Strakosch Troupe Concert: 1st

“That the public mind is excited to the highest pitch of enthusiasm over the glowing prospects of the present musical season seems to be a patent fact. Certainly, if any doubts were entertained about the matter, the spectacle at Steinway Hall last evening would be sufficient to dispel them. The occasion was the opening of the season by Mlle. Carlotta Patti, Signor Mario and a concert troupe composed of entirely new faces. The features in the expectation of the audience were the two artists just mentioned. Of Mlle. Carlotta Patti brief mention will suffice, as her lengthened concert tour in this country three years ago familiarized the public with her talents as a concert singer. Her selections last night were eminently suitable for the exceptional brilliancy of her voice, the latter one, Proch’s air and variations, being heavily charged with vocal fireworks. This is the air in which Madame Peschka-Leutner roused the Salons of the Hub at the Jubilee [Boston]. We certainly prefer Patti’s method of singing it, as it is less overpowering and adorned with more artistic shading. The first selection, the mad scene from ‘Lucia,’ was sung with clockwork precision, the only perceptible fault being a slight metallic ring at the end of a roulade, caused by the utterance of what might be called an explosive note to finish each phrase. Mlle. Patti made an erroneous selection in the first encore in singing ‘Within a Mile of Edinboro.’’ This little Scotch song demands a peculiar expression and naïve simplicity which the florid school of the fair artist is not possessed of, and the same may be said of all such ballads. Mlle. Patti was literally overwhelmed with baskets of flowers. It may be well said of Mario, we shall never hear his like again. What recollections that name brings up! It carries us back to the days when the immortal quartet, Malibran, Rubini, Tamburini and Lablache made ‘I Puritani’ a dream of Paradise, when Braham was in his prime and long before any of the great singers of the present day were out of their teens. He is, as it were, a bridge between the past and the present. Once the idol of the world, the greatest Raoul, Almaviva, Gennaro and Ferrando that ever lived; now Mario in name. In London, where thirty-three years ago, he made his début, he took such a firm hold on the affections of the public that they clung to him to the last, while a tone of his glorious voice remained. But alas! the voices of tenors cannot last forever, and we regret to be obliged to state that there were few traces of the Raoul or Almaviva of former days perceptible last night. No one that has ever heard Mario in his palmy days could utter a word of unkindness against him even when these days are past, but a feeling of sadness cannot be restrained. Miss Cary was warmly welcomed back, and Miss Terese Carreño, who may be remembered as a child pianist here, played Mendelssohn’s concerto in G minor and Liszt’s fantasia on ‘Faust.’ She has developed into a very handsome and graceful young lady, but there is particular excellence in her playing. In the parlor or salon she would likely shine to advantage, but in the concert hall, especially with a disagreeably blatant orchestra as a background, her style cannot be considered otherwise than tame. The greatest success of the entire concert was a young élève of Vieuxtemps named M. Sauret, who displayed very remarkable talent as a violinist. His technique is as near an approach to perfection as has been heard in Steinway Hall since its foundation, and he gives promise of a strongly marked individuality in expression and phrasing which will place him yet at the head of his profession. His selection was Ernst’s fantasia on Hungarian airs, which was superbly played. For an encore he chose a prodigiously difficult transcription of the sestette from ‘Lucia,’ which, with the exception of uniting a portion of the pizzicato arpeggio accompaniment in the commencement, he also rendered with success. Ronconi also lent his inimitable buffo talents to the concert. If Formes were only there, what a meeting would there be of the great ones of bygone days—Mario, Ronconi and Formes?”

10)

Review: New York Post, 17 September 1872, 2.

“Rarely has the musical season opened more brilliantly in New York than last night at Steinway Hall, under the auspices of Mr. Strakosch, than whom no one understands better how to make a concert as entertaining almost as the lyric drama. There was a full, and, for September, a phenomenally fashionable house, everybody was in the best humor, the programme was a succession of sparkling delights, and it was difficult, when the enchantment was over, to say wherein it had most pleasantly beguiled us.

