by Mark Twain
CHAPTER X
[How Wagner Operas Bang Along]
Three or four hours. That is a long time to sit in one place, whetherone be conspicuous or not, yet some of Wagner's operas bang along forsix whole hours on a stretch! But the people sit there and enjoy it all,and wish it would last longer. A German lady in Munich told me that aperson could not like Wagner's music at first, but must go through thedeliberate process of learning to like it--then he would have his surereward; for when he had learned to like it he would hunger for it andnever be able to get enough of it. She said that six hours of Wagner wasby no means too much. She said that this composer had made a completerevolution in music and was burying the old masters one by one. Andshe said that Wagner's operas differed from all others in one notablerespect, and that was that they were not merely spotted with music hereand there, but were _all_ music, from the first strain to the last. Thissurprised me. I said I had attended one of his insurrections, and foundhardly _any_ music in it except the Wedding Chorus. She said "Lohengrin"was noisier than Wagner's other operas, but that if I would keep ongoing to see it I would find by and by that it was all music, andtherefore would then enjoy it. I _could_ have said, "But would youadvise a person to deliberately practice having a toothache in the pitof his stomach for a couple of years in order that he might then come toenjoy it?" But I reserved that remark.
This lady was full of the praises of the head-tenor who had performed ina Wagner opera the night before, and went on to enlarge upon his old andprodigious fame, and how many honors had been lavished upon him by theprincely houses of Germany. Here was another surprise. I had attendedthat very opera, in the person of my agent, and had made close andaccurate observations. So I said:
"Why, madam, _my_ experience warrants me in stating that that tenor'svoice is not a voice at all, but only a shriek--the shriek of a hyena."
"That is very true," she said; "he cannot sing now; it is already manyyears that he has lost his voice, but in other times he sang, yes,divinely! So whenever he comes now, you shall see, yes, that the theaterwill not hold the people. _Jawohl bei Gott!_ his voice is _wunderschoen_in that past time."
I said she was discovering to me a kindly trait in the Germans whichwas worth emulating. I said that over the water we were not quite sogenerous; that with us, when a singer had lost his voice and a jumperhad lost his legs, these parties ceased to draw. I said I had been tothe opera in Hanover, once, and in Mannheim once, and in Munich(through my authorized agent) once, and this large experience had nearlypersuaded me that the Germans _preferred_ singers who couldn't sing.This was not such a very extravagant speech, either, for that burlyMannheim tenor's praises had been the talk of all Heidelberg for aweek before his performance took place--yet his voice was like thedistressing noise which a nail makes when you screech it across awindow-pane. I said so to Heidelberg friends the next day, and theysaid, in the calmest and simplest way, that that was very true, but thatin earlier times his voice _had_ been wonderfully fine. And the tenorin Hanover was just another example of this sort. The English-speakingGerman gentleman who went with me to the opera there was brimming withenthusiasm over that tenor. He said:
"_Ach Gott!_ a great man! You shall see him. He is so celebrate in allGermany--and he has a pension, yes, from the government. He not obligedto sing now, only twice every year; but if he not sing twice each yearthey take him his pension away."
Very well, we went. When the renowned old tenor appeared, I got a nudgeand an excited whisper:
"Now you see him!"
But the "celebrate" was an astonishing disappointment to me. If hehad been behind a screen I should have supposed they were performing asurgical operation on him. I looked at my friend--to my great surprisehe seemed intoxicated with pleasure, his eyes were dancing with eagerdelight. When the curtain at last fell, he burst into the stormiestapplause, and kept it up--as did the whole house--until the afflictivetenor had come three times before the curtain to make his bow. While theglowing enthusiast was swabbing the perspiration from his face, I said:
"I don't mean the least harm, but really, now, do you think he cansing?"
"Him? _No! Gott im Himmel, aber_, how he has been able to singtwenty-five years ago?" [Then pensively.] "_Ach_, no, _now_ he not singany more, he only cry. When he think he sing, now, he not sing at all,no, he only make like a cat which is unwell."
