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of ®ttafua Founded 1898

tondee en 1898

1Ua ~odete ~istorique

b'®ttafua EVA GAUTHIER - MEZZO SOPRANO

by

HERBERT H. SILLS

BYTOWN PAMPHLET SERIES

NO. 19

ISSN 0823-5457

EVA GAUTHIER

Photo taken in London, England, 1907

INTRODUCTION

The author of "Eva Gauthier-Mezzo Soprano" is Capt. Herbert H. Sills, C.D. (Retired), Vice-President of the Histor­ ical Society of Ottawa. Mr. Sills has had a life-long interest in singing and takes an active part in church and community choirs.

It follows then that Mr. Sills would be interested in researching the life and cc:reer of an Ottawa-born singer of inter­ national reputation, Eva Gauthier. The History Group of the Historical Society of Ottawa was privileged to hear the result­ ing paper on Eva Gauthier given by Mr. Sills at its meeting in March, 1986.

The Society is primarily interested in the life and times of people in the Ottawa area, and Eva Gauthier deserves to be re­ membered in the category of outstanding Ottawans. It is hoped that members of the Society will continue to write about the lives of Ottawa persons who have achieved a measure of success in their chosen fields.

The Historical Society of Ottawa is proud to present "Eva Gauthier-Mezzo Soprano" as Pamphlet No. 19 in its Bytown Pamphlet Series.

Clare Grandmaison, Immediate Past President, Historical Society of Ottawa.

EVA GAUTHIER-MEZZO SOPRANO

In the years following World War I New York concert goers recognized a diminutive figure always in the audience, a woman with intense black eyes, her white hair crowned with a striking hat, always diff­ erent, obviously homemade and invariably chic. Every­ one knew Eva Gauthier, but undoubtedly few people knew the full extent of what she meant to a generation of young singers and composers. Many of them were her pupils, others benefitted by her advice. No one was ever turned away for lack of the wherewithal to pay for lessons. To all she gave freely of her wisdom, her knowledge and her long experience. Wherever she recognized creative talent she went to work to get new music performed.

These characteristics were a result of her own experience. She was a native of Ottawa at a time when there was little opportunity to develop her natural talent as a singer in Canada; and little opportunity to perform and make a living as a singer. In a newspaper report in 1937 she declared that Can­ adians would rather listen to foreigners than their own singers. She had been well received abroad but had seldom been able to perform in her own country.

Born Josephine Phoebe Eva Gauthier in Ottawa on September 20, 1885, she was the daughter of Louis Gauthier. He was a civil engineer in the Dominion Observatory (Geodetic Survey) who made some of the first maps of Canada. He was also an accomplished musician. As a student in an Ottawa convent it be­ came apparent that Eva had talent as a singer and she began to study piano and harmony. At age eleven her voice had developed and she became a soloist at St. Patrick's church. At age 13 she began taking voice lessons with Frank Buels. She sang her first operatic arias-Siebel's waltz from "Faust" and Dalila's two great pieces. This resulted in her passing the entrance examinations for the'Royal Academy in London. However, as she was a French­ Canadian, it was decided that she should attend the Paris Conservatoire instead.

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In 1901 she made her professional debut in the presence of the Governor General of Canada in Charles A.E. Harriss' "Coronation Mass for Edward VII". With the assistance of Sir Wilfrid and Lady Laurier she left for Europe in July, 1902. On the ship the Amer­ ican actor Richard Mansfield overheard her practising and strongly recommended that she refrain from sing­ ing the contralto arias or she would lose her voice. M: her repertoire was made up of contralto arias she disregarded his advice.

Going first to London she heard her first opera at Covent Garden-"Faust" sung by Nellie Melba, Jean DeReszke, Plangon and Fritzi Scheff. She immediately went to Paris with the intention of studying with Melba's teacher, Mathilde Marchesi. Marchesi told her that her voice was deteriorating and "People who have no money do not come here". She registered at the Paris conservatory and began to study singing with Auguste-Jean Dubulle and declamation with Sarah Bernhardt. It soon developed that the advice she had received was right and she had to undergo an oper­ ation for nodes on her vocal cords.

