𝑻𝒂𝒌𝒆 𝒂 𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒌 𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒆𝒙𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒍𝒚 𝟏𝟑𝟐 𝒚𝒆𝒂𝒓 𝒐𝒍𝒅 𝒄𝒂𝒔𝒕 𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒕 𝒇𝒓𝒐𝒎 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑴𝒆𝒕𝒓𝒐𝒑𝒐𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒂𝒏 𝑶𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒂 𝟏𝟖𝟗𝟒.𝑪𝒂𝒓𝒎𝒆𝒏 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒈𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒕 𝑬𝒎𝒎𝒂 𝑪𝒂𝒍𝒗é 𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒎𝒐𝒔𝒕 𝒔𝒖𝒄𝒄𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒇𝒖𝒍 𝒓𝒐𝒍𝒆𝒔. 𝑶𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒐𝒍𝒅 𝑷𝒐𝒔𝒕𝒄𝒂𝒓𝒅 𝒘𝒆 𝒔𝒆𝒆 𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒓𝒐𝒍𝒆. 𝑨𝒍𝒔𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒄𝒂𝒔𝒕 𝒊𝒔𝒕 𝒈𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒕.
From Emma Calvé: her artistic life by Arthur Wisner:
Before leaving for America, Calvè created her famous role of Carmen at the Opera Comique in Paris. It is intentionally that I use the word ** created," for, breaking from the Galli-Marie traditions (Galli-Marie created Carmen in the literal sense of the word). Calve made of the part an absolutely new character. She had gone to Seville to observe those famous ** cigareras," to study their habits, their lives. Her triumph was one of the greatest ever achieved on the French stage — a triumph that repeated itself in London.
Calvé made her debut in New York November 29. 1893, in ** Cavalleria Rusticana" ; December 20 she played in '* Carmen." To realize her prodigious success, one has only to read the articles published in the New York papers at the time. Here are a few excerpts:
Mademoiselle Emma Calvé " said the New York Times, **is a dramatic soprano of the first rank. It is long since New York opera-goers have had the pleasure of seeing and hearing an artist of such splendid emotional force. It is in her ability to delineate character and to express feeling that Calv^ is notable. Her acting is uncommonly fine for the operatic stage. In bearing, gesture, and facial expressions, she is at all times eloquent and powerfully influential ; she knows how to put emotional meaning into her singing, never hesitating to sacrifice mere sensuous beauty of tone to true dramatic significance. Her success was immediate, pronounced, and thoroughly deserved."
Speaking of Calvé's Carmen, the New York Herald said : ** Only those who have lived in Madrid and attended the bull-fights there can appreciate the startling fidelity to nature of Calvé''s Carmen. All New York was at the Metropolitan Opera House last night, for the artist's fame in this particular rdle had preceded her. Everybody was prepared for a sensation, and nobody, I believe, left the house disappointed.
' From her first entrance to the final murder scene, which was enacted with more than the usual brutality, the audience sat positively spellbound. Not alone did Mile. Calvè present Prosper Merimee's heroine in a manner that was never before seen upon the stage, but she seemed also to stimulate her surroundings to such a degree that all was beautiful and perfect.
**Jean de Reszke was Don Jose; Emma Eames, Michaela; and Lasalle, Escamillo. Imagine the results ! When the quartet of gifted people held the stage at the conclusion of the fourth act, the impression was overwhelming.
*As for Mile. 'Calvé's Carmen, she does not dress it, she does not sing it, and she does not act it as other women have done before her. Laces, flounces, Spanish veils and combs do not convey Carmen a bit to this artist's brilliant mind. Nor does she prance about the stage, or wink, or affect airs of the singing soubrette. As a low woman of the people does she effect her first entrance, garbed in the shabbiest of finery. Yet nothing could have been more picturesque, more effective. Note the face, the walk, the gestures. It reminded me of nothing so much as Duses * La Femme de Claude.' A woman with a heap of pasts. And what was shadowed forth in the Habanera scene was consistently maintained and carried out during the entire evening. What a remarkable dance that was at the inn ! No castanets were used, no plates were broken ; there were no graces, no airs of any sort, but how the artist's hips and arms swayed rhythmically with the music, and how her heels beat the time!
