Mr. Punch's History of Modern England. Volume 2 of 4.—1857-1874

"The Lower Middle Class and Working Class have, of late years, developed a large appetite for intellectual amusement, which the number of theatres, and the present construction of theatres (which give no comfortable or proper accommodation for these classes) have failed to satisfy."

Perhaps we may admit that the theatre, as generally conducted nowadays, is not exactly the place in which to satisfy an "intellectual appetite." With our "intellectual appetite," still suffering under the mockery of a Barmecide entertainment, in the shape of a recent course of burlesques, we feel that the intellectual playgoer, like the sheep in Milton's Sonnet, "looks up and is not fed" in our London theatres. But is there not something besides "numbers" and "construction " of theatre to blame here? May not the quality of the theatrical fare provided have a leetle to do with it? And who are the purveyors of that fare but many of the gentlemen who sign this petition.

If they fail so miserably in satisfying the "intellectual appetite" of even "the Lower Middle and Working-Class" in our theatres, how are they to satisfy it better in the music-halls which they wish to open for the unlimited consumption of their viands?

If they have anything better to offer, why not try it in the theatres, where they will, at least, find the cooks – such as they are – in the shape of actors, and the best procurable garnish of scenery, dresses, and decorations, without the distractions of chops and steaks, sherry cobblers, cold withouts, and sodas-and-brandies?

… But the less the demand for the opening of the music-halls to theatrical representations is based on the demands of the "intellectual appetite" of the Lower Middle and Working Classes, the better.

Three years later Punch was unable to notice any great improvement in the variety stage: —

The music-hall gentry had a great gathering the other day, for a purpose which we should approve, if we did not hold that the music-hall, as at present conducted, is so pestilent a nuisance that charity can have nothing to say to it. One of the performers had grace or shame enough to deliver some doggerel in which he deprecated the wrath of Punch on the ground that everybody must live. It is the plea usually heard in the dock, and the answer is: "Yes, but decently." But as it is of no use telling the music-hall folks what gentlemen think of them, perhaps they would like to know what the respectable artisan thinks of them, and of the spirit in which it is not impossible that he may deal with them. Here are the words of the organ of hundreds of thousands of the skilled artisans and the Trades Unions, in fact, and we recommend them to special attention: —

"To these glaring temples of dissipation our youth are nightly attracted; where they are being gradually trained to drinking habits; where their minds are debased by the low songs and vulgar exhibitions provided for them; and where their morals are undermined and corrupted by contact with loose associates, when their blood is fired and their brains bemuddled with drink… The expenditure incurred in those places of amusement keeps young men poor; causes marriage to be greatly postponed – to the increase of vice; or, if entered into, without the necessary provision for making a comfortable home; while the habits they acquire by going there will too frequently cause them to neglect home and family for their nightly amusements."

So says the Beehive speaking the sentiments of the Working Man. We do not think that he will see much force in the mewing plea of "must live."

The music-halls of to-day do not call for such censure; they have even become fashionable; but one is tempted to wonder whether there is any modern counterpart in Labour journalism to the austerely Puritan Beehive.

Opera in 1858

In the world of opera the domination of the Italian School of composers and singers, though intermittently and not unsuccessfully assailed, remained practically unbroken throughout this period, 1857-1874. Still, the formation of the company for the performance of English operas by Louisa Pyne and William Harrison in 1856 is a landmark that must not be overlooked. The partnership was dissolved in 1862, but the performances given at the Lyceum, Drury Lane, and Covent Garden theatres in those years anticipated the good work done in later years by the Carl Rosa and other companies. The general musical situation in 1858 is not badly summarized in the lines published at the end of June under the heading "Musicians and Maniacs": —

Three Traviatas in diff'rent quarters,Three Rigoletti murd'ring their daughters!!Three Trovatori beheading their brothers,By the artful contrivance of three gipsy mothers!!!Verdi in the Haymarket, Verdi at the Lane,Green's in Covent Garden, and Verdi again!Was ever a being so music be-ridden,Barrel-organ-beground, German brass-band bestridden;What with all the Concerts at all the Halls,And the Oratorios —Samsons and Sauls—Mozart and Mendelssohn, Haydn and Handel —All lights of the Art in every part,From the blaze of the Sun to a farthing-candle!And the Classical Matinées,With Clauss's touch satiny,That to hear her your heart seems to go pit-a-pat in ye —And Hallé so dignified, pure and sonorous,And Henry Leslie's amateur chorus,And fair Arabella, so melting and mellow,That she charms the stern judgment of Autocrat Ella,And Rubinstein – rapid and rattling of fist,That one cries out with Hamlet's Papa, "Liszt, Oh Liszt."

