June 2 2, 1922
MUSICAL COURIER
6
Max Maretzek—Impresario, Conductor and Composer
By WALDEMAR RIECK
Copyrighted, 1922, by The Musical Courier Company.
a fortnight’s imprisonment. Maretzek, after some difficulty, succeeded in obtaining Forti’s services under guard of four soldiers. After the fifth day his sentence was commuted to a fine of $100, after which Forti never missed a performance for sickness or any other cause while in Mexico. During his season in Mexico, Maretzek brought out a Mexican prima donna, Señorita Eufrasia Amat, over whom her countrymen made much ado.
A Season at Castle Garden.
Early in March, 1853, Maretzek returned from Mexico and secured Castle Garden for the summer months, open-
PORTRAIT OP MAX MARETZEK, about 1882.
ing there on March 27 with “Don Pasquale,” presenting Alboni, Salvi, Marini and Beneventano, and produced in rapid succession “La Favorita,” “Norma,” “Lucrezia Borgia,” “Cenerentola,” “Gazza Ladra” and others, closing the spring season on May 6 with “Don Giovanni,” in which were Beneventano, as Don Giovanni; Rose Devries, as Donna Anna; Salvi, as Don Ottavio; Mme. Amalia Patti, as Donna Elvira; Marini, as Leporello; Rovere, as Mas-setto, and Mme. Alboni, as Zerlina. The price of admission was one dollar.
The summer season opened July 11, with Mme. Sontag, Salvi, Badiali and Rosi in “Lucia di Lammermoor,” with the uniform price of admission of one dollar. The season closed about August 26 with a double performance of “Lucrezia Borgia” in the afternoon, with Steffanoni, Poz-zolini and Marini in the cast, and with “Lucia di Lammermoor” in the evening, with Mme. Sontag, Salvi and Badiali. After this season Mme. Sontag went to Mexico to fill an engagement at the.Teatro Nacional.
First “Prophete” in America.
After her departure, Maretzek inaugurated another season of Italian opera at Niblo’s Garden, on September 29 of that same year (1853.) In default of an operatic star, the principal feature of that season was the production for the first time in America of Meyerbeer’s “Le Prophete,” on November 25, with a splendid mise en scene of entirely new scenery, new costumes, machinery after exact models brought | from Paris, and a cast comprising Stef-j fanoni, Bertucca, Salvi, Marini, Beneventano, Vietti, Rosi, and a complete
TWO SOMEWHAT SIMILAR CARICATURES, which appeared in two New York papers in 1875, with the caption:	Max
Maretzek, “Mere, y’are! fine home-made prima-donnas, just as good as the imported, and only one-quarter the price.”
impresario until 1878, during which period he was at the Astor Place Opera House, the Academy of Music and the Grand^ Opera House, then called Pike’s Opera House. Occasional tours were also made to other cities of the United States, Cuba and Mexico.
The following season he opened the house with popular prices of admission—boxes and parquette, $1.50; amphitheater, twenty-five cents. The initial performance was “Lucia di Lammermoor,” with Mme. Borghesi as Lucia, on November 1, 1849. On November 19 “Otello,” by Rossini, served to introduce Mme. Bertucca as Desdemona; she afterwards became Maretzek’s wife. “Don Pasquale” was produced for the first time in America on December 18 of that year. The season closed March 7, 1850, with a fancy ball tendered him by the subscribers. The benefit, however, was so select an affair that the expenses outran the receipts by $1,000. During that season there were sixty performances given, and, to quote Maretzek, “the entire press, with one exception, supported me. One paper accused me of robbing the subscribers of their money. I wanted to fight a duel with the editor, but we took it out in ink instead of blood.” For the next twenty-five years, according to himself, his seasons bore a strong resemblance to that first typical one. He lost money one year and made it up the next, only to lose it again.
The regular season began again October 21, 1850, with “Der Freischütz.” Mme. Teresa Parodi made her first American debut in this season. Previous to her arrival the newspapers spread a rumor that the Duke of Devonshire was to marry her and that therefore she would not appear in New York. Biographies, portraits, anecdotes
and a description of decided home-manufacture of her t fousseau were circulated in this country. To all inquiries Maretzek made no answer, but so great was the enthusiasm aroused over her that when she did arrive in New York and made her American debut in “Norm a,” on November 4, she was. such a success that to the end of the season she drew excellent houses, and instead of the ruin which Maretzek expected— for Barnum was at this time in the field with'ijen-ny Lind—he was able to carry
three operatic seasons in New York, Philadelphia and Boston to a triumphant close, to pay the debts of the previous season and to end the current one with some profit. On January 28, 1851, she appeared as Romeo to Virginia Whiting’s Giulietta in Bellini’s “Montechi e Capuleti.” Within a month the house was closed. On November 3, 1851, Maretzek again opened but closed his season on January 19, 1852, after which the Astor Place Opera House as a home for opera came to an end.
Opera in Mexico.
