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I should like to believe this, because it is highly honorable to Meyerbeer's artistic character, which has been much maligned by critics and historians of music since Wagner set an example in that direction. "'Faust," Meyerbeer is reported to have replied to Barbier's invitation, "is the ark of the covenant, a sanctuary not to be approached with profane music."
At the Karnthner Thor I heard the Huguenots admirably performed. Decorations excepted, I really thought it better done than at the Academie Royale. Meyerbeer's brilliant and original conceptions, in turning the chorus into an oral orchestra, are better realized. A French vaudeville company performed on the alternate nights.
On this particular day, in spite of his garish "get-up," he seemed to belong to the life in which he was lightheartedly whistling a solo from one of Meyerbeer's operas. Meyerbeer was certainly incongruous to the prairie, but it and the whistling were in keeping with the man himself.
I know a man, one of the cleverest writers for the New York press, a man who can afford to go to the opera every evening, and who does go when Meyerbeer's operas are given, but who absolutely and stubbornly refuses to attend a Wagner performance at the Metropolitan. Why? Because a number of years ago he attended a wretched performance in Italian of "Lohengrin" which bored him!
In 1836 he heard Meyerbeer's "Huguenots," and resolved to write no more. Four years before this he had written the "Stabat Mater," but it was not produced complete until 1842. From this time on he lived at his villa at Passy the life of a voluptuary and died there Nov. 13, 1868.
I need not speak of his immoderate love for the bassoon, an admirable instrument, but one which it is hardly prudent to abuse. But so far we have spoken only of trifles. Meyerbeer's music, as a witty woman once remarked to me, is like stage scenery it should not be scrutinized too closely. It would be hard to find a better characterization.
We need only note with regard to it that he here heard, and in the process of drilling his choristers undoubtedly got to know very well, all the popular successes of the day. His own account is that he liked them; and it is significant that during this period he heard Meyerbeer's Robert the Devil.
The "books," being by Scribe, are all very dramatic, and lend themselves to great spectacular display; Meyerbeer's music is always melodious, and has a certain obvious character about it that would appeal to an average London audience. This is particularly true with regard to the Prophete.
One afternoon Geoffrey was lounging on the terrace of the hotel reading Kokoro, when his attention was attracted by the arrival of Mme. Laroche Meyerbeer's motor-car with Asako, her hostess and another woman embedded in its depths. Asako was the first to leap out. She went up to her apartment without looking to right or left, and before her husband had time to reach her. Mme.
The next prominent event in the great tenor's career was his creation of the character of John of Leyden in Meyerbeer's Prophète. There is something very charming in the naïve delight and enthusiasm with which he speaks of this, the crowning glory of his life.
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