Ella was the founder and director of the "Musical Union," which gave Chamber Music Concerts much on the lines of the famous "Pops"; Arabella was Arabella Goddard, the leading British pianist. Henry Leslie's choir for the performance of madrigal music carried off the prize against all comers at Paris in 1867. Wilhelmine Clauss was the Bohemian pianist, known in later years as Mme. Szarvady. To return to opera: it is amusing to find precisely the same charge hurled against Verdi as against Wagner twenty or thirty years later – that he cracked or wore out voices in their vain effort to contend against orchestral din. Grisi was still the chief diva, though a new star had arisen in Titiens, whose name spurred Punch to display his metrical prowess: —

We've got a great artist, a lady named Titiens,Whose praises we'd sing, but her name will not rhyme.Stuff! Horace reminds you, with "Tantalus sitiens,"We've thirsted for music like hers a long time.

The Advent of Patti

The new Opera House had been opened at Covent Garden, and on the first night patrons complained of getting covered with white, as the paint was still fresh. The "Music of the Future" continues to excite Punch's derision, and at the close of 1858 he seizes the opportunity of running a tilt against Lohengrin: —

Meyerbeer's opera of the Africaine seems to be "The Opera of the Future," for there appears but little chance of its ever being played in our lifetime. How many years has it not been locked up in the great composer's portfolio, undergoing a species of African slavery, of which manager after manager has tried in vain to find the musical key. However, we are sorry to find Meyerbeer lending his great name to Messrs. Wagner, Liszt, and other crotchet-mongers of the Music of the Future, in support of their inharmonious fallacies, that have lately been aired in a grand pretentious production, called Lohengrin. A "grin" seems to be the end of all their Operas, though at best it is but a melancholy one, and anything but flattering to those who provoke it. The Viennese are all Lohengrinning like mad. We wish Meyerbeer would put this band of musical fanatics to shame by allowing his Africaine to become an "Opera of the Present," instead of "the Future," and so prove to these hare-brained gentlemen what good music really is. The best Music of the Future is that which has the elements of vitality in every note of it, so that there can be no doubt about its living several scores of years after its production. The specimen that we know of this class is Don Giovanni, and our would-be Mozarts cannot do better than take it as a model.

Lady (to big drum): "Pray, my good man, don't make that horrid noise. I can't hear myself speak!"

Punch's enthusiasm for Piccolomini had so far cooled that when a testimonial to her was suggested in 1860, he declined his support on the ground that she was "a pretty little personage, of good family, who, by force of bright eyes, intelligent acting, and a charming smile, pleased the public into a belief that she was a lyric artist." Moreover, if there was to be a testimonial, Grisi was the proper recipient. The following year was noteworthy for the advent of Patti, unheralded by any strident flourish of trumpets. Punch's first reference to her début in May was brief and ambiguous, and disfigured by a pun on her name. Six weeks later he remains still unshaken in his allegiance to his old heroines – Malibran, Jenny Lind, and Grisi – and suspends his judgment on the newcomer. Patti's arrival coincided with the "final farewell appearances" of Grisi, a mistress of the grand style as singer and actress, queen-like in her gestures and gait, unequalled even by Titiens (in Punch's opinion) in Norma and as Donna Anna; but Punch soon succumbed to the furore for Patti. As Zerlina she was "more charming than he expected," and a year later he celebrated his enslavement in jingling rhyme: —

O charming Adelina!How sweet is thy AminaHow bewitching thy Zerlina!How seldom has there been aMore tunable Norina!And have I ever seen aMore enjoyable Rosina?But to tell the praise I mean a--Las! there should have been aScore more rhymes to Adelina.

