oont gray´tel), but has extended their application to dramatic material.


HUMPERDINCK AND WAGNER

[Illustration: ENGELBERT HUMPERDINCK]

Wagner held myth to be the best subject for the lyric drama;
Humperdinck has extended the principle to include fairy tales, which,
in a sense, may be said to be decayed myths. Taking the German form
of the story of the Babes in the Wood, he has turned it into an opera
which illustrates the methods Wagner employed in his great mythological
tragedy, “The Nibelung’s Ring,” and has given the methods a peculiar
charm by making his musical symbols (_Leitmotiven_) out of nursery
jingles and tunes like them. Notwithstanding that he was thus hewing
to a line drawn by another, the opera has a melodic fluency and
freshness which have scarcely a parallel in modern opera. A later
work “Königskinder” (Royal Children), though full of beauty, lacks
the spontaneity and charm of its predecessor largely because its book
is stilted in language, its symbolism too much in evidence and not
sufficiently sympathetic, and its construction faulty.


RICHARD STRAUSS

[Illustration: RICHARD STRAUSS]

Richard Strauss reflects the tendency of the times away from all
ideal things. Physical, moral, and mental degeneracy are the subjects
which he has attempted to glorify in “Salomé” and “Elektra,” and
shameless immorality in “Rosenkavalier” (ro´-zen-kahv-ah-leer´). To
the celebration of such things and to the promotion of his material
interests he is prostituting the finest musical gifts possessed by any
composer known to the present day.

Not all the men who deserve to be called makers of modern opera have
been mentioned as yet. There are Frenchmen whose works have shown
more vitality than those of Charpentier and Debussy, though these two,
representing a more individual tendency, are generally singled out for
comment when the talk is of latter-day men.


OTHER MODERN COMPOSERS

There is still a strong feeling among the lovers of French opera
for Ambroise Thomas because of his “Mignon,” and Delibes because of
his “Lakmé” and his ballets. The dramatic, or pantomimic, dance is
getting a stronger hold on the stage every day, and nothing has yet
been produced in this line more graceful or in all artistic elements
more elegant than “Coppélia.” Saint-Saëns’s “Samson et Delilah,”
though better fitted for the concert-room than the theater, has also
won its way to recognition in America and England; while Germany,
forgetting that Berlioz was pitted against Wagner by the characteristic
spirit after the Franco-Prussian War, continues to pay deep respect
to “Benvenuto Cellini.” Wolf-Ferrari, half German, half Italian, has
fought his way to the fore with two works in which his genius shows
at its best (“Il Segreto di Susanna” and “Le Donne Curiose”), and
lately a Russian, Moussorgsky, has come crashing through the veneer of
conventional art with his “Boris Godounov” in a way which justifies the
cry raised long ago by this writer in the concert-room: “Beware of the
Muscovite!”

[Illustration: ERMANO WOLF-FERRARI

Composer of The Jewels of The Madonna.]


SUPPLEMENTARY READING

    CHAPTERS OF OPERA _By H. E. Krehbiel._

    A BOOK OF OPERAS _By H. E. Krehbiel._

        Mr. Krehbiel’s books are admirable commentaries, written with
        authority and in a most readable style.

    MEMOIRS OF THE OPERA _By George Hogarth._

        A standard work long recognized.

    HISTORY OF THE OPERA _By Sutherland Edwards._

        A valuable work by an English authority.

    THE LYRICAL DRAMA _By H. Sutherland Edwards._

    THE OPERA, PAST AND PRESENT _By W. F. Apthorp._

        Brilliant writing and critical taste characterize Mr. Apthorp’s
        work.

    SOME FORERUNNERS OF MODERN OPERA _By W. J. Henderson._

        A thoughtful, scholarly and well written book.

    THE STANDARD OPERA _By George P. Upton._

        An excellent book by a well known Chicago critic.




THE MENTOR

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The Mentor Association, Inc.

381 Fourth Ave., New York, N. Y.

    Vol. 1      No. 47

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    AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER.