** There was much of the panther in the woman's voice, too. To express her meaning, she frequently took all sorts of liberties with time and rhythm. No one but a metronome fiend, however, would think of taking Mile. Calvè to task for her musical arbitrariness, the effects she obtained being so often positively tragical. The house, which was crowded from pit to dome, rang with enthusiastic plaudits as at no other time the present season."
Here is what is said about the same Carmen by one of the most important American critics. Mr. Reginald de Koven:
** Thoroughly imbued with the same spirit of dramatic truth, Bizet, like Wagner, thought and wrote in advance of his time, but, unlike Wagner, did not live to enjoy the fruits of his labors. Had he ever been permitted to hear such a performance of the opera whose failure when first produced hastened, if it did not cause, his untimely end, as was given last night, and to witness the enthusiasm which that performance evoked, he might have lived to enrich the world with many another operatic masterpiece.
There is something of the same frank, bold animalism in the music of * Carmen' that there is in that of *Cavalleria Rusticana,' and it affects one in much the same way. There is, indeed, more than a suggestion of the beautiful animal in the feline grace and suppleness, the unrestrained reckless passion, the almost savage heartlessness of the character of Carmen.
"She is a woman who recognizes no master but her whim ; no law but her own natural, unrestrained instinct ; no power other than mere brute force — a creature of passion and impulse, untutored and ungovernable. One approaches the consideration of Mile. Calvé's impersonation of this strange, wild character — an impersonation, be it said, at once evidently consistent, powerful and well considered — with vivid recollection of the many great artists who have appeared in the part, of Lucca and Minnie Hauk, of Selina Dolaro and Galli-Marie, the creator of the r6le and perhaps the greatest of them all ; high standards for any artist to be judged by.
""As a whole, Mile. Calvé's Carmen was a pleasure rather than a great sensation. Perhaps one had been led to expect too much, but the result was at first an almost intangible feeling of disappointment. It is evidently her aim to bring out the more human, the more womanly side of the character; to represent the irresponsible child of nature rather than the reckless, somewhat malicious dare-devil. Her Carmen is seductive, alluring, picturesque, as well as intense and passionate, and always vocally admirable. Her action is full, even too full, of elaborate artistic detail, but she does not seem to let herself go quite as she does as Santuzza ; one is attracted, one admires heartily, unrestrainedly, but is hardly altogether convinced. There is at first a certain lack of the spontaneity and the admiration which one expected. And yet, with all, a most satisfactory, a most artistic, thoughtful and individual impersonation.
"One thing must be remarked about Mile. Calvé's performance of Carmen. It is not only unconventional and individual, as has been said, but is also cumulative in interest to a remarkable degree. Her action grows in strength and intensity with each act, until in the last act a carefully prepared and highly effective climax, broad and strong, is reached in the most artistic manner. One then realizes that the comparative tameness of the first two acts was artistic continence, rather than any lack of artistic strength or vocal possibilities, and the effect of the final climax, reached in the third act, is heightened by the way in which it is approached, and any previous feeling of disappointment is thoroughly dissipated."
Calvé narrowly missed not playing in the United States, notwithstanding her contract. At the time of her arrival in New York, Mr. Abbey insisted on her singing *• Carmen " in Italian. She absolutely refused. ** I should never ask to sing * Cavalleria Rusticana' in French," she said to Mr. Abbey, ** consequently, I shall never sing * Carmen ' in anything but French." Mr. Abbey clinging to his singular idea, she threatened to return to France. By the advice of his associate, Mr. Grau, Mr. Abbey yielded.
At that time I had the good fortune to meet Mile. Calvè and I had occasion to note the great modesty which is one of her distinctive qualities. At a reception given in her honor in one of the most select drawing-rooms of New York, fashionable women were crowding around and lavishing enthusiastic praise on the young singer. After their departure. Calve came towards me and said :
"You are my compatriot. I pray you to tell me the truth. Is it true what all these charming women have been telling me? Am I really such a success?"
Her question astonished and delighted me. This divine actress, who was the idol of Paris, London and New York, still doubted her success.