Punch said what he could in 1861 of two forgotten operas – Balfe's Puritan's Daughter, with Santley in the cast, and Benedict's Lily of Killarney, a tertiary deposit from The Collegians– but found more congenial occupation in the spring of 1862 in levelling the shafts of ineffectual, because uninstructed, ridicule against Wagner: —

LE VERITABLE "OPERA COMIQUE"

We read that Herr Wagner is about to compose a comic opera, music and words. We agree with our facetious contemporary, The Musical World,30 that we never heard an opera of Wagner's yet that was not more, or less, comic… As this gentleman's music is said to belong to "The Future" – and certainly as a Present it is not worth having – we suppose he generally gets it executed by the celebrated Band of "Hope."

A KING WITH A STRANGE TASTE FOR MUSIC

Wagner and Gounod

Herr Wagner, the great composer, "for the future" (a. d. 1962), has received sharp orders from the King of Saxony to return home instantly. Is the King jealous that other parts of the Continent should have so much of the services of his Kapellmeister, and he comparatively so little? He probably wishes to have Wagner all to himself. Far from quarrelling with the desired monopoly, in the cause of music we heartily rejoice at it. The royal edict will have the effect of narrowing the evil of contaminating compositions. It is tantamount to a musical quarantine. Travellers must not venture too near, or else they may be infected with one of his malignant airs, which are not so catching, perhaps, as they are lowering, leaving a fearful sense of depression behind them. Henceforth, the flights of The Flying Dutchman will be restricted to one kingdom instead of half a dozen. We hope Wagner will be confined to Dresden all his life. Our Philharmonic will gain from his imprisonment. It will run no further risk of being nearly knocked on the head from another blow of his erratic baton.

The chief operatic attractions of 1863 are set forth in an excellent mock-Virgilian Eclogue in which the two rival impresarios, Gye and Mapleson, figure as Damoetas and Menalcas and Punch as Palaemon. Patti's popularity is attested in the couplet: —

My little Patti all the world must ownThe nicest little party ever known.

Literature, Science, and Music at an evening party. Total defeat of the two former.

The list of celebrities includes Titiens, Carvalho, Trebelli, Mario, Tamberlik (a heroic tenor, famous for his "ut de poitrine"), Giuglini, Faure, Formes, Santley – all of them long dead, except the last, who had, in 1862, just cast in his lot with Italian opera. He took part in the first performance of Faust in England as Valentine, and with such success that Gounod wrote for him the additional number "Dio possente." Faust is a landmark in the annals of opera in England; because it was the first work which shook the allegiance of the fashionable world to the Italian school, and for fifty years at least enjoyed a popularity equal to that of the early Verdi, of Donizetti, Bellini, and Rossini, and, judged by the test of performances, greater than that of Mozart or Meyerbeer. Faust was certainly founded on Italian rather than German traditions, but there was much in it that was essentially French, and one turns with curiosity to read how it struck so orthodox and, in some ways, so insular a critic as Punch. He treated the opening performance perfunctorily, briefly observing that the opera seemed to suit everyone's taste, but made his amende a month later: —

Thank you, M. Gounod; thank you, Mr. Gye; thank you, Mr. Mapleson.31 As produced by your exertions Faust is certainly Faust-rate. Mr. Punch makes his apology for not saying so before, but he is not like some clairvoyants who can criticize by foresight. Moreover, such cascades of praise have spouted on all sides that he feared a while to add to the laudatory deluge. Now, having seen and heard and reflected at his leisure, Punch is ready to allow that the shower of superlatives has not fallen undeserved, and he will own that M. Gounod has produced the sweetest, prettiest and pleasantest new opera that, since the first night of Les Huguenots, the world has seen brought forth. The only drawback Mr. Punch felt when he witnessed the performance was that M. Gounod had not set the Brocken Scene. With that addition, Faust might have eclipsed Der Freischütz, and even without this it is not far inferior.

"Homeric Catalogue of Singers"

Many of the greatest singers of the time appeared in these performances. Miolan-Carvalho (the original Marguerite), Faure (the first Mephistopheles), Giuglini, the incomparable Trebelli, and Santley. Patti assumed the rôle of the heroine in the following year with great success; but Punch did not fail to welcome Titiens as Leonora in Fidelio, an achievement which he describes as "noble music nobly rendered." It was in 1864 again that the efforts of English opera to raise its diminished head called forth Punch's satire. Foreign opera still held the field, and the only English feature of the venture was the conductor Mellon.

