Idling up through the south of France, in company with a
passionate lover of that fair land, we learned on arriving at
Lyons, that the actors of the Comédie Française
were to pass through there the next day, en route for
Orange, where a series of fêtes had been arranged by
“Les Félibres.” This society, composed
of the writers and poets of Provence, have the preservation of
the Roman theatre at Orange (perhaps the most perfect specimen of
classical theatrical architecture in existence) profoundly at
heart, their hope being to restore some of its pristine beauty to
the ruin, and give from time to time performances of the Greek
masterpieces on its disused stage.
The money obtained by these representations will be spent in
the restoration of the theatre, and it is expected in time to
make Orange the centre of classic drama, as Beyreuth is that of
Wagnerian music.
At Lyons, the cortège was to leave the Paris
train and take boats down the Rhône, to their
destination. Their programme was so tempting that the offer
of places in one of the craft was enough to lure us away from our
prearranged route.
By eight o’clock the following morning, we were on foot,
as was apparently the entire city. A cannon fired from Fort
Lamothe gave the signal of our start. The river, covered
with a thousand gayly decorated craft, glinted and glittered in
the morning light. It world be difficult to forget that
scene,—the banks of the Rhône were lined with the
rural population, who had come miles in every direction to
acclaim the passage of their poets.
Everywhere along our route the houses were gayly decorated and
arches of flowers had been erected. We float past Vienne, a
city once governed by Pontius Pilate, and Tournon, with its
feudal château, blue in the distance, then Saint Peray, on
a verdant vine-clad slope. As we pass under the bridge at
Montélimar, an avalanche of flowers descends on us from
above.
The rapid current of the river soon brings our flotilla
opposite Vivier, whose Gothic cathedral bathes its feet in the
Rhône. Saint Esprit and its antique bridge appear
next on the horizon. Tradition asserts that the Holy
Spirit, disguised as a stone mason, directed its construction;
there were thirteen workmen each day, but at sunset, when the men
gathered to be paid, but twelve could be counted.
Here the mayor and the municipal council were to have received
us and delivered an address, but were not on hand. We could
see the tardy cortège hastening towards the bridge
as we shot away down stream.
On nearing Orange, the banks and quays of the river are alive
with people. The high road, parallel with the stream, is
alive with a many-colored throng. On all sides one hears
the language of Mistral, and recognizes the music of Mireille
sung by these pilgrims to an artistic Mecca, where a miracle is
to be performed—and classic art called forth from its
winding-sheet.
The population of a whole region is astir under the ardent
Provençal sun, to witness a resurrection of the Drama in
the historic valley of the Rhône, through whose channel the
civilization and art and culture of the old world floated up into
Europe to the ceaseless cry of the cigales.
Châteaurenard! our water journey is ended. Through
the leafy avenues that lead to Orange, we see the arch of Marius
and the gigantic proscenium of the theatre, rising above the
roofs of the little city.
So few of our compatriots linger in the south of France after
the spring has set in, or wander in the by-ways of that
inexhaustible country, that a word about the representations at
Orange may be of interest, and perchance create a desire to see
the masterpieces of classic drama (the common inheritance of all
civilized races) revived with us, and our stage put to its
legitimate use, cultivating and elevating the taste of the
people.
One would so gladly see a little of the money that is
generously given for music used to revive in America a love for
the classic drama.
We are certainly not inferior to our neighbors in culture or
appreciation, and yet such a performance as I witnessed at Orange
(laying aside the enchantment lent by the surroundings) would not
be possible here. Why? But to return to my
narrative.
The sun is setting as we toil, ticket in hand, up the Roman
stairway to the upper rows of seats; far below the local
gendarmerie who mostly understand their orders backwards
are struggling with the throng, whose entrance they are
apparently obstructing by every means in their power. Once
seated, and having a wait of an hour before us, we amused
ourselves watching the crowd filling in every corner of the vast
building, like a rising tide of multi-colored water.
We had purposely chosen places on the highest and most remote
benches, to test the vaunted acoustic qualities of the
auditorium, and to obtain a view of the half-circle of humanity,
the gigantic wall back of the stage, and the surrounding
country.
As day softened into twilight, and twilight deepened into a
luminous Southern night; the effect was incomparable. The
belfries and roofs of mediæval Orange rose in the clear
air, overtopping the half ruined theatre in many places.
The arch of Marius gleamed white against the surrounding hills,
themselves violet and purple in the sunset, their shadow broken
here and there by the outline of a crumbling château or the
lights of a village.
Behind us the sentries paced along the wall, wrapped in their
dark cloaks; and over all the scene, one snowtopped peak rose
white on the horizon, like some classic virgin assisting at an
Olympian solemnity.
On the stage, partly cleared of the débris of fifteen
hundred years, trees had been left where they had grown, among
fallen columns, fragments of capital and statue; near the front a
superb rose-laurel recalled the Attic shores. To the right,
wild grasses and herbs alternated with thick shrubbery, among
which Orestes hid later, during the lamentations of his
sister. To the left a gigantic fig-tree, growing again the
dark wall, threw its branches far out over the stage.
