“Opera Production and Civic Musical Life in 1870s Montreal.”

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Opera Production and Civic Musical Life in 1870s Montreal

Brian C. Thompson

Nineteenth-Century Music Review / Volume 11 / Issue 02 / December 2014, pp 219 - 238DOI: 10.1017/S1479409814000354, Published online: 19 December 2014

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S1479409814000354

How to cite this article:Brian C. Thompson (2014). Opera Production and Civic Musical Life in 1870s Montreal.Nineteenth-Century Music Review, 11, pp 219-238 doi:10.1017/S1479409814000354

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Nineteenth-Century Music Review, 11 (2014), pp 219–238. r Cambridge University Press, 2014doi:10.1017/S1479409814000354

Opera Production and Civic Musical Lifein 1870s Montreal

Brian C. ThompsonChinese University of Hong Kong

[email protected]

This article explores the origins and productions of the Societe Canadienne d’Operette et d’Operade Montreal, a short-lived opera company active in the late 1870s. Headed by Calixa Lavallee andFrantz Jehin Prume, the Societe was established in part as a result of a decree that forbade the usemixed choirs throughout the archdiocese, and consequently made obsolete Lavallee’s choir at Saint-Jacques Church. Following the success of their first production, Lavallee and Prume realized thatthe company might be used as a stepping-stone to the creation of a government-funded musicschool, modelled on the Paris Conservatoire. This article explores the social and political context inwhich the Societe was created, and details the staging and reception of its productions of Gounod’sJeanne d’Arc and Boieldieu’s La Dame blanche. In selecting these works for performance, theorganizers responded to demands and constraints of a society accustomed to popular entertainmentfrom the US and under pressure from the conservative and influential Catholic Church. They wereworks that were feasible to produce and likely to be successful in a city whose population wasdivided by religion, language and cultural traditions.

Throughout the nineteenth century, opera served as a central element of abroadly based popular culture in the Americas. While a few cities had regularopera seasons, in most, the works of Rossini, Donizetti and other favourites wereheard in a myriad of arrangements, transcriptions and fantasies, performed bybrass bands, piano teachers and amateur vocalists. From the 1840s, both Northand South Americans increasingly enjoyed this music in performances by touringprofessionals. With a repertoire drawing heavily on opera, soloists such as JennyLind, Henri Vieuxtemps and Sigismond Thalberg earned large sums from theirtravels, while itinerant troupes brought opera – most often in the form ofexcerpts with little staging – to towns and cities across the continent, on a circuitthat carried them through Canada.1

In Canada, however, the popularity of operatic music did not easily translateinto local opera productions. From the final years of the eighteenth century to the1870s, there were only a few attempts to produce opera.2 At a time when

1 See Katherine Preston, Opera on the Road (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993).2 The Theatre de Societe was established in Montreal in the final years of the

eighteenth century. More than half a century later, in 1867, there was a local production ofDonizetti’s La Fille du regiment at Montreal’s Crystal Palace, and the same year theimpresario George Holman established a company in Toronto. Both of these companies arediscussed in the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada (www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca). Seealso Helmut Kallmann, A History of Music in Canada 1534–1914 (Toronto: University ofToronto Press, 1969) and Ezra Schabas and Carl Morey, Opera Viva: Canadian Opera

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patronage was rare and government subventions non-existent, opera was a formof commercial music like any other. Not only were there financial obstacles toproducing it, but the country had no music schools to train the singers andinstrumentalists it required.3 Canada’s first famous musician, Emma Albani (neeLajeunesse), received her early training in a convent school and then completedher studies in Europe. Few young musicians were able to fund overseas studies,however, and without music schools few cities had enough well-trained singersand instrumentalists. In the 1870s, even Montreal, the country’s metropolis with apopulation of over 160,000, relied on touring companies (see Table 1).4

This article examines in detail one effort to change that situation: theproductions of the short-lived Societe Canadienne d’Operette et d’Opera deMontreal. It explores the social and cultural milieu at the time the company cameinto existence and the reception of its productions. It also considers the goals ofthe company’s creators, Calixa Lavallee and Frantz Jehin Prume, which manyhave begun as simply presenting a stage work to a local audience, but whichsoon expanded to include establishing a provincial conservatory. The project,although ultimately unsuccessful, was likened by its supporters to an act ofpatriotism, and serves as an example of the challenges facing pragmatic anddetermined musicians seeking to develop civic musical institutions.

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Montreal in the 1870s was a city in transition. Since the early 1860s it had changeddemographically in a number of ways. In 1861, 29 per cent of the city’s populationof 91,006 was foreign born, while linguistically the population was nearly equally

Table 1 The largest urban centres in Canada, 1871–1901: population (ranking)

1871 1881 1891 1901

Montreal, QC 130,000 (1) 177,377 (1) 256,723 (1) 328,172 (1)Quebec City, QC 59,699 (2) 62,446 (3) 63,090 (3) 68,840 (3)Toronto, ON 59,000 (3) 96,198 (2) 181,215 (2) 209,892 (2)Saint John, NB 41,352 (4) 41,353 (4) 39,179 (6) 40,711 (7)Halifax, NS 29,582 (5) 36,100 (6) 38,959 (7) 40,832 (6)Hamilton, ON 26,880 (6) 36,661 (5) 48,959 (4) 52,634 (5)Ottawa, ON 24,141 (7) 31,307 (7) 44,154 (5) 59,928 (4)

Source: Population, 1871–1931 (Ottawa: J.O. Patenaude, 1934): 8–9.

Company: The First Fifty Years (Toronto: Dundurn, 2000): 8. For a discussion of theDonizetti production, see Mireille Barriere, ‘La Societe Canadienne-française et le theatrelyrique a Montreal entre 1840 et 1913’ (PhD diss., Universite Laval, 1990): 317–22. DorithCooper explores the Holman company in ‘Opera in Montreal and Toronto: A Study ofPerformance Traditions and Repertoire, 1783–1980’ (PhD diss., University of Toronto,1984): 196–218.

3 In the US, private music schools had begun springing up in the 1860s, beginningwith the Cincinnati Conservatory and the New England Conservatory. Canada was yet toproduce anything comparable and the economic depression sparked by Panic of 1873stock market crash diminished the likelihood of similar successes.

4 Montreal Directory, 1875–76 (Montreal: Lovell, 1876): 33.

220 Nineteenth-Century Music Review

divided between English- and French-speaking inhabitants (Table 2). Through the1860s, the Francophone proportion of the population rose, as French Canadiansfrom surrounding areas migrated to the city. Although we have no statistics on thenumber of foreign-born residents after 1861, the number undoubtedly declined as aproportion of the overall population, despite the continued immigration (Table 3).In the wider context of North America, Montreal’s diversity was unique in characterbut significantly lower in proportion than in many US cities (see Table 4).5

Like many of the major cities of the US, this diverse population gave rise tonumerous divisions, but unlike those cities, Montreal retained a fundamental

Table 2 Montreal population by origin

British Canadian(including foreign-born) French-Canadian Other

Totalpopulation

1861 48.1% 47% 4.8%* 91,0061871 38.1% 60.3% 1.6% 144,0001881 35.2 62.1 2.7 193,000

Sources: For 1861 (population of the City of Montreal, only), Census of 1861 published inMacKay’s Montreal Directory for 1863–64 (Lovell, 1863: 368). For 1871–1901 (figures forthe Island of Montreal), Norbert Lacoste, Les Caracteristiques sociales de la population du grandMontreal (Montreal: Les Presses de l’Universite de Montreal, 1958): 77; Cited in AndrewSancton, Governing the Island of Montreal: Language Differences and Metropolitan Politics (Berkeleyand Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985): 15.*The ‘other’ in 1861 were born in Lower Canada, 121; Upper Canada, 1,208; France, 184; Germany,363; US, 1,706; other countries, 793.

