47
MUSICAL COURIER
June 22, 1922
his wife, with whom he had resided on Staten Island for over forty years; his son Max Maretzek, and two daughters—Mrs. Charles F. Wilbur, of Pleasant Plains, and Mrs. Henry Lindsey, of Newark, New Jersey. The funeral services were conducted the following Monday by the Rev. J. L. Lancaster, an Episcopal clergyman, and the interment was in the Moravian Cemetery in New Dorp, Staten Island. Many prominent people! in the musical world attended the funeral.
Amidst all jealousies and bickerings for which musicians are famous, Maretzek held himself a friend to all factions and an enemy to no one. In his day he was thought an admirable conductor and as a man he was a general favorite with all.
Has Anybody Been Busier than Edna?
On June 23 Edna Swanson Ver Haar will have filled her ninety-sixth concert engagement for the 1921-22 season. Approximately forty of these were return engagements. With this kind of a record no one need have any fear about her popularity and ability to please. Her manager, Harry Culbertson, announces that next year she will have a bigger season than the one just ending. Miss Ver Haar is also being considered by one of the large opera companies to sing principal contralto roles.
Thomas Chalmers to Make Extended Concert Tour
Thomas Chalmers, baritone of the Metropolitan Opera, will make a transcontinental concert tour during the coming season, when not engaged at the Metropolitan Opera. The Culbertson management is handling his tour and they report that he will be heard in many states before the season ends.
Orchestral Engagements for Schnabel
S. Hurok, manager of Artur Schnabel, has received contracts for the engagement of the Viennese pianist as soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at a pair of concerts in Symphony Hall on March 30 and 31, 1923, and as soloist with the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra at a pair of concerts at the Academy of Music on April 6 and 7, 1923.
Recent Erna Rubinstein Bookings
Erna Rubinstein, the youthful violinist, has been engaged for a recital in St. Joseph, Mo., on March 8, 1923. During the same week she will appear in Chicago and Denver as well.
LENA DORIA DEVINE
Lampertl’s Method oí Volee Production
(ballad for tenor), and “Knickerbocker Dance” (arranged for piano.)	.
At a little dinner given to commemorate Adelina Patti s twenty-fifth anniversary upon the stage, Maretzek was one of the guests. Here he told of having given Patti a half-a-dollar for a kiss in the days when she had to be bribed by bon-bons to sing, whereupon she said, “Now, Max, you have told these gentlemen how I kissed you for half-a-dollar; this time I will kiss you for nothing.” She did and it was not a stage kiss either. In May, 1883, Maretzek conducted four performances of opera in German at the Lexington Avenue Opera House. The first performance was on May 4, and the works given were : “Faust,” “Der Freischütz,” “Martha,” and “La Traviata.”
His Golden Jubilee.
Maretzek’s Golden Jubilee was celebrated on February 12, 1889, at half-past seven, before one of the largest and most notable audiences assembled in the Metropolitan Opera House at that time. It began with a performance of “A Woman’s Won’t,” by the Daly Company. Then followed the overture to “Tannhäuser,” a ballad from “Gia-conda,” sung by Emily Winant, and a violin solo by Zar-zucki, played by Maude Powell. Frank Van der Stucken conducted several numbers of Massenet’s ballet music to “Le Cid.” Alvary and Sedelmeyer sang the forge scene from “Siegfried,” conducted by Anton Seidl. Theodore Thomas conducted a selection from Saint-Saëns’ “Samson and Dalila,” sung by Mme. Fursch-Madi. Rafael Joseffy played Liszt’s “Hungarian Fantasie.”
The second part of the program opened with a play, “Kerry,” an adaptation in one act by Dion Boucicault of Mme. de Girardin’s “La joie fait peur,” in which Coquelin had appeared in New York not so long before. The play was put from French into Irish surroundings. The veteran actor and author of the play took the title-role. Walter Damrosch conducted the tower scene from “II Trovatore” and the “Miserere,” sung by Mme. Herbert-Foerster and Pe-rotti. Del Puente sang the Toreador aria from “Carmen.” Maretzek, himself, conducted the orchestra in a scene from “Don Giovanni,” in which Mme. Fursch-Madi was the soloist. He was most heartily received and after the number when he was recalled, several wreaths were thrown upon the stage.
His Last Years.
It was Maretzek who was the first to place Italian opera on a substantial footing in New York, and under his direction it became one of the organized amusements of this city. For all his work he made little for himself, and from the time of his retirement from managerial duties up to his death he was busily engaged in giving singing lessons in New York. In 1897, Maretzek, who had been troubled with heart disease for some time, spent nearly all his time at his home previous to his death, making only occasional visits to New York to give lessons. On Friday, May 14, he made his last visit to the city. Soon after reaching his home at Pleasant Plains, Staten Island, he became seriously ill, and although physicians were called in consultation, nothing could be done for him. ^ The onetime prominent impresario passed away at ten o’clock that evening (May 14, 1897), aged seventy-six years. At the time of his death his entire family was at his bedside—
MAX MARETZEK
(Continued, from page 7)
Maretzek’s parents, Rafael and Anna Maretzek, lived at No. 94 East Tenth Street and were neighbors of a one time impresario, Salvator Patti and his family, who lived at No. 96. The girls of both families were schoolmates.
