The first performance of Wagner's "Meistersinger" fell on the same night as the production for the first time in America of Goetz's "Widerspänstigen Zähmung" in English by the National Opera Company. We thus had in juxtaposition an admirable operatic adaptation of a Shakespearian comedy and a modern comedy, of which I thought at the time I could not speak in higher praise than to say that it was truly Shakespearian in its delineation of character. In my book, "Studies in the Wagnerian Drama," I have analyzed Wagner's comedy from many points of view, and printed besides the results of investigations of the old Nuremberg mastersingers made on the spot. The significance of this record is that it tells of the introduction in America of a comedy which, though foreign in matter and manner to the thoughts, habits, and feelings of the American people, has, nevertheless, held a high place in their admiration. Later we shall see that this admiration was based on the sound understanding of the play which the original, performers inculcated. Let their names therefore be preserved. They were: Hans Sachs, Emil Fischer; Veit Pogner, Josef Staudigl; Kunz Vogelsang, Herr Dworsky; Konrad Nachtigal, Emil Sänger; Sixtus Beckmesser, Otto Kemlitz; Fritz Kothner, Herr Lehmler; Balthasar Zorn, Herr Hoppe; Ulrich Eisslinger, Herr Klaus; Augustin Moser, Herr Langer; Hermaun Ortel, Herr Doerfer; Hans Schwartz, Herr Eiserbeck; Hans Foltz, Herr Anlauf; Walther von Stolzing, Albert Stritt; David, Herr Kramer; Eva, Auguste Seidl-Krauss; Magdalena, Marianne Brandt; Nachtwächter, Carl Kaufmann. Mr. Seidl conductor.
I modulate to the Metropolitan season 1886-87 through the performances of the opposition, which began at the Academy of Music, but ended in the house which was now definitely acknowledged to be the home, and only home, of fashionable opera. Mme. Patti provided the last bit of evidence. In the two preceding seasons she had led Colonel Mapleson's forces at the Academy; yet the public would have none of his opera. Now, after a year's absence, she returned to America under the management of Mr. Abbey, who had opposed Nilsson to her when the rivalry of the houses began. She gave operatic concerts, one, two, three, and four, at the Academy of Music, with old favorites of the New York public--Scalchi, Novara, and a French tenor named Guille--in her company, besides Signor Arditi; and she gave fragments of opera ("Semiramide" and "Martha"), besides a miscellaneous concert. The experiences of Mme. Patti on her return to her old home in 1881 were measurably repeated. The great singer was admired, of course, and half an operatic loaf was accepted as better than no bread. This was in November, 1886, and in April, 1887, Mr. Abbey decided to offer the operatic loaf, such as it was, but to cut it, not at the house with which Patti's name had been intimately associated, but at the Metropolitan Opera House. He was conjuring with the legend (then new, but afterward worn threadbare), "Patti's Farewell." I am writing in July, 1908, and have just been reading the same legend again in the London newspapers--twenty-one years after it served Mr. Abbey a turn. In April, then, Mr. Abbey came to the Metropolitan Opera House with Mme. Patti to give six "farewell" operatic performances. The company consisted of Scalchi, Vicini, Galassi, Valerga, Del Puente, Novara, Abramoff, Corsi, and Migliara, some of them recruited from an earlier company that had come and departed like a shadow in the fall season. Also Miss Gertrude Griswold, whom I mention because she was an American singer who had given promise of good things in Europe, and who helped Mme. Patti with the one and doubly singular performance of "Carmen," in which she was seen and (occasionally) heard in the United States. Mr. Abbey gave six performances, in all of which Mme. Patti appeared, the operas being "La Traviata," "Semiramide," "Faust," "Carmen," "Lucia," and "Marta." The financial results were phenomenal. The public paid nearly $70,000 for the six operas! Had Colonel Mapleson been able to do fifty per cent. of such business the Academy of Music might have been saved. But Mr. Abbey, to use the slang of the stage, was playing Patti as a sensation. Prices of admission were abnormal, and so was the audience. Fashion heard Patti at the Metropolitan, and so did suburban folk, who came to $10 opera in business coats, bonnets, and shawls. Such audiences were never seen in the theater before or since.