Maretzek Italian Opera: Faust

Event Information

Venue(s):
Academy of Music

Manager / Director:
Max Maretzek

Conductor(s):
Jaime Nuno

Event Type:
Opera

Record Information

Status:
Published

Last Updated:
29 August 2018

Performance Date(s) and Time(s)

18 Apr 1864, Evening

Performers and/or Works Performed

1)
Composer(s): Gounod
Text Author: Barbier, Carré
Participants:  Maretzek Italian Opera Company;  Arion Männergesangverein;  Wilhelm [baritone] Müller (role: Wagner);  Fanny Stockton (role: Martha);  Clara Louise Kellogg (role: Margherita);  Fernando [bass-baritone] Bellini (role: Valentin);  Henrietta Sulzer (role: Seibel);  Francesco Mazzoleni (role: Faust);  Joseph Hermanns (role: Mephistopheles)

Citations

1)
Advertisement: New-York Times, 16 April 1864, 7.

2)
Announcement: New York Herald, 17 April 1864.

3)
Advertisement: New York Herald, 18 April 1864.

4)
Announcement: New York Post, 18 April 1864.
Faust played for the 31st time.
5)
Announcement: New-York Times, 18 April 1864, 4.
“Mr. Maretzek’s season at the Academy of Music will end with the present week, and to-night Gounod’s opera of ‘Faust’ will be played for the thirty-first and last time.  These two facts should go a long way toward securing crowded houses for the short term that remains.  But there is yet another circumstance worth placing on record for the benefit of those who purses are not plethoric.  The prices of admission at the Academy of Music, and, indeed, at all places of amusement in the City will shortly be raised.  Mr. Maretzek, with the best of intentions and the largest of companies, finds it impossible to pay expenses, even with more than average houses, at the present rates of admission.  Many of his artists are paid in gold, and those who are not, demand, like every one else, an increase in currency, so that there is not much difference.  The orchestral and choral forces have long since raised their prices. They can do it with impunity, because they cannot be replaced and have the power in their own hands.  Every article used in the mimic scene has more than doubled its value since the commencement of the Fall (1863) season.  This increase in fact is is onerous that nothing but the most extraordinary run of luck in the matter of operas has enabled Mr. Maretzek to struggle to the end without a positive loss.  Early in May he intends resuming operations, devoting the interval to rehearsals of ‘Les Huguenots,’ which he will then produce in a style of great magnificence.  It would be impossible to give this superb work at the present prices; hence an advance must and will be made.  We are persuaded that no legitimate admirer of Italian opera will object to it, whilst those who simply go there for curiosity will take no heed of the extra quarter of half dollar that is demanded of them. It should be remembered, too, that Mr. Maretzek has been the last to think of making a change.  All the other theatres in the City have quietly tacked on an extra twenty-five cents for reserved seats in the balcony circle, and we do not remember to have heard a single complaint on the subject.  It has been paid cheerfully, the houses have been crowded to their greatest capacity, and the managers have reaped the full benefit of the advance, without, we are afraid, always having shared it with their companies.  It is clearly Mr. Maretzek’s turn.  Whoever wants opera must pay for it—not extravagantly as in Europe, or in any proportion with other imported luxuries, but at a fair valuation, so that the manager may be able to fulfill all his duties to the public and the company. The performance of ‘Faust’ to-night is, therefore, the last of that opera at cheap prices—the last, too, for many months.  To-morrow the company appears at the Brooklyn Academy of music, playing for the first and only time ‘Robert le Diable.’  The rest of the week will be set aside for benefits.”
6)
Announcement: New-York Daily Tribune, 18 April 1864.

7)
Announcement: Courrier des États-Unis, 18 April 1864.

8)
Advertisement: Courrier des États-Unis, 18 April 1864.

9)
Advertisement: New-Yorker Staats-Zeitung und Herold, 18 April 1864.

10)
Review: New York Post, 19 April 1864, 2.
“The full musical current is again setting in at the Academy, the attendance last night being in numbers a close approach to the ever-memorable only nights of Faust, when the house proved to be too small.  A full house is a well of inspiration to the artists, as might have been seen last night, when Margherita, Faust, Seibel, Valentin and Mephistopheles lost, in the artistic delineations of Maretzek’s splendid company, none of the ideal musical beauty with which the great composer has clothed them.”
11)
Review: Dwight's Journal of Music, 30 April 1864, 232.
“The season of Italian opera at the Academy of Music closed last week with three more performances of ‘Faust.’”