No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 April 2015
In the spring 1893, the following statement appeared in a theater review in one of the Parisian dailies: “Mais, dans ce diable de pays de Galicie, on n'est jamais tranquille et il faut toujours craindre pour le lendemain [But, in this hell of a land Galicia, it's never quiet, and one must always fear for tomorrow].” These words were written in response to the first, and perhaps the only, opera produced in Western Europe about the Austrian province of Galicia. The work's plot centered on a love triangle between a count, a gypsy girl, and a peasant, and was set against the historical backdrop of the Galician peasant uprising of 1846. The opera in question, Kassya, was the swan song of French composer Léo Delibes, written after a trip he took to Hungary and Austrian Galicia. The critic who penned the above words, Georges Street, certainly knew something about intrigue and conspiracy within the Austrian Empire. He was the grandson of Metternich's master spy, Georg Klindworth, and the son of Agnes Street-Klindworth, who gathered intelligence for her father about refugees of the 1848 upheavals living in Weimar. Delibes's opera and Street's biography interconnect only circumstantially—the former composed the music to Kassya; the latter attended a performance and wrote a review—yet this coincidence suggests an interesting avenue for investigation regarding French contacts with East Central Europe.
1 Georges Street, Review of Kassya, Le Matin, 25 Mar. 1893.
2 The only other contemporary opera of which I am aware was written by the Czech composer Mořic Anger (1844–1905). Entitled Záletníci, this comic opera was based on Leopold Sacher-Masoch's Die Wächter der Moral. It was staged for the first time on 21 January 1880 at the German theater in Pest, after having been rejected by the Viennese censor. Subsequently, Anger's work was performed in Prague in 1882. The same criticism befell Záletníci as Delibes's work, that the libretto was too long, the music unoriginal, and the staging flawed.
3 In the guise of a piano student, Agnes ingratiated herself into Franz Liszt's circle and became the composer's lover. It was long rumored that Georges Street was Liszt's natural son, and Street did nothing to prevent such gossip from spreading. Georges was born in Hamburg on 21 January 1854 and christened Ernst August Georg. He moved with his mother and grandfather to Paris in 1868. There, he developed his musical talents as a violinist and composer of operettas. His best-known work was the score composed with André Messager for the ballet Scaramouche. Street also contributed music reviews to the newspapers L'Éclair and Le Matin. He died in Vienna, in 1908, aged 54. For more about the Street-Klindworth family, see: “Liszt and Agnes Street-Klindworth: A Spy in the Court of Weimar?,” Studia Musicologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae [Studies in Musicology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences] 28.1/4 (1986): 47–63.Google Scholar
4 Marie Lemańska (1826–1895) may have well been Delibes's closest Polish acquaintance. She came to Paris in 1854 as a widow, following the death of her first husband, Baron Piotr Antoni Steinkeller to whom she was married on her family's estate in Kłobuck near Częstochowa. Steinkeller was a rich industrialist and banker from Kraków and a patron of the arts. For example, in 1843 he helped sponsor performances by Lola Montez in Warsaw. Lemańska married two more times. Her second husband was a French general, Count Christophe-Michel Roguet (1800–1877). Together they were part of Napoleon III's intimate circle. The Roguets entertained frequently at their homes in Paris and Clichy, and among their regular guests was Maria's childhood friend, the Polish poet Cyprian Norwid (1821–1883). Lemańska's third husband was marquis Louis-Daniel de Sanzillon (1830–?). Delibes became acquainted with her in Clichy, where he often stayed at the home of his mother-in-law, the retired stage actress Mlle Denain (1823–1892).
5 For example, see: Chodzko, Léonard, Les Massacres de Galicie et Krakovie confisquée par l'Autriche en 1846 [The Massacres of Galicia and Kraków Annexed by Austria in 1846] (E. Dentu, 1861)Google Scholar; La Vérité sur les événements de Galicie [The Truth about the Events in Galicia] (Paris, 1847)Google Scholar; Delamarre, Casimir, Un peuple européen de quinze millions oublié devant l'histoire [A European People of Fifteen Million Forgotten by History] (Paris, 1869)Google Scholar; de Laveleye, Émile, “La Question polonaise et la question ruthène en Galicie [The Polish and Ruthenian Question in Galicia],” Revue des deux mondes [Review of the Two Worlds] 83 (1869): 831–67Google Scholar; and Reclus, Elisée, Nouvelle géographie universelle: La Terre et les hommes [The Universal Geography: The Earth and Its Inhabitants], vol. 5, L'Europe scandinave et russe [The Scandinavian Countries and European Russia] (Paris, 1880).Google Scholar
6 The Ukrainians of Galicia in the nineteenth century referred to themselves as Rusyny, which in the Austro-Hungarian Empire was rendered as Ruthenen (English: Ruthenian). Therefore, I use the term “Ruthenian” rather than “Ukrainian,” except when making reference to a conscious Ukrainian orientation in Galicia or when referring to the people of the same national and linguistic group living in Eastern and Central Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire.
