Morning journal and courier., 1884-09-30
OPERA IN PARIS.
An American Critic Who Doesn't Like
 s6fhe CIaOue.sa

An American Critic Who Doesn't Like
 sEthe CIaque.e
 Paris Letter to the Baltimore American
 I had begun to fear that should not hear the opera in Paris. They have been playing 'sFavoritas" and "Lucias" and other things worn to rags, and I have been waiting for something better. I hoped for Boito's "Me- fstofele," or Bizet's ''Carmen," but at last, when my stay was coming to close, it was Gounod's EsFaust' or nothing. The archi- lecture of the Opera House, or Academy of Music, (''founded by Louis XIV'D), as it calls itself. is the most beautiful that can be i'm agined The Louvre, or Versailles, or any other building in this city of palaces is mar row and mean in comparison. For grandeur of lines costliness of material and lavish wealth of decoration it passes all my imag- things. Upon it great French artists, sculp- tors, architects and painters have put thelr finest work The whole interior blazes With gold and is incrusted with statuary in high relief The eye is never wearied in wander ing over the exhaustless splendor. One who walks around the exterior and sees how vast the building is may, however, be surprised to find the small size of the auditorium. It is not much larger than the Baltimore Acad- emy of Music. It has, however, four tiers of boxes The seats are large and comforta- ble The acoustics seem excellent; but ven tiIation there is none. The custom of get ting ont into the foyer, the corridors and on the grand stairway is founded almost in the necessity for fresh air. Thus the theatre al most empties itself into the corridors ill the entr'acte, and one may go to the buffet and have an ice or glass of wine, or may stroll, as at a soiree, among groups of animated people. On yesterday evening, however, there were comparatively few of the audi ence in evening dress. Itcould not be called brilliant.
 The performance was, in some respects, the best I ever saw; and in others too exas- peratingly bad for forgiveness. sadly ayow that I never heard the four principal roles so badly done One who has often heard Nils son, Lucca and Valeria as Marguerite could hardly listen with patience to Mile. Lur-Es- calais NJ. Sellier, who enacted Faust, IS one of the worst tenors l ever had the mls- fortune to hear. Mephlstopheles, by Dupllle, was better but weak; and the Siebel of Mime. Mirane beneath contempt. The tenor sang so flat and false as to spoil everything that he was in All the solo voices were in sufficient in power and the acting very tame and feeble. Now, of course, at times the greatest artists in the world may be heard here: but that ever in this great temple of art singers should be set on to play impor tant roles who have no power nor dramatic art, and who cannot even sing in tune, seems to me disgrace and reproach to French opera.
 But that is not all. The orchestra, com posed of magnificent material, on a scale of eight violoncelIos eight double passes, ten first violins and eight second violins and de- licious brass and reeds, did not play with precision The ensemble was far less per feet than we usually hear in good travelling companies in America. It was the four hun dred and ninety-seventh time that Faust" .1o s-, bat nd sIaTNC the musicians fancied that they knew it by heart and needed no rehearsal. They played carelessly and without feeling. This seemed to me- if possible, 8 greater reproach to French art than the setting on of inferior singers It cannot be excused at all in an academy of music" patronlzed by the State as a nursery of art. There is still another grave reproach-it is this; that while the au- dience was cold-and no wonder-there was one remarkable exception to this coldness. Just in the center of the pit there were eighteen gentlemen in three rows, six each, who burst into transports ot applause just before the completion of each aria. When the tenor tried to sing a high note and flat tened a semitone, their enthusiasm was un- bounded; and, in general, 1t may be said that the merit of the performance and the applause it received existed in inverse ratio the worse the music, the more those bald headed deceivers admired it. Now 1t IS bad
  by real enthusiasm; it is bad enough at all times to have the dramatic action spoiled by an encore; it is bad enough when that part of every audience that admires high notes and long trills bursts into genuine though ill deserved applause, and eompels the better part of the audience to hear bad thing done worse a second time-these are all de- plorable necessities but that the Grand Op- era of Paris should hire claque to perpetu- ate these atrocities shows a deadness to great ness in music that is to me saddening in the extreme; and I find my contempt mingled with indignation thrt this institution-which purports to be ''schooln-thus teaches us not that which is good, but that which is vi cious and destructive of all the higher aims of tone art When the hireling claque were cheering duet between Faust and Marguer- ite-most execrably done-I thought of the nobleness of the "Tristan and Isolde" at London; of the audience that sat hushed and breathless until the curtain fell upon the first act of that grand dramatic tone-poem, and then burst into storm of delight that made the walls of Covent Garden Theatre shiver as if in ague.