Curiosity was piqued, and a kindly spirit of patriotism enlisted by the début of Miss Marie Van Zandt on December 21st. She, too, was an American, but she had been before the European public ten years, and had won as much favor as any American artist ever enjoyed in Paris. Mr. Abbey had pointed to her engagement (and that of Mme. Melba, whose star was just rising above the horizon) as a persuasive argument with the directors. Everything about the little lady, not excepting some unfortunate experiences which put an end to her Parisian career, invited to kindliness of utterance touching her début. Those of her hearers who had followed the history of opera in America for a score of years remembered her mother with admiration. Long before the days when every effort to produce opera in the vernacular was heralded as a great patriotic undertaking, Mme. Jenny Van Zandt headed companies which exploited as varied and dignified repertories as those of the German companies at the Metropolitan Opera House, barring the Wagnerian list. Miss Van Zandt, diminutive, but winsome in voice as well as figure, and ingratiating in manner, recalled an old observation about precious things being done up in small parcels. Her coming seemed to betoken the return of the day of small things. She appeared in "La Sonnambula," and it was not until two months had passed that the patrons of the opera were privileged to hear her in "Lakmé," the opera with which her name was chiefly associated in Paris. Meanwhile she appeared in "Martha," "Mignon," "Don Giovanni," and "Dinorah," without rousing the public out of the apathy which it felt toward operas of their character. And when her battle-horse was led into the ring the task of sustaining interest in the season had fallen upon the shoulders of the masculine contingent in the company.
Curious questionings were raised by the production of "Fidelio" and "Die Meistersinger" in Italian. It was generally recognized that Mr. Abbey offered them as sops to Cerberus; but the German element in the population, which they were designed to appease, plainly were lacking in that peculiar bent of mind necessary to understand why Beethoven's opera done in Italian with a cast one-half good was supposed by the management to be worth two-thirds more than the same opera done in a language which it could understand with a cast all good (two of the principals, Mme. Lehmann and Mr. Kalisch, being the same), during the preceding seven years. Was the Italian language sixty-seven per cent. more valuable than the German in an opera conceived in German, written in German, and composed in the German spirit by a German? The public thought not, and "Fidelio" had only two performances. A more kindly view was taken of the Italian "Meistersinger," Which enabled the Germans to give expression to their feelings by making demonstrations over Mr. Seidl. There was much to admire, moreover, in the singing and acting of Jean de Reszke as Walther, and M. Lassalle as Hans Sachs. There was nothing of the conventional operatic marionette in these men. One night while they and Édouard de Reszke were on the stage at the same time I expressed my admiration at the sight of three such fine specimens of physical manhood to Mme. Lehmann, who sat near my elbow in a baignoir.