 | THE LORGNETTE. The lorgnette, or, Studies of the town |  |
THE OPERA.
“Why, if thou never wast at court, thou never saw'st good manners;
if thou never saw'st good manners, then thy manners must be wicked;
and wickedness is sin, and sin is damnation.”
—Touchstone.
I have not as yet, Fritz, given you a look at
what passes for the nucleus of much talk, many
amiable newspaper quarrels, and very erudite criticism,—I
mean the Opera. It was, I must admit,
with a little pardonable vanity, and perhaps
finesse, that I put upon my cover the name of
`Opera-goer;' knowing very well that without
such passport to fashionable salons, scarce a single
number of my paper would be sold. But since
the suspicion, as I learn through my publisher, is
now afloat, that John Timon is in fact no Opera-goer
at all, and is only making pretences toward a
fashionable distinction, which does not at all belong
to him, I must do away with it at once, by
placing you within the doors. And I may tell
you, Fritz, that to be placed within those doors, either
as critic, belle, or spectator, is a circumstance
you might have upon New York society.
To be an Opera-goer, is in fact a sort of distinction,
which very few can afford to be without; and
nothing but extraordinary distinction, a very reputable
name, or superior attainments, can in any
way balance a neglect of the Opera-house. There
is a charm in the very name of Opera-goer, to
all who are in search of eligible young men;
and a seat secured by a bachelor, or a box of
a regular subscriber, are points d' appui which
nothing but the most gross inattention can fail
to render efficacious, in securing a respectable
position among those who guide us, in matters of
taste, etiquette, and morals.
At the same time it is a distinction which must
be coyly ventured on; and a little undue haste in
posting one's self thus far, has sometimes subjected
the unfortunate aspirant to most invidious abuse.
Thus a grocer, upon the eve of rising above his
business, and making a stir with equipage, and
balls, should by no means venture at once upon
Opera-going: it is too hasty a step, and will induce
remark about his knowledge, or appreciation
of the music, that if he be at all sensitive, may
provoke him to a retort, which would be social
death;—or to a relinquishment of endeavor, which
entrance upon the social platform. He should
gain, by coy means, a little street position in the
first place, and should endeavor to win respectable
opinions by bounteous suppers, or by heavy subscriptions
to popular charities—such as the Washington
Monument, a Dickens ball, or contributions
to political roués who make successful speeches;
and after a winter or two of this management, well
backed up by plenty of German music teachers,
and a pew in Grace Church, he may safely venture
on securing a pretty loge, and taking it to
his daughters, three times a week, arrayed in the
prettiest of Martel's beetle head-dresses.
A bachelor has the same observance to keep in
mind; and without some such position as membership
of the New York Club, or sometimes driving
a tandem, or invitation to Mrs. J.'s parties, or at
least a fair place on Mr. Browne's roll of `admissibles'
may give him, it would be quite unsafe to
make the Opera-venture. He would inevitably be
set down, either as a curious music-lover from the
country, or some poor starveling of a critic, and
not receive the notice of so much as a single opera-glass.
At the same time, it may be said generally that
the subscription to an opera-box is a safe venture
do more to establish a man's position upon
the town, than any subscription for the building of
a church, or the very largest of private, and quite
ignoble charities.
Such absurd, and unnecessary acts of benevolence
as endowing a school, or helping out of their
straits a poor family, are of very little worth in
comparison with a liberal opera support; and they
will really do no more to make a man's name respectably
known with the leaders of our ton, than
if he were to subscribe to the Church Record, or
go to morning prayers in Lent.
I could easily draw my pen over the names of
not a few unfortunate gentlemen, who, by a most
incomprehensible devotion to such indifferent matters,
and persistance in a quiet, and most unostentatious
scale of charities, have forfeited all opportunity
of securing for their wives and daughters,
however attractive they may be, high social eminence,
or even the most casual mention in the fashionable
papers, or the billiard-room of the New York
Club. Such men sin, too, with their eyes wide
open; and if they lose caste and social position, the
loss will doubtless be rendered more harassing by
the conviction that Mr. Maretzek, his troupe, and
their newspaper admirers, have, with a generosity
within their reach, at a small cost, every hope of
achieving eminence.