Table 3 Immigrant arrivals in Canada, 1860–1889

1860s 1860 6,276 1870s 1870 24,706 1880s 1880 38,505

1861 13,589 1871 27,773 1881 47,9911862 18,294 1872 36,578 1882 112,4581863 21,000 1873 50,050 1883 133,6241864 24,779 1874 39,373 1884 103,8241865 18,958 1875 27,382 1885 79,1691866 11,427 1876 25,633 1886 69,1521867 10,666 1877 27,082 1887 84,5261868 12,765 1878 29,807 1888 88,7661869 18,630 1879 40,492 1889 91,600

Source: Statistics Canada. Table 075-0001 – Historical statistics, estimated population and immigrantarrivals, annual (persons), CANSIM (database), Using E-STAT (distributor). http://estat.statcan.gc.ca/cgi-win/cnsmcgi.exe?Lang5E&EST-Fi5EStat/English/CII_1-eng.htm (accessed 14 May 2013).

5 At the time of the 1870 census, in seven of the ten largest cities more than thirty percent of the population was foreign-born, a proportion that was down slightly from adecade earlier, when roughly half of the population of five US cities was foreign-born: SanFrancisco (50.1%), Chicago (50%), New York City (47.2%), New Orleans (46%) andCincinnati (45.7%). US Census Bureau. Nativity of the Population for the 25 Largest UrbanPlaces and for Selected Counties: 1860. http://www.census.gov/population/www/documen-tation/twps0029/tab20.html (Accessed 22 August 2010).

221Thompson: Opera Production and Civic Musical Life in 1870s Montreal

Table 4 The ten largest US cities in 1870

Total population Native-born Foreign-born White Non-White

New York, NY 1,338,391 774,579 (58%) 563,812 (42%) 1,320,341 (98.7%) 18,016 (1.3%)Philadelphia, PA 674,022 490,398 (73%) 183,624 (27%) 651,854 (97%) 22,147 (3%)St. Louis, MO 310,864 198,615 (64%) 112,249 (36%) 288,737 (93%) 22,088 (7%)Chicago, IL 298,977 154,420 (52%) 144,557 (48%) 295,281 (99%) 3,691 (1%)Baltimore, MD 267,354 210,870 (79%) 56,484 (21%) 227,794 (85%) 39,558 (15%)Boston, MA 250,526 162,540 (65%) 87,986 (35%) 247,013 (99%) 3,496 (1%)Cincinnati, OH 216,239 136,627 (63%) 79,612 (37%) 210,335 (97%) 5,900 (3%)New Orleans, LA 191,418 142,943 (75%) 48,475 (25%) 140,923 (74%) 50,456 (26%)San Francisco, CA 149,473 75,754 (51%) 73,719 (49%) 136,059 (91%) 13,406 (9%)Buffalo, NY 117,714 71,477 (60.7%) 46,237 (39.3%) 117,018 (99.4%) 696 (0.6%)

Source: Ninth Census, Volume I. The Statistics of the Population of the United States, Embracing The Tables of Race, Nationality, Sex, Selected Ages, and Occupations(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1872). http://www.census.gov/prod/www/decennial.html

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sociocultural division, whose origins dated back to the British conquest of NewFrance. While the city’s coat of arms, designed in 1833, identified the dominantgroups—with a fleur-de-lys, rose, thistle and shamrock, representing the French,English, Scottish and Irish, respectively – its motto, ‘Concordia Salus’ (‘salvationthrough harmony’), spoke more of a goal than a reality, as conflicts over politicsand religion were part of daily life.6 By 1877, a decade after Confederation hadbrought together several of Britain’s North American colonies as a new country, thevarious components of Montreal society were still far from united.7 Even beyondthe basic French–English distinction, those of British ancestry and new immigrantsfrom the British Isles retained their respective identities in part through member-ship in churches and national societies. Newspapers gave voice to these differences:several of the city’s English-language dailies were decidedly pro-Protestant, amongthem the Witness and the Herald, while the Post catered primarily to an IrishCatholic readership. The Gazette, fervently Tory in earlier years, was now relativelymoderate, as was the more recent addition, the Evening Star. The French-languagedailies had clear alliances: La Minerve to the Conservatives, Le National and La Patrieto the Liberals, Le Nouveau monde to the Catholic Church.8

The same newspapers serve now as the primary source of information oncultural life in the city. To some extent, the linguistic or ethnic makeup ofaudiences at professional concerts in Montreal can be inferred through what wasadvertised and discussed in the newspapers (as I discuss below). Musicreinforced differences, as could be heard in the marching bands on St Patrick’sDay and on the Orangemen’s commemoration of the Battle of the Boyne, in theannual French-Canadian Fete Nationale concert, as well as in the dance bands thatperformed in hotel ballrooms on St George’s Day and St Andrew’s Day. Eachof these events was given prominence in the newspapers that catered to thecommunity most concerned, as were, for example, the charity concerts heldthroughout the year. These events were aimed at audiences from thosecommunities and usually involved participants from within the same commu-nities. Among both amateur and semi-professional musicians, it was rare formembers of the city’s different linguistic groups perform within the sameensemble or attract audiences from beyond their linguistic community.9 To createbroadly civic arts institutions promoters would have to earn support across thepolitical, religious and national lines.

In this context, creating broad-based arts institutions was challenging butnot impossible. In larger North American cities, diversity did not prevent the

6 The main elements of the coat of arms were adapted into the city flag in 1938. SeeVille de Montreal, ‘Coat of Arms, Flag and Symbols’, http://ville.montreal.qc.ca/portal/page?_pageid55977,42249635&_dad5portal&_schema5PORTAL (accessed 2 June 2014).

7 Several scholars have explored the reformation of French-Canadian identity in theearly decades of the nineteenth century. See Raymond Breton, ‘From Ethnic to CivicNationalism: English Canada and Quebec’, Ethnic and Racial Studies 11/1 (1988): 93–4;Ramsay Cook, Watching Quebec: Selected Essays (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’sUniversity Press, 2005): 68–72; and Susan Mann, The Dream of Nation: A Social andIntellectual History of Quebec, 2nd edition (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’sUniversity Press, 2002): 48–66.

8 There were also a number of more upmarket weekly publications, among them theCanadian Spectator, the Illustrated Canadian News, l’Opinion publique, la Revue Canadienne andle Foyer Canadien.

9 See Brian C. Thompson, ‘Music and the Fight Against Confederation in 1860sMontreal’, Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism 13/2 (October 2013), 218–35.


establishment of civic arts institutions. In New Orleans, the large Frenchpopulation cultivated opera from the beginning of the nineteenth century.Predominantly English Boston opted for oratorio. New York, with its largeGerman population and its sheer scale, usually had competing opera companiesand in 1842 established the New York Philharmonic. In Montreal, however,amateur ensembles rarely developed the audiences needed to sustain them. Inthe late 1870s, there were German and English choral societies, an amateurorchestra and the professional Band de la Cite. For their entertainment, however,citizens still relied mostly on visiting artists based most often in New York.

