Patti's "Carmen" -- Metropolitan Opera 1887 -- left audience 'frigid'

Speranza

On her return from the Western States in the following
April, there was another story to tell.

 

Abbey, now pos-
sessed of the requisite capital, as well as the courage, took
the Metropolitan Opera House, and announced Mme. Patti
in six "farewell" representations, with the artistic support
of excellent singers like Scalchi, Galassi, Del Puente, Abram-
off, and Novara, the indispensable Arditi conducting.

 

The
response of the public was immediate and sensational; the
receipts for the half-dozen nights amounted to about $70,000
(14,000).

 

As a faithful chronicler has since written:
"Prices of admission were abnormal, and so was the audi-
ence. Fashion heard Patti at the Metropolitan, and so did
suburban folk, who caine to $10 opera in business coats, bon-
nets, and shawls. Such audiences were never seen in the
theatre before or since." 1

The six operas given were "La Traviata," " Semiramide, ' 7
"Faust," "Carmen," "Lucia/ 7 and "Martha".

 

As re-
gards Patti’s “Carmen” it may be noted that New York did
not reverse the verdict of London.

 

It did not hail in the new Carmen another Minnie Hauk plus the personality and voice
of Patti.

 

On the contrary, the house was frigid, and the critics, plain-spoken as usual, declared that this was not Carmen.

 

One asks, how came the sensitive prima donna to risk such confirmation of a distinctly adverse opinion?

The natural conclusion is that she did not feel inclined to accept the Covent Garden decision; that she thought the American public might take the opposite view and acclaim her in the part.

Moreover, there were those lovely Spanish costumes lying ready in her trunks.

 

"What a pity not to show them beneath the broad proscenium of the Metropolitan!

Thus was finally frustrated a wish that had evidently been
very dear to the heart of the artist.

 

That it involved an error
of judgment was never, in all probability, realized either by
herself or by those around her.

 

Otherwise it is hard to believe
that she would have elected to tempt Providence more than
once and on both sides of the Atlantic.

 

And, after all, how
few ambitions did she cherish that were not fulfilled at some
period of her extraordinary career !