Myrtle Schaaf Debuted as Mercédès With Geraldine Farrar as Carmen

Summary: Myrtle Schaaf debuted as Mercédès with Geraldine Farrar as Carmen in Met Opera's first 1921-1922 season performance of Bizet's Carmen, Nov. 15, 1921.

Geraldine Farrar as Carmen, 1921 or 1922 image of Bain News Service glass plate negative; George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington DC: No known publication restrictions, via Library of Congress (LOC) Prints & Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC)

Myrtle Schaaf debuted as Mercédès with Geraldine Farrar as Carmen in Met Opera's first performance of Bizet's Carmen in the 1921-1922 season.

The Metropolitan Opera premiere of Carmen by French Romantic Era composer Georges Bizet (Oct. 25, 1838-June 3, 1875) took place Saturday, Jan. 5, 1884. The opera house held the premiere at the Boston Theatre in Boston, Massachusetts.

Buffalo mezzo-soprano Myrtle Schaaf made her Met Opera debut Tuesday, Nov. 15, 1921, as Mercédès in the opera house's 267th performance of Bizet's Carmen. The Thursday, Oct. 6, 1921, issue of Musical Courier described Myrtle Schaaf as, at age 19, the opera house's "youngest prima donna" (page 37). The Monday, May 9, 1921, issue of her hometown paper, The Buffalo Enquirer, however, aged her at 22.

The opera house's 267th performance of Carmen took place at New York City's Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). The performance was staged as the first of 10 in the 1921-1922 season. Myrtle Schaaf repeated the role of Carmen's companion in the season's second Carmen performance, held Saturday, Dec. 3, 1921, at the opera house.

During Myrtle Schaaf's debut and second performance, the role of Carmen was sung by Geraldine Farrar. The American lyric soprano had made her Met Opera debut Monday, Nov. 26, 1906, in the title role of Juliette in the opera house's 102nd performance of Roméo et Juliette by 19th-century French composer Charles-François Gounod (June 17, 1818-Oct. 18, 1893).

Geraldine Farrar had added Bizet's gypsy opera to her Met Opera portfolio in the opera house's 199th through 201st performances of Carmen. She sang Micaela, Carmen-obsessed Don José's childhood friend, in the first three (Thursday, Dec. 3, 1908; Saturday, Dec. 12; Saturday, Dec. 19) of the 1908-1909 season's eight performances.

Six seasons later, in the 1914-1915 season, Geraldine Farrar added the title role to her Met Opera portfolio with her appearances as Carmen in all 13 of the 1914-1915 season's performances of Jules Speck's new Carmen production. Met Opera's stage manager for French and Italian operas from 1908 to 1917 had made his Met Opera debut Saturday, Nov. 14, 1908, in the opera house's 256th performance of Gounod's Faust.

Geraldine Farrar's Carmen impersonation during Myrtle Schaaf's two 1921-1922 season performances as Mercédès numbered as her 57th and 58th appearances in the title role at the Metropolitan Opera. Her Met Opera portfolio totaled 65 appearances, distributed over eight successive seasons (1916-1917 through 1921-1922), as the passionate, doomed cigarette factory employee.

Geraldine Farrar sang her last Met Opera Carmen in the season of Myrtle Schaaf's debut. Farrar's Carmen claimed the first nine of the 1921-1922 season's 10 performances. The opera house was the venue for her last seven Met Opera appearances (Thursday, Dec. 22, 1921; Thursday, Jan. 12, 1922; Wednesday, Jan. 25; Saturday, Feb. 11; Friday, March 10; Friday, March 17; Monday, April 17) as Carmen. Her 65th and last Met Opera Carmen took place in the season's ninth performance, Monday, April 17, which numbered as the opera's 275th performance at the opera house.

In addition to two overlaps in Carmen, Myrtle Schaaf shared 12 performances, distributed over four operas, with Geraldine Farrar. Myrtle Schaaf sang a Shepherd in two performances (Friday, Nov. 18, 1921; Saturday, Dec. 10) with Geraldine Farrar in the title role in Tosca by Italian opera composer Giacomo Puccini (Dec. 22, 1858-Nov. 29, 1924). She sang a Coal Gatherer in five performances (Monday, Nov. 21; Friday, Dec. 30; Tuesday, Jan. 17; Wednesday, Feb. 8; Thursday, March 30) and a Young Ragpicker in one performance (Tuesday, Dec. 6) with Geraldine Farrar in the title role in Louise by French composer Gustave Charpentier (June 25, 1860-Feb. 18, 1956). Myrtle Schaaf sang younger Alcazar music hall singer Floriana in three performances (Monday, Dec. 12; Monday, Dec. 26; Saturday, April 22) with Geraldine Farrar in the title role in Zazà by Italian opera composer and librettist Ruggero Leoncavallo (April 23, 1857-Aug. 9, 1919). She sang the trouser role of Siebel in one performance (Friday, Jan. 20) with Geraldine Farrar as Marguerite, whom Siebel unrequitedly loves, in Gounod's Faust.