Performance venues for these artists and for local performers were plentiful,but increasingly they reflected Montreal’s widening linguistic and economicdivisions.10 The Theatre Royal had been the city’s main theatre since opening in1852. Its location, on Cote Street in what is now Chinatown, was consideredcentral when it opened, and it served both the English- and French-speakingcitizens. After a quarter of century, it was conveniently located to centralneighbourhoods and the predominantly Francophone east end. The moreaffluent elements of the Anglophone population, however, had migratednorthward from the old city, building grand homes in what was becomingknown as the ‘Square Mile’. Sainte-Catherine Street West was the community’sfashionable new commercial street. Since 1860, it had been home to the CrystalPalace, which had been built for that year’s Industrial Exposition and the visit ofthe Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII).11 By the early 1870s, it was joined bythe 1,100-seat Queen’s Hall, which had opened in time to host Anton Rubinsteinduring his 1872–73 concert tour, and, in 1875, by the city’s grandest theatre: the2,100-seat Academy of Music. Commissioned by a consortium led by shippingmagnate Sir Hugh Allan, the Academy was designed by architect Andrew B. Taftand constructed of brick with a stone façade. Inside, it offered four orchestrasections, four boxes, and two balconies, and a stage that was slightly larger thanthat of the Theatre Royal (see Fig. 1).

The city’s growing wealth helped it to attract musicians from abroad, manyof whom were drawn to opportunities within the Anglophone community.The organist Charles F. Davies arrived in about 1870, after holding positions in andaround London, and established himself as a teacher and church musician. TheScottish musician Peter Maclagan arrived in about 1873 to assume the post oforganist at Christ Church Cathedral. He soon took up other activities, establishingthe Beethoven Quartet Club and serving as conductor of the Philharmonic Society.When he left his post at the cathedral, it was filled by the English organist FrederickLucy-Barnes, who arrived in 1878 with his wife, the soprano Lenora Braham. BothBarnes and Braham had been connected with the German Reeds theatre in London,and they pursued their careers in both Montreal and New York.

While these Anglophone musicians cultivated ties primarily in their ownlinguistic community, in the summer of 1875 four Francophone artists arrived inthe city and set about establishing themselves within both communities. CalixaLavallee and Guillaume Couture had returned from Paris, where they had beenstudying. Both were already experienced musicians. The 26-year-old Couture

10 There were a number of venues scattered through the older parts of the city,among them the Mechanics’ Institute, Nordheimer’s Hall and the converted Gosford Streetlocale variously known as the Opera House or the Palais Musical.

11 In 1878, The Crystal Palace was dismantled and reassembled in Fletcher’s Fieldwhere it continued to serve as exhibition space and, in winter, a skating rink.


had worked as a church musician, teacher and critic, activities to which hequickly returned. Lavallee, then 33, had spent most of his professional life in theUnited States travelling as a musical director of a minstrel troupe. This was anunconventional background for an opera director, but minstrel performancesusually began with opera overtures, concluded with a parody based on apopular opera, and included a variety of other vocal and instrumental numbers.Lavallee had also briefly led a ‘parlour opera’ troupe and in 1870, while workingin New York, he had composed an operetta (which had not yet been performed).Also returning late that summer was the Belgian violinist Frantz Jehin Prume andhis Montreal-born wife, Rosita del Vecchio, after a two-year stay in Europe.12 JehinPrume was the nephew of the famous violinist and composer François Prume.During his first visit to Montreal in 1865 he met the amateur vocalist Rosita delVecchio, whom he married in 1866. After this, they resided part of the time inMontreal, while he continued to tour in both North America and Europe. DelVecchio had made her professional debut in November 1868 and continued tostudy while in Europe; she expanded her repertoire to include such demandingarias as that of the Queen of Night, from Mozart’s The Magic Flute. In November1875 the critic Joseph Marmette hailed her Quebec City debut as a triumph, writingthat her voice ‘captivates, moves and ravishes by the extreme charm of her dictionand phrasing’.13 She had garnered similar praise in Montreal. Prume and Lavallee

Fig. 1 The Academy of Music, Victoria Street, Montreal, at the time of its opening.Canadian Illustrated News 4 December 1875.

12 ‘Retour de M. de Madame F. Jehin-Prume’, Le Canada musical 2/4 (1 August 1875): 54.13 Joseph Marmette, ‘Chronique de Quebec’, l’Opinion publique, 18 November 1875,

541. ‘La voix douce, pure et sympathique de Madame Prume captive, remue, ravit par lecharme extreme de sa diction et de sa phrase.’


had performed together in 1865 and on several occasions since then. From the fallof 1875, Lavallee, Jehin Prume and del Vecchio established a teaching studio in anupscale Anglophone neighbourhood, and began presenting concerts of chambermusic and operatic works in both Montreal and Quebec City.

It was through a series of seemingly disconnected events that this group ofmusicians became opera producers. In the summer of 1876 Couture decided to giveup his position as music director at Saint-Jacques Church and return to Paris.Lavallee then accepted Couture’s post, considered one of the most important in thecity. Saint-Jacques had been a cathedral before being destroyed by fire in 1852. Itwas rebuilt as a parish church but remained geographically at the heart ofFrancophone Montreal; its spire, newly completed in 1876, soared 85 metres aboveSaint-Denis Street. Serving as its music director was a demanding job that wasmade more difficult by the Church’s conservative hierarchy, led until 1876 byBishop Ignace Bourget and then by his protegee Edouard-Charles Fabre. In 1878,Bishop Fabre passed a decree forbidding the use of mixed choruses in diocesanchurches, but the idea was already being discussed at the time Lavallee took up thejob, and in the spring of 1877 he resigned from his post.14 But rather than simplydissolving the choir, he decided to make it the basis of a theatrical production, andthe starting point for the Societe Canadienne d’Operette et d’Opera de Montreal.The unwieldy title, abbreviated here as the Societe, stamped the company as French-Canadian and its repertoire as potentially wide-ranging.

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Charles Gounod and Jules Barbier’s lyric drama Jeanne d’Arc was to be the firstwork produced by the Societe. Barbier had provided a cantata text on the Joanof Arc story for Gustave Serpette’s winning entry in the Conservatoire’s 1871Prix de Rome. The subject had served well in the immediate aftermath of France’shumiliating defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. The expanded text used in Gounodand Barbier’s adaptation had been conceived and assembled to replicate Serpette’ssuccess on a larger scale. The work’s creators had reason to expect Parisians wouldembrace Jeanne d’Arc for its patriotic values, but audiences and critics alike receivedit coolly when it was first produced at the Theatre de la Gaıte in 1873.15

The details of how Lavallee and Jehin Prume came to choose Jeanne d’Arcremain uncertain.16 Both had been in Europe at the time it was first performed: in

14 See Edouard-Charles Fabre, Lettre circulaire de Mgr l’eveque de Montreal au clerge deson diocese, MEMMandement des eveques de Montreal, IX (28 December 1878): 216–17; Marie-Therese Lefebvre, ‘The Role of the Church in the History of Musical Life in Quebec’,translated by Beverley Diamond, in Canadian Music: Issues of Hegemony and Identity, ed.Beverley Diamond and Robert Winter (Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press, 1994): 70–71;and Brian Young, ‘Fabre, Edouard-Charles’, Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online.

15 The actress Lia Felix was well received in the title role, but critics dismissedGounod’s music for Jeanne d’Arc as little more than a ‘bundle of reminiscences’. See JamesHarding, Gounod (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1973): 179. See Jules Barbier andCharles Gounod, Jeanne d’Arc, drame en cinq actes (Paris: Choudens, 1873); and ‘Jeanned’Arc’, L’Illustration, 13 December 1873.

