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There is a very subtle and fragrant charm about these old recollections which the sight or sound of a score, a view of an old photograph of Lillian Russell or Judic, or a dip in the Théâtre Complet of Meilhac and Halévy will reawaken. But it is only at a revival of one of our old favourites that we can really bathe in sentimentality, drink in draughts of joy from the past, allow memory full away.
In the beginning of his theatrical career M. Meilhac did little comedies like the Sarabande and the Autographe, in the Scribe formula dramatized anecdotes, but fresher in wit and livelier in fancy than Scribe's.
This early work was far more regular than we find in some of his latest, bright as these are: the Petit Hôtel, for instance, and Lolotte are etchings, as it were, instantaneous photographs of certain aspects of life in the city by the Seine or stray paragraphs of the latest news from Paris. It is perhaps not too much to say that Meilhac and Halévy are seen at their best in these one-act plays.
Vanrevel already possessed a profound conviction to the same effect. Robert Meilhac Carewe was known not only as the wealthiest citizen of Rouen, but also as its heartiest and most steadfast hater: and, although there were only five or six thousand inhabitants, neither was a small distinction.
In time, of course, his luck turned; he had plays performed and stories published; and at last he met M. Henri Meilhac, and entered on that collaboration of nearly twenty years' duration to which we owe "Froufrou" and "Tricoche et Cacolet," on the one hand, and on the other the books of Offenbach's most brilliant operas "Barbebleue," for example, and "La Périchole."
When we recall the fact that these five operas are the most widely known, the most popular and by far the best of M. Offenbach's works, there is no need to dwell on his indebtedness to MM. Meilhac and Halévy, or to point out how important a thing the quality of the opera-book is to the composer of the score.
M. Meilhac is too clean and too clever ever to delve in indecency from mere wantonness: he has no liking for vice, but his virtue sits easily on him, and though he is sound on the main question, he looks upon the vagaries of others with a gentle eye. M. Halévy, it seems to me, is made of somewhat sterner stuff.
Since MM. Meilhac and Halévy have ceased writing for M. Offenbach they have done two books for M. Charles Lecoq the Petit Duc and the Grande Demoiselle. These are rather light comic operas than true opéras-bouffes, but if there is an elevation in the style of the music, there is an emphatic falling off in the quality of the words.
It is not that M. Halévy is some two years the junior of M. Meilhac: it lies in the quality of their respective abilities. M. Meilhac has the more masculine style, and so the literary progeny of the couple bear rather his name than his associate's.
Fairer than the evening air, Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars. In the Belle Hélène we see the higher wit of M. Meilhac.
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