Massenet and Women
Carl Van Vechten's essay "Massenet and Women" surveys the composer Jules Massenet's career through the lens of the female performers who inspired and embodied his operatic heroines, arguing that his art was fundamentally feminine in character. Van Vechten opens by invoking Xavier Leroux's description of Massenet as the "musicien de la femme" and Philip Hale's characterization of his music as "melodically, sentimentally, sensuously feminine," then catalogs the composer's gallery of female roles: Marie-Magdeleine, Eve, Salome, Manon, Chimène, Esclarmonde, Charlotte, Thaïs, Anita, Sapho, Cendrillon, Grisélidis, l'Ensoleillad, Nina, Ariane, Phèdre, Perséphone, Thérèse, Dulcinée, and Queen Amahelly, noting even an unproduced Cléopâtre, to demonstrate the composer's exhaustive devotion to depicting womanhood across history and geography. The essay then turns to the singers who created and popularized these roles, citing Louis Schneider's observation that women reciprocated Massenet's idealization of them. Van Vechten names five central interpreters — Marie Heilbronn, Sybil Sanderson, Emma Calvé, Mary Garden, and Lucy Arbell — while acknowledging numerous others (Marie Renard, Marie Delna, Lina Cavalieri, Lucienne Bréval, Marguerite Carré, and more) who brought his heroines to stages in Paris, Brussels, and beyond. Sybil Sanderson receives the most extended treatment as the singer most closely identified with Massenet. Van Vechten recounts their meeting at a dinner party, where the young Californian startled the composer by singing the Queen of the Night's aria from Mozart's "The Magic Flute" rather than his own work, prompting his astonished praise of her three-octave voice. Massenet subsequently composed "Esclarmonde" with her in mind, and later "Thaïs," whose original 1894 production failed despite Sanderson's popularity, only to be revived successfully years later with other sopranos, including Mary Garden in America. Van Vechten quotes Massenet's own grief-stricken tribute to Sanderson from his "Souvenirs" following her early death, emphasizing the emotional intimacy between composer and interpreter. The narrative then reconstructs, via Massenet's memoirs, the selection of the first Manon: his infatuation with an unnamed florist's image, his pursuit of Mme. Vaillant-Couturier, and his fortuitous discovery of Marie Heilbronn, who tearfully recognized her own life in the score during a private 4:30 a.m. performance at her apartment. Van Vechten notes Massenet's loyalty to Heilbronn's memory after her death and his gracious acknowledgment of her many successors in the role, including Sanderson, Marguerite Carré, Mary Garden, and others. Emma Calvé is credited with two operas written expressly for her, "La Navarraise" and "Sapho," plus roles in "Hérodiade," "Le Cid," "Le Roi de Lahore," and "Le Mage." Van Vechten cites critic Adolphe Jullien's claim that Sapho was inseparable from Calvé, alongside Massenet's willingness nonetheless to compose new material for Marguerite Carré's later revival, and mentions Mary Garden's more forceful, controversial American interpretation, as well as Georgette Leblanc's provocative Sapho and Thaïs. Mary Garden's contributions follow: though Massenet wrote only "Chérubin" specifically for her, she became his opera's most effective American ambassador, particularly through "Manon" and "Thaïs." Van Vechten recounts Oscar Hammerstein's suggestion that Garden take the male title role in "Le Jongleur de Notre Dame," a work Massenet had written partly to escape accusations of writing only for women, and notes Massenet's initial apprehension and eventual approval of Garden's cross-gender success in the part. Garden's other roles — Sapho, Grisélidis, Prince Charmant in "Cendrillon" — round out the account, including her anecdote about the King of Greece questioning her suitability for the patient Griselda. Finally, Van Vechten profiles Lucy Arbell, Massenet's last major muse, who created Perséphone in "Ariane" (notable for the popular "air of the roses"), Dulcinée in "Don Quichotte" (for which she learned guitar), and roles in "Thérèse," "Bacchus," and "Roma." The essay closes with Massenet's anecdote about Arbell's emotional response upon first hearing the climactic death scene of "Thérèse," when she insisted on declaiming rather than singing the final cry so as not to lose her voice to genuine emotion — an episode Massenet offers as proof that only great artists can divine such instinctive interpretive truths. Throughout, Van Vechten weaves quotations from Massenet's own memoirs, the "Souvenirs," alongside commentary from critics like Hale, Jullien, and Schneider, to construct a portrait of Massenet not merely as a composer but as a devoted chronicler and admirer of the women — both fictional and real — who animated his life's work.
By Carl Van Vechten · First published 1915 · Genre: Music Criticism, Biography, Opera History