In February of that year he left for the capital of Mexico, to give opera there in the Teatro di Santa Anna, Ä provision of Mexican law. which ,might sometimes Well be imitated here in New York, is that if the management of a theatre fails to give an advertised performance, or not tb' present what is advertised, whether due to the failure financially oi the company or the indisposition on the part of one of the artists, the management must pay a fine of $100 to the government. Maretzek found out about this law while in Mexico in the following way:	Salvi, the tenor,
had broken his arm־ in a fall from a horse while riding horseback, and, as Forti, another tenor in the company, was familiar	|
with the part in “La Favorita,” which was to be given that evening, he was requested to sing.	j
it but refused to. On the contrary, he followed the example of his rival, Salvi, hired a horse and went that very evening before the	j
performance to the neighboring village of Tacubaya. The Governor was informed of what had happened by Maretzek, who was permitted to give a miscellaneous concert on that evening without ' paying^ the customary fine. The following morning upon return-to town, Forti was accosted and arrested by a non-commissioned officer and brought. before the Governor, who sentenced him to
I
N Brünn, the capital of Moravia, which was once a province of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire and is now a part of what is at present the Republic of Czecho-Slovakia, Max Maretzek was born on June 28, 1821. For a period of thirty years he was conspicuous in New York City as an impresario and endeavored to produce opera with first-class singers at popular prices.
He was educated at the University of Vienna. His father was determined that his son should be a surgeon or a lawyer. It was, however, the dissecting-room of the Surgical College that brought him to the realization that he was not meant for that profession, for the sight of the first corpse he ever had seen made such a frightful impression upon him that he was haunted by it for weeks afterwards. He therefore left the college and, as he also had a soul above Coke and Blackstone, and an invincible aversion to fighting out other people’s quarrels in a black gown, the legal profession was also discarded. In either of these he probably would have accumulated sufficient means in his adopted country to live in ease during his later years, but he would never have become as well known as he was. He then pursued a course of musical training under the composer, teacher of theory and noted orchestral leader, Ignaz Xaver Ritter von Seyfried (1776-1841).
In April, 1841, Maretzek, who in the winter of 1840-41, when only a mere lad of twenty, had had his opera “Hamlet” performed in Brünn under his direction (it was later sung with considerable success in many European cities), was engaged as conductor at Agram, the capital of Croatia and Slavonia. About this time he is said to have been at work on a second opera based on the Nibelungenlied. In the summer of 1842 he was in Nancy, where Mme. Ernst was singing, and while conducting several operas there, he received a call to Paris. The following summer he dedicated a •collection of songs to the Duchess of Nemours, who sent him a present and a very flattering letter. While in Paris he wrote ballet music for Grisi and Lucille Grahn, but his career at the French capital was a brief one and in 1844 we find him connected with the Italian Opera in London, at Her Majesty’s Theater,
where as assistant conductor (Balfe being the chief conductor), he became a great favorite. When the English opera season at Drury Lane Theater was opened in November, 1847, with “Lucia di Lammermoor,” a ballet, “Les Genies du Globe,” by Maretzek was also given.
Arrives in New York.
At the end of August, 1848, Maretzek left London to come to New York, where he arrived in September, to become the conductor of the Italian Opera Company at the Astor Place Opera House, which had only been completed the year before and had a seating capacity of 1,800. It . was at that time the only musical institution in this city except the Philharmonic Society. Here in New York the rest of his life was spent to the everlasting benefit of American musical taste and musical art.
His first appearance in America was, however, at the Chestnut Street Theater, Philadelphia, where “Norma” was given to a full house on October 5, 1848. Mme. Truffi was the prima donna, but after singing a few bars of the recitative, she fell fainting upon the stage. There came shrieks of laughter and a storm of hisses from the audience, and after the curtain had been rung down the manager came forward and announced to the public that owing to the sudden indisposition of the prima donna the money would be refunded or the tickets might be retained for the next performance. That same evening “L’Elisir d’Amore” was placed in rehearsal and given the following evening with Mme. Laborde, who achieved a triumph in it.
After a brief season of some four weeks in Philadelphia, the company came to New York, where Edward P. Fry, the manager, opened at the Astor Place Opera House on November I, 1848, with “Linda di Chamounix.” Donizetti’s “Roberto Devereaux” was sung in New York on January 15, 1849. The season ended March 2, 1849, when Mme. Fascacciotti made her first American debut in Verdi’s “Ernani.”
Begins His Career as an Impresario.
When the management which had imported him failed, Maretzek faced the alternative of returning to Europe or assuming the management of the Italian opera here, which had been offered him by the proprietors of the Astor Place Opera House. He chose the latter and on March 19 of that same year reopened the house, presenting Mme. Borghesi in “L’Elisir d’Amore,” and, although always surrounded and encompassed by difficulties on every side and with a dubious outlook for the future he at that time embarked with his whole fortune in his attempt to achieve his ambition of being instrumental in permanently establishing Italian opera in this country. This season lasted four weeks, but Maretzek remained an
THE A8TOR PLACE OPERA HOUSE, where Maretzka was manager from March 19, 1849, to January 19, 1852, when it ceased to he used as an opera house.