16 Lavallee’s biographer Eugene Lapierre claimed that it was Leon Sentenne, parishpriest at Saint-Jacques, who proposed staging an opera as a means of maintaining thechoir, and recommended Jeanne d’Arc. Eugene Lapierre, Calixa Lavallee: Musicien national duCanada (Montreal: Fides, 1966): 128–30.


the months before the premiere, Jehin Prume and del Vecchio had been in Spa,Belgium, when Charles Gounod visited there in 1873. Lavallee was in Paris at thetime of Jeanne d’Arc’s premiere. He, Jehin Prume and del Vecchio would all havebeen well acquainted with the demands of the work. For the Societe, it was asomewhat unusual choice, as, strictly speaking, it was not an opera but a stageplay, and the company’s performers were singers with no stage experience. Onthe other hand, French Canadians were familiar with Gounod’s music, even ifonly from excerpts heard in concert, and readers of l’Opinion publique had learnedof Jeanne d’Arc in 1873.17 More importantly, the subject would appeal toFrancophone nationalists while containing little that might offend the sensi-bilities of the Catholic Church. Gounod’s music was composed mostly for chorusrather than for soloists, making it possible to rely on Lavallee’s singers. The workwas obviously also seen as a vehicle for the 30-year-old Rosita del Vecchio whohad not yet made her stage debut.

Although little is also known about how the production was funded, it is clearthat costs were substantial and that they concerned the producers. In early April,the Canadian Illustrated News reported that ‘the outlay for costumes, scenery, andother accessories [amounted] to more than $2,000’.18 Lavallee and the Prumesheld a concert at the Mechanics’ Hall on 2 March 1877 to raise money for thisproject.19 The concert, however, may not have raised a large amount; areview published the next day in Le Nouveau monde called the event a ‘brilliantsuccess’’ but also mentioned it had been performed for the community’s‘elite’, and noted the ‘unfavourable weather’; both comments suggesting a lightturnout.20 It is not known where Lavallee and Prume raised whatever additionalfunds they required; if the project had financial backers, they seem to haveremained anonymous.

Lavallee and Prume may have been relying on ticket sales to cover expenses. Ifso, then to succeed financially, Jeanne d’Arc would need to attract an audiencefrom both of Montreal’s linguistic communities. Given their reputation and thesubject of the work being performed, Lavallee and Prume could expect thesupport of the French-speaking population. Anglophones were more unpredict-able, and perhaps partly for this reason they opted to stage the work at theAcademy of Music. The interest of the Canadian Illustrated News would have beena promising sign of Anglophone interest. In its 7 April article, it provided itsreaders with a number of facts about the company, reporting that 239 personswhere involved in the production in some way, with a cast comprising ‘34 activeparts, 10 silent parts and 40 figurants.’21

Advertisements for the show listed a chorus of 80 singers and an orchestra of50 musicians. Assembling an orchestra of this size would have been a formidabletask, as competent string players were in short supply. Aside from del Vecchio in

17 L’Opinion publique published a substantial discussion of the work on 4 December1873 (see pp. 580–81).

18 ‘ ‘‘Jeanne d’Arc’’ at AOM’, Canadian Illustrated News, 7 April 1877, 214.19 The programme of chamber and vocal works included opera selections from

Gounod, Bellini and Felicien David, Weber’s Konzertstuck, Max Bruch’s Violin ConcertoNo. 1 in G Minor, op. 26, and the Canadian premiere of Schumann’s Quintet, op. 44. See‘Grand Concert’, Montreal Star, 3 March 1877.

20 See ‘Notes Locales’, Le Nouveau monde, 3 March 1877. That this ultramontagnenewspaper reported on the event suggests a form of Church approval of the production.

21 ‘ ‘‘Jeanne d’Arc’’ at AOM’, Canadian Illustrated News, 7 April 1877, 214.


the lead role, choir members filled the rest of the cast, many of them closelyconnected in some way. The role of King Charles VII was played by CharlesLabelle, a 27-year-old lawyer.22 Paul Dumas, editor of the Revue Canadienne,played Jacques, Joan of Arc’s father. Among the female cast members wereOctavie Desmarais (as Saint Marguerite), Clorinde Gauthier (as Saint Catherine),and three of Lavallee’s younger sisters, Cordelia, Catherine and Ida, in minorroles. As none of these performers was a professional, Lavallee and Prumebrought in the stage manager Achille Genot to prepare them.

After three months of preparation, Jeanne d’Arc opened on Monday 14May fora six-night run. Evidence suggests that the audiences were both large andreceptive. Critics wrote favourably about all aspects of the production. LeNational took the lead in promoting the production, running not only their ownpreviews and reviews but also reprints of what the other newspapers werereporting. On Wednesday they opened their review: ‘The production of ‘‘Joan ofArc’’ at the Academy of Music is an event whose scope can escape no one.This artistic display marks the beginning of a new era for us, and the organizerswho produced the work, the artists who contributed to it and the publicwho encouraged it must also be proud as we in the great success they haveachieved.’23 Coverage of the performances in the English-language pressindicates that the production indeed drew an audience from both linguisticcommunities.24 The Canadian Illustrated News published some of the morejudicious observations, concluding that the production was ‘a brilliant artistic aswell as financial success’, and congratulating ‘the enterprising managers, Messrs.Prume and Lavallee’, advising that, with Genot, they ‘should form a regularcompany, y [as] the soprano is toute trouve in Madame Prume’.25 The commentmay indicate that Lavallee and Prume had not yet considered the future. Threedays earlier, they had issued a lengthy note of thanks to the organizingcommittee, the participants, the public and the press, but in it said nothingspecific about their plans.26

A little over a week after Jeanne d’Arc closed, Montreal’s English-speakingcommunity had a comparably grand event of its own: a three-day music festivalmodelled on the triennial festivals in Boston and Cincinnati. The festival wasorganized by Peter Maclagan, who staged it in the Victoria Rink, just a fewblocks from the Academy. Maclagan had a pipe organ erected in the arena,assembled a chorus of about 140 singers, brought in soloists from Boston, andexpanded the ranks of the Philharmonic Society with musicians from the UnitedStates. Both Lavallee and Jehin Prume joined in, playing in the orchestra. By aremarkable stroke of poor luck, the festival coincided exactly with a three-day

22 The full cast list that appeared in the libretto provided only surnames of most ofthe performers. See Barbier and Gounod, Jeanne d’Arc, 1877.

23 ‘Un evenement artistique’, Le National, 16 May 1877. ‘La representation de ‘‘Jeanned’Arc’’ a l’Academie de Musique est un evenement dont la portee ne peut echapper apersonne. Cette demonstration artistique marque le commencement d’une ere nouvellepour nous, et les organisateurs qui l’ont montee, les artistes qui y ont contribue et le publicqui l’a encouragee doivent etre aujourd’hui aussi fiers que nous du succes immense qu’ellea emporte.’

24 The Protestant Daily Witness was the exception, printing nothing at all about theproduction.

25 ‘Before the Footlights’, Canadian Illustrated News, 26 May 1877. 326.26 Calixa Lavallee and F. Jehin Prume, ‘Communications’, Le National, 23 May 1877.


engagement of P.T. Barnum’s circus, which had set up its big top at the MontrealLacrosse Club grounds.27 With big advertisements and daily parades of hismenagerie, Barnum provided formidable competition for the music festival. TheDaily Witness, which had been taciturn on Jeanne d’Arc, came to Maclagan’sdefence, providing a detailed account of the opening night’s performance ofHandel’s Messiah, reporting the audience to have been the largest ‘ever gatheredin Montreal to listen to an entertainment purely musical’, and describing theevent itself as the ‘greatest undertaking of its kind ever attempted in the city’.28

But despite this claim, the festival does not seem to have crossed Montreal’slinguistic divide as the Societe’s production had: Le National was silent onthe event, despite the participation of Lavallee, Prume and a number of otherFrench-Canadian performers.