The "Homeric Catalogue of Singers," published on April 1, 1865, shows how formidable was the competition of the foreign singers, headed by Patti, Lucca, and the honey-tongued Miolan-Carvalho, with other prima donnas from Munich, Berlin, Milan, Moscow, and Lisbon, and, amongst men, Mario, Wachtel ("the far-famed shouter of high notes"), Ronconi (a great actor and humorist) Tagliafico, and half a dozen others whose names have fallen into the limbo of forgotten singers.

Meyerbeer's long-promised and posthumous L'Africaine arrived at last in the summer season of 1865, but before its performance on July 22, with Pauline Lucca in the part of Selika, the libretto of this "grand new old opera" is irreverently burlesqued by Punch with delightful pictures by Du Maurier. We can only find room for an excellent travesty of the Song of Inez: —

I go to execution,'Tis righteous retribution,And by this ConstitutionAll foreigners must die —

and the excellent and well-merited criticism of the execrable singing of the opera chorus (old style).

Little Tommy Bodkin takes his cousins to the gallery of the Opera.

Pretty Jemima: (who is always so considerate): "Tom, dear, don't you think you had better take off your hat, on account of the poor people behind?" you know?"

Nilsson and Grisi

Punch returns to L'Africaine a couple of months later, but in a vein of irresponsible ribaldry. Punch's notice, however, is valuable because it is a good (if partly unconscious) satire on the attitude of the frivolous opera-goer who goes (or shall we say went) to the opera to be amused and titillated, to see and be seen, to applaud the "stars" in their show songs, but for the rest deaf to the appeal of poetry and passion. Punch, at his worst, never sank to this level, witness his appreciation of Jenny Lind and Titiens and Ronconi; but the glamour of good looks and a fine voice seldom failed to touch his susceptible heart. His appreciation of Christine Nilsson on her appearance in 1867 is, with certain reserves, a good estimate of one who in her prime was an almost perfect Marguerite, or perhaps one should say Gretchen, and who might have stepped out of one of the canvases of Kaulbach: —

It is not usual, I know, to wear thick boots at the opera; but I regretted very much that, obeying my young wife, I had put on a thin pair, when I went the other night to hear the new young Swedish singer. I have seldom been more charmed than I was by her fresh voice, fair face, and her agreeable demeanour. She sings in a pure style, with intelligence and taste, and she can hold a long soft note with none of the affected trembling of the voice which of late has been so fashionable. Her tones are clear and full, high but never shrill; and she has no need of French polish to conceal those cracks and blemishes which Verdi makes in thin weak voices. She is very young at present, and must not be crudely criticized; but she seems by nature gifted for the operatic stage, and having ardour and ambition to shine lastingly upon it. Because she happens to be Swedish, people think of their old favourite, and make absurd comparisons between a finished artist in the climax of her fame and a clever débutante who is wishful to be famous. The parallel, though premature, may in one point be permitted, for these Swedes have both the gift of singing not to the ears only, but simply to the heart; and though Christine Nilsson may not be a second Jenny Lind, she is even now among the very first of prime donne.

In 1868 regret is expressed that Royalty bestowed more patronage on Offenbach than Handel – the Handel Festival coinciding with the production of La Grande Duchesse in 1868; on the other hand, Patti's marriage to the Marquis de Caux is thought worthy of a mention under the heading of "Essence of Parliament"! In 1869 Punch notes the knighthood conferred on Costa, whom he had once described as "the tamer of wild prima donnas," and pays homage to Grisi, who died at the close of the year: —

GIULIA GRISINay, no elegies nor dirges!Let thy name recall the surges,Waves of song, whose magic playSwept our very souls away:And the memories of the daysWhen to name thee was to praise;Visions of a queenly grace,Glowings of a radiant face,Art's High Priestess! at her shrineNe'er was truer guard than thine.Were it Love, or were it Hate,It was thine, and it was great.Glorious Woman – like to theeWe have seen not, nor shall see.Lost the Love, the Hate, the Mirth —Light upon thee lie the earth!