7 The delegation of thirty-seven (three invitees, Alfred Daubrée, Gustave Ollendorff, and Alphonse Pagès were unable to participate) included: diplomat and developer of the Suez Canal, Ferdinand de Lesseps; writers François Coppée, Abraham Dreyfus, and Louis Ratisbonne; musicians Léo Delibes and Jules Massenet; painters Georges Clairin, Nicolas-Félix Escalier, Tony Robert-Fleury, Henri-Charles Guérard, and Félicien Rops; physicians Samuel-Jean Pozzi and Albert Robin; Colonel Philippe Lichtenstein and General István Türr; Armand Gouzien, inspector of Fine Arts; Charles Ebeling, secretary of the International Literary Association; lawyers Maurice Bernard and Albert Lebrasseur; engineer Duplan with his brother, Jean-François, head of the French Council of Public Education; the industrialist Arbey; chemist Eugène Weissmann; editors and publishers Emile Lévy and Eugène Yung (Revue politique et littéraire [Political and Literary Review]); and journalists Adolphe Badin (secretary, Nouvelle revue), Gaston Bérardi (editor, Indépendance belge), Émile Blavet (Figaro), Georges Blavet (Matin), Jules Lermina (Mot d'ordre), Alfred de Lostalot (Gazette des Beaux-Arts), Joseph Montet (Paix), Noirefontaine (Soleil), Mario Proth (Rappel), Étienne Tréfeu (Gaulois), Parizelle (Événement), and Louis Ulbach (Gil Blas).
8 The text of the invitation was printed in Le Ménestrel, 19 July 1885.
9 Ulbach, Louis, La Csárdas: notes et impressions d'un français [Csárdás: Notes and Impressions of a Frenchman] (Paris, 1888)Google Scholar, 33; and Proth, Mario, Le Voyage de la délégation française en Hongrie [Voyage of the French Delegation to Hungary] (Budapest, 1886)Google Scholar, 3. Victor Hugo, in a speech to the National Assembly delivered on 1 March 1871, had called for the creation of a federation of the United States of Europe as a means of bringing peace to the continent, and an end to imperialism, and reactionary and anti-democratic governments. See: “Séance du 1er mars 1871 [Meeting on 1 March 1871].” Annales de l'Assemblée nationale: Compte-rendu in extenso des séances [Annals of the National Assembly: Verbatim Reports of the Proceedings], vol. 1 (Paris, 1871), 106–9.Google Scholar
10 Parisis [Émile Blavet], “Les Fêtes de Budapest [Festivities in Budapest],” Le Figaro, 12 Aug. 1885.
11 [Georges Blavet], “En Sleeping: le voyage de la délégation française en Hongrie [Aboard the Sleeping Car: The Journey of the French Delegation in Hungary],” Le Matin, 13 Aug. 1885.
12 Ibid.
13 Parisis, Le Figaro, 12 Aug. 1885.
14 Proth, 11.
15 Ulbach, 42.
16 Abraham Dreyfus, “Chez nos amis les Hongrois [Visiting our Hungarian Friends].” La Revue politique et littéraire [Political and Literary Review], 22 année, 3ème série, no. 9 (29 Aug. 1885): 283–85, at 284.
17 For example, see Vari, Alexander, “Bullfights in Budapest: City Marketing, Moral Panics, and Nationalism in Turn-of-the-Century Hungary,” Austrian History Yearbook 41 (2010): 143–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 150.
18 Parisis [Émile Blavet], “La France à Buda-Pesth [France at Buda-Pest],” Le Figaro, 15 Aug. 1885.
19 Ulbach, 82.
20 Adolphe Badin, “Deux épisodes du récent voyage des Français en Hongrie [Two Episodes from the Recent Visit of the French in Hungary],” La Revue politique et littéraire, 22 année, 3ème série, no. 10 (5 Sept. 1885): 315.