In June, Lavallee and Prume returned to Victoria Rink to host the FeteNationale concert. As usual on that occasion, the concert attracted MayorJean-Louis Beaudry and numerous provincial politicians.29 In addition toselected instrumental works, the concert featured music from Jeanne d’Arc,with Lavallee’s chorus and soloists Rosita del Vecchio, Cecile Hone, ClorindeGauthier and Charles Labelle. But this was not the last the public would hear ofJeanne d’Arc. In November, despite the absence of Prume and del Vecchio, whohad returned to Belgium on family business, Lavallee restaged it.30 Taking delVecchio’s place was Theresa Newcomb, then a member of the stock company atthe Academy of Music, and on 19 November the production once againopened for a six-night run, this time at the Theatre Royal. Critics receivedNewcomb warmly. After the opening night La Minerve concluded that, whileNewcomb could not make one forget Madame Prume entirely, she ‘filled onewith admiration’: ‘Her diction is perfect, her intonation rich and varied, herpoise and taste artistic; she is, in a word, an enchanting actress.’31 Le Nationalcalled the first performance an artistic and popular success, and predictedNewcomb would become a star of the French-language stage.32 The Star notedsimply that ‘too much praise cannot be given her’.33 The public appears to haveagreed, as Lavallee added six nights, with benefit performances for the castand crew during the week, and a fund-raiser for the poor on closing night,1 December.34

27 Also that week, a theatrical troupe managed by Max Strakosch was performing atthe Academy of Music, and a variety company from the US was performing at theMechanics’ Hall.

28 A little further into the review, the writer claims the audience to have been just1,500. The critic was as disparaging of the orchestra as he or she was complimentary of thevocalists. ‘Grand Musical Festival in the Skating Rink’, The Daily Witness, 29 May 1877.

29 See ‘Concert’, Le National, 26 June 1877.30 In November, Lavallee included Prume as co-director in the advertisements for

Jeanne d’Arc, perhaps for the promotional value of his name or perhaps in anticipation ofhis return to Canada. ‘Jeanne d’Arc’, advertisement, Le National, 19 November 1877.

31 ‘Jeanne d’Arc’, La Minerve, 20 November 1877. ‘Le public etait anxieux de savoircomment elle s’acquitterait d’un role si difficile, ecrit dans une langue qui n’etait pas lasienne et accepte au dernier moment. Elle est sortie de l’epreuve d’une force victorieuse etsans noms faire completement oublier Mme. Prume, est parfaite, son intonation riche etvariee, sa pose et gout artistique; c’est en un mot une actrice ensorceleuse.’

32 ‘Theatre Royal’, Le National, 20 November 1877.33 ‘Theatre Royal’, Montreal Star, 20 November 1877.34 ‘Theatre Royal’, Le National, 26 November 1877.


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With no sign of Prume and del Vecchio returning from Europe, 1878 foundLavallee forced to decide his own way forward. His goals had evolved by thistime into something much more than simply keeping a choir alive. Throughperformance, the company was to help build the case for a provinciallyfunded music school. It could also develop audiences for opera (and especiallyfor French-language opera), and grow into an enduring civic institution and apoint of pride for the community. To achieve all of these goals, he had tobring the provincial government on side. The economic environment alreadymade this a challenge, and a political scandal that became known as the ‘LetellierAffair’ would complicate things further.35 If that was not enough, Lavalleealso had to avoid a confrontation with the Church, so repertoire had to beselected carefully.

By the beginning of March, plans were well underway for a new stageproduction. Some of the choices were not difficult to make. Of the three basiccategories of French musical theatre, grand opera was too costly to produce andrequired a whole cast of professionally trained singers. Opera bouffe wasmanageable on a budget, feasible in its vocal demands, and popular withaudiences, but did not project the dignified image expected of a national opera,especially under the glare of bishops Fabre and Bourget. So it really had to beopera comique: serious but not too serious, with a mix of music and spoken text, itcould be produced without elaborate staging or foreign singers. The genre wasknown mostly through performances by visiting troupes and innumerableconcert performances of selections and overtures. From this repertoire Lavalleemade an obvious choice for the fledgling opera company: François AdrienBoieldieu’s La Dame blanche.36

As part of a larger scheme of winning support for a conservatory, La Dameblanche was an opera with something for everyone. Although, like mostof the popular opera comiques of the Romantic era, it dropped out of thestandard repertoire in the early years of the twentieth century, in 1879 it wasstill much admired and often performed. It had been performed more than1,000 times at the Opera Comique in Paris. It had been seen in London, New Yorkand New Orleans, and throughout continental Europe. It was especiallypopular in Germany, where it was usually sung in German. Boieldieu’s scorespawned numerous instrumental fantasies and even some satires. Nor was itunknown in French Canada. The first act had been staged in Quebec City in the1850s by the French immigrant Antoine Dessane.37 In his 1871 memoire,Adolphe Adam, a student of Boieldieu’s, devoted a chapter to La Dame blancheand his own role in its creation, and this had been reprinted by the Canadamusical in 1875.38

35 See Robert Rumilly, Histoire de la province de Quebec, Vol. II: Le ‘Coup d’Etat’(Montreal: Editions Bernard Valiquette, 1941).

36 A brief list of other potential operas Lavallee might have chosen would includeDaniel Auber’s Fra Diavolo (1830) and Le Domino noir (1837), Ferdinand Herold’s Zampa(1831), Gaetano Donizetti’s La Fille du regiment (1840), and Ambrose Thomas’s Mignon(1866).

37 Helmut Kallmann, ‘Antoine Dessane’, Dictionary of Canadian Biography.38 The essay was extracted from Adam’s Derniers souvenirs d’un musicien (Paris:

Michel Levy Freres, 1871): 277–94.


The opera is one of many based on the stories of Sir Walter Scott.39 Here,librettist Eugene Scribe adapted elements from two of Scott’s novels, GuyMannering (1815), which tells the story of Harry Bertram, the son of the Laird ofEllangowan, who, having been kidnapped as a child, makes his way home toScotland and fights to reclaim his inheritance, and The Monastery (1820), which isset in southeast Scotland in about 1550, and tells of the fate of the Avenel familyand the threat to Kennaquhair monastery. Scribe retained the eighteenth-centurysetting of Guy Mannering, aspects of its general conflict, and some of its maincharacters. From The Monastery he took the mysterious White Lady, the protectorof the Avenel family. He omitted from the libretto the more serious elements ofScott’s novels, such as the depictions of criminality in the eighteenth century andthe more violent aspects of the Scottish Reformation. The main roles are GeorgeBrown (tenor), a young officer in the English army who, unknown even tohimself, is Julian Avenel; Anna (soprano), a young woman who as an orphan wasraised by the now-deceased Count and Countess of Avenel; Dickson (tenor) andJenny (soprano), tenant farmers on the Avenel estate; Marguerite (contralto), theAvenels’s elderly servant; Gaveston (bass), the scheming former steward of theAvenels’s estate; and MacIrton (bass), a justice of the peace. The libretto is amodel of opera comique aesthetics: dramatic and entertaining, with muchmistaken identity, and a clear sense of good and evil.