In April, 1860, Maretzek opened a season at the Winter Garden Theater with Stighelli, a tenor, and Mines. Fabbri, Frezzolini and Gassier, producing “La Juive,” followed by “I Masnadieri,” by Verdi, from Schiller’s tragedy, “The Robbers.” He conducted the first performance of “Faust” in America, on November 23, 1863, with Kellogg, Sulzer, Mazzolini and Biacchi in the cast. Previous to 1864 Maretzek was not regularly the manager at the Academy, but from that year until it burned down, in 1866, he controlled it.
The New Academy.
When the old'Academy was rebuilt Maretzek was the first tenant. In 1867, after the subscribers had given a ball for his benefit on March 1, he opened the Academy with Minnie Hauk. He then took his company to Pike’s Opera House, now the Grand Opera House, but returned to the Academy the following year, where the French tenor Lefranc was one of the new members.
First Appearance of Pauline Lucca.
In the fall of 1872 Maretzek opened the Academy with Mme. Pauline Lucca as the chief attraction of the season. She arrived early in September in New York and lived at No. 17 East Fourteenth Street. Upon taking up her residence there she was serenaded by the Liederkranz. Others of the cast for that season were Clara Lornse Kellogg and Carlotta Grossi, sopranos; Sanz, contralto; Vizzani and Abrugnedo, tenors; Sparapate, baritone; Janet and Coulon, basses. They had an orchestra of forty-nine pieces, three conductors, Bergmann, Carlberg and Maretzek, and a chorus of seventy. The season began on September 30 and ended December 12. Among the operas given, in the majority of which Mme. Lucca appeared as the prima donna, were: “L’Africaine,” “Les Huguenots,” "II Trovatore,” “Don Giovanni,” “Der Freischiitz,” “Mig-non,” “La Favorita,” “Le Nozze di Figaro,” “La Traviata,” "Lucia di Lammermoor,” “Crispino e la Comare,” “Rigolet-to,” "La Sonnambula,” “Lucrezia Borgia” and “Faust.” Two performances of Nicolai’s “Merry Wives of Windsor” were also given on December 11 and 13, after the close of the fall season. Mme. Lucca then appeared in Philadelphia, Baltimore and Boston and then came to New York for the winter season which commenced February 3, 1873, and ended April 5, after which she appeared in Cincinnati, Louisville, St. Louis and terminated her engagement in Chicago on May 19 of that year.
Retirement From Opera.
In September, 1876, “Baba,” a spectacular play with music by Maretzek, was given at Niblo’s Garden with the composer conducting. With the advent of Colonel Mapleson, Maretzek ceased to play an important part in opera, and became a quiet looker-on in operatic affairs, devoting himself to the teaching of singing and training pupils for the opera. He was the first impresario in New York to conduct his own operatic performances. During part of his career he assumed full financial obligat.ons and conducted the opera; again he left the financial end to the stockholders, who engaged him as manager and conductor. He gave opera at prices ranging from fifty cents to $2.
Two books, “Crochets and Quavers” or “Revelations of an Opera Manager in America,” and “Sharps and Flats,” a sequel to “Crochets and Quavers,” the former published in 1855 and the latter in 1890, written by Maretzek in his own peculiar and humorous style, are interesting and entertaining histories of opera in New York prior to the opening of the Metropolitan.
Other Operas Given.
Exclusive of the operas already mentioned, Maretzek also presented in New York, many for the first time, the following operas: “Anna Bolena,” “Belisario,” "Betly,” “Don Sebastiano,” “II Poliuto,” “Maria di Rohan,” “Marino Falieri,” by Donizetti; “Romeo and Juliet,” by Gounod; “Saffo,” and “Medea,” by G. Pacini; “Judith,” by G. Peri; “Carnival of Venice,” "Duchess of Amalfi” and “lone,” by E. Petrella; and “Aroldo,” “Attila,” “La Forza del Destino,” “I Lombardi,” and “Luisa Miller,” by Verdi.
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His Opera “Sleepy Hollow.”
Maretzek composed many operas, but most of them were never produced. One of these which scored considerable success (though not financially), was “Sleepy Hollow,” or “The Headless Horseman,” a comic pastoral opera in three acts, libretto by Charles Gayler, based on Washington Irving’s story, and presented in English at the Academy of Music. His last appearances at the Academy were in cpnnection with the performances of this opera. A libretto of the opera was published in 1879, and in 1880 Edward Schuberth & Co. published four numbers from it. They are: “Spinning Song,” “A Maiden Dwelt in a Rosy Bower” (for soprano), “Trip to Dance, Fair Maids” (rondo for soprano), “By Day and Night”
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