After recuperating she gradually resumed her studies, this time with Jacques Bouhy for whom Bizet had written the part of Escamillo in "Carmen", She declared that it was through him that she acquired a technique which never failed her.

In 1905 she went to London to audition for another Canadian artist, the great Emma Albani (Metro­ politan Opera 1891-92), for whom Liszt had written his oratoria "Saint Elizabeth". Albani engaged her to tour the British Isles and for the 50 concerts of her farewell tour of Canada in 1906. Eva Gauthier had been engaged as a contralto but soon Albani not­ iced the rise in her range and taught her coloratura arias by Donizetti, Rossini and Bellini. The friend­ ship that developed with her great colleague was one of the big influences in her life.

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Back in London in 1907 she heard John McCormack for the first time and was so impressed by his method that she went to Milan to find his teacher, Sabatini. She did not find him there, however, she began coach­ ing with Rina Giachetti, Caruso's sister-in-law, who prepared her for her operatic debut as Micaela in a performance of "Carmen" in Pavia. The following is her description of the event:

"The ordeal was appalling. An absolute green­ horn, I had had no rehearsal of any kind. I had never seen any member of the cast before and had had no dramatic experience whatever! As the performance progressed, members of the chorus and principals kept telling me what to do next. In the first scene with Don Jose, they whispered that I must take hold of the tenor. I did so. Indeed, I wouldn't let go until he gave me a crack on the arm-he must have been afraid I wc.,uld strangle him!

"During the intermission they warned me that shots would be fired at my third-act entrance. So I didn't budge. After I finished the aria there was considerable applause; at least I was recognized as a singer. But the many univer­ sity students in the audience didn't approve of my immobility, so they cried, 'Not even for that will she move!'

"They seemed to like me, however, for they gave me an ovation at the end, and the reviews were excellent. During the four performances which followed I learned quickly. I was not slow, either, to come to a momentous decision: Opera was not for me!"

After a concert in Ostend with Caruso, who took a great shine to her, she returned to Paris to work with Bouhy, She was soon asked to go to Covent Gar­ den to sing the part of Yniold in the London premiere of "Pelleas et Melisande" and told to get in touch with Debussy before she left France. As soon as the

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composer heard her he wanted her to sing the part of Genevieve, but that part had already been filled. However, she hurried across the channel, promised four performances at $50 opposite fellow Canadian, Louise Edvina. Unfortunately, Edvina couldn't re­ member her music, although she had worked on it for a year with the composer. The performance was post­ poned and Eva was told to learn the part of Mallika in "Lakme" to be performed June 18, 1910. She agreed although the role was not in her contract, but she was impressed by her illustrious colleagues, Luise Tetrazzini and John McCormack. Here is how she des­ cribed it in an article published in Opera News, January 31, 1955:

"When I came to rehearse, nobody noticed me until, after the famous duet with Tetrazzini, the con­ ductor, Italo Campanini, turned to me and said, 'Che bella voce!' Tetrazzini gave me a withering look. I was young, and my mezzo ~oice was beaut­ iful and strong in the middle register, so that I could not help covering the soprano, since her middle register was always her weak point. After that she always complained that I sang too loud.

"June 18 was to be the "Lakme prima" and my friends had come to applaud my debut. Albani was in the audience, as excited as I was. I was ready to go on when Mr. Higgins, the Manager of Covent Garden, came to my dressing-room-to wish me well, I thought. 'I have had to do many dis­ aereeable things in my life,' he began, 'but ne ve r anything like this to a young artist malting her debut. Tetrazzini refuses to go on if you sing. No arguments can change her mind. She is the star and draws the audience. I'll give you other roles till we are ready with "Pelleas.'

"I answered that they could consider me out of the company. I would not wait for Yniold. As it happened, King Edward died a few days later and the Opera House was closed for the rest of the season. "Pelleas" was postponed, and instead I

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witnessed the funeral of the King at whose ccronation concert I had sung nine years before."

She then embarked on a concert tour. In Denmark she was decorated by the Queen, an honour never before bestowed on a foreign woman.

