Article on Grover German Opera Company Season

“A good public, which doesn’t rebel at anything and applauds everything, including false notes and eccentric gestures—that’s the public of the German opera. There was much to praise in the season of which M. Grover was the impresario, but there was also a lot to find fault with. The two operatic obstacles he presented, La Juive and Robert le Diable, were deplorably performed. Except for M. Habelmann, still an imperfect tenor, but one who gives us great hope, the roles were massacred, debased, parodied. M. Karl Formès, who enjoys a great reputation, did not act badly, but his voice is ‘ou sont les neiges d’antan’ [‘where are the snows of yesteryear’—i.e., long gone]. There remain to him rare flashes of lightning, but he sings out of tune; however not as much as, nor with the persistence of M. Hermann, another bass who, unbearable in Faust, was a little better in la Juive. As for the mighty tenor, M. Himmer, it’s better not to talk about him. He felt himself so beneath his task, that in la Juive he thought it proper to omit the air Rachel quand du Seigneur, and other numbers no less important.

For the rest, the performance of Robert, of la Juive and works of French grand opera in general, present some insurmountable difficulties in New York. For these operas, it is necessary to have a stage extended and arranged in a different way than that at Irving Place, more sumptuous decorations, massed choruses with large numbers of singers, a corps de ballet, first-rate soloists, dancers, etc., etc., in sum all that is lacking here. What does the third act of la Juive become without the ballet? Nothing is left, and the curtain is scarcely raised when it falls again before the eyes of the spectators. What is more ridiculous than the third act of Robert, when, in place of sixty or eighty nuns rising from their tombs and gliding to all points of a vast scene, four or five badly dressed sisters, coming out of two trap-doors? The stately music of the composer becomes ridiculous by contrast with this shabby production, and all the spectators want to laugh. Never have we seen a bacchanal more sad and less seductive, and one doesn’t understand how Robert allows himself to be charmed by Carpentras’ dances that are unpleasing, and by four or five unfortunates who seem broken-hearted to be running around him.

M. Maretzek promises us les Huguenots. In general, he makes great sacrifices for the production, and we hope he will preoccupy himself with it more than M. Grover, whose principal goal is to take advantage of the provincials….

 I return to the German company, to settle our account with it. We haven’t had to be as severe in regard to the women. Mme Frederici is gifted with a voice of remarkable range: roles of contralto, mezzo, soprano, a director can rely on her for all. She doesn’t sing badly, but she needs to work, which she doesn’t do, if she has to trust anyone. She is a delightful Marguerite in Faust, thanks to her type, which is the German character in all its purity. She even has the traits of Marguerite dreamed of by Goethe, and that complexion, rich and chaste at the same time, that pleases lovers of blonde Germanic beauties so much. Mme Frederici only has to present herself, and you recognize Marguerite; or again she makes you think of Gertrude spreading butter amorously on some slices of bread devoured somberly by the melancholy Werther.

Better musician than Mme Frederici, Mme Johannsen doesn’t have her voice any more. If she sings pianisimo [sic], one discovers in her the singer of taste and talent, but if she has to give [out with] her voice, she loses all her advantages. Very passable in Martha, Mme Johannsen was less than adequate in La Juive. We have never been able to understand either why, representing an Israelite of the Middle Ages, she was dressed as a Grecian woman. In the same way M. Hermann, under the pretext of dressing himself as a cardinal, was disguised as a choir-boy with a long robe of dubious red, which stuck to his body: one would have said that he fell in the water fully dressed and just came out of the bathtub.

 Mme Rotter has some [good] qualities and some flaws. Her voice is too often muffled and uneven. She sings in spasms. As with Mme Johannsen, Martha is Mme Rotter’s best role. This opera is the one that was performed best, without the least doubt, by the German company. It’s also the one that attracted the smallest crowd. Perhaps the public is tired of Flotow’s charming potpourri, we swear that it gave us an agreeable rest from the noise and the deplorable production of grand opera beyond the reach of M. Grover’s artists. 

After so much criticism, we are pleased to end by praise, addressed to the chorus and above all to the orchestra. On this point, M. Anschutz doesn’t have a rival in the United States.”