Mario was the name that had possibly brought the larger number of the audience together, and what shall we say of Mario as he sang last evening? Not a word but in grateful remembrance of the greatest of tenors that has trod the stage in our time; but the voice that by turns roused to enthusiasm or melted to tears the decorous, unemotional, well-gloved audiences of Europe and America fifteen or twenty years ago, is now a memory and no more. Now and then there is to be caught a reminiscence of the glorious past, as in the late autumn there comes a day of warmth and brightness to bring back the summer that is gone. In the Spirito Gentil, which to have heard in Mario’s palmy days was something never to die out of our recollection, he betrayed great delicacy of feeling, and manifested that [direct?] knowledge of his art which gave in the old time the [crowning?] grace to his superb natural qualities; and in ‘Good Bye, Sweetheart, Good Bye,’ he showed that he had not wholly lost his power to unseal the sources of sensibility. There was, after all, something in the presence of Mario that inspired a respect akin to enthusiasm, and in the self-reliance and independence of a spirit that has brought him again before the public, we recognise the same quality of heroism that was exhibited by Sir Walter Scott when late in life, overwhelmed with debt and oppressed with care, he kept on writing, though the ‘Heart of Mid-Lothian’ was to be followed by ‘Castle Dangerous.’

Carlotta Patti comes back to us with the same wonderful voice, and yet more wonderful command of its resources, that she took with her to Europe on her last departure. It is a voice of the most wonderful kind, as indeed all lovers of music in America know, resembling an amazingly delicate instrument of surpassing purity of tone rather than a human organ, and suggesting in its odd turns and comic zigzags of expression, the sparkle and sudden bursts of fireworks. In the rondo from ‘Lucia’ she left the flutes far behind her, so much purer and higher was the voice than the instrument, and in Proch’s variations she recalled Madame Peschka-Leutner’s rendering of the famous bravura only to impress us with her superiority to the favorite of the Coliseum during the Peace Jubilee [Boston].

Miss Annie Louise Cary we think has greatly improved since she last sang in New York, and her vocalization last evening was sweetly natural and carefully finished. Her ‘Kathleen Mavourneen,’ sung as an encore, was especially tender and true in feeling and expression.

Miss Teresa Carreño produced an immense effect, coming, as she did, upon an audience that had never heard of her great beauty of person and grace of manner, ‘like a reappearing star or a glory from afar,’ and her performance on the piano gave the seal to the admiration inspired by her appearance. Her style is excellent, and her knowledge of music apparently large and correct, though there is little of individuality about her playing, and it is perhaps deficient in the undefinable sympathetic element that has often taken hold of us when a player less lovely has sat at the keyboard.

M. Sauret, we should say, was a violinist of infinite possibilities. His high notes are quite perfect, and his manner of handling the violin is easy and graceful, and he approaches the greatest difficulties only to overcome them, with a modest confidence that wins at once upon his hearers.”

11)

Review: New-York Times, 17 September 1872, 4.

“New-York has again heard Mario and Carlotta-Patti, and our concert season of 1871-72 has opened with uncommon brilliancy. All of Mr. Strakosch’s excellent arrangements were carried out last night with taste and discretion, and a remarkable assemblage of connoisseurs, and the general public testified their delight with a concert embracing memorable features of attraction. Mlle. Carlotta Patti, to whose advance in breadth of style and sympathetic development we shall bear cordial witness, will forgive us for speaking first of an artist, who, styled by some contemporaries a ‘veteran,’ proved at Steinway Hall last night how much he retains of youthful passion and buoyancy, and how much he has added to them of that finish and elegance attainable only by singers of the first rank who have enjoyed the widest experience.

Somebody very properly said the other day that, in an age which brought forth Von Moltkes and Palmerstons, it is silly as well as brutal to speak of advanced years as a disqualification for public functions, or, in general, for intellectual achievement. The rebuke, called forth by an ill-mannered slur on Gen. Dix, was timely and well-deserved. Irreverence for age is said to be a national characteristic, and apart from the fact that average longevity is on the increase, it is wise to reflect now and then, how far that irreverence, joined by other follies, actually disqualifies youth for work which youth assumes to be impracticable for age. At all events, when, in our own immediate community, we see such men as Mr. Bryant and Commodore Vanderbilt, filling their very different but highly exacting spheres not only with unabated activity, but with a wisdom and precision unsurpassed by them in earlier days, it is becoming to admit that sagacity is not confined to the young, and that the red men, our predecessors, were not so far wrong when they did honor to gray hairs, and put those who wore them highest at the council board.