Eva Gauthier's career now turned to the Orient where she sang from Ceylon to Pekin, making her home in Java. There in 1911 she married Franz Knoote, a Dutchman who lived on his plantation. The marriage did not endure and they were divorced in 1917. How­ ever, her sojourn in the Far East opened up a new world of music which she had never heard before. The strange melodies and harmonies fascinated her and she resolved to investigate the Javanese music, even if it meant going to the Sultan himself, It meant just that and here is how she described it: "I journeyed to Solo, to the palace of the Sultan. I had all the necessary credentials, and was kindly received. My request, to study the native music, was granted, and I was invited to live in the Palace-with the Sultan's four hundred wives." She was received in a manner be­ fitting one of noble birth, and as she was able to gain the confidence of the royal musicians, she soon began to master the melodies that had fascinated her.

Eva's first New York recital was given in May, 1915, From the first she was known as an artist who fitted into no conventional pattern. For some years she made a specialty of Javanese and Oriental music as she had learned it, giving joint recitals and even appearing in vaudeville with dancers Nila Devi and Roshamara. New occidental music also interested her. A large portion of her programs was dedicated to Ravel, Bartok, Hindemith, Schoenberg and Stravinsky. She gave the North American premieres of Stravinsky's "Trois Poesies de la lyrique japonaise" in 1917 and of "Pribaoutki" the following year.

More and more she became the champion of the contemporary composer. The American composers who

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acknowledged list by name. T. Griffen (to he used in his Wintter Watts.

their debt to her are too numerous to She was an ardent champion of Charles whom she had given the Eastern themes "Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan") and of

Perhaps her most famous and most daring program was given on November 1, 1923. She had decided to explore the not quite respectable field of jazz. Her program included numbers by Bartok, Hindemith and Schoenberg but it also included a selection of songs from American musical reviews by Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Walter Donaldson, and the then not so well known George Gershwin. In her quest for an accompanist adequate to the occasion she came upon Gershwin him­ self and she persuaded him to make his debut at the Aeolian Hall. This piece of programming by Miss Gauthier had several raraifications. It provoked a debate in "serious" musical circles about the artistic validity of Broadway musicals, a debate that has not really been resolved to this day. It encouraged Paul Whiteman, who was in the audience, to commission Ger­ shwin to write a "serious" score which materialized the next year as "Rhapsody in Blue". It also sparked Gershwin's own interest in expanding his artistic horizons and in being taken "se r i.ous Ly ". Schoenberg described him as a man who lives in music and ex­ presses everything by means of music because it is his native language. Gershwin was an innovator, an artist and a composer who expressed musical ideas which were new. This had been recognized and encour­ aged by Eva Gauthier.

Her New York apartment was the rendez-vous of celebrities. On March 7, 1928, she gave a little party for the 53rd birthday of Maurice Ravel who was then in the U.S.A. It was there that Gershwin asked Ravel to give him lessons. Ravel said, "No, you would trade the great spontaneity of your music for the writing of bad Ravel."

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Eva Gauthier's sympathies for the contemporary in no way limited her interest in older music. As she herself put it: "My love for the old classics remains undiminished, but I believe there is some­ thing good in modern music too, and the only way we can find out what is good is by giving it a hearing. And so I try to keep in touch as much as possible with the latest compositions by American, English, Italian and German composers, The people who are dead do not need our help any longer; and if a living composer can not hear his work produced he loses the incentive to write. It is futile anyway, to repeat forever the Schubert, Schumann and Brahms songs, love­ ly and perfect even as they may be. Our present day musicians must be encouraged to give us what is in them, so that our own period shall not be sterile and that music shall not stand still." Yet it should surprise no one that arias from Rossini's "Semiramide" and Donizetti's "Lucrezia Borgia" (undoubtedly taught her by Albani) continued to appear on her programs for years, or that she was not above singing, when the occasion was right, songs by Bellini, Sir Arthur Sullivan, and Sir Henry R, Bishop.

