Maretzek Italian Opera: Faust

“That the Maretzek management is in error in bringing its season to a close this week is evident by the increased attendance of the last few nights. The house on Tuesday evening was crowded, though neither Murska nor Tamberlik was announced. The name of Lucca, however, proved a sufficient attraction.

The Marguerite of Lucca has been often heard and judged here. It is a glowing, passionate portraiture, vital with interest, rich in color. It has not the dreamy beauty of the Marguerite of Nilsson, nor the exquisite finish of Miss Kellogg’s personation of the hapless maiden; but it possesses a striking originality of its own. The usual satisfaction resulted from Lucca’s rendering of it last night. There was applause for the few notes in the second act with which Marguerite declines—in this case with a dash of coquetry—the proffered arm of Faust. There was a hearty encore for the jewel song, with its piquant accompanying action, and a sudden and wild enthusiasm over the trio in the last act, where Lucca lavishes all the wealth of her voice and all the fervor of her dramatic talent in phrases which are as full of rich melody as they are of lyric power.

Jamet fairly divided with the prima donna the honors of the evening. Both of his songs were encored, and his action throughout was a careful and studied piece of diablerie. The Mephistopheles of Jamet is a performance to remember. Its merit was fully appreciated last night by an audience who were rather sold towards the favorite contralto, Madame Testa, and received with indifference the well-meant efforts of Signor Mari.”

“‘Faust’ was last evening sung at the Grand Opera-house for the first time this season, in presence of a vast assemblage. The principal feature of interest in the representation was Mme. Pauline Lucca’s personation of Margarita, which, familiar though it has become, is still impressive in no ordinary degree. Its impressiveness, it may be said once for all, is its chief characteristic, though we have no intention to imply by the expression of this belief that the achievement is only deserving of mention because of its effect upon a miscellaneous audience. We need scarcely, however, in proof of this assertion, review Mme. Lucca’s portrayal of Goethe’s heroine—for it is Goethe’s Margarita rather than Carré & Barbier’s she depicts—so often has the ground been traversed before. It is not an absolutely symmetrical performance, nor does examination show it to be very rich in detail, but it is an effort at different stages of which the strong dramatic impulses of the songstress and the power of a glorious voice sweep everything before them and compel spontaneous and hearty tributes of admiration such as finer work cannot always command. As on earlier occasions, Mme. Lucca’s delicious tones won frequent tributes of this kind, and, several times during the evening, she produced that one touch of nature which makes the whole world kin. The habitual reader need hardly be advised as to the stages of the opera at which these results were attained. In the first and second acts of ‘Faust,’ Margarita is intrusted [sic] with little else than dumb show, and it is only with the third that her actual co-operation in the action commences. Thenceforward both the singer and the actress have ample opportunities for distinction. In act the third, the scène de coquetterie growing out of Margarita’s discovery of the jewels, and her self-adornment therewith, was capitally rendered, vocally and histrionically; and, later, the grand duet culminating in the impassioned appeal to the absent lover, secured a call before the curtain. In the succeeding act Mme. Lucca’s highly dramatic church scene proved as touching as ever, and, in the last part of the story, the duo became a fitting climax for the preceding events. The other notable elements of the representations were Signor Vizzani’s Faust, and M. Jamet’s Mephisto, two well-known personations. The quality of Signor Vizzani’s voice is so exquisite, that we really regret he cannot borrow from his Gallic rivals one spark of that feu sacré—or the clever imitation thereof—to give life to the characters he assumes. Though not in quite as good condition as usual, yesterday, he sang his music very neatly, and delivered ‘Salve dimora’—including the C in alt, generally avoided by Italian tenors—with exceptional eloquence[.] M. Jamet’s intelligent and studied personation of the fiend bore off a large share of the honors of the evening, and his two solos, the ‘Dio dell’ or’ and the serenade were redemanded. Neither Signor Mari’s Valentino—albeit the death-scene was not deficient in a certain rough pathos—nor Mme. Testa’s Siebel exact extended notice.”

“The above were the attractions that drew a large audience to the Grand Opera house last night, as outside these two rôles there was not much in the representation of ‘Faust’ to interest opera goers. But the maiden and the demon could scarcely be impersonated by two abler artists than the little prima donna and the accomplished French basso. From the moment that she appeared in the vision of the first act until the curtain fell on her prostrate form in the last—in one scene the tempting bait held out by the fiend to the vacillating philosopher, and in the other the sad victim of hellish malice—Mme. Lucca enchained the attention of the audience. Her meeting with Faust in the market place was a fascinating picture of coyness and rustic coquetry, and there was a spice of the defiant in the saucy toss of the head when she declined the young cavalier’s arm and company. In the garden scene she received an encore for the brilliant manner in which she sang the air des bijoux. The ringing tones of her rich, rounded voice, which seems now to have attained the zenith of its power and brilliancy, lent an additional charm to the sparkling measures in which Marguerite expresses her delight at the fatal casket that proved a Pandora’s box to her. Each note quivered with emotion when she spoke of the loss of her only love, the sister that was snatched away from her by death. The love scenes with Faust, the duet, ‘Notre Dame,’ the passionate utterances of never dying affection, ‘Senza te io vogio [sic] morir,’ and the rapturous aria at the window, in which she longs for the morrow that will bring back to her the first new idol of heart, were all interpreted by Mme. Lucca with a wealth of voice and expression that carried the audience away into the realms of enthusiasm.

In the church scene and at the side of her dying brother Mme. Lucca won a still greater triumph. The struggle against the mocking voice of the tempter and the horror and despair that takes possession of the unhappy Marguerite, when she sees the horrible phantom in church, were delineated with wondrous power and effect. But in the last scene, when her mind gives way in the prison under the agony of her thoughts, the climax of Lucca’s Marguerite was reached. In the wild, pleading cry to heaven for protection, in which the melody is repeated, each time a note higher, the thrilling tones seemed to fill the entire building as with a torrent of sound. Such a voice gives to this scene unwonted effect and sheds a lustre [sic] of rare tenderness over the death of the hapless heroine of Goethe.

The Mephistopheles of Jamet is one of the most remarkable impersonations of an operatic character that can be found on our stage to-day. The grace and symmetry of his acting, the high intelligence of his vocal method and the magnificent tones of his expressive voice, are displayed to the fullest extent in this rôle. An encore to his singing of ‘Dio dell’amor’ has come to be a settled fact with every audience. Throughout the garden scene his presence seems to surround as with a lurid light, the lovers and their interchanges of mutual affection. His singing of the mocking serenade beneath Marguerite’s window is full of malice and devilish expression, and in the church scene he shares with Lucca the success of that wonderful exhibition of histrionic power.

Mme. Testa made her début in the rôle of Siebel, and as there was no opportunity afforded by this rôle to judge of the powers of a lady who was once a reigning favorite here in opera, we shall defer definite criticism in her case until she appears in a rôle more consonant to her position as an artist. Signor Vizzani’s Faust was neither better nor worse that [sic] what we were accustomed to at the Academy last season, and the Valentine of Signor Mari was—let us draw the veil of charity over it. The rest of the performers were unsatisfactory in the extreme.”

General and brief. “The Three Prime Donne—Nilsson, sweet and captivating; Murska, brilliant and thrilling; Lucca, grand and soul-stirring.”

“[O]n Tuesday ‘Faust’ was sung, with Lucca and Marguerite. Mme. Test made her first appearance this season. Sig. Jamet was the Mephistopheles, and there was a ballet led by the Remmelsburg Sisters.”