21 Montent, Joseph, De Paris aux Karpathes [From Paris to the Carpathians] (Paris, 1886), 96–97.Google Scholar
22 See, in particular, Wolff, Larry's chapter, “After the Revolution: The Rise of Czas and the Advent of Franz Joseph,” in The Idea of Galicia: History and Fantasy in Habsburg Political Culture (Stanford, 2010), 188–230.Google Scholar
23 Zahra, Tara, “Imagined Non-Communities: National Indifference as a Category of Analysis,” Slavic Review 69.1 (Spring 2010): 93–119, at 99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
24 Among the many publications in English on Galicia and questions of national identity, aside from Wolff's volume cited above, are: Frank, Alison Fleig, Oil Empire: Visions of Prosperity in Austrian Galicia (Cambridge, MA, 2005)Google Scholar; Hann, Chris and Magocsi, Paul R., eds., Galicia: A Multicultured Land (Toronto, 2005)Google Scholar; Himka, John-Paul, Religion and Nationality in Western Ukraine: The Greek Catholic Church and Ruthenian National Movement in Galicia, 1867–1900 (Montreal, 1999)Google Scholar; Hryniuk, Stella, Peasants with Promise: Ukrainians in Southeastern Galicia, 1880–1900 (Edmonton, 1991)Google Scholar; Magocsi, Paul Robert, The Roots of Ukrainian Nationalism: Galicia as Ukraine's Piedmont (Toronto, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Markovits, Andrei S. and Sysyn, Frank E., eds. Nationbuilding and the Politics of Nationalism: Essays on Austrian Galicia (Cambridge, MA, 1982)Google Scholar; Shanes, Joshua, Diaspora Nationalism and Jewish Identity in Habsburg Galicia (New York, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Stauter-Halsted, Keely, The Nation in the Village: The Genesis of Peasant National Identity in Austrian Poland, 1848–1914 (Ithaca, 2001).Google Scholar
25 Wolff, “After the Revolution,” 215–16, 222.
26 Le Correspondant (10 Apr. 1893): 367.
27 Woźna-Stankiewicz, Małgorzata, Muzyka francuska w Polsce w II połowie XIX wieku: analiza dokumentów jako podstawa źródłowa do badań nad recepcją [French Music in Poland during the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century: A Study of Its Reception Based on Analysis of Source Documents] (Kraków, 1999)Google Scholar, 23.
28 Herter, Joseph A., “The Life of Zygmunt Stojowski,” Polish Music Journal 5.2 (Winter 2002)Google Scholar; http://www.usc.edu/dept/polish_music/PMJ/issue/5.2.02/herterstojowski.html.
29 For references to Delibes's travels through Galicia, see: Czas (13 Aug. 1885); Echo muzyczne, teatralne i artystyczne [Echo of Music, Theater and Art] no. 152 (16 (28) Aug. 1886): 350; no. 352 (16 (28) June 1890): 314; and no. 497 (8 Apr. (27 Mar.) 1893): 163; Dziennik polski [Polish Daily] no. 201 (3 Sept. 1885), and no. 202 (4 Sept. 1885); Kurjer Lwowski [Lwow Herald] (3 Sept. 1885); Gazeta Lwowska [Lwow Gazette] (4 Sept. 1885); Gazeta narodowa [National Gazette] (4 Sept. 1885); Nowa reforma [The New Reform] (6 Sept. 1885); Tygodnik ilustrowany [Illustrated Weekly] 6, no. 141 (12 Sept. 1885): 175; and 6, no. 144 (3 Oct. 1885): 223.
30 Quoted in Pekacz, Jolanta T., Music in the Culture of Polish Galicia, 1772–1914 (Rochester, 2002)Google Scholar, 111.
31 The Ziembicki residence was located at the intersection of ul. Jagiellońska (today, Hnatiuk Street) and ul. 3 maja (today Sichovi Striltsi Street).
32 Cited in Curtiss, Mina, “Bizet, Offenbach, and Rossini,” The Musical Quarterly 40. 3 (July 1954): 350–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 353.