In Montreal of the 1870s, La Dame blanche was a story that worked on anumber of levels. Perhaps foremost, there was nothing in the story to which theCatholic Church could easily object. With its rustic setting and focus on lifearound the Avenel estate, it recalled the quasi-feudal society of New France andthe only recently abolished seigneuries. For some, George Brown likely broughtto mind the returning emigre – one not unlike Lavallee himself (as he had spentyear in the Union Army during the US Civil War). But Montreal Anglophones,too, had much to admire in La Dame blanche. In a country dominated byScottish industrialists and politicians, producing an opera based on WalterScott’s novels was an inspired choice, and Lavallee marketed accordingly.40

Whereas the advertisements in the French-language press emphasized Boiel-dieu’s name, those in English drew attention not only to Scott but also to hismost widely read work of the time The Lady of the Lake (see Fig. 2). On 17 April,The Gazette published an article about the forthcoming production, discussing theorigins of the libretto and providing a good synopsis of the plot, emphasizingthe popularity of The Lady of the Lake, while noting ‘necessarily a flavoringof the ‘‘Guy Mannering’’ stamp.’41 The writer describes the music as being‘suitable to the words and scene’, mentions the costumes (‘the garb of oldScotland’) and the ‘irresistible charm of the legend’, all likely leading to asuccessful production.42

39 See Jerome Mitchell, The Walter Scott Operas: An Analysis of Operas Based on theWorks of Sir Walter Scott (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1977) and More ScottOperas: Further Analyses of Operas Based on the Works of Sir Walter Scott (Lanham, MD:University Press of America, 1996).

40 In Ottawa, power had shifted between Liberal and Conservative parties, andbetween two leaders, both born in Scotland: Macdonald and Mackenzie. In Montreal, theworld of finance was led by men with names such Allan, Ogilvie, Redpath, Morgan,McTavish and McGill.

41 ‘Amusements’, The Gazette, 17 April 1878.42 ‘Amusements’, The Gazette, 17 April 1878.


Although it went unmentioned in the lead up to the opening, Boieldieu’s scorealso contained a number of references to Scotland. The first comes just12 bars into the overture in the form of a quotation from the tune ‘The BushAboon Traquair’, a melody that does not appear later in the opera.43 A secondappears at the Allegro, in the form of a march tune.44 The composer makesonly sparing use of the ‘scotch snap’, but it appears most notably in the finalsection of ‘Chantez, joyeux menestrel’, sung by George and the chorus near the

Fig. 2 Advertisements for La Dame blanche in the English-language press inMontreal in 1878, emphasizing Sir Walter Scott and his best known work atthe time, The Lady of the Lake, even though it was based on different worksby the Scottish writer. The Gazette, 13 May 1878.

43 See Roger Fiske, Scotland in Music: A European Enthusiasm, reissue edition(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008): 103.

44 See Mitchell, The Walter Scott Operas, 37. Fiske identifies the tune as ‘ ‘‘The WhiteCockade’’ imperfectly remembered’ (Scotland in Music, 103). Fiske also identifies the tunewith which Dickson’s greets George Brown in Act I as ‘The Yellow-Hair’d Laddie’, andGeorge Brown’s air from Act II, ‘Viens, gentille dame’, as ‘a crazy version of ‘‘RobinAdair’’ ’ (Scotland in Music, 103).


end of Act III.45 Among the more popular numbers in the opera is Jenny’s balladof the white lady (‘Prenez garde’), from Act I, George’s ‘Quelle plaisir d’etresoldat’, and George and Anna’s duet ‘Ce domaine.’46

Once again, Lavallee cast members of his choir in most of the main roles.George Brown was played by Tancrede Trudel, a 30-year-old physician. CharlesLabelle took on the role of Dickson. The remaining male leads, Gaveston,MacIrton and Gabriel, were played by three relatively inexperienced members ofLavallee’s choir, Frederic Lefebvre, Felix Chartrand and Auguste Charest.Lavallee’s sister, Cordelia, played the part of Marguerite. Octavie Desmarais(now married and known as Octavie Filiatreault) played Jenny. There is nosurviving membership list of the 50-voice chorus, which Lavallee dubbed the‘Montagnards Ecossais’ (Scottish Highlanders).

In the absence of Rosita del Vecchio, Lavallee chose to have a professionalsinger fill the demanding role of Anna. The decision could have been justified onmusical grounds alone, but it also acknowledged the need to have aninternational performer in the cast. He kept the identity of the star attraction asecret until March, when he announced that he had signed Marietta Hassani.Local newspapers reported Hassani to be a regular member of the Vienna GrandOpera – presumably the Vienna Court Opera (Wiener Hofoper) – but publishedno biography to support the claim, no doubt because Lavallee chose not toprovide one. She had in fact arrived in Montreal by way of South America,having been with a French company in Brazil in 1876 and 1877, performing atRio de Janeiro’s Alcazar Lyrique. Her roles there were more eclectic than Lavalleemight have wanted the public to know. They included Leonora in Verdi’s IlTrovatore, Euridice in Offenbach’s Orphee aux Enfers, and Jeanne in Paul Lecombe’snew opera comique, Jeanne, Jeannette, et Jeanneton.47 The reasons for promotingHassani in Montreal as Lavallee did are obvious: while she may have been adeptat serious roles, she had been appearing mostly in opera bouffe, a form of theatreto which the Catholic Church most strongly objected.

Nevertheless, as an opener, Lavallee added to the programme Octave Feuillet’sone-act domestic comedy from 1860, Le Cheveu blanc! (The White Hair!). It was aclever thematic tie-in with La Dame blanche, but must have made for a long evening.For this piece, he hired Anna Granger Dow, a French-trained actress and sopranowho had taken part in Maclagan’s festival in 1877, and whose company had sincethat time played an engagement at the Academy of Music.48 In Le Cheveu blanc! shestarred alongside actor and stage manager Monsieur Desire.

A bilingual libretto of La Dame blanche that Lavallee had produced forsale at performances provides many of the surviving details about the 1878

45 See Fiske, Scotland in Music, 196.46 The opera was still in the repertoire when commercial recordings of opera

selections were first produced at the start of the twentieth century. One of the earliest was a1904 German-language version of George Brown’s ‘Viens gentille dame’ (‘Komm’,O Holde Dame’) by the Moravian tenor Leo Slezak.

47 See Josue Tinoco’s ‘Correio dos theatres’ column in Rio de Janeiro’s O Figaro of26 May and 9 June, 1877 (pages 591 and 607). The Diario do Rio de Janeiro provides moreinformation in Hassani’s performances in 1876 and 1877.

48 The engagement of Anna Granger Dow’s company at Montreal Academy of Musichad begun in December 1877 and continued into the early days of 1878. See La Minerve,19 December 1877; and ‘Our Musical Column’, The Gazette, 5 January 1878; ‘Amusements’,The Gazette, 5 January 1878.


production.49 To design and build the sets, he hired the painter R.J. Garand, whohad worked on the Jeanne d’Arc production. The costumes were designed bytailor Joseph Chretien and made by the Saint Lawrence Street tailor shop ofBoisseau & Frere. Some of these costs were covered through advertisementsplaced in the libretto. The libretto was itself an important factor for attracting anAnglophone audience, as it provided a rhyming English-language translation(uncredited). It faithfully followed the original text, which was itself unaltered,with just one judicious exception: it omitted to note that the story was set inScotland in 1759, the year of the Conquest of New France – a coincidence towhich Lavallee would not have wanted to draw attention.

