Bateman French Opera: La Grande Duchesse de Gérolstein

The “Grossherzogin” ( Grand Duchess of Geroldstein) still reigns at the French Theater, and it does not seem as if this will change for a while.

“Saturday [Oct. 12], the generals were given a rendezvous in the 14th Street hall. Sherman attended the matinée, which gave him the occasion to admire Mme Adélaide Ristori in Marie-Antoinette [a drama, not an opera], and General Sickles came in the evening to the Grande Duchesse, to meditate on the instability of plumed hats in this world. Nothing could better suit the ex-commander of the Carolinas, who was sometimes a democrat, sometimes a radical, and of whom one could rightfully find variegated opinions.. . . .

            Between Marie-Antoinette and the Grand Duchess we see scarcely one point of resemblance: it’s that they’re both sovereigns and Germans. Saturday evening, Mlle Tostée, suffering from a terrible cold, couldn’t fill the role of the amorous duchess. It was entrusted to Mme Isabelle Armand, who didn’t know until noon that she would be playing it in the evening. By the mere fact of that, the lady accomplished a veritable tour de force. She sang and acted very worthily, and the audience, by its encores and bravos, gave witness to their satisfaction more than once. The other artists outdid themselves. One thing surprises us: it’s the constant coolness of the public after the verses of la Gazette de Hollande, sung by Prince Paul. These verses are delightful and very well sung: why don’t they provoke a single round of applause? If the hall were populated only by Americans, their lack of familiarity with the French language would explain this silence, but we ill-understand why the French public greets this little jewel of fine and delicate wit with so much indifference.

            The three conspirators, Boum, Puck and Pacel, brought about a magnificent exit in the second act, when their princess dismisses them with the gracefulness that you are familiar with. They leave swinging, skipping and waddling, and entirely recalling that engraving of Rabelais illustrated by Doré: “They went away dandling their heads and….” But the senseless prudery of our age prevents us from finishing the quote. Whatever it may be, the exit and the pleasant cancan of the finale are the delight of the fans, for La Grande Duchesse has its fans, who can no more pass up seeing it than pass up their demi-tasses.

            Would you believe it? Some Puritans are to be found who take offense at the chaste cancan that we’ll talk about later. Some respectable individuals rebuke Offenbach’s work for not being serious. They have to be solemn and stiff at any price. These folks have the effect of those upright women, acting virtuous, who hide racy novels in their praying-desks, or who attend, in a screened box, an immoral comedy whose title they wouldn’t suffer to be mentioned in their parlor. We can’t believe in the sincerity of those who can be scandalized by a farce as innocent as the Grande Duchesse; all Puritans aren’t hypocrites, but all the hypocrites play at being Puritans.

            Moreover, there’s a mistake very much in vogue with a certain audience, that theater, to be moral, should be absolutely serious and even doctoral. Merriment is suspect, and the same father who wouldn’t hesitate to have his daughter hear the fourth act of Rigoletto, where you have before your eyes a suspicious house and the courtesan who lives there; the father who would have taken his to child to Les Huguenots, where a scarcely-married young woman swears, like the simplest thing in the world, that she “betrays her spouse and her father,” the husband who will have taken his wife to La Dame aux Camélias, where the entire interest is concentrated on vice; or to Diane de Lys, where it’s proven that marriage is such an unbearable shackle that one doesn’t hesitate to loosen it through adultery and murder; the same intelligent Prud’homme will forbid the joyfulness of La Grande-Duchesse to his dear ones, and will chastely veil his face before the least agitated cancan. It’s too stupid, but it’s that way with a good number of people who believe they are wanting in morals and dignity if they let themselves smile. For them, to never make fun of themselves is the utmost limit of human life, and the consummation of ability.

            By virtue of these poetics, having fun becomes a contemptible, frivolous, degraded, degrading art, good for slaves in a merry mood, and not for free men saturated like sponges with gravity and morality. This detestable tribe wouldn’t do any favors to Molière, rhyming the double quid pro quo of his Amphytrion in free verse. What’s Amphytrion? A masterpiece of wit and charm, unquestionably, but also a pure jest that adds to its bit of seriousness the scandal of a likeable license. Sosie speaks bluntly to his wife about things that everybody knows; there isn’t a word that obscene in Le Demi-Monde, an eminently moral piece where you only see girls and their pimps. Racine wouldn’t be happier with Aristophanes than Molière with Plautus, if, leaving his tomb with his comedic Les Plaideurs in his hand, he took it into his head to offer to the strait-laced audience we’ve been talking about, little dogs who piss everywhere. Don’t blush, stilted gentlemen; don’t purse your lips, Arsinoés of our time: we aren’t doing anything except quoting the text of the great poet’s verses, as you well know. We imagine that the witty composer of the Sabre de mon Père would retreat before the audacity of putting the little dogs of Perrin Dandin to music.

            But enough said about the horned ones who take tediousness for virtue and words for things: “Get away from me,” said the great Rabelais, “these shoeshine-boys of false morality….”  The master of masters, the true father of all good philosophy, of all healthy knowledge and all sincere Gallic gaiety, was right. There aren’t enough Pantagruelists in France any more; Balzac, in the admirable prologues of his prodigious comic tales, already complained bitterly about that. May they leave us what mirth can remain, and may they not make of us a people of blubberers, stiff people and pedants.”