_Editorial_

The new year is here and with it the forward look. It is the time for
announcements, and the magazines of the day are filled with them. The
Mentor Association does not lay down a definite and fixed program for a
year ahead, week by week. It is important that our schedule should be
elastic. But we want our readers to know the plans of The Mentor for
1914, and so we print herewith a list containing some of the subjects
scheduled. The articles may not appear in the exact order of this list.
Definite dates will be announced later. We print the list for the
purpose of giving our readers an idea of the scope and variety of the
year’s program.

       *       *       *       *       *

    TWO EARLY GERMAN PAINTERS, DÜRER AND HOLBEIN. Portrait of
    Himself, Dürer; Portrait of Young Woman, Dürer; Hieronymus
    Holzschuher, Dürer; Erasmus, Holbein; The Meier Madonna,
    Holbein; Queen Jane Seymour, Holbein. By Professor F. J.
    Mather, Princeton University.

    VIENNA, THE QUEEN CITY. Palace from Gardens Schönbrunn, Votive
    Church, Reichsrats Gebäude, Old Vienna, Maria Theresa Monument,
    Hoch Brunnen Fountains and Prince’s Palace. By Dwight L.
    Elmendorf.

    ANCIENT ATHENS. Parthenon, The Acropolis, Mars Hill
    (Areopagus), Theseum, Stadium, Theater of Dionysius. By
    Professor George Willis Botsford, Columbia University.

    THE BARBIZON PAINTERS. Evening, by Daubigny; The Holy Family,
    Diaz; Meadow Bordered by Trees, Rousseau; Landscape with Sheep,
    Jacque; The Wild Oak, Dupré; The Gleaners, Millet. By Arthur
    Hoeber.

    ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Lincoln, the Boy, Lincoln as a Rail Splitter
    or Flatboat Man, the Douglas Debates, President Lincoln,
    Emancipation Proclamation, Assassination. By Professor Albert
    Bushnell Hart, Harvard University.

    MEXICO. Mexico City, The Cathedral, The Palace, Popocatepetl,
    Chapultepec, Scenic View. By Frederick Palmer, Author and
    Journalist.

    GEORGE WASHINGTON. The Surveyor, Braddock’s Army, Taking
    Command of American Army, Valley Forge, Farewell Address,
    Inauguration as President. By Professor Robert McNutt McElroy,
    Princeton University.

    AMERICAN PROSE WRITERS. Benjamin Franklin, Jonathan Edwards,
    Charles Brockden Brown, Washington Irving, James Fenimore
    Cooper, James Kirke Paulding. By Hamilton W. Mabie.

    COURT PAINTERS OF FRANCE. Parnassus, Claude Lorrain; The French
    Comedy, Watteau; Shepherds in Arcadia, Poussin; Louis XIV,
    Rigaud; Marie Leczinska (wife of Louis XIV), Van Loo; Music
    Lesson, Lancret. By W. A. Coffin.

    GLACIER NATIONAL PARK, MONTANA. Morning Eagle Falls, Shore
    Line of Lake St. Mary, Iceberg Lake, Two Medicine Camp on
    Two Medicine Lake, McDermott Falls, Gunsight Lake and Mount
    Jackson. By William T. Hornaday.

    GRECIAN MASTERPIECES. Venus de Milo, Disk Thrower, The Three
    Fates, From Parthenon Pediment; Samothracian Victory, Hermes,
    Pericles.

    EARLY ENGLISH POETS. Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, John
    Milton, John Dryden, Alexander Pope, William Cowper. By
    Hamilton W. Mabie.

    FLEMISH MASTERS OF PAINTING. Rubens and Isabella Brandt,
    Rubens; The Lion Hunt, Rubens; Helene Fourment and Daughter,
    Rubens; Duke of Buckingham with Horse, by Van Dyck; William II
    of Orange and His Bride, Van Dyck; Duke of Richmond and Lenox,
    Van Dyck. By Professor John C. Van Dyke.