Indeed, the Opera company, and above all, the
managers, may be regarded as missionaries, who
have, with a disinterestedness and love of souls,
most commendable, left the attractions and luxuries
of European Society, to come to this land of
almost Pagan socialism; and they are here putting
forth their best efforts in a variety of ways, to save
us from our lost condition, and to bring us nearer
to the elevated plane of fashion, morals, liberality,
and taste, which they have left behind them.
They find too, fortunately, not a few, who are
willing to take them by the hand, and cheer them
in their undertaking—nay, to give them the aid of
little piquant paragraphs of praise, which go
forth like so many gospels of mercy, to redeem us
from our social barbarism, and to gather us into
the sheepfold of — Opera-goers.
Were I disposed, Fritz, to the Carlyle manner, I
might exclaim here—What heroism! what devotion!
Music, and the love of it, high as they seem to
stand, are, I assure you, but secondary matters,
and entirely subordinate to that higher culture of
what is elegant in chit-chat, and striking in address,
such wonderful facilities. Where can a man find
a more lavish display of the beauties with which
Providence has adorned the faces and figures of the
sex? where a more delectable interchange of pleasant
and instructive conversation? where can a
man gain easier an exalted position upon the social
gradus? where can he put off better the air of his
shop, and the taint of his shop-keeping ancestry?
where will he have better opportunity of studying
the anatomy, not only of the social life, but of poitrinal
development and action? where else can a
man look for patterns of moustache, head-dress, or
gloves? where else, in short, can be found such a
theatre for observing the successive advances of
town-society, in taste, refinement, and all manner
of polite accomplishment?
The boudoir, in the comparison, is but a green-room
to the stage; the salon, but the field for little
exeursionary forays; the ball-room, a recreative
play-ground; and the old-fashioned parlor-circle,
but the arena for sensible stupidities and frightful
proprieties.
Fritz, my dear fellow, when you come up to
town, take a box at the Opera! You will gain position,
refinement; and by assiduous attendance,
you will acquire a cultivation that no mere book-reading
good sense in the world will be utterly unable to
subdue.
If you are painting now upon the retina of your
remembering eye, a vision of those great Italian
Opera-houses, such as San Carlo, where tier above
tier of eager ones, half shielded by the façade of
their dimly-lighted loges, are listening to the music,
or receiving their evening salutations,—let me
beg you to mend the image. Our Opera-house is
constructed more especially to see, and to be seen;
such quiet hearing-place as a box of the fourth tier
at La Scala, would pass without a call from American
Opera-goers.
The Italian Opera had probably (as the biographers
say) its origin in Italy; at least we have a right
to infer it, from the language in which it is usually
recited. It seems a natural exponent of the characte
and fancies of a poetic, passionate, musical,
and idle people. You will remember, Fritz, our
earnest admiration, years ago, of the recitativo of
the street-singers in the long Via Toledo; and our
listening by a midnight moon, in the city of Bologna,
to the musical patrols;—scarce less enchanting
to the imagination of a foreigner, than the
leaning towers, the sausages, or the Guido pictures
of that old city of gloomy arcades. It was but
for the gratification of their traveled and luxurious
population, and above all, their courts, intreduce
the Southern music, and should secure, by
their superior wealth, the first performers. Hence
it is, that the Italian Opera finds its best presentment
in Vienna, St. Petersburg, Paris, and London;
that is to say, the primi singers are superior in
those cities, while the chorus maintains its excellence
in the south.
With the importation of other foreign luxuries
and habits to the American metropolis, the Opera
could not fail to make its appearance. It commended
itself singularly to those who had brought
back from the Old World a love of its peculiarities
and courtly tastes—saying nothing of the few who
would regard it as a pleasant souvenir of musical
intoxication. From its very artificial nature, it
would serve as the germ for a new amusement, to
such as had exhausted their merely natural inclinations;
its enjoyment, or pretended enjoyment,
implied too, the possession of a cultivated and
artificial taste, which would lift it above the level
of ordinary and popular appreciation; and this
would specially commend it to many worthy democratic
citizens, who are forever on the lookout for
any pardonable means of rising above the common
state should give a pleasing delirium to their
senses.