Full rehearsals began in early April. By this time Lavallee had assembled a30-piece orchestra, whose members included his father and his brother Charles. On10 April, Marietta Hassani arrived in Montreal.50 This left only a little over a weekto complete preparations. Since Sunday 21 April was Easter, the final full rehearsalwas held on Saturday. On Friday, The Gazette announced that the rehearsal wouldbe open to the public, and the following Monday noted that it had been wellattended. The same Monday notice reminded its English-speaking readers that asan opera comique, La Dame blanche was ‘the antipodes of opera bouffe.’51

The production then opened on Monday 22 April, for a six-night run. On24 April, Le National published a full review, drawing attention to most ofthe leading performers and placing some emphasis on the significance of theproduction:

So we finally have the right to say that we can appreciate the art of music inCanada, whereas until very recently so many people did not. But it was enoughlast night to see the large audience enthusiastically applauding our artists toconvince us that French-Canadians love music. If one had not been able to provethis fact before now it has been due to a lack of opportunity. In the future, ourability to distinguish between entertainers and real musicians will be the proof ofour good taste and progress in the arts.52

Le National followed up each day with updates from the previous night andreminders to the public to show their support for the company. The Gazette’sreview was unsigned but evidently written by a singer, given its focus ontechnical aspects of singing – and its even-handedness lends it much credibilityas an objective assessment of the performance. The writer begins with someharsh comments on the ensembles, referring to ‘the want of finish in some of theduetts [sic] and arranged parts for three or more voices’, and giving the exampleof the auction scene (which, to be fair, would be quite a challenge to bring offwell). Hassani was said to have ‘a voice of great power’ but sometimes exhibited

49 Eugene Scribe, La Dame blanche (Montreal: Ernest Lavigne, 1878).50 The Gazette listed among the arrivals at the Richelieu Hotel, ‘Mad Hassani, Vienne,

France; Mr Hassani, do’. ‘Hotel Arrivals’, The Gazette, 12 April 1878.51 ‘ ‘‘La Dame blanche,’’ or ‘‘The White Lady’’ ’, The Gazette, 22 April 1878.52 ‘A Travers la Ville’, Le National, 24 April 1878: ‘On a donc enfin le droit de dire que

l’on sait apprecier l’art musical en Canada, ce que tant de gens n’aient encore toutdernierement. Or il suffisait hier soir de voir ce nombreux public applaudir avecenthousiasme nos artistes, pour se convaincre que le Canadien aime la musique. S’il n’apas su prouver le fait avant aujourd’hui c’est parce qu’il n’en a pas eu l’avantage. Entre dessaltimbanques et de veritables musiciens il saura a l’avenir faire une distinction quiprouvera et son bon gout et son avancement dans les arts.’


‘a lack of warmth’. The writer continued, ‘she acts fairly, dresses admirably and ispleasing in form and feature’. The love duet between Anna and George Brown(‘Ce domain’) was described as ‘decidedly well rendered, except that M. Trudel’sbad habit of singing falsetto marred the effect’. The writer offered several moreobservations on Trudel’s vocal production, and concluded by describing hisacting as ‘capital throughout’. Among the other local performers, Lefebvre wassaid to have ‘sung his parts admirably’, but was limited as an actor, Filiatreault‘made good use of a very sweet and well-trained voice, while her acting wasnatural and easy’. The chorus was described as being ‘very well together, and inmuch better form than the orchestra, which was very often harsh with thesoloists. To look back at the whole performance, it must be said that to haveproduced such an effect from among our amateurs with the aid of oneprofessional prima donna is creditable to all concerned, and we trust that theefforts of Mr. Lavallee will be encouraged’. The writer concluded by remindingreaders of the Scottish setting and noting that the production would be ‘veryinteresting to many who have read Sir Walter Scott’s manner of dealing with thelegend of the white lady of Avenel’.53

In La Minerve, Guillaume Couture, who had returned in December, publisheda review that focused on Hassani. He described her performance as ‘veryintelligent and very competent’, but added that ‘her movements and gestures aretoo solemn for opera-comique’. He attributed these ‘shortcomings’ to what hebelieved to be her previously singing ‘nothing but grand opera’, which suggeststhat Lavallee may not have let even Couture in on Hassani’s previous experience –or that Couture was willing to support his colleague’s prudent reticence about it.54

Couture also discussed the other performers. Without mentioning him by name,he dismissed Trudel’s contribution as Georges Brown: ‘What is missing in theperformance that would make La Dame Blanche really good? A first class tenor. Arare bird; not always found even on first-rate stages.’55 More generally, Couturewas pleased by the progress made during his absence. He praised the qualityof Lavallee’s chorus and orchestra, referring to him as ‘a genuine conductor. Thefirst we have possessed.’56 Coming from Couture, this was high praise andacknowledgement that Lavallee had improved upon his own work with the choir.

Following a short break, on 7 May the cast travelled by steamer to QuebecCity for three performances at the Music Hall. The day before their arrival, TheDaily Telegraph published a column about the production, emphasizing that thiswas to be a performance of the full opera and not the excerpts that the public had

53 ‘Amusements’, The Gazette, 24 April 1878.54 Guillaume Couture, ‘Chronique musicale: La Dame blanche’, La Minerve, 2 May

1878: ‘Sa demarche, son attitude et son geste sont trop solennels, trop graves pour l’opera-comique. Ces defauts sont sans doute motives par l’habitude de Mlle. Hassani de nechanter que grand opera.’

55 Guillaume Couture, ‘Chronique musical: La Dame blanche’, La Minerve, 2May 1878:‘Que manquait-il a l’execution de la ‘Dame Blanche’, pour etre vraiment bien? Un premiertenor. L’oiseau rare; introvable meme parfois sur les scenes de premier ordre.’

56 Guillaume Couture, ‘Chronique musical: La Dame blanche’, La Minerve, 2May 1878:‘Il conduit son personnel avec une tres grande suriete. Nous ne lui ferons qu’un reproche:c’est d’avoir trop ralenti presque tous les mouvements, denaturant par la meme le caracterede plusieurs morceaux. Possedant tres-bien sa partition, pas une entree ne se fait qu’il n’aitles yeux sur le chanteur et l’instrumentiste; toutes les nuances et les accents sont marquespar son archet. Son geste indique a l’artiste, de la maniere la plus discrete, l’erreur qu’il apu commettre. C’est un veritable chef-d’orchestre. Le premier que nous possedons.’


come to expect from travelling troupes. It was also said to be a ‘chaste anddelicate entertainment’, unlike the still-popular minstrel shows.57 Reviews overthe following days were enthusiastic and attributed much of the success of theperformances to Hassani’s singing and to Lavallee’s direction.58 L’Evenementdescribed the orchestra’s performance as ‘a bit too loud sometimes’, but reportedthat ‘a foreigner, attending yesterday’s performance would never have believedthat the orchestra comprised mostly amateurs’.59 Returning to Montreal, theopera re-opened for a week at the Academy of Music. Again it attracted regularand generally positive reviews throughout this second run. On the eve of theopening, The Gazette again noted La Dame blanche’s Scottish connections, referringto the opera as ‘one of the best of Sir Walter Scott’s creations’, and saying nothingabout the composer of the music.60