    HISTORIC AMERICAN HIGHWAYS. Boone’s Wilderness Road, Cumberland
    Road, Braddock’s Road, Old Natchez Trail, Santa Fé Trail,
    Oregon Trail. By H. Addington Bruce.

Other subjects for the year are as follows:

    BERLIN. By Dwight L. Elmendorf.

    MASTERS OF THE PIANO. By Henry T. Finck.

    AMERICAN POETS OF THE SOIL. By Burges Johnson.

    FAMOUS AMERICAN WOMEN PAINTERS. By Arthur Hoeber.

    OUR FEATHERED FRIENDS. By E. H. Forbush.

    HOLLAND. By Dwight L. Elmendorf.

    THE CONQUEST OF THE AIR. By Henry Woodhouse.

    FATHERS OF THE CONSTITUTION. By Professor Albert Bushnell Hart.

    THE CELESTIAL WORLD.

    INDIA. By Dwight L. Elmendorf.

    RUGS AND RUG MAKING. By J. K. Mumford.

    FAMOUS EUROPEAN WOMEN PAINTERS.

    MASTERS OF THE VIOLIN. By W. J. Henderson.

    GREAT RIVERS. Story of the Rhine.

    GREAT PULPIT ORATORS.

    JAPAN. By Dwight L. Elmendorf.

    WOMEN OF THE FRENCH COURT.

    FOUNDERS OF ENGLISH PAINTING. By Arthur Hoeber.

    AMERICAN COLONIAL FURNITURE.

    HISTORIC AMERICAN HOMES.

    CHINA AND CHINA COLLECTING.

       *       *       *       *       *

These titles are not representative of all the departments in the
interesting course that The Mentor is developing. Had we four times the
space we could fill it with equally attractive features. What we print,
however, will afford some idea of the wealth of material that has been
planned for early publication.




[Illustration: GIUSEPPE VERDI]




_MAKERS OF MODERN OPERA_

_Giuseppe Verdi_

ONE


The last and greatest of the old school of Italian opera composers,
and one of the most popular of all opera composers in the world, was
Giuseppe Verdi (joo-sep´-pe ver´-dee). He was born of humble parentage
in the little Italian village of Roncole on October 10, 1813. His
parents kept a tavern, which they combined with a general village
store. It was situated in a neighborhood of ignorant laborers. Little
chance was there in that spot for a budding genius in music. Verdi’s
art instinct had to feed on slim nourishment, like a stray seed blown
among rocks; but, like the stray seed, his genius took root even
in that arid soil. His love of music was shown by his following an
itinerant fiddler round the village. His father, detecting his taste,
got him a mediocre piano, on which young Verdi practised vigorously.

When ten years old he played the organ in the village church, and at
last a patron provided him with the means to go to Milan. When he
applied for admission to the conservatory he was rejected, on the score
that he had no aptitude for music. He stayed in Milan, however, as a
pupil of Vincenzo La Vigna (vin-chen´-zo la veen´-yah), with whom he
remained until 1833. He married in 1832, and in 1838 returned to Milan,
where he wrote his first opera, “Oberto.” This did not prove a success;
but it was the beginning of a famous career.

Verdi’s first success was achieved in 1843, when he brought out
“I Lombardi.” It was followed the next year by “Ernani,” and with
that work his reputation was firmly established. A number of operas
followed, some successful, others failures. But in 1851 began the
period during which “Rigoletto,” “Il Trovatore,” and “La Traviata”
appeared, and then all Europe rang with his praises.

Verdi was not only the most popular operatic composer of the nineteenth
century, but the wonder of the musical world. His art life might be
divided into three parts. His first operas were of the old-fashioned
“honey-sweet” Italian type, in which the airs were tunefully
sentimental, and the orchestra played a “guitar” accompaniment.