Hervé's Chilpéric is hailed in 1870 as a welcome substitute for the tyranny of Schneider and Offenbach; as for Tannhäuser, Punch was apparently very much of the same way of thinking as the members of the Jockey Club in Paris, who received it with whistles and cat-calls in 1861: —

GEE WOE, WAGNERA Solo by Mr. Crusty, after hearing a Selection from the Opera of Tannhäuser"The music of the future," eh?Well, some may think it pleasant!But when such trash again they play,I'll for the future hope I mayNot be among the present!

Mario's farewell benefit, on July 19, 1871, when he played Fernando in La Favorita for the last time in London, was a scene of "roaring and wreaths" described with mingled humour and emotion by Punch, who hailed the retiring idol as the Prince of Lyric Artists: —

Though lost to earTo memory dearI ne'er shall look upon his like again!

Anyone who wishes to study the true dramatic expression of the Tragic Muse in the act of drinking the last bitter cup of despair to the very dregs, should watch a young mother teaching the elements of music to her first-born.

Popular Songs in 1858

Concert music between 1841 and 1857 began and ended, so far as Punch was concerned, with Jullien. To what we have written in the previous volume of Jullien's disasters and death, it may here be added that Punch bade him God-speed on the grand tour in 1858 which was to restore his fortunes, and when the end came was active in canvassing for funds to support his widow and family, who were left totally unprovided for. Also, that he repeated his tribute to Jullien's great services as an educator of the "shilling-paying public." The taste of the musical million was still a matter of concern to Punch. His detestation of street bands, Ethiopians, Germans, Tyrolese, and Italians – principally emissaries of Verdi, his pet aversion – amounted almost to an obsession. The names of the popular songs in 1858 – "Jim Crow" and "Keemo Kimo" were certainly not romantic. At a concert held in St. James's Hall in June, 1858, a negro song was sung with the delectable refrain: "Flip up in de scidimadinc, jube up in de jubin jube." Punch found some solace, however, in the concerts at Sydenham, where morceaux of Mozart, Mendelssohn, and Handel, served up by Costa, took the sickly taste of Traviata out of his mouth. Punch's own education was advancing, but he had not yet learnt to spell Liszt's name properly. The extravagances of Liszt worship, which certainly reached a pitch never surpassed in the annals of musical idolatry, are burlesqued in a series of paragraphs aimed at Wagner as well as his son-in-law to be. Writing of Liszt's "fearful engagement" in Dresden, in 1859, he facetiously asserts that "Not less than two pianos were killed under him, and upwards of two dozen music-stools severely wounded." The "encore nuisance" had already found in Punch a strenuous critic; and a tumultuous scene at the Surrey Hall, when Sims Reeves had withstood the demands of a rowdy section of the audience for half an hour, provoked an indignant fulmination against the brutal exigencies of concert goers. Sydenham was in the main a centre of musical culture, but there was a slight lapse from grace at the end of this year when the "Calliope" or "Steam Orchestra" was imported from America. It was in reality only a big barrel organ, which gave out more steam than harmony. But the Crystal Palace redeemed itself in the following year by the performance of the Elijah, at a Mendelssohn commemoration, by 3,000 performers before an audience numbering 18,000. Sims Reeves, Miss Dolby, and Madame Parepa were the soloists; and Punch could think of no better praise of the last-named singer than to say that she reminded him of his Clara. For there was a Clara in those days, too: Clara Novello, the friend of Charles Lamb, all unmusical though he was, who had won the praise of Schumann at the outset of her distinguished career as a very great and noble oratorio singer. Punch went to hear her last farewell at the Crystal Palace in the autumn of 1860; "went, heard, and for the thousandth time was conquered."

The year 1860 was also noteworthy for the visit of the French Orphéonistes, a body of choral singers directed by M. Delaporte. The visit afforded Punch great sport because of the special "Vocabulaire et Guide des Orphéonistes Français à Londres" which was specially issued for their benefit, and contained, amongst other delights, a full transliteration of the National Anthem beginning: —

"God sève aoueur grésheuss Couinn."

The "Pops"

Blondin's performances at the Crystal Palace, which were a great feature of 1861, suggested to Punch that the concerts might be popularized if the performers appeared on the tight rope. But this was "wrote sarcastic"; the morbid taste of the public for witnessing dangerous performances is repeatedly rebuked, and as a matter of fact Blondin was forbidden to trundle his child in a wheelbarrow along the tight rope.