Читать книгу Canadian Performing Arts Bundle - Michelle Labrèche-Larouche - Страница 5

I was three years old when my mother gave me my first piano lesson. She had promised to teach me Beethoven's Scottish Dance.

“When you know it well, you can play it for Granny Rachel, “ she told me.

I learned the piece very quickly, because I adored my maternal grandmother. She came from a Scottish family; her face was covered with freckles and she had a fiery temper. Although I loved the piano, I remember envying my little friends who could play in the garden while I practised indoors.

At about this time, our family moved to Plattsburgh in New York State. There wasn't enough work for Papa in Chambly. He taught harp and violin, while Maman gave singing lessons. She died in the United States after giving birth to my little sister, Mélina. The baby did not survive her for long.

Emma Lajeunesse at five years of age.

Little Emma spent her holidays with her maternal grandparents near her childhood home on Rue Martel in Chambly.

When I was five, Papa became my teacher. I studied the piano according to the Bertini Method – playing and practising five hours a day! Papa thought it was the best way. He was proud of me, because in four months, I mastered all the thirty-five pieces of the Bertini course, even though my little fingers couldn't stretch a full octave.

Once I could read and write French adequately, I had a private classics tutor. My father was convinced it was necessary for me to learn Ancient Greek to develop my brain. The result of this was that I was accustomed to studying from an early age. “Brilliant” and “exceptional” were some of the comments that were made about me. Mr. Sexton, who had taught Greek in some of the great families of England before coming to North America, told Papa, “Your little Emma has an astonishing facility for Greek pronunciation; it will help her when she has to sing in several languages.” This happened sooner than I could have imagined.

A six-and-a-half, I was singing arias from Norma and La sonnambula – “two operas by the Italian, Bellini, and among the most beautiful in the repertoire,” according to Papa. By the time I was eight, I could sight-read music of any style and period.

People often criticized my father for driving me too hard, and for hitting me on the fingers with a rod when I mistook a note or lost the tempo. He only laughed at their reproaches. To him, I wasn't a child: I was a young artist who possessed exceptional gifts and whose duty it was to strive for perfection.

Cornélia, two years younger than I, also studied the piano. Our little brother, Adélard, a year younger than Nelly, was making remarkable progress on the violin. However, Papa was a lot less demanding of them than he was of me.

I'll always remember the month of April, 1856. I was eight, and it was not long after Maman's death. My father came to give me my daily harp lesson. I was absorbed in Peau d'âne, a Perrault fable.

“Emma, it's not the time to read: you must work on your technique now.”

“Not today, Papa.”

I didn't dare tell him that the index finger of my right hand was injured, and above all, I didn't want him to know the reason: I had hurt it while disobeying him.

“No lagging! Bring your harp!”

When I began to pluck the strings, my eyes filled with tears of pain. After a moment, my fingernail was torn off. I cried out and fainted, tumbling to the floor. Luckily, my father was quick enough to catch the heavy instrument; otherwise, it would have fallen onto my head.

I had hurt the finger by catching it in the back door of my aunt and uncle's house, hurrying in for supper. My father had gone to the United States to play the organ; I had been playing with my friends outside instead of practising and had forgotten the time. I had kept silent about the injury for fear of being punished when Papa returned home.

My vocation as an actress also came to me from the family: my maternal aunt Rose-Délima possessed a remarkable talent for inventing and telling stories. She changed her voice to impersonate each different character, enthralling us children. When I was still little, I too began acting out stories by gestures and mime, turning them into pure theatre.

Granny Rachel lived next door to us in Chambly. Her attic, filled with old dresses, hats, and purses, was a true Ali Baba's cave to us. We would dress up and perform musical dramas for our friends in the English section of Chambly – the “swells,” as we called them among ourselves. I can still see myself draped in a cloth that served as an eastern costume, singing the soprano part in Félicien David's symphonic poem, Le désert. I sang perched on a rock made out of a wooden box, surrounded by my friends whom I had taught to sing the chorus.

Those were still the good times before my mother's death, when our lives were suddenly turned upside down. I believe Papa suffered more than the rest of us: he began drinking too much and became irritable -and even more strict with me! If I dozed off during my long practices, he would beat me. He had become obsessed with the idea of turning me into a prodigy who would conquer the world. I'm sure that if my mother had lived longer, she would never have let him adopt that excessive attitude towards me.