Eva Gauthier sang in Ottawa in 1927 for the 60th anniversary of Canada's Confederation. In 1936 she gave three retrospective recitals at Gotham Hotel, remembering her twenty-two years of concert-giving in America. The first, devoted to Spain, ranged from Catalonian carols (in settings by Kurt Schindler, to whose memory she dedicated the recital) to such mod­ erns as Falla, Obradors and Halffter. In the second she explored Central Europe, from Bach and Handel to to Schoenberg, Hindemith and Bartok, The third, a French program, started with Lully and ended with Poulenc and Auric. All the numbers were highlights from the programs of some 50 recitals given in New York. Later in 1936 she spoke the title role in the New York and Boston premieres of Stravinsky's "Per­ sephone", After that she devoted herself mainly to teaching (at the American Theatre Wing, a professional training school), giving master classes, and serving

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on juries for important competitions. In 1949 she received a citation from the Campion Society of San Francisco for her contribution as an interpreter and teacher "to the study, performance and teaching of the best in song literature in all its phases." After her death on December 26, 1958, her library and her personal documents were acquired by the New York Public Library.

Eva's sister Juliette was a violinist and folk singer who also went to Europe for some of her train­ ing. As a folk singer she worked with Marius Barbeau. Another sister, Carmen Magueirat, is a resident of Vanier, Ontario. She was born when Eva was singing in the opera Carmen and so was named Carmen.

Considering Eva Gauthier's wide repertoire she has not left us very many of her songs on records. She seems to have recorded first for Columbia, as early as 1915, a couple of Javanese songs. In 1917, for Victor, she recorded several French Canadian folk songs accompanied by a male quartet. In the early electric period she made tests for Columbia, but only one special pressing is known to have survived. About 1938, she made what should have been her fitting leg­ acy. The then new Musicraft Company planned an album of songs in various languages, all modern. Unfor­ tunately these were never issued. Mjss Gauthier her­ self owned a set of test pressings, probably the only ones to survive. She used to lug them around with her whenever anyone asked to hear them, and as a re­ sult they were pretty well worn before anybody got the idea of taping them for preservation. At this point in her career, of course, the voice was not all that it had been, but the characteristic quality was still appealing. Her pianist in later years was Celius Dougherty.

In 1966, a record of most of her available re­ cordings was released by Town Hall (TH 003) under the title "Eva Gauthier".

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Side 1, taken from her acoustic recordings includes the following titles:

"La lettre" (Fevrier) "Le retour des promis" (Dessauer) "Le pre aux clercs-Souvenir du jeune age" (Herold) "Romance" (Debussy) "Fantoches" (Debussy) "Chanson triste" (Duparc)

Side 2, from her electric recordings, with Celius Dougherty at the piano, includes:

"Seguidilla" (de Falla) "Mein Bett ruft" (Bartok) "The Wings of Night" (Wintter Watts) "Alma sintamos" (Nin) "Rima" (Turina) "La chevelure" (Debussy)

Listening to Eva Gauthier the first consideration was not her voice itself, though it had a warm and appealing mezzo quality, it was her personality and stage presence, her ability to keep an audience en­ tertained and even enthralled for several hours. The following is a quote from part of a long revieu by H.T. Parker of the Boston Transcript: "She summons and sustains the atmosphere in which each song has its being and out of herself animates, intensifies and colours it. At her command is the mood, the passion, the picture of every song; while again out of herself she shades, warms and deepens them. Into her singing passes every inflection, every suggestion of the composer, be it a golden image of Duparc, a sensuous tremor of Debussy, an ironic stroke of Ravel. Often in this she matches subtlety for subtlety, pro­ ducing the 'sounds' of the new music, achieving no less its direct, pungent, instant impressions, its brevity, its recurring harshness, its smart and smack. And throughout this multifold accent and colouring her voice keeps to the beauty and obeys the prescrip­ tion of pure song. So in her, and for a pleasure that sets her hearer aglow, two artistries join hands."

Herbert H. Sills

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Gauthier, Eva. "On the Edge of Opera", Opera News, vol. 19, 31 Jan. 1955.

Miller, Philip L. Biographical note on record jacket (Town Hall TH 003).

Potvin, Gilles. "Il y a 50 ans, elle fit decouvr i r Gershwin aux Americains'', Perspectives, vol. 15, 27 Oct. 1973.

Encyclopedia of Music in Canada.

The photoGraph of Miss Gauthier is through the courtesy of the National Library of Canada.

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