It is plain that what may be true here as regards politics or philosophy must be only partly true of art—of art, that is, which demands physical effort for its expression. And yet it is a grave question whether an artist like Signor Mario—who, we need scarcely say, is much younger than either of the distinguished men we have named—may not teach more, and even give a loftier and more refined pleasure to what is called the decadence of his powers, than he ever did before. Of course his voice has lost the splendid vigor, the passionate warmth, the glorious fullness and evenness of tone that distinguished it a generation ago. We do not now hear what Paris heard with amazement and admiration in 1838, when Meyerbeer’s opera was graced by his Robert, and the ‘Toi que j’aime’ found echo over half Europe. But it is a question whether the mellowed taste, the exquisite appreciation of means and ends, the thoroughness and grace of a perfected school, do not more than make amends to cultivated ears for the mere bodily superiority that went before. It seemed to us that the audience of last night, despite the comparative disappointment of Signor Mario’s first essay, thought so. That Steinway Hall was crowded might have been expected. Early as it is in the season, the attractions Mr. Strakosch has heaped together, and the public confidence in his taste and good will, assured no less. And that Signor Mario should be cordially and even enthusiastically welcomed it needed no prophet to foretell. It was the manner, however, in which the great tenor’s work for the night was, on the whole, listened to and received that suggests the idea we have expressed, and which, otherwise conveyed, is that a New-York audience did itself last night the honor to find so much in Signor Mario to admire, if it did not in truth find more in him to admire than ever. The following is the advertised programme of the evening [see above].

It must be owned that Signor Mario was by no means himself, vocally speaking, in the quintet from ‘Il Ballo.’ He seemed to be laboring under nervousness, and the sudden cold of the past day or two undoubtedly troubled his throat. In ‘Spirito Gentil,’ however, he fairly captivated his audience, and showed unmistakably what is yet to be expected of him when in good form. Mlle. Patti was greeted with lively enthusiasm, and quite loaded down with flowers. In response to the unappeasable demands of the audience, she sang a popular Scotch ballad after her opening ‘Ardon gl’incensi,’ and renewed her triumph with similar effect in the selection from Proch that followed. We scarcely think Mlle. Patti was at her best, however, and look to see her still better hereafter. Miss Cary and Signor Ronconi—how oddly it must strike the famous buffo to be once more singing on these Western shores with his old artistic companion!—gratified their public, and Mlle. Teresa Carreno, of whose playing we shall try to speak more in detail at an early day, provoked genuine enthusiasm. Not less should be said of the young violinist, M. Sauret, who bids fair to become a great artist. The orchestra of the occasion was firm, even, and well balanced, and, in short, nothing was wanting that could be expected to give the charm of completeness to the evening. The next concert is advertised for Wednesday, when a programme of still greater brilliancy is looked for. We congratulate Mr. Strakosch upon the signal success of his initial effort in an arduous and creditable undertaking, and trust the prosperity of this occasion will attend him throughout his season.”

12)

Review: New-York Daily Tribune, 17 September 1872, 8.

“The opening of the musical season was celebrated at Steinway Hall last night by a much larger and more brilliant audience than one would have expected to find under ordinary circumstances so early in the year. All the seats were occupied and the lobby was crowded. Fashionable society was fairly represented, and a multitude of notable people from the world of art were there also—the barbaric face of Rubinstein and the portly figure of Wieniawski being conspicuous among them. It was indeed an occasion of more than common interest. The return of Mario was an event that had stirred the curiosity or the enthusiasm of half the town. There were hundreds who remembered the sweet voice and noble delivery of seventeen years ago, and longed to welcome the great artist once more as an old friend. There were still more who knew the famous tenor only by the tradition of their elders, and were eager even to look upon the singer whose name illustrates one of the brightest chapters in musical history. He did not appear last night till the end of the first part, and then he merely took his share in the quintet from ‘Un Ballo in Maschera,’ E scherzo od é follia. He was warmly received as he came upon the stage, yet not with any superfluous enthusiasm; people were busy, perhaps, trying to trace in that stately, well-preserved gentleman, with ruddy face and dark beard, the Fernando who won all hearts and charmed all eyes and ears so many seasons ago. Let us tell the truth as tenderly as we can; the art remains, of course,--the pure style, the elegant phrasing, the keen sensibility,--but that is nearly all. At moments here and there a faint flavor of the ancient tones carries us back in fancy across the wide chasm of years; we shut our eyes to the scene before us, and again the youthful Mario fills the stage with his presence, and the voice which had no rival rings sweet and pure through the chambers of memory. But it is after all a melancholy recollection. For those who cannot associate the ruin with its pristine glories, the exhibition must be terribly disappointing; for those who do recall the past it is necessarily painful. Signor Mario sang little last night. His only solo, on the bills, was the Spirito gentil from ‘La Favorita,’ the romanza which he almost made immortal. Time was when he seemed to sing that right out of his heart, and he drew tears with it from the driest eyes. Now, losing in part the control of his voice, he has lost something of his power of expression; yet one can see that the delicacy of his feeling is unimpaired, though his muscles may refuse to obey his will. He sings with extreme care, slipping over the high notes and dropping the highest altogether. His voice was a little too husky before he had finished; but he was recalled, and gave the pretty song which Hatton wrote for him, ‘Good bye, sweetheart, good bye.’ It was a sad thing to hear; yet how beautifully he used what resources Time had left him, how much tenderness and elegance the old man threw into those familiar lines. We are glad to say that his welcome grew heartier as the evening wore away. He deserves the highest testimony of our respect; for he is one of the few really great singers of our generation, and it will be a pity if he do not carry away with him a substantial mark of the esteem in which Americans still hold him.

