New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1918-10-06
The Metropolitan Company Brought
Forward Many Novelties and
Revived Gluck's "Orfeo''

"Orfeo" is the oldest opera in the current
list-the oldest opera and yet one bearing
much needed lesson, which it is greatly
to be feared is not yet appreciated at its
full value because of the perverted taste of
the operate public for music so highly
spiced with dissonance and mongrel tone
that the original mission OF the art has
been forgotten, and its potency dissipated,
because of the prevalence of taste for
pruriency, lust and the shambies. There
was nothing of all this in this revival,
but much loneliness of scenic spectacle and
much beautiful music grateful to the ear,
warming to the emo tons and powerfully
appealing to the imagination. 1t is no
extravaganza of speech to say that for the
first time the present generation of opera
goers in New York were privileged to en-
Joy performance of the opera which was
worthy Of the poet, the composer, the in
stitution at which it was presented and
also of the beautiful old egend-in short,
an adequate performance. Old operagoers
in New York whose memories go back sixty
years might be able to recall not only all
the representations which "Orfeo" has had
in New York but also the very first per-
Torrance of an opera by Gluck in America,
for "Orfeo" was the only one of the COM
poser's works up to then that had been
in the theatre on this side Of the
Atlantic. Time and again, especially in the
old days of German opera at the Metro
politan Opera House, there was talk of
producing "Armide" or one of the "Iphige-
Mas" but talk was all that came of it. En-
rtC ~ l~,J
the music festivals in Cincinnati but Cor
feo" had provided the only opportunities
which Americans had had to learn of the
dramatic quality of the artist who cleared
the path down which Wagner walked to
glory. The first performance of "Orfeo' in
New York was in English and took place at
the Winter Garden on May o. 1868. Mile.
Felicita Vestvali was the representative of
the mythical bard and Carl Anschiitz was
the conductor.
For the details of that performance the
reader must be referred to other sources;
they outside my ken. My knowledge,
however, goes back to a revival which, while
it cannot be recalled without a smile at
some of its features, may yet be remem-
bered with gratitude. On January s, 1886,
the American Opera Company produced the
opera in English at the Academy of Music,
and between that date and the end Of
March performed it ten times in New York
and three times in Brooklyn Nine. Helene
Hastreiter was the Orpheus of this per-
Torrance, Miss Emma Juch the Eurydice
and Theodore Thomas conducted The
opera was tastefully staged, and a fine in
telligence marked all the scenes and
tableaus up to the final ballet, the culm1-
mating feature of which was Bacchic pro-
cession seemingly conjured up by Orpheus
for the diversion of the denizens of Elysi-
um. This incongruty was forgotten, how
ever, in the absurdities which marked the
productions of the opera at the Metropoli-
tan Opera House previous to the/one under
discussion. The first of them took place
on December 80, 1891, when "Orfeo" was
given in Italian a companion piece to
"Cavalleria rusticana." Here was contrast
with a vengeance! But that was not all
"Orfeo's" stage furniture was the most
absurd tumble of ancient pagan and media
val Christian notions ever conceived The
underworld of the Greeks was represented
by the hell of "Asrael.'. which had come
over to Nh Abbey from the German re
gime. At the Academy Of Music we had
seen JXion Tantalus and the other tabled
heroes of IIades suspending their labors
while the song Of Orpheus enriched the
atmosphere of their prison house; but now
saw only the flames of the hell of
medieval theologians, the ascending smoke
of torment and scores Of capcring red
devils. The Elysian fields the magic
gardens of Merlin (borrowed from Gold
marks opera Of that name), with their
tropical forest vegetation OF the carbo-
niferous era, a sea in the background and
golden winged cherubim and seraphim to
keep company with Eurydce and her asso-
ciates of terpsichorean proclivties, who eX-
pressed the whole gamut Of their emotions
by standing on their toes. The sisters
Giulia and Sophia Ravogli, who in some in
applicable way had won praise for their
performances in London, were the inspiring
cause Of this revival. 1t endured for four
representations, largely because it was as
socated with Mascagn's opera, which had
been introduced to the stage of the Metro
politan Opera House with it.
In the season of 1S93-94 "Orfeo' returned
to the stage of the Metropolitan in the COM
pany of another ferocious little drama
which since then has formed a lasting COM