In all, La Dame blanche was performed 16 times. Given the scale of theproduction, it is again difficult to determine how Lavallee funded it. The localsingers and the chorus might have sung for free, but Hassani’s salary and those ofthe orchestral musicians would have to be paid.61 Lavallee supplemented Hassani’spay by making the final Friday performance a benefit for her. The next day thecompany gave both a matinee and an evening performance, with the final onebeing a benefit for Octavie Filiatreault, who had become a local favourite. Nofinancial record of these benefits or of any of the other performances seems to havebeen published. For the final two performances of the opening run, Lavalleereduced ticket prices for the parterre seats from 50 to 25 cents. Newspapers weretypically inconsistent on reporting how full the halls were. In Quebec City,newspapers reported large audiences each evening, but it is less clear how wellattended the Montreal performances were. The day after the production reopenedin Montreal, The Gazette noted that ‘the theatre was not as well filled last night asthe quality of the piece merited.’62 For many members of the public, opera mighthave seemed a luxury during the economic difficulties that had begun five yearsearlier. In a summary of the events of 1878 published in the Revue de Montreal,Couture described the public as ‘recalcitrant’, either due to apathy or to the state ofthe economy, and noted that it was difficult to draw an audience to the concert hall,even for a ‘patriotic enterprise such as the performances of La Dame blanche.’63

57 ‘La Dame Blanche’, The Daily Telegraph, 6 May 1878.58 Marmette called the production a ‘beautiful success’. ‘L’Art Musical au Canada’,

l’Opinion publique, 23 May, 1878, 241.59 ‘ ‘‘La Dame blanche’’ ’, L’Evenement, 8 May 1878: ‘L’accompagnement, un peu trop

fort quelquefois, a neanmoins bien marche du commencement a la fin. Et certainement, unetranger, assistant a la representation d’hier, n’aurait jamais voulu croire que l’orchestreetait compose d’amateurs, pour une bonne partie.’

60 ‘Amusements’, The Gazette, 13 May 1878. The column continued: ‘Set to musicwhich is pleasing in itself, the opera is admirably acted, and with Mlle Hassani to sustainthe principal role, the other parts in able hands, and a capital chorus and orchestra, it maybe expect that the nearest approach to grand opera will be reached that we have yet had inMontreal.’

61 In addition to salaries, there were hall rentals, hotel bills, advertising costs and theproduction costs mentioned above.

62 ‘Amusements’, The Gazette, 14 May 1878.63 Guillaume Couture, ‘Chronique Musicale’, Revue de Montreal, 3 (1879): 109: ‘Le

public – soit apathie ou economie – se montre recalcitrant; il est maintenant difficile del’attirer dans une salle de concert, meme quand il s’agit d’une entreprise patriotiquecomme les representations de la ‘‘Dame Blanche.’


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The staging of La Dame blanche in 1878 had been part of Lavallee’s plan to winthe provincial government’s support for the project of a state-supportedconservatory. A number of journalists were already sympathetic to the ideabefore the opera opened. In an article discussing the roles that local singerswould play, an unnamed writer at La Minerve reported, ‘we have the talent thatrequires only a school’.64 Following the opera’s performance in Quebec City, thecritic Joseph Marmette wrote a review of the opera that amounted to an openletter to the Government:

If the material needs of the people are the first concerns that governments mustconsider, the State must not neglect to see to the intellectual and moral progress ofits subjects as well. In contributing seriously to the cultivating of musical art in acountry as gifted as ours, however, not only do we create new opportunities forour virtuosos, but also steer the population away from the degrading showsoffered too often by the American minstrels.65

Marmette’s comments clearly articulated Lavallee’s musical goals and, bypresenting the project as morally elevating, anticipated possible objections ofthe Church. Neither this point nor the performance itself, however, seems to havereached the politicians Marmette was addressing. The political elite seems tohave been entirely absent from all the performances. Newspapers usually notedthe appearance of officials at public events, but a close perusal of the reporting ofthese events revealed no politicians at performances in either Montreal or QuebecCity. If this is true, the reasons may not have been a lack of interest, but ratherthat they were preoccupied with the election campaign that was underway in thelead up to the production. Even the 1 May vote itself did not end the distraction,as the outcome was inconclusive and resulted in further manoeuvring.

L’Evenement reported that Lavallee planned to follow La Dame blanche with aproduction of Fra Diavolo in Montreal, and there was talk also of Gounod’sPhilemon et Baucis, but neither of these became a reality.66 The project’s largergoal, however, remained, and on 15 June Lavallee submitted a letter to theLegislative Assembly petitioning the government to fund a conservatory ofmusic and dramatic arts. It advised the government to provide a suitable site,hire a director and instructors and provide free tuition to 10 students each year,with others required to pay annual fees of $40.67 The three other signatories of

64 ‘Notes locales’, La Minerve, 1 April 1878.65 Marmette, ‘L’Art Musical au Canada’, 242: ‘Si les besoins materiels du peuple sont

les premiers auxquels les gouvernants doivent songer, encore l’Etat ne doit-il pas negligerde veiller au progres intellectuel et moral de ses sujets. Or, en contribuant serieusement a laculture de l’art musical dans un pays naturellement si bien doue que le notre, non-seulement on creera une nouvelle carriere a nos virtuoses, mais encore on detournera notrepopulation de ces spectacles avilissants que les saltimbanques americains ne lui viennentque trop souvent offrir.’

66 ‘ ‘‘La Dame blanche’’ ’, L’Evenement, 8 May 1878. A chorus from Philemon et Baucishad been performed by the same choir, under Couture, in December 1876.

67 Simon Couture cites this letter as Calixa Lavallee, [et al.] ‘Petition adressee aulieutenant gouverneur de la province de Quebec pour l’etablissement d’un conservatoirede musique et de declamation’, Fonds du Secretariate provincial, M88/5, registre des lettresreçues, 1878, 971. See Couture, ‘Les Origines du Conservatoire’, 138.


the letter were writers: Faucher de Saint-Maurice, Octave Chavigny de laChevrotiere and Napoleon Legendre. The petition, however, was rejected onprocedural grounds later that summer.68 Seemingly undeterred, Lavalleerelocated to Quebec City, where he would have more opportunities for directcontact with provincial politicians and bureaucrats. Leaving behind his workwith the Societe Canadienne d’Operette et d’Opera de Montreal, he would spendthe next two years attempting to establish an educational institution that wouldsecure a future for opera and classical music in Quebec.

While the Societe produced only two works, through it Lavallee illustrated thatit was possible for a local opera company to succeed in Canada. The public’sestablished love for opera was a necessary precondition of the company’ssuccesses, but Lavallee’s abilities and determination were crucial to realizing thisnew level of production. In a city divided by language and religion, he wasnonetheless able to enlist broad community support. That support came in partbecause nearly all of the members of this project were Canadian, and theirsuccess became a source of pride for French Canadians in particular – while stillmanaging, through deft repertoire choices and publicity strategies, to appeal toAnglophones. Under more favourable economic and political conditions Lavalleemight have realized much more, but as it was, even his remarkable efforts hadreached the limits of their impact: not until the twentieth century wouldenduring musical institutions with state support become a part of Quebec’smusical life.69

68 See Brian Thompson, ‘Calixa Lavallee (1842–1891): A Critical Biography’ (PhDdiss., The University of Hong Kong, 2001), 175–6.

69 The institutions that the city and province aspired to in the 1870s, and that nowexist, were all established in the twentieth century: the Orchestre symphonique deMontreal (1934), the Conservatoire de musique et d’art dramatique du Quebec (1942), andthe Opera de Montreal (1980).


“Opera Production and Civic Musical Life in 1870s Montreal.”

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Transcript of “Opera Production and Civic Musical Life in 1870s Montreal.”