I came across Max Maretzek the other day. He was once the best known operatic manager in America, yet to-day he is comparatively unknown and forgotten. Max came to New York when E. P. Fry was managin’ Italian Opera, “and thereby hangs” an amusing story.
E. P. Fry was a bookkeeper by trade, to please himself, but an operatic manager to please his brother, William H. Fry, of whom he was very proud.
There is in an old German play a very pretty idea about “two souls with but a single thought, two hearts that beat as one.” Such souls and hearts are generally supposed to belong to people of opposite sexes, but in this case the two men, the brothers Fry, had this “single thought” and this one beatin’ heart between ‘em. Each Fry was the other Fry, each brother was the other brother. The two brothers felt and thought like one, for as William H. Fry, the opera composer, was always fightin’ with some artist or some newspaper, and as his brother, the opera manager, always took up his side of the row, why, the manager as well as the composer was always in hot water–generally scaldin’ hot and boilin’ over.
The two Frys then were havin’ a fry with three popular Italian singers: Truffi, Benedetti and Rossi. New York liked these three first rate, but Fry, the manager, didn’t like ‘em because Fry, the composer, didn’t like ‘em, and the composer didn’t like ‘em because they didn’t like his compositions–a very good reason, too, for the composer’s dislike. So Fry, the manager, had sent Fry, the composer, over to Europe to get three artists who could sing in Fry operas to replace these three, who wouldn’t. And of course these three here knew all about Fry’s trying to get the other three there, and the three here raised the devil–especially the woman of the three, Signora Truffi.
Se was a big fine blonde, who wanted things her own way, which of course was very remarkable in a woman. She was cast by the manager to play Norma, which made her of course take it into her dear head (it really was a very dear or expensive head to her manager) that she wouldn’t play Norma under any possible Earthly or Heavenly consideration; cart ropes couldn’t have induced her to do it. She would have died at the stake, or lost her best wig or her character first.
So she sent for a Max Maretzek, who had some influence with Fry, and asked Max to get the manager to change the opera. Max accordingly went to see Fry, who from the moment that he found Truffi didn’t want to play Norma determined she should play it. The more she disliked it the more he liked it. Besides he had spent several hundred dollars cash in buyin’ bear-skins for the Gallic soldiers who were to appear in the choruses in Norma. The people who sold ‘em wouldn’t take these bear-skins back. Fry couldn’t afford all those bear-skins for nothin’. The chorus must show their bear-skins at all hazards. So the bear-skins settled the matter. Norma must be produced.
And it was produced; but how? Without any Norma. No mere matter of bear-skins is going to beat a woman. If she don’t feel like singin’ no power on this earth is goin’ to get her to open her mouth.
The way Truffi managed it was this: she came on the stage all right as Norma, lookin’ very handsome, more handsome even than usual, a bewitchin’ priestess. The people all applauded her and she bowed to their applause. Fry, the manager, stood lookin’ on behind the scenes, thinkin’ that the affair would be a success after all, and tickled at the idea that he was gettin’ the best of Truffi, and was really “managin’” a woman.
Just then an excitement took possession of the opera house. There was a stir among the audience, and on the stage. Truffi had fainted. Sudden indisposition they called it, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t sudden at all, it was a very deliberate and determined “indisposition” to play Norma.
In the midst of the confusion Truffi was carried off the stage, and as the poor, sick, helpless (?) creature was carried past him, poor, sick Norma opened her big blue eyes and flashed on poor, sick, helpless Fry such a look!
Poor Fry! He never got a chance to use those bear-skins.
In the course of time, after poor manager Fry had been bothered and badgered almost to a skeleton, his brother, the composer, sent him over the three artists he had chosen across the Atlantic.
The composin’ Fry endorsed these three artists to the manager Fry in the most enthusiastic terms, because they would all three of ‘em sing in his own operas–of course they would. They were only too glad to get a chance to sing–and get paid–in anythin’.
The three came over and a great time was made over ‘em in the papers in advance, and the biggest kind of hit and business was expected from ‘em.
The opera of “Ernani” was announced for their first appearance in America, and their first night was appointed the benefit night of the manager, beside. So there was the tallest kind of an operatic time expected, and the expectations were more than fulfilled. It was the tallest operatic time of its kind, perhaps, on record.
The night was fine and the opera house was crowded with what is always called “the beauty and the fashion of New York.” Everybody was there and everybody else. And the curtain went up.
And pretty soon in rushed upon the stage the first of the newly arrived and greatly advertised three, the tenor Signor Ferrari. He was welcomed of course, but in wonder, for he had rushed upon the stage too soon, at least five minutes before his cue was given. Findin’ out this fact, the new tenor put his hands to his head, as if an idea had struck very hard, and then he began to tremble, and to perspire like an ox, the paint all streamin’ in spots down his face. He had stage fright so bad, and was so nervous, that the people pitied him.
When it came the tenor’s time to sing, he couldn’t. He was five minutes at least too late in doin’ that, and when he found his voice he didn’t find much. Poor fellow–he was a failure from the first.
But now in bounced the prima donna, Signora Fasciotti. There wasn’t any stage fright about her at any rate. She walked as if she owned and was personally acquainted with all New York, holdin’ her head high and wavin’ her magnificent arms before her. The audience cheered her, and she seemed to take the applause as a mere matter of right. And she looked very fine indeed.