Where and how did we get the idea that the Germans are a stolid,phlegmatic race? In truth, they are widely removed from that. They arewarm-hearted, emotional, impulsive, enthusiastic, their tears come atthe mildest touch, and it is not hard to move them to laughter. They arethe very children of impulse. We are cold and self-contained, comparedto the Germans. They hug and kiss and cry and shout and dance and sing;and where we use one loving, petting expression, they pour out a score.Their language is full of endearing diminutives; nothing that they loveescapes the application of a petting diminutive--neither the house, northe dog, nor the horse, nor the grandmother, nor any other creature,animate or inanimate.
In the theaters at Hanover, Hamburg, and Mannheim, they had a wisecustom. The moment the curtain went up, the light in the body of thehouse went down. The audience sat in the cool gloom of a deep twilight,which greatly enhanced the glowing splendors of the stage. It saved gas,too, and people were not sweated to death.
When I saw "King Lear" played, nobody was allowed to see a sceneshifted; if there was nothing to be done but slide a forest out of theway and expose a temple beyond, one did not see that forest split itselfin the middle and go shrieking away, with the accompanying disenchantingspectacle of the hands and heels of the impelling impulse--no, thecurtain was always dropped for an instant--one heard not the leastmovement behind it--but when it went up, the next instant, the forestwas gone. Even when the stage was being entirely reset, one heard nonoise. During the whole time that "King Lear" was playing the curtainwas never down two minutes at any one time. The orchestra played untilthe curtain was ready to go up for the first time, then they departedfor the evening. Where the stage waits never reach two minutes there isno occasion for music. I had never seen this two-minute business betweenacts but once before, and that was when the "Shaughraun" was played atWallack's.
I was at a concert in Munich one night, the people were streaming in,the clock-hand pointed to seven, the music struck up, and instantlyall movement in the body of the house ceased--nobody was standing, orwalking up the aisles, or fumbling with a seat, the stream of incomershad suddenly dried up at its source. I listened undisturbed to a pieceof music that was fifteen minutes long--always expecting some tardyticket-holders to come crowding past my knees, and being continuouslyand pleasantly disappointed--but when the last note was struck, herecame the stream again. You see, they had made those late comers wait inthe comfortable waiting-parlor from the time the music had begun untilit was ended.
It was the first time I had ever seen this sort of criminals denied theprivilege of destroying the comfort of a house full of their betters.Some of these were pretty fine birds, but no matter, they had to tarryoutside in the long parlor under the inspection of a double rank ofliveried footmen and waiting-maids who supported the two walls withtheir backs and held the wraps and traps of their masters and mistresseson their arms.
We had no footmen to hold our things, and it was not permissible to takethem into the concert-room; but there were some men and women to takecharge of them for us. They gave us checks for them and charged a fixedprice, payable in advance--five cents.
In Germany they always hear one thing at an opera which has never yetbeen heard in America, perhaps--I mean the closing strain of a fine soloor duet. We always smash into it with an earthquake of applause. Theresult is that we rob ourselves of the sweetest part of the treat; weget the whiskey, but we don't get the sugar in the bottom of the glass.
Our way of scattering applause along through an act seems to me to bebetter than the Mannheim way of saving it all up till the act is ended.I do not see how an actor can forget himself and
portray hot passionbefore a cold still audience. I should think he would feel foolish. Itis a pain to me to this day, to remember how that old German Lear ragedand wept and howled around the stage, with never a response from thathushed house, never a single outburst till the act was ended. Tome there was something unspeakably uncomfortable in the solemn deadsilences that always followed this old person's tremendous outpouringsof his feelings. I could not help putting myself in his place--I thoughtI knew how sick and flat he felt during those silences, because Iremembered a case which came under my observation once, and which--but Iwill tell the incident:
One evening on board a Mississippi steamboat, a boy of ten years layasleep in a berth--a long, slim-legged boy, he was, encased in quitea short shirt; it was the first time he had ever made a trip on asteamboat, and so he was troubled, and scared, and had gone to bedwith his head filled with impending snaggings, and explosions, andconflagrations, and sudden death. About ten o'clock some twenty ladieswere sitting around about the ladies' saloon, quietly reading, sewing,embroidering, and so on, and among them sat a sweet, benignant old damewith round spectacles on her nose and her busy knitting-needles in herhands. Now all of a sudden, into the midst of this peaceful scene burstthat slim-shanked boy in the brief shirt, wild-eyed, erect-haired, andshouting, "Fire, fire! _Jump and run, the boat's afire and there ain't aminute to lose!_" All those ladies looked sweetly up and smiled, nobodystirred, the old lady pulled her spectacles down, looked over them, andsaid, gently:
"But you mustn't catch cold, child. Run and put on your breastpin, andthen come and tell us all about it."