Wealth, too, which had tried all the vulgar
means of manifestation in houses and plate, was
anxious to seize on a new medium of representing
itself in alliance with what was dignified as an
art. Young ladies, not lacking attractions, and
not having the entrée of the salons where they
might shine, could at the Opera, find a common
ground of display, with the most high-bred. Whole
families could rise from obscurity upon the wings
of subscription tickets; and pining street beauties
enter upon a new life of head-dresses, of negligés,
hoods, and pink-lined cloaks. Middle-aged gentlemen,
too, whose position was indefinable, from some
unfortunate prejudice attaching to birth or employment,
could now appear in ball costume, and daintiest
of neck-ties, and do the faint execution of forty-year-old
bucks upon the belles of the hour. Illmatched
ladies, moreover, condemned to the society
of such rheumatic husbands as could not venture
to balls or concerts, might now secure their private
boxes, and be ogled and admired by whomever they
wished.
It was, in fact, a charming device for measuring
our refined, democratic society, by general observation.
nurse, or directress of social education, it was
deemed advisable to drop the ballet which had uniformly
belonged to the Opera in Europe;—so that
tender nerves should not be rudely shocked, and
that the amusement might thus become as pure
and wholesome, as it was natural and enjoyable.
There were no provisions, however, in regard to
low-necked dresses and strong lights; the Homeric
women, or `high-bosomed,' being reckoned superior
to the ballatrice, or long-legged.
At first, I am told, the Opera had its locale in a
comparatively humble situation, where it was exposed
to the inroads of common people, and where
the ton of the hour were horrified by the presence
of a great many ignorant country merchants, from
the neighboring hotels,—men who very sensible
and business-like in their way, had neither the requisite
finish of dress, or the right mode of listening,
to adorn such shrine of taste. This defect has
been remedied by placing the Opera-house upon a
more elevated footing; it is removed to a fashionable
quarter, and a special regimen of dress (that
of the Queen's Theatre, London) has been adopted;
without which, it is now generally understood, that
the finer Italian music can be but very faintly appreciated.
These means and appliances have made the town
Opera a most noticeable matter. Three times a
week, during the winter, its sofas, music, and light
have brought together all that was supposed to be
lovely, or learned in our town. There may be, indeed,
good, common creatures for household purposes,
or such women as would make most excellent
mothers without the Opera doors; but they cannot
aspire to that apex of our social pyramid, which
can be scaled only through the agency of our most
devoted patrons of Italian song.
I have amused myself often, Fritz, in running
my glass over the interested faces which grace this
temple of our social worship. Admirers and ardent
lovers of the music, of course they all are; but
their loves do, somehow, wonderfully vary. You
might see in one box some little fair-faced girl,
not too modest,—just having left behind her at her
school,—amare, the Paradise Lost, and Porquet's
Tresor,—blush into our town-world under the daintiest
of head-dresses, and with the most naïve attention
to the scenes and drapery. She can scarce
manage that huge lorgnette; but its handling has
been well practiced; her glove is a fit; and if she
do not see plainly, she at least seems to see. Her
mamma, with eager eye, cultivated by such optic
study, calculates, with motherly discretion, the
slyly pulls the dress of her daughter if the poor
thing is disposed to break into raptures at the music,
when Mrs. J— is only smiling. She chides
her, too, if neglectful or inattentive, when the signal
has been given by one of Forti's die-away efforts,
for enthusiastic applause.
Yonder you will see a fresh aspirant for social
honors, in the best of Miss Lawson's `fixing,'
studying—not the scene, but the conduct of a pair
of old stagers. She is laying up in her memory,
from observation of every fold of a lace mantilla,
from every swoop of the neck, and from every manœuvre
with the glass, a set of rules which, on future
nights, will stand her in great stead. Another,
not familiar with the atmosphere, but too naïve
to be studying dress or attitude, is very fearful lest
she, in some way, offend against the practices of
that august court. She scarce dares smile at Sanquirico,
for she sees a sober expression on the face
of the elegant lady of an adjoining box; and when
she is near dying with admiration, she blushes to
find that her companion is talking behind her fan
with the gentleman of the long moustache. She
wonders, indeed, overmuch what she ought to admire;
she wishes heartily she knew; but for her
Opera taste.