The third Zazà performance that Myrtle Schaaf shared with Geraldine Farrar marked Geraldine Farrar's last Met Opera appearance. Farrar's Zazà claimed all 23 performances that Leoncavallo's Alcazar music hall opera has received at the Metropolitan Opera.

The takeaways for Myrtle Schaaf's debut as Mercédès with Geraldine Farrar as Carmen are that the Buffalo-born mezzo-soprano debut and second appearance in Bizet's Carmen in Met Opera's 1921-1922 season coincided with Geraldine Farrar's last season as Met Opera's Carmen; that Myrtle Schaaf and Geraldine Farrar shared 12 additional performances, distributed over four other operas; and that Geraldine Farrar's last Met Opera appearance occurred Saturday, April 22, 1922, in her last shared Zazà performance with Myrtle Schaaf.

Myrtle Schaaf sang in 54 Met Opera performances, distributed over two seasons (1921-1922 through 1922-1923); Feb. 3, 1925, image of Bain News Service glass plate negative; George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington DC: No known restrictions on publication, via Library of Congress (LOC) Prints & Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC)

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Geraldine Farrar as Carmen, 1921 or 1922 image of Bain News Service glass plate negative; George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington DC: No known publication restrictions, via Library of Congress (LOC) Prints & Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC) @ https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2014713880/

Myrtle Schaaf sang in 54 Met Opera performances, distributed over two seasons (1921-1922 through 1922-1923); Feb. 3, 1925, image of Bain News Service glass plate negative; George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington DC: No known restrictions on publication, via Library of Congress (LOC) Prints & Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC) @ http://loc.gov/pictures/resource/ggbain.32669/; via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/47387520751/

For further information:

"Buffalo Girl in Metropolitan Opera Co. of N.Y." The Buffalo Enquirer, Monday, May 9, 1921: 7.
Available @ https://www.newspapers.com/clip/21651815/the-buffalo-enquirer/

Debuts: Adamo Didur, Jean Noté, Paolo Ananian, Francesco Spetrino, Jules Speck." MetOpera Database > [Met Performance] CID: 42000 Faust {256} Academy of Music, New York, Brooklyn: 11/14/1908.
Available @ http://archives.metoperafamily.org/archives/scripts/cgiip.exe/WService=BibSpeed/fullcit.w?xCID=42000

"Debut: Myrtle Schaaf." MetOpera Database > [Met Performance] CID: 79010 Carmen {267} Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York, Brooklyn: 11/15/1921.
Available @ http://archives.metoperafamily.org/archives/scripts/cgiip.exe/WService=BibSpeed/fullcit.w?xCID=79010

"Debuts: Geraldine Farrar, Charles Rousselière, Jules-Charles Simard." MetOpera Database > [Met Performance] CID: 38000 Roméo et Juliette {102} Metropolitan Opera House: 11/26/1906. (Opening Night {22} Heinrich Conried, General Manager.
Available @ http://archives.metoperafamily.org/archives/scripts/cgiip.exe/WService=BibSpeed/fullcit.w?xCID=38000

Marriner, Derdriu. "Anima Allegra's 10th, Last Met Opera Performance Was March 28, 1924." Earth and Space News. Monday, May 3, 2021.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2021/05/anima-allegras-10th-last-met-opera.html

"Metropolitan Opera Premiere: Carmen." MetOpera Database > [Met Performance] CID: 1560 Metropolitan Opera Premiere Carmen {1} Boston Theatre, Boston, Massachusetts: 01/5/1884. In Italian.
Available @ http://archives.metoperafamily.org/archives/scripts/cgiip.exe/WService=BibSpeed/fullcit.w?xCID=1560

"The Youngest Prima Donna of the Metropolitan." Musical Courier, vol. LXXXIII, no. 14, whole no. 2165 (Oct. 6, 1921): 37.
Available via Google Books @ https://books.google.com/books?id=0PM6AQAAMAAJ&pg=RA13-PA37
Available from University of Chicago via HathiTrust @ https://hdl.handle.net/2027/chi.097536262?urlappend=%3Bseq=647