It was from behind its foliage that “Gaul,”
“Provence,” and “France,” personated by
three actresses of the “Français,” advanced to
salute Apollo, seated on his rustic throne, in the prologue which
began the performance.
Since midday the weather had been threatening. At seven
o’clock there was almost a shower—a moment of
terrible anxiety. What a misfortune if it should rain, just
as the actors were to appear, here, where it had not rained for
nearly four months! My right-hand neighbor, a citizen of
Beaucaire, assures me, “It will be nothing, only a strong
‘mistral’ for to-morrow.” An electrician
is putting the finishing touches to his arrangements. He
tries vainly to concentrate some light on the box where the
committee is to sit, which is screened by a bit of crumbling
wall, but finally gives it up.
Suddenly the bugles sound; the orchestra rings out the
Marseillaise; it is eight o’clock. The sky is wild
and threatening. An unseen hand strikes the three
traditional blows. The Faun Lybrian slips down from a
branch of a great elm, and throws himself on the steps that later
are to represent the entrance to the palace of Agamemnon, and
commences the prologue (an invocation to Apollo), in the midst of
such confusion that we hear hardly a word. Little by
little, however, the crowd quiets down, and I catch Louis
Gallet’s fine lines, marvellously phrased by Mesdames
Bartet, Dudlay, Moreno, and the handsome Fenoux as Apollo.
The real interest of the public is only aroused, however, when
The Erynnies begins. This powerful adaptation from
the tragedy of Æschylus is the chef
d’œuvre of Leconte de Lisle. The silence is
now complete. One feels in the air that the moment so long
and so anxiously awaited has come, that a great event is about to
take place. Every eye is fixed on the stage, waiting to see
what will appear from behind the dark arches of the
proscenium. A faint, plaintive strain of music floats out
on the silence. Demons crawl among the leafy shadows.
Not a light is visible, yet the centre of the stage is in strong
relief, shading off into a thousand fantastic shadows. The
audience sits in complete darkness. Then we see the people
of Argos, winding toward us from among the trees, lamenting, as
they have done each day for ten years, the long absence of their
sons and their king. The old men no longer dare to consult
the oracles, fearing to learn that all is lost. The beauty
of this lament roused the first murmur of applause, each word,
each syllable, chiming out across that vast semicircle with a
clearness and an effect impossible to describe.
Now it is the sentinel, who from his watch-tower has caught
the first glimpse of the returning army. We hear him
dashing like a torrent down the turret stair; at the doorway, his
garments blown by the wind, his body bending forward in a
splendid pose of joy and exultation, he announces in a voice of
thunder the arrival of the king.
So completely are the twenty thousand spectators under the
spell of the drama that at this news one can feel a thrill pass
over the throng, whom the splendid verses hold palpitating under
their charm, awaiting only the end of the tirade to break into
applause.
From that moment the performance is one long triumph.
Clytemnestra (Madame Lerou) comes with her suite to receive the
king (Mounet-Sully), the conqueror! I never realized before
all the perfection that training can give the speaking
voice. Each syllable seemed to ring out with a bell-like
clearness. As she gradually rose in the last act to the
scene with Orestes, I understood the use of the great wall behind
the actors. It increased the power of the voices and lent
them a sonority difficult to believe. The effect was
overwhelming when, unable to escape death, Clytemnestra cries out
her horrible imprecations.
Mounet-Sully surpassed himself. Paul Mounet gave us the
complete illusion of a monster thirsting for blood, even his
mother’s! When striking her as she struck his father,
he answers her despairing query, “Thou wouldst not slay thy
mother?” “Woman, thou hast ceased to be a
mother!” Dudlay (as Cassandra) reaches a splendid
climax when she prophesies the misfortune hanging over her
family, which she is powerless to avert.
It is impossible in feeble prose to give any idea of the
impression those lines produce in the stupendous theatre, packed
to its utmost limits—the wild night, with a storm in the
air, a stage which seems like a clearing in some forest inhabited
by Titans, the terrible tragedy of Æschylus following the
graceful fête of Apollo.
After the unavoidable confusion at the beginning, the vast
audience listen in profound silence to an expression of pure
art. They are no longer actors we hear, but
demi-gods. With voices of the storm, possessed by some
divine afflatus, thundering out verses of fire—carried out
of themselves in a whirlwind of passion, like antique prophets
and Sibyls foretelling the misfortunes of the world!
That night will remain immutably fixed in my memory, if I live
to be as old as the theatre itself. We were so moved, my
companion and I, and had seen the crowd so moved, that fearing to
efface the impression if we returned the second night to see
Antigone, we came quietly away, pondering over it all, and
realizing once again that a thing of beauty is a source of
eternal delight.
