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Interpreters By: Carl Van Vechten (1880-1964) |
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by CARL VAN VECHTEN BOOKS BY CARL VAN VECHTEN INTERPRETERS IN THE GARRET THE MUSIC OF SPAIN THE MERRY GO ROUND MUSIC AND BAD MANNERS THE TIGER IN THE HOUSE MUSIC AFTER THE GREAT WAR [Illustration: MARY GARDEN AS CHÉRUBIN (1905)] Interpreters Carl Van Vechten A new edition, revised, with sixteen illustrations and an epilogue [Illustration] New York Alfred A Knopf MCMXX COPYRIGHT, 1917, 1920, BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA To the unforgettable interpreter of Ariel, Zelima, Louka, Wendla, and Columbine, Fania Marinoff, my wife CONTENTS Olive Fremstad 11 Geraldine Farrar 39 Mary Garden 59 Feodor Chaliapine 97 Mariette Mazarin 117 Yvette Guilbert 135 Waslav Nijinsky 149 Epilogue 177 ILLUSTRATIONS Mary Garden as Chérubin Frontispiece FACING PAGE Olive Fremstad as Elsa 18 Olive Fremstad as Sieglinde 20 Olive Fremstad as Kundry 24 Geraldine Farrar as Elisabeth 40 Geraldine Farrar as Violetta 46 Geraldine Farrar as Louise in Julien 52 Mary Garden as Chrysis 72 Mary Garden as Mélisande 76 Mary Garden as Fanny Legrand 90 Feodor Chaliapine as Mefistofele 112 Mariette Mazarin as Elektra 128 Yvette Guilbert 140 Waslav Nijinsky in Debussy's Jeux 168 Geraldine Farrar as Zaza 190 Mary Garden as Cléopâtre 196 Olive Fremstad "C'est que le Beau est la seule chose qui soit immortelle, et qu'aussi longtemps qu'il reste un vestige de sa manifestation matérielle, son immortalité subsiste. Le Beau est répandu partout, il s'étend même jusque sur la mort. Mais il ne rayonne nulle part avec autant d'intensité que dans l'individualité humaine; c'est là qu'il parle le plus à l'intelligence, et c'est pour cela que, pour ma part, je préférerai toujours une grande puissance musicale servie par une voix défectueuse, à une voix belle et bête, une voix dont la beauté n'est que matérielle. " Ivan Turgeniev to Mme. Viardot. The career of Olive Fremstad has entailed continuous struggle: a struggle in the beginning with poverty, a struggle with a refractory voice, and a struggle with her own overpowering and dominating temperament. Ambition has steered her course. After she had made a notable name for herself through her interpretations of contralto rôles, she determined to sing soprano parts, and did so, largely by an effort of will. She is always dissatisfied with her characterizations; she is always studying ways and means of improving them. It is not easy for her to mould a figure; it is, on the contrary, very difficult. One would suppose that her magnetism and force would carry her through an opera without any great amount of preparation. Such is not the case. There is no other singer before the public so little at her ease in any impromptu performance. Recently, when she returned to the New York stage with an itinerant opera company to sing in an ill rehearsed performance of Tosca , she all but lost her grip. She was not herself and she did not convince. New costumes, which hindered her movements, and a Scarpia with whom she was unfamiliar, were responsible in a measure for her failure to assume her customary authority. If you have seen and heard Olive Fremstad in the scene of the spear in Götterdämmerung , you will find it difficult to believe that what I say is true, that work and not plenary inspiration is responsible for the effect... Continue reading book >>
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