An old gentleman, the father of a family, who is
not an habitué, but who has come to have an eye
upon what he terms his wife's vanities, will sadly
mortify his family and family connections, by yawning
in the corner of his box. In vain the distressed
wife will pinch his elbows, or put on an indignant
scowl; in vain the daughter will look appealingly,
and murmur reproachfully, `Why, papa!' — the
poor man turns to the stage, trying hard to smile—
to look serious—to admire, as he gets the cue from his
wife's glances; and he casts a timid eye to the
boxes to see if his gaucherie is observed. Yet he is
patron of Italian music, and will furnish his wife
with an heraldic panel to her carriage.
The travelled admirer who is of course very artistic
in her admiration, will assume an easy carelessness,—be
very indifferent when there is show
of pathos,—play with her lorgnette at a stroke of
humor, and whisper in a languishing way to her
companion, when the singers have achieved their
greatest triumph,—that it is only comme ça.
The old ladies who are looking out for new eminence
in these capitally-contrived boxes,—now that
their ball-age is utterly gone by,—and who know
as much of Italian as of music, and as much of
Faublas of chastity,—will study pretty disposition
of colors, and shades, and make their old eyes
blaze anew with the opera gas, and coquetry.
The critic who is treasuring in his brain particular
Italian expressions, and who cons his copy to
learn the orthography, will look wise as an owl,—
sneer when the vulgar old gentleman yonder is
patting his fat hands in clamorous applause, and
will listen intently, and with an artist cock of the
eye, to the more delicate execution—which to the
mass of our earnest Opera-goers (and perhaps to
the critic himself) is as much Greek, as the Lillibullero
of my uncle Toby.
As for critical appreciation and remark, it resolves
itself after a few nights, and the issue of a
few Journal leaders, into an established set of
opinions, which do not vary to the end. Thus
Bertucca, who has Italianized a French name and
a French habit of song, is the `wooden Bertucca.'
Beneventano, with a voice windy as a blacksmith's
bellows, is the stout swaggerer, who makes love like
a butcher, but whose stature fills up classically the
scenes. Forti, with nice ear, and artistic appreciation,
is a trifle Jewish,—yet with no Hebraic volume
in his lungs;—not handsome enough to be
admired, nor ugly enough to call out raptures from
of the scenes, whose action is the worship of the
critics, and whose singing will cause a delirium in
the pit. As for Benedetti, his retirement has been
honored with more sighs of regret, than ever followed
the best missionary exposé of heathen Polynesia.
John Rogers at the stake (in the primer)
was nothing to the martyred Benedetti! The new
Thaddeus of Warsaw!—for seasons to come, ditties
will be pointed with his name,—recorded honors
will gather round his memory, and lady-sighs will
thicken over him!
These, our Italian Divinities, my dear Fritz,
have been the centres of more active conversation,
and the subjects of livelier debate in salon, at ball,
and upon the street, than all the political heroes of
the hour—not excepting the sick lion of the South,
now mumbling like Dagon in his cave, over the
bones of his victims.
Go where you will, if only the aspiring beauties
of our town be present, and the Italian aperient
shall open the lady-talk, and lovers paying their
vows in operatic fragments, shall sigh,—Non so,
perché non posso odiarti!
It would be impossible, indeed, to compute the
amount of influence in our town, flowing from that
company of singers who enjoy the presidence of
the anti-dramatic counterblasts of the Tabernacle,
—the secessions of distinguished doctors,—the
newspaper letters of a bishop,—the pro tempore
harangues of the Head of the Pilgrims, and all the
fish-bladders of the Ecclesiologists, are dust and
chaff, compared with the prevailing animus that
enlivens the body of our opera-worshippers! Victoria
is scarce so much the subject of talk in the
court circles of London, as are our heroes of the
Astor-place among the `leaders of our ton.'
Carlyle says our people have not contrived yet
any great, new, social idea;—let him sweat us out
of the mazes of his contorted words, a greater one
than this very Musico-socio-operatic Idea, belonging
to our town and ton; and if he can do it, I for one,
Fritz, will link myself to the herd of his admirers,—
who, though capital fellows, with their inverted optics,
to reduce every existing system to apparent
confusion, are yet, like their great demi-god, the
weakest of weaklings, to devise any tangible, or
practical method of Reform.
| THE LORGNETTE. The lorgnette, or, Studies of the town | |