When Maman died, we returned to Canada to live with my aunt and uncle in Montreal, on the Rue Saint Charles Borromée. I felt uprooted there. Luckily for me, our neighbour, Madame Lavigne, took me under her wing. In the Lavigne's welcoming home, she reigned over no less than seven musicians! Her eldest boy, Arthur, wanted to become an impresario; Ernest, the second son, was a composer. He used to tell me that when I became famous, he would write songs for me. The youngest son, Émery, was studying to be a piano accompanist.¹

I had become an accomplished musician and singer for a child my age. I was able to sustain high notes progressively longer. I was considered a phenomenon. My first public performance took place on September 15, 1856, in Montreal, at the Mechanics' Hall on St. James Street. I was awed by the large hall and the grandiose staircase; I still remember how small I felt. Before going on stage, I was terrified, but Papa was there to encourage me and give me confidence. Many times in my life, I was tempted to hold it against him for making my childhood so strenuous, but music and applause were always ample compensation for me and drove any resentment from my heart.

This first concert had come about through one of our visits to Mr. Seebold's store on Notre Dame Street. It stocked musical instruments and sheet music, and Papa and I went there so often that it was almost as familiar to me as our own home.

That day, I didn't want to go; I wanted to play at home. I was in my room combing my hair when Papa burst in, snatched the comb from my hand, and dragged me along with him. While Papa and Mr. Seebold were talking, I tried out a new piano in the store. Mr. Crawford, a well-known impresario and a singer of Scottish ballads, came inside; he had been passing on the street, and hearing the piano, had been curious to know who was playing. “Emma is my daughter,” Papa told him. “She sings well, too.” I demonstrated, to Mr. Crawford's astonishment. Right then and there, he obtained my father's permission to organize a concert in which I would play the harp and the piano, and sing Scottish duets with him. I considered that I would have the perfect accent to sing these ballads, being of Scots descent on my mother's side.

The recital was a triumph. A carpet of real flowers covered the stage; it was exquisite, but the scent was so overpowering that I almost fainted. In the programme, Mr. Crawford had included a few pieces that I had to sight-read and sing on the spot. One of them was Cujus animam from Rossini's oratorio, Stabat Mater. It was a challenge for me; I was nervous, but I succeeded well enough.

That same season, my great-uncle Mignault, who was the priest in Chambly, organized a concert in my home town. I sang a French ballad, Mère, tu n'es plus là, and Un ange, une femme inconnue, one of my own compositions. Then I sang Wenn die Schalben in German, songs in Italian and Latin, some Scottish ballads, and finally, two English songs, Home, Sweet Home and God Save the Queen – the anthem that always concluded any public gathering. After that recital, I went on tour, to St. Jean, L'Assomption, Sorel, Joliette, Terrebonne, and Montreal.

I was envied for my talent and success, but I would much rather have remained a little girl snuggled in my mother's arms in our modest home in Chambly. I can picture the house on Rue Martel: it had two stories and a gabled roof; the outer walls were covered by wooden shingles, and it looked onto the Chambly Basin. There was a white picket fence in the front yard, and magnificent lilac trees on each side of the house sent the most wonderful perfume wafting into my room in the month of May. There was a little garden at the back, surrounded by beautiful countryside with views of Fort Chambly and Mont St. Hilaire.

I remember the clattering of our shoes on the wooden sidewalk as we walked to church where my father played the organ at Sunday mass. Our childhood was immersed in a flowing river of music. In the evening, when we were in bed, we would fall asleep to the sound of Maman playing Chopin waltzes on the piano.

In the morning, delicious smells from my mother's dressing table floated through the air. To me, they evoked the music she had played the night before as we drifted off to sleep; intriguing emanations of violet-scented rice powder and almond-scented hand cream blended with whiffs of rose-milk and honey-water perfumed with mint, dill, or vanilla.

In September of 1858, the year I turned eleven, we were sent away to school. We were separated from my brother Adélard, who went to a boys' college. After spending our summer holidays at our grandmother's house, Cornélia and I left for the convent school in Sault-au-Récollet, on the north shore of the island of Montreal. Although I was now a boarder with the Sisters of the Sacred Heart, I still studied under my father: he taught music at the convent, which paid for our room and board there.

The Mother Superior of the convent, Mère Trincano, had soft black eyes, a smooth complexion, a perfect oval face, and fingers as slender as Maman's. This nun