The middle period showed quite a definite advance in dramatic vigor,
in fullness of musical expression, and in richness of orchestral
technic. Of this period “Aïda” is a notable example. Then, in his
ripe old age, Verdi revealed an amazing growth in musical power. He
had advanced through the years as the art of operatic composition had
advanced. His opera “Otello” showed that he had studied and mastered
the newer works of his day, and that he held a leading place even
with younger composers. “Falstaff,” his last opera, was a revelation
of extraordinary fertility and virility in an artist of advanced age.
It established Verdi’s reputation for all time as a composer of music
drama as his earliest works had shown his skill in tuneful opera. The
music score of “Falstaff” is as free and untrammeled as the work of any
modern composer, even Richard Wagner himself.

Verdi lived until he was eighty-eight years old, enjoyed a happy home,
quiet pleasures, and the admiration not only of his own country but
of all the world. He died at Milan in 1901, having left twenty-nine
operas, most of which were notably successful.

    PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
    ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1, No. 47
    COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.




[Illustration: JULES E. F. MASSENET]




_MAKERS OF MODERN OPERA_

_Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet_

TWO


Massenet, one of the most renowned French composers, was born at
Montaud, May 12, 1842. Like nearly all French musicians, he began his
study in the French Conservatory. He was so poor in his early days
that he had to help pay his living expenses by playing the kettledrum
in a café orchestra. He carried off several minor prizes during his
student days, and finally in 1863 secured the prize of Rome, and this
despite the fact that the head of the conservatory at first tried to
exclude him on the ground that he had no musical ability. On returning
from Rome in 1867 he produced his first opera, a one-act affair which
achieved only moderate success. He served in the Franco-Prussian War,
and his impressions received there found musical expression in his
study “Alsaciennes” and his one-act opera “Navarraise.” After that time
Massenet was industrious in composition, turning out operas every year
or so. The wonder of it is that most of them have been successful and
are a part of the operatic repertoire today.

From 1878 to 1896 he was a professor of composition at the Paris
conservatory, and had under his tuition a number of pupils who have
since become famous; Charpentier, the composer of “Louise,” was one of
them. His activities may be gathered from the fact that he has written
more than twenty operas and five oratorios, together with incidental
music to four dramas.

In 1878 he was elected a member of the Academy of Beaux Arts, an honor
that he won over Saint-Saëns, who is reckoned a superior musician.

He died in Paris August 13, 1912.

Massenet has been called a puzzling personality in modern musical
history. His subjects are chosen to suit a Parisian public, and yet
they have been successful in foreign fields. His style has been called
“weak and sugary,” and his music “superficially clever.” But in spite
of that Massenet’s music has lasted for years, and, however he may be
criticized, his poetic sentiment and richly colored orchestration are
emphatically suitable to the public taste.

    PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
    ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1, No. 47
    COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.




[Illustration: © AIMÉ DUPONT

GIACOMO PUCCINI]




_MAKERS OF MODERN OPERA_

_Giacomo Puccini_

THREE


Giacomo Puccini (jah-ko´-mo poot-chee´-nee) was named by the great
Verdi as his probable successor. That meant much from the lips of the
venerable master, and the years are beginning to verify it. Puccini
was born at Lucca, Italy, in June, 1858. He came from a long line of
musicians, reaching as far back as his great-great-grandfather. In his
own immediate family of six all were devoted to music, and Giacomo
took to the art from his earliest years. He breathed it as he breathed
the air of life. His precocity attracted the attention of the queen
of Italy, who granted him a pension that enabled him to enter the
Conservatory of Music at Milan.

His mind turned toward composition from earliest years, his dominating
thought always being opera,--not old-fashioned opera of melody and
empty orchestration, but opera of the modern sort, vibrant with life,
vigorous in dramatic expression, and enriched with all the resources
of modern orchestration. Ponchielli (pon-kee-el´-lee) was his chief
instructor,--Ponchielli, the composer of “Gioconda” (jo-kon´-dah), who
has been credited with inspiring the modern Italian school of composers.

Puccini’s first opera, “Le Ville” (le veel), was produced in 1884.
It created a favorable impression--that was all. In 1889 his opera
“Edgar” appeared; but it was not popular. Four years later, however,
“Manon Lescaut” (mah-nong´ les-ko´) was produced. This established his
success. It required courage to go to the opera house with a new work
on Manon. Massenet’s “Manon” was known throughout the operatic world,
where it had been made successful by the brilliant performances of Jean
de Reszke and Sibyl Sanderson. But Puccini’s “Manon” is of stronger
stuff, and it holds its place today against the other.