Of Miss Carlotta Patti we do not know that we need to say a great deal. She has come back just about what she was when she went away. The ‘radical transformation in her style and manner,’ which Mr. Strakosch announced, is not perceptible to the average listener. We have the same astonishing tricks of vocalization, the same airy trifling with the mechanical difficulties of art, the same phenomenal purity and compass of voice, and the same lack of real sentiment which always characterized the singing of this extraordinary artist. She is not everything that a great singer must be; but in her own line she is unsurpassed, and her popularity is apparently as great as ever. She rivaled Madame Peschka-Leutner in a part of the famous Variations di Bravoura by Proch, which the German prima donna sang so often in Boston and New-York, and in the more florid variations Miss Patti showed decidedly the more facility of the two. She sang the Ardon gl’ incensi and Spargi d’amaro lagrime from ‘Lucia,’ and almost put the flute obbligato out of countenance; and she amused the audience with one of her favorite ballads, ‘Within a mile of Edinboro’ town.’ Miss Cary was also cordially received, and sang as usually very naturally and sweetly [reprinted DJM 10/05/72, p. 317 to here]. Sig. Ronconi made himself as funny and as useful as possible. Mr. Gaston Gottschalk did well in the quintet, and there was a good orchestra under Mr. Behrens. Finally there were two newcomers in the company and both proved themselves decided acquisitions. Miss Teresa Carreno left us about six years ago as an infant phenomenon. She comes back a beautiful and accomplished young woman, destined for conquests. She played first, with the orchestra, Mendelssohn’s piano-forte concerto in G minor. It has been so much and so well played in New-York that the choice was a bold one, and we do not think it was altogether wise. Her playing was correct, intelligent, and to a certain degree delicate; but it lacked distinctive character, and the quick second movement was somewhat deficient in vigor. But when she was recalled and came back with a lively dance measure, the hidden fire of her Southern nature broke forth. Her style became free and almost fantastic, yet was chastened with an indescribable grace and beauty which fascinated everybody. M. Sauret, the new violinist, is a very young man of the very highest promise. He belongs to the romantic school, and is remarkable chiefly for the curious perfection of his highest notes, and secondly for the freedom and ease of his style. He played a Fantaisie on Hungarian airs, by Ernst, and for a recall, the Chi mi frena.”

13)

Announcement: Dwight's Journal of Music, 21 September 1872, 311.

14)

Review: New York Clipper, 28 September 1872, 206.

“Mario re-appeared in America on Monday, Sept. 16th, on which occasion he made his first bow at Steinway Hall as a member of Max Strakosch’s new ‘Grand Concert Company,’ before a representation of the foreign fashionable element of New York society, which crowded the hall. Strakosch appears to have quite a penchant for singers who are ‘in the sere and yellow leaf’ of operatic life. In this latest company of his he presents, as stars, two regular ‘vets’ of the lyric stage in the persons of Mario and his contemporary, Ronconi, the former, in his time, the sweetest voiced tenor that ever sang in opera, while the latter excelled as the great buffo of the days of Grisi, Lind, Alboni and Sontag. Added to the new company, however, is Carlotta Patti, the same in combined vocal excellencies and defects as ever; that charming American contralto, Miss Louise Cary; Miss Theresa Careno, once known as the child pianist, but now a cultured performer, and last but not least, Mons. Sauret, a young and new violinist, whose admirable violin playing was the instrumental feature of the concert of Monday. Added to these is a tolerably good orchestra under Behrens. Of course the event of the concert was the re-appearance of Mario, [to?] ‘which he had a reception,’ just as Patti was showered with bouquets, both being done up to order. To those who heard Mario nearly twenty years ago at Castle Garden, he now presents merely the ghost of himself in vocal powers, though in person he is the very reverse, as he is quite stout in form and feature; but with bald head and suspiciously colored beard and hair, and wearing spectacles, it requires a stretch of the imagination to picture the once handsome Mario as standing before you. The veteran tried to give Spirito gentil with some of his wonted power and sweetness, but it was with difficulty he could keep his voice from breaking. Withal, though, there was a touch of the old tones, while the finished style of the artist was apparent, as of old. It was on the encore, however, that the age of the singer was much manifest—he is nearly seventy—and as with music in hand and spectacles on nose he strove to render Sim Reeves’ great song, ‘Good bye, Sweetheart,’ with effect, a sigh of pity seemed to escape the audience as the failure became apparent. Of the other performances, Miss Cary’s delightful singing; Patti’s vocal ‘pyrotechnics,’ the graceful playing of the pretty Miss Careno, and the nearly artistic performances of Mons. Sauret, tended to make the concert quite a success.”