It was a cruel chill to give to a poor little devil's gushing vehemence.He was expecting to be a sort of hero--the creator of a wild panic--andhere everybody sat and smiled a mocking smile, and an old woman made funof his bugbear. I turned and crept away--for I was that boy--and nevereven cared to discover whether I had dreamed the fire or actually seenit.
I am told that in a German concert or opera, they hardly ever encorea song; that though they may be dying to hear it again, their goodbreeding usually preserves them against requiring the repetition.
Kings may encore; that is quite another matter; it delights everybody tosee that the King is pleased; and as to the actor encored, his pride andgratification are simply boundless. Still, there are circumstances inwhich even a royal encore--
But it is better to illustrate. The King of Bavaria is a poet, and has apoet's eccentricities--with the advantage over all other poets of beingable to gratify them, no matter what form they may take. He is fondof opera, but not fond of sitting in the presence of an audience;therefore, it has sometimes occurred, in Munich, that when an opera hasbeen concluded and the players were getting off their paint and finery,a command has come to them to get their paint and finery on again.Presently the King would arrive, solitary and alone, and the playerswould begin at the beginning and do the entire opera over again withonly that one individual in the vast solemn theater for audience. Oncehe took an odd freak into his head. High up and out of sight, overthe prodigious stage of the court theater is a maze of interlacingwater-pipes, so pierced that in case of fire, innumerable littlethread-like streams of water can be caused to descend; and in caseof need, this discharge can be augmented to a pouring flood. Americanmanagers might want to make a note of that. The King was sole audience.The opera proceeded, it was a piece with a storm in it; the mimicthunder began to mutter, the mimic wind began to wail and sough, andthe mimic rain to patter. The King's interest rose higher and higher; itdeveloped into enthusiasm. He cried out:
"It is very, very good, indeed! But I will have real rain! Turn on thewater!"
The manager pleaded for a reversal of the command; said it would ruinthe costly scenery and the splendid costumes, but the King cried:
"No matter, no matter, I will have real rain! Turn on the water!"
So the real rain was turned on and began to descend in gossamer lancesto the mimic flower-beds and gravel walks of the stage. The richlydressed actresses and actors tripped about singing bravely andpretending not to mind it. The King was delighted--his enthusiasm grewhigher. He cried out:
"Bravo, bravo! More thunder! more lightning! turn on more rain!"
The thunder boomed, the lightning glared, the storm-winds raged, thedeluge poured down. The mimic royalty on the stage, with their soakedsatins clinging to their bodies, slopped about ankle-deep in water,warbling their sweetest and best, the fiddlers under the eaves of thestage sawed away for dear life, with the cold overflow spouting down thebacks of their necks, and the dry and happy King sat in his lofty boxand wore his gloves to ribbons applauding.
"More yet!" cried the King; "more yet--let loose all the thunder, turnon all the water! I will hang the man that raises an umbrella!"
When this most tremendous and effective storm that had ever beenproduced in any theater was at last over, the King's approbation wasmeasureless. He cried:
"Magnificent, magnificent! _Encore_! Do it again!"
But the manager succeeded in persuading him to recall the encore, andsaid the company would feel sufficiently rewarded and complimentedin the mere fact that the encore was desired by his Majesty, withoutfatiguing him with a repetition to gratify their own vanity.
During the remainder of the act the lucky performers were those whoseparts required changes of dress; the others were a soaked, bedraggled,and uncomfortable lot, but in the last degree picturesque. The stagescenery was ruined, trap-doors were so swollen that they wouldn't workfor a week afterward, the fine costumes were spoiled, and no end ofminor damages were done by that remarkable storm.
It was a royal idea--that storm--and royally carried out. But observethe moderation of the King; he did not insist upon his encore. If he hadbeen a gladsome, unreflecting American opera-audience, he probably wouldhave had his storm repeated and repeated until he drowned all thosepeople.