It was the production of “La Bohème” (bo-hame´) in Turin in 1896 that
made Puccini famous. “Tosca” followed in 1900, and in 1904 came the
charming “Madame Butterfly.” This beautiful opera was hissed by the
Italians when it was first produced; a fact hard to understand today,
when it has become a rival of “La Bohème” in the public’s esteem.
In 1910 Puccini produced his operatic setting of the American play,
“The Girl of the Golden West.” It was brought out in New York with a
cast of great artists, including Caruso, Destinn and Amato. It has
been produced a number of times, and holds an important place in
the operatic repertoire. It is not, however, generally reckoned in
popularity with “La Bohème” and “Madame Butterfly.” These two charming
works are masterpieces of art and sentiment.

Puccini has a rare gift of melody, strong imagination, skill in
technic, and an unusual sense of orchestral color. He is considered the
most gifted of the present representatives of Italian operatic art.

    PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
    ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1, No. 47
    COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.




[Illustration: RICHARD STRAUSS]




_MAKERS OF MODERN OPERA_

_Richard Strauss_

FOUR


No composer since Wagner’s time has been the subject of more discussion
than Richard Strauss. He has been called the champion of the “forward
movement.” Strauss came by his musical instincts naturally: he was
the son of a horn player. His birth occurred in 1864, and he showed
himself a prodigy from an early age. He played the piano proficiently
at four years, and produced a number of compositions when only six.
He followed his musical studies with avidity and at the same time was
attending public school. In 1885 he began to study music regularly
under the tuition of the eminent pianist and conductor, Hans von Bülow
(bue´-low), whom he succeeded later as head of the Meiningen orchestra.

It was Alexander Ritter that set Richard Strauss on the path of
advanced music. Strauss resigned his conductorship after a few months,
and in 1885 went to Italy. Before the year was over he was appointed
third chapel master in Munich. Four years after that he took the
position of director at Weimar. He held this post, however, for only a
brief time; for in 1894 he married Pauline de Ahna, an eminent singer,
who has accompanied him in concerts and has rendered great service to
him by her interpretations of his songs.

For two years Strauss and his wife made tours throughout Europe. They
came to the United States, where he gave concerts made up of his own
compositions. In song and in opera composition he is regarded by some
as a high priest of future art, and by others as merely a shock to the
nerves.

The productions of his new operas have usually been the occasions
of sensational interest. “Salomé” and “Elektra” both created a loud
stir in the musical world. Many resent the bold and radical spirit
of Richard Strauss. Perhaps we are all too near him. His enemies, or
rather his severest critics, would say that anywhere within hearing
of his operas would be too near. Many music students, however, find
much to interest them in his work, and declare that Richard Strauss
will come into his own in future years. His operas, for other reasons
than their music, are not likely to be set in the regular repertoire
of an opera season. His songs and tone poems, however, are already
an accepted part of concert programs. In richness of orchestration,
tremendous climaxes, vivid flashes of color, and frequent outbursts of
dramatic power, there is nothing in modern music to place beside the
tone poems of Richard Strauss.

    PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
    ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1, No. 47
    COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.




[Illustration: CHARLES FRANCOIS GOUNOD]




_MAKERS OF MODERN OPERA_

_Charles François Gounod_

FIVE


Charles François Gounod, the best known and by many the most liked of
modern French composers, was born in Paris, June 17, 1818. His father
having died when Gounod was yet very young, he was brought up by his
mother, who was an excellent pianist. He entered the Paris Conservatory
in 1836, and studied there under masters, one of them, Halévy, composer
of “The Jewess,” a successful opera in its day. Gounod won the grand
prize of Rome in 1839. That gave him the privilege of studying in Rome,
and while there he devoted much of his time to the study of sacred
music, especially to the works of the old masters Palestrina and Bach.