15)

Review: Dwight's Journal of Music, 05 October 1872, 319.

“New York, Sept. 30.—A large and attentive audience filled Steinway Hall on Monday evening, Sept. 16th. Every seat was taken both in the body of the house and in the galleries, while the lobbies were thronged with the critics, journalists and notabilities of the city. The occasion was the long looked for appearance of Mario and the Strakosch troupe. The programme was as follows [see above].

Those who came to hear Mario had to wait patiently until the end of the first part, when he came upon the stage leading Carlotta Patti, and followed by the singers who were to take part with him in Verdi’s Quintet. He was greeted with a round of applause, which was kindly but not enthusiastic, and then the audience listened in perfect silence; the young striving to catch every note of the voice that was once so famous; the old trying to recall the voice they once heard; both applauding at the close and both disappointed.

He sung with extreme care, managing the broken voice which remains to him as none but a great artist could do. But the voice is only a ruin and affected with a hoarseness which, one feels, will not pass away. In the second part he sang the great air from La Favorita, which has won him so many triumphs in Europe; but I liked him best in the ballad by Hatton: ‘Good bye, Sweetheart,’ which he gave in response to an encore. This song was, I believe, written expressly for him, and the warmth, the tenderness, the delicacy with which it was rendered were in accordance with our preconceived ideas of the singer.

Carlotta Patti is unchanged and her feats in vocal gymnastics continue to be the delight of the general public and the wonder of all. She is the princess of executantes and can do absolutely anything with her voice—except sing. Auber’s ‘Eclat du rire,’ one of her encore pieces, requires precisely her voice and nature; her rendering of it is perfect. The same remark applies to the ‘Variations’ by Proch, but her rendering of the song ‘Within a mile of Edinboro’,’ another encore piece, was utterly parrot-like and devoid of even the little sentiment which belongs to that threadbare ballad.

You doubtless remember ‘La Teresita,’ the child pianist, who charmed us all nine years ago and whose talent (so say the handbills) ‘Even Boston and Dwight deigned to praise.’ [!] During her long sojourn in Europe she has played everywhere, pleased everyone, and now comes back to us, a child no longer, but a graceful, beautiful woman. The artist, too has developed, apparently; before, it would have been a fantaisie by Gottschalk or Thalberg which awakened our praise; now she greets us with Mendelssohn’s great Concerto in G minor for piano and orchestra. There is perhaps only one woman who can play this Concerto exactly as it should be played, and the remembrance of its wonderful beauty as it took shape and grew under the fingers of Clara Schumann, came to my mind with the thought that perhaps our fair pianiste might have made a wiser selection for her first appearance in her new character. But she played with more taste and feeling than I expected, and, though not quite with that fine, delicate shading which indicates a perfect acquaintance with the composer, yet in a manner which elicited an encore from the audience, and expressions of satisfaction from the coterie of critics. The Faust Fantaisie brought another encore, to which she responded with a waltz by Chopin, (D flat), played, I thought, somewhat hurriedly, and with a carelessness of which that composer’s works do not well admit.

The bold, free style, skillful bowing and pure intonation of M. Sauret, the violinist, took us by surprise, for although we should look for these qualities in the pupil of Vieuxtemps, we were unprepared for so much excellence. His execution reminds one of the stories told of Paganini, and his polyphonic playing is something like Ole Bull without any of Ole Bull’s scrapiness. Feeling and expression are manifested in his playing to a high degree, and his popularity is assured by his first performance here.

Miss Cary sang as well as usual, and Sig. Ronconi and Gottschalk were both good. The orchestra was fair, and altogether the concert troupe is an excellent one. They gave four concerts and one matinée previous to their departure for Boston.”