New-Yorker Stadt-Theater Opera: Don Juan

“Madame Lucca has had a strange and unlucky year of it. She began the fall season in New-York under circumstances so far encouraging that it was for awhile a matter of doubt whether she or Nilsson would carry the day. The company in which she sang, wretched as it was in many respects, embraced three of the most celebrated of living artists. Nevertheless, after two weeks of disaster and desperate expedients, it disbanded in the midst of clamor and quarrel, and Lucca and Di Murska, dismissing their manager, set sail for Havana on a venture of their own. According to all accounts, this must have been a more mortifying failure than the Maretzek undertaking in New-York; and Madame Lucca, attempting to leave the island by stealth, was brought back by the police and compelled to lodge a sum of money in court to meet the demand of importunate chorus singers before she was permitted to embark. Now, while Nilsson is singing to crowded and fashionable audiences at the Academy of Music, and Di Murska, returning to the discarded Maretzek, is about to appear at the Lyceum Theater, and later in the Spring to succeed Nilsson in Irving-place, Madame Lucca, to the surprise of many of her admirers is found performing at the Stadt Theater, at ‘popular prices.’ She made her first appearance there last night as Zerlina, in the German version of ‘Don Giovanni.’ The audience, though certainly not brilliant, was large and cordial; and if the offerings of doves and wreaths and flowers were a little different in style from such as she used to receive last year, they were presented with evident good will, and there was a plenty of them. Madame Lucca comes back thinner in figure, and her face looks worn and serious; but the glorious abundance of her voice is unchanged, and when she enters fairly into the spirit of her part, her fascinating little tricks of piquancy and archness return with all their original charm. The performance of the opera as a whole was fair. Mme. Lichtmay was a better Donna Anna at any rate than Mr. Strakosch gave us last season in the person of Mlle. Maresi; Lehman as the Don, Herrmann’s as a ponderous Leporello, and Pflüger as Don Ottavio were at least respectable; and the orchestra under Mr. Bergmann was good. The only flagrant inefficiency in the cast was in the Elvira of Frau Römer. The older habitués of the Opera who used to visit the Academy eighteen or twenty years ago, when Grisi was here, and La Grange was in her prime, may remember a short and portly bass singer named Muller who now and then emerged from the ranks of the chorus and had the honor of delivering a solo of three or four measures, and so getting his name printed in the programme. To our amazement this relic of a past era, invisible and forgotten for nearly half the space of a generation, rose again last night and appeared as Masetto,--and truth to tell, we have heard worse Masetto’s in our time than the venerable gentleman. The scenery was somewhat peculiar. The first meeting between Elvira and the Don, which ought to be in the open air, takes place in a modestly furnished chamber, which somehow reminds one of a boarding-house in East Broadway. The Don’s palace, it seems, was not supplied with any second-story windows that would open—a defect which might have proved embarrassing to Leporello in that scene where he is supposed to look out and call to the three maskers in the street below, had he not hit upon the notable device of ripping a large square hole in the canvas façade, and thrusting his head and shoulders, so to speak, through a brick wall. As an illustration of fertility in expedients this was admirable; but unfortunately the hole, being on a line with the top of the door, must of course be just about where the floor of the second story would be, if it had any floor. If we were to conceive therefore that Mr. Hermann’s [sic] was up stairs when he opened this hole (with an audible rip), and put forth his head, we must think of him as lying on his belly—which we were loath to do; and if we were to consider him as down stairs we were reduced to the equally unpleasant necessity of imagining that he was ten feet high.”

“The ‘Kleine Pauline’ commenced last night her farewell engagement in opera in this city. On this occasion she returned to her first love, the stage on which she won her earliest triumphs, the German opera. The opening of the short season, which may be considered her farewell to New York, was not a satisfactory exhibit of her exceptional talents. ‘Don Juan’ is one of the least advisable operas that a manger can present. One company out of a hundred is capable of doing it justice, and one audience out of a thousand can appreciate its inherent beauties. Audiences of the present day like the sensationalism and blare of the modern schools, and Mozart’s operas are to them to a great extent unintelligible. The old master used simple means of instrumentation, which will last forever with musicians as thoroughly efficient in their line; but the general public nowadays want something stronger, more highly spiced, more catching. Hence the disfavor into which ‘Don Juan’ has of late years fallen in this city. Another reason for this may be found in the extreme difficulty of finding at the present time a company capable of limning the delicate nuances and thereby removing the inherent grossness of an opera the very subject of which is offensive. The cast last evening was fair for a German collection of artists. Mme. Lichtmay was the Donna Anna [see above for roster]. 

Mme. Lichtmay’s Donna Anna was characterized by forcibleness and earnestness, if those qualities can be accepted in lieu of true artistic appreciation of the exigencies of the rôle. Mlle. Roemer was a very inefficient and uninteresting Donna Elvira, although we are of Mme. Nilsson’s opinion that the rôle is one of the most important in the opera. Certainly there is more genuine hard work in it than any other part. Mr. Pflueger sang the music of Don Ottavio conscientiously and correctly, although it was not exactly adapted to his peculiar style; but in the omission of the well-known aria, ‘Il mio tesoro’ (to use the Italian name) and the substitution of another melody far less effective, he made a serious mistake. Lehmann’s Don Juan was sprightly according to the conventional sense of the term, and a worse Masetto than that of Mr. Müller it would be difficult to conceive. Herrmann was entirely out of his natural element in the difficult rôle of Leporello.

The most grateful task is to chronicle the complete success of Mme. Pauline Lucca in the coquettish part of the peasant girl, Zerlina. The only numbers in the score that fell to her share, the duet, ‘La ci darem,’ in which Lehmann took part, and the solos, ‘Batti, batti,’ and ‘Vedrai Carina’ (the Italian names are intelligle to all) were delivered by her with that wonderful wealth of voice that has long ago raised her to the foremost rank of singers. There is something electric and irresistible about the tone of Mme. Lucca’s voice that goes right to the hearts of her hearers. One is inclined to forgive many inartistic shortcomings, notably leaving the stage before the conclusion of the first act, and thereby spoiling the tableau, in the glorious tones of that voice. The bitter experience of a terrible season in Cuba has detracted naught from the beauty and magnetism of Mme. Lucca’s voice and acting. The former is as grand and impressive as ever, and the latter is in complete accord with the phenomenal voice. On Wednesday Mme. Lucca appears as Valentine in ‘Die Huguenotten.’ The house last night was crammed from parquet to dome and hundreds were unable to obtain admission.”