Gounod had a strong religious tendency from the first, which brought
him at times near to a resolution to join holy orders. His earliest
compositions were masses, and on returning to Paris he played the organ
for sacred services in one of the leading churches. He was turned from
a serious and religious contemplation to worldly matters by receiving a
commission to compose an opera. This, his first operatic composition,
was “Sapho,” which was produced in 1851. It was not very successful,
and is seldom produced; though selections from its score are sometimes
played and sung.

After some indifferent success and several failures Gounod brought out
his opera “Faust” in 1859. In spite of the fact that he had chosen a
subject that had been drawn on liberally by other composers, “Faust”
was a success from the beginning, and it is now without doubt the most
popular French work in the operatic repertoire. It was liked at the
start; but its enormous success was not predicted then. It has grown in
the affections of the opera-going public year by year, until today it
is one of the most prominent features of an operatic season.

“Philémon et Baucis,” “The Queen of Sheba,” “Roméo et Juliette,” and
other operas followed. Of these the last named is the only one that
remains a favorite with the public. Among Gounod’s notable compositions
are two grand oratorios, “The Redemption” and “Mors et Vita” (Death and
Life), and a number of distinguished songs.

According to the celebrated composer Saint-Saëns, it is in these two
oratorios that Gounod’s genius rose highest. Gounod’s life was spent
for the most part in or near Paris, and it was in that city that most
of his great works were first produced. He was a man of great energy, a
constant worker, both in musical composition and in writing. He died at
St. Cloud, October 18, 1893, leaving an influence on French music that
will probably never be dimmed.

Personally he was one of the most interesting figures in the musical
world,--a man of the world, and at the same time a student, a dreamer,
and a mystic devoted to religious exaltations.

    PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
    ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1, No. 47
    COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.




[Illustration: ENGELBERT HUMPERDINCK]




_MAKERS OF MODERN OPERA_

_Engelbert Humperdinck_

SIX


Few composers have so suddenly sprung into fame and favor as Engelbert
Humperdinck. He was born at Sigburg, Germany, in September, 1854. His
musical education began in Cologne Conservatory under Hiller, and
was continued in Munich under Lachner. The prizes that he won at the
conservatory enabled him to go to Italy, where he met Richard Wagner at
Naples, who recognized his ability and showed him many favors. Wagner
took Humperdinck with him to Bayreuth and made an assistant of him.
Humperdinck’s services were most valuable in the production of Wagner’s
“Parsifal” in 1882. Subsequently he visited France and Spain, remaining
two years in the latter country, teaching at Barcelona.

In 1887 he returned to Cologne, and shortly afterward taught music
at Frankfort-on-the-Main. In 1896 the emperor secured for him an
appointment as professor in Berlin, and Humperdinck moved there in 1900.

The compositions of Humperdinck are not numerous. His reputation,
as far as the world at large is concerned, rests entirely on his
masterpiece, “Hänsel und Gretel.” Besides this opera, he wrote
incidental music for “The Children of the King,” a charming play of
allegorical character, and the “Moorish Rhapsody,” an orchestral piece.
These two and a few other compositions are known chiefly to music
lovers, and they uphold the reputation that Humperdinck obtained by his
“Hänsel und Gretel.”

The fairy opera, “Hänsel und Gretel,” is known the world over, and
well beloved wherever it is heard. Its success was phenomenal from
the start, the story of the opera being captivating, and the music
likewise. It came at a time when the attention of the operatic world
was absorbed with some of the successors of the well known Italian
school, prominently Mascagni and Leoncavallo. But the little opera
struck a note much higher, and so much more beautiful that before
the first season was over the Italian composers found their admirers
listening to and singing the music of “Hänsel und Gretel,” and leaving
their intermezzi to the street organs. The eminent critic, Streatfeild,
pronounced Humperdinck “the first German composer of distinct
individuality since Wagner.” The close association with Wagner that
Humperdinck enjoyed has shown its influence on the latter’s music; but
there is a spirit and a quality in it all his own.

    PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
    ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1, No. 47
    COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.