But lookin’ ain’t singin’, and people expect a prima donna somehow to sing, and that is just precisely what Signora Fasciotti, the fine and fascinatin’, couldn’t do well, and didn’t.
Her voice was like a musical razor without any edge, scrapin’ over the ears of the audience. It was somethin’ terrible, and the people looked one at another, as they put the woman down as failure number two.
And then there came out the last of the new three, and the worst. He was an old fellow, and must have been gettin’ worse all his life, for he made about the most dismal failure ever seen in the opera house. His name was Castrone, but his name was the only musical thing about him.
His voice was like a buzz-saw, a creaky door, and a peacock’s cry combined, while his gait and manner were even more outrageous than his voice. He seemed to be a veteran, but he was more awkward than a novice or a super. He set the audience a laughin’ from the start.
The first thing he did on enterin’ was to tumble over a sword, his own sword, which got between his thin legs, and upset him right in the middle of a lot of chorus singers.
Havin’ with difficulty got up again, Signor Castrone fixed his sword all right for a moment, but then his he got into a fresh scrape with the spurs he wore in his hunting costume. Comin’ too near the prima donna, who was screechin’ away regardless, the old Castrone got these spurs of his caught in the lady’s dress. She, making a sudden dash towards the stage, pulled the old man along with her, nearly upsettin’ him again completely stoppin’ herself and tearin’ her dress, givin’ it a tremendous rip.
One of the stage singers got the spurs loose from the dress, and then beckoned to Castrone to do some more singin’ accordin’ to his part in the scene. But he probably thought he had done quite enough in this scene, for he didn’t do any more. He limped to the prompter’s box, where he planted himself and stayed. And to make himself as ridiculous as possible, the poor old chap, by this time thoroughly demoralized, kept beatin’ time with his hand and foot, swayin’ about like a pendulum of a clock, makin’ the audience laugh so that they forgot to hiss.
From that time on the audience seemed to have made up their minds that they were goin’ to be treated not to the grand opera, “Ernani”, but to a musical burlesque upon it. And havin’ made up their minds to this, they proceeded to enjoy the burlesque extremely. It really was extremely funny.
The prima donna bounced and screamed along, act after act, while poor old Castrone played circus with his sword.
The very fiends seemed to have possession of that sword that night. Whatever Castrone wanted to do with it the sword would do somethin’ else. When he tried to draw the sword it stuck in its sheath. Once, when he didn’t intend drawin’ it, it came out when he suddenly touched the sheath. And then when he went to put it back into the sheath he couldn’t find the aperture in it, and fumbled a long while with his still drawn sword.
But the really best part of the show came at the last, the windin’ up of this burlesque on “Ernani” was perhaps the most broadly funny ever seen in any opera or play.
Castrone was called upon the stage in the last act in a hurry–before his toilet was quite prepared. Forgettin’ his state of dress, or undress, out he rushed upon the stage, before the theatre full of men and women, without his pantaloons.
On the upper part of his person he had his huntin’ coat, or doublet, all right. But on his lower part he had nothin’ but an old pair of closely fittin’ flesh-colored tights, rather dirty, but givin’ his legs the appearance of bein’ stark naked.
How the men roared and how the woman blushed. But perhaps the bouncin’ prima donna felt the worst of all the women, as she was the nearest to the breachless basso, and had to go through the scene with him.
The prima donna dropped her eyes every time she had to look towards old Castrone, and reddened even with all her rouge. The chorus all tittered, and the audience screamed louder than the prima donna.
The conductor of the orchestra “cut” all the scene as much as possible, and hurried up the music to the end.
The tenor made a dash for Castrone’s sword to kill himself with it and end the burlesque. But of course Castrone’s sword stuck to him, and only the scabbard came into the tenor’s tremblin’ hands. So he performed the hitherto unattempted feat of stabbing himself with a scabbard.
He died, and to complete the misfortunes of that fatally funny night, he fell down dead outside of the green curtain, which came down leavin’ the corpse between the curtain and the footlights.
This made the audience laugh at the dead man, who thereupon came to life. The corpse sat up and then wriggled himself out of sight.
But the last thing done on the stage that night was funnier even than the breechless basso or the wiggling’ corpse.
Out of sheer deviltry the audience, havin’ recovered from its three hours of laughin’, called out the manager, whose benefit (?) night it had been.
And what did the manager do but respond to the call.
His speech had all been written, of course, before the performance, and was now spoken just as it had been originally written.
In his speech the manager alluded to “the excellence of his new artists,” which made the audience titter, and talked about “the great expense he had incurred to secure vocalists of such unapproachable calibre,” which made the audience roar. Lastly, he “from his heart thanked the people of New York, its wealth and culture here assembled, for havin’ thus testified their appreciation of his efforts to secure for the metropolis of the new world the best musical talent of the old”–a wind up which wound up the audience, and sent ‘em frantic home.
[Editor’s notes: This story was adapted from Crotchets and Quavers: Or, Revelations of an Opera Manager in America by Max Maretzek, 1855.
The benefit described was performed on Friday, March 2, 1849 at the Astor Place Opera House. However, New York newspapers did not review that performance, perhaps in deference to the efforts of the Fry brothers.]
