Mahler and the Metropolitan Opera

Abstract

In Mahler's time the United States did not have a good reputation among German and Austrian musicians. They all knew, of course, that in the New World there were quite a number of immigrants of (Ierman origin for whom music was a necessity. It was a reminder of their country of origin and helped to keep their little community together. Nevertheless, apart from Karl Muck at the Boston Symphony and Anton Seidl at the Metropolitan and the New York Philharmonic, the majority of European conductors gave the general impression of having gone to the United States only because they felt they had not achieved adequate recognition in Europe. A few star conductors, however, like Feli2c Mottl and Richard Strauss, consented to go there for short visits and handsome financial rewards. Of all the European conductors of the time, Mahler seemed perhaps the one lemt likely to be tempted by America. In 1907, after ten years as director of the Vienna Opera, he was at the height of his fame. And yet it was then that he decided, to everyone's surprise, to cross the Atlantic. The decision wm not lightly taken: his letters show clearly that the United States had been depicted to him as the country of the almighty dollar and grasping millionaires, a country in which culture was neither a tradition nor a need, but simply an ornament of society for whom making money left little time for art. But, unlike Richard Strauss, Mahler was quite incapable of accepting any engagement solely for the purpose of making rnoney. It required therefore an exceptional combination of circumstances to persuade him to turn his back on Europe and accept a position in the United States. The reasons which made him leave Vienna are not part of our subject today. Let me just say, briefly, tha,t the main ones were the frequent journeys that his success as a composer had led him to make to conduct his works, and the inability of the Court officials to realise that no famous conductor would ever again agree to spend a11 his time directing the Vienna Opera. There criticism in the press of his frequent absences. It was decided therefore to