33 Durand-Fardel, Raymond, “Discours de M. Ziembicki,” L'Internat en médecine et en chirurgie des hôpitaux et hospices civils de Paris: Centenaire de l'Internat, 1802–1902 [“Speech by Mr. Ziembicki,” Internships in Medicine and Surgery in Hospitals and Civilian Hospices in Paris: Centenary of the Internat, 1802–1902] (Paris, [1902]), 205–6.Google Scholar
34 Described in Jasiński, Roman, Na przełomie epok: muzyka w Warszawie, 1910–1927 [At the Turn of an Era: Music in Warsaw, 1910–1927] (Warsaw, 1979), 396.Google Scholar
35 Wolff, Larry, “The Average Galician in the Age of Autonomy: Fantasies and Statistics of the Slavic Orient,” in The Idea of Galicia: History and Fantasy in Habsburg Political Culture (Stanford, 2010), 231–79.Google Scholar
36 Pekacz, 172–74.
37 Echo muzyczne, teatralne i artystyczne [Echo of Music, Theater and Art], no. 289 (1 (13) Apr. 1889): 172.
38 Le Ménestrel no. 41 (13 Sept. 1885): 327; and Echo muzyczne, teatralne i artystyczne [Echo of Music, Theater and Art], no. 152 (16 (28) Aug. 1886): 350.
39 For further biographies of Léo Delibes, and a survey of his music, see: Jullien, Adolphe, “Léo Delibes (1836–1891),” Musiciens d'aujourd'hui, 2ème sér . [Today's Musicians] (Paris, 1894): 261–89Google Scholar; de Curzon, Henri, Léo Delibes: sa vie et ses oeuvres (1836–1892) [Léo Delibes: His Life and Music, 1836–1892] (Paris, 1926)Google Scholar; Coquis, André, Léo Delibes: sa vie et son oeuvre (1836–1891) [Léo Delibes: His Life and Music (1836–1891)] (Paris, 1957)Google Scholar; Margie Viola Boston, “An Essay on the Life and Works of Leo Delibes,” (PhD diss., University of Iowa, 1981); and Studwell, William E., Adolphe Adam and Léo Delibes: A Guide to Research (New York, 1987).Google Scholar
40 Locke, Ralph P., “Exoticism and Orientalism in Music: Problems for the Worldly Critic,” Edward Said and the Work of the Critic: Speaking Truth to Power, ed. Bové, Paul A. (Durham, 2000)Google Scholar, 279.
41 Consider, for example, Molière's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, for which Jean-Baptiste Lully composed the music.
42 Trans. by des Essarts, Alfred as Mélodies de Moniuszko in Échos de Pologne (Paris, 1862 or 1863).Google Scholar
43 Stojowski, Zygmunt, “Paderewski as I Knew Him,” The Polish Review 49.4 (2004): 1031.Google Scholar
44 “‘Kasia’ opera Leona Delibes'a [Léo Delibes's Opera Kassya],” Echo muzyczne, teatralne i artystyczne [Echo of Music, Theater and Art], no. 300 (17 (29) June 1889): 307.
45 Moniuszko, in fact, was the source of Delibes's music for the dances in the first act of his Coppélia. The “Thème slave varié” is taken entirely from a song by Moniuszko, a krakowiak entitled “Poleć, pieśni, z miasta.” Delibes mistakenly thought it was a popular folk song and transcribed it rote from his choreographer Arthur Saint-Léon. His mistake was only brought to his attention when the publisher of Moniuszko songs recognized the melody while attending a performance of Coppélia. Delibes later provided appropriate attribution to the piano reduction of his score. See: François-Joseph Fétis and Pougin, Arthur, “Moniuszko,” Biographie universelle des musiciens et bibliographie générale de la musique [Universal Biography of Musicians and General Bibliography of Music], vol.2 (Paris, 1881)Google Scholar, 232.
46 Echo muzyczne, teatralne i artystyczne [Echo of Music, Theater and Art], no. 300 (17 (29) June 1889), 307–8.
47 Jasiński, Na przelomie epok, 396.
48 Henri de Curzon, “Léo Delibes: À propos du centenaire de sa naissance (21 février 1836) [Léo Delibes: On the Centenary of his Birth],” Le Ménestrel (21 Feb. 1936): 57.
49 Henri Moreno, Review of Kassya, Le Ménestrel (26 Mar. 1893).
50 Henri Heugel, “Léo Delibes,” Le Ménestrel (18 Jan. 1891).
51 From letters described briefly in the entry on Ernest Guiraud in the auction catalog Archives et souvenirs de la famille Heugel éditeurs de musique [Archives and Souvenirs from the Heugel Family, Publishers of Music] (Paris, 2011)Google Scholar, 26. To whom or what institution these and other letters were sold is presently unknown.
52 The French translation of Galizische Geschichten was published as Le legs de Caïn: contes galiciens [Legacy of Cain: Galician Tales] (Paris, 1874)Google Scholar. The story “Frinko Balaban,” however, first appeared two years earlier in Revue des deux mondes (1 Oct.–15 Nov. 1872).
53 Sacher-Masoch, “Coté faible: le mouvement slave dans les provinces autrichiennes [Weak Point: The Slavic Movement in the Austrian Provinces],” Le Matin (10 Aug. 1887).
54 Sacher-Masoch, “Frinko Balaban,” Le legs de Caïn: contes galiciens [Legacy of Cain: Galician Tales] (Paris, 1874)Google Scholar, 125.
55 Kelly, Sean K., “Leopold von Sacher-Masoch and Human Rights,” Modern Austrian Literature 43, no. 3 (2010): 34.Google Scholar
56 Review of Kassya, La Lanterne (26 Mar. 1893).
57 Maurice Saint-Vallery, Revue du cercle militaire [Journal of the Military Circle] (9 Apr. 1893); and Louis de Fourcaud, Le Gaulois (25 Mar. 1893).
58 Louis Gallet, La Nouvelle revue (Mar.–Apr. 1893): 650.
59 From letters described in the entry on Philippe Gille in the auction catalog Archives et souvenirs de la famille Heugel éditeurs de musique [Archives and Souvenirs from the Heugel Family, Publishers of Music], 23.
60 Frimousse [Raoul Toche], Le Gaulois (25 Mar. 1893).
61 Raymond Bouyer, L'Artiste, année 65, nouvelle pér. t.5 (1893): 310.
62 Kurjer Lwowski [Lwow Herald] (6 Apr. 1893); and Echo muzyczne, teatralne i artystyczne [Echo of Music, Theater and Art], no. 39 (14 (26) Sep. 1896): 462.
63 Fourcaud. Le Gaulois (25 Mar. 1893).
64 Interview with Petr Jurgenson, Peterburgskaia gazeta [Petersburg Gazette] (27 Oct. 1893). Tchaikovsky was fond of Delibes and was very familiar with his music, particularly of the ballets Sylvia and Coppélia. The latter influenced his The Nutcracker (1890–1891). The two composers met in Paris in March 1888 while Tchaikovsky was on a concert tour through Western Europe, at which time there may have been an opportunity for Delibes to converse about his work on Kassya.
65 Oswald, François, Gugenheim, Eugène, and Le Faure, Georges, Au Dahomey; pièce en 5 actes et 10 tableaux [In Dahomey: A Play in 5 Acts and 10 Tableaux] (Paris, 1893)Google Scholar. The play opened on 10 December 1892 and was performed through January 1893.
66 In 1892, there had been some discussion of selecting the tenor Guillaume Albert Lubert over Gibert, but true to Delibes's wishes, Gibert prevailed.
67 Fourcaud, Le Gaulois (25 Mar. 1893).
68 Georges Street, Le Matin (25 Mar. 1893).
69 Bach, Ulrich, “Sacher-Masoch's Utopian Peripheries,” The German Quarterly 80, 2 (Apr. 2007): 201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
70 Ibid., 205.
71 For an in-depth discussion on the characterization of the events of 1846, see Wolff's chapters “The Galician Childhood of Sacher-Masoch: From Folk Songs to Massacres,” particularly pages 141–57, and “Galician Vertigo: The Meaning of the Massacres,” in The Idea of Galicia, 111–87.
72 Meilhac, Henri and Gille, Philippe, Kassya, opéra en quatre actes et cinq tableaux; musique de Léo Delibes: partition pour chant et piano [Kassya, an Opera in Four Acts and Five Tableaux; Music by Léo Delibes: Piano-vocal Score] (Paris, 1893): 360–63.Google Scholar
73 Ibid., 50–52.
74 An article in Le Temps (30 May 1888) reacting to official Austrian and Hungarian opposition to a group of Hungarian industrialists and businessmen who tried to organize a pavilion for the World's Fair to be held in Paris in 1889, on the one-hundred-year anniversary of the French Revolution.
75 Barine, Arvède, review of Le nouveau Job, in La Revue politique et littéraire [Political and Literary Review], 8, no. 42 (19 Apr. 1879): 997.Google Scholar
76 Anonymous review of Kassya, in New Quarterly Musical Review (Nov. 1895): 127.
77 Le Ménestrel (8 Feb. 1913).