Articles on the close of the Italian opera season

Event Information

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Record Information

Status:
Published

Last Updated:
24 April 2013

Performance Date(s) and Time(s)

18 Apr 1866

Performers and/or Works Performed

Citations

1)
Article: New York Post, 14 April 1866.

     “The longest, best managed and most satisfactory opera season ever enjoyed in this country comes to-day to its close. Mr. Maretzek has not only earned and received the thanks of our citizens for his energy and fidelity in the fulfilment [sic] of promises and managerial tact, but we trust that he has been rewarded in a more substantial manner. While we think that there is considerable room for improvement in another season, we must admit that he has presented many operas in better style than it has been the fortune of our public before to enjoy. It is not too late to make criticism on individual artists in his company. There are some whom we could name, who, although endowed with vocal powers of a high order, have unpleasant characteristics which mar the effect of their best performances. We believe their places could be filled to general acceptance. Having succeeded so well this year, Mr. Maretzek will the next season undoubtedly win additional laurels and increase the reputation he has already secured.”

2)
Article: New-Yorker Musik-Zeitung, 18 April 1866, 197.

[Preliminary translation]

     The season of the Italian opera came to an end last week. (…) Unfortunately the illness of Mad. Zucchi lead to the cancellation of the debut of Ms. Stella Bonheur in Norma. Mad. Zucchi’s health gave out at last because of the hardship of performing at last. She is not a great singer, however, she is the best Maretzek ever had. She never spoiled any performance and her dramatic talent balanced out the drawbacks of her vocal skills. In the last performance of Les Huguenots Mad. Johannsen took her place with her usual flexibility and adroitness.

     Looking back at the season we have to acknowledge that we were offered much in quantity: many interesting classic operas and two modern ones: Crispino and L’Africaine, which have not been staged in most of Europe yet. Regarding quality the performances were not as satisfactory. A strong bass and lyrical tenor were missing. Antonucci’s skills might be sufficient for Italian operas; however, for the dramatic parts of the French opera his voice is too thin and his talent not big enough. The lyrical tenor Irsre did improve, yet he simply did not possess an accomplished voice. Another coloratura singer was also missing. Mrs. Kellogg could not sing everything, so a rather flat Italian singer was hired. The core of the ensemble: Mazzoleni, Massimiliani, Zucchi and Kellogg were very efficient. We hope next season will bring more talent.

3)
Article: New-Yorker Musik-Zeitung, 18 April 1866, 198.

[Preliminary translation]

     Max Maretzek has retreated to his Staten Island country home. He has exchanged music with the “music of fields”.

4)
Article: New-York Daily Tribune, 18 April 1866.

     “The Italian Opera after a varied fortune during a few past weeks [sic], closed very brilliantly. The ‘Star of the North’ attracted a crowded audience on Friday evening, and the matinée on Saturday, at which ‘Les Huguenots’ was given, presented an array of beauty and fashion which filled the Academy of Music to its utmost capacity.

     Mr. Maretzek’s season up to December last must have been immensely profitable. The subscriptions were large, and the outside public rushed in to hear the massive grandeur and passionate cadences of L’Africaine, and enjoy the fun and the sweetness of Ricci’s music in Crispino e la Comare, so that the management profited largely by a success which was entirely legitimate. The Spring season was not, however, so fortunate. Bad weather first intervened, then followed the season of Lent, which in all past experience has proved very unfavorable to the fortune of places of amusement. We have never known Lent kept so strictly as it was this year. It seemed as though there was a universal revival in religious communities of all denominations. The opera had, of course, to suffer with the rest, but ‘La Stella Du Nord’ and ‘Les Huguenots’ have, in a measure, restored the equilibrium, and will leave, at least we hope so, Max Maretzek still largely the gainer.

     Taking the works one with another, we have rarely had operas better cast throughout, and if in individual merit we could compare the past with the present, disadvantageously to the latter, we can say with truth, that we have never had a better working company, so generally competent and excellent throughout, while on those im[illeg…] and the orchestra, were infinitely better in the season just closed than at any other period of the existence of the Italian Opera in New-York.

     The production of L’Africaine alone was sufficient labor and ample honor for one year’s work, and there are few living artists who could or would have studied its exclusively difficult music in the brief time allotted to Zucchi, Mazzoleni and Bellini, rendering it at the same time so grandly, passionately and effectively. The same may be said of the orchestra, for we do not believe that the orchestras of London or Paris would have achieved such remarkable excellence in the few rehearsals permitted to our New-York orchestra. But the wide and varied experience, the constant necessity for rapid reading demanded here render our musicians the most available in the world, and aided by the comprehensive intelligence, the perfect control, the quick, detective ear, and the firm hand of Carl Bergman, they can accomplish in a few hours what other would labor at for weeks.

     Crispino e la Comare and La Stella du Nord, brought forward Miss Clara Louise Kellogg in a more prominent position than any she has yet assumed. In Crispino she created her rôle, for in it no one preceded her in that opera. She at once assumed the position as a leading artist by her admirable rendering of the music, and by her brilliant and characteristic reading and admirable acting of the character. In the Star of the North she exhibited qualities as a vocalist far higher in their flight than any she had attempted before, in which she exhibited an exquisite purity and melodiousness of voice, and irreproachable method, a surprising brilliance of executive facility, and a grace, naivete, spirit and adaptability, that surprised and delighted alike the critic and the public, and made for that delightful opera a pronounced and well deserved success.

     We congratulate Mr. Maretzek upon the success of his management. He has produced a large and varied repertoire in very excellent styles both as to casts and stage managements; he has kept his faith to his subscribers and the public, and has confirmed them in the belief that he is the right man in the right place, and the only manager who can harmonize all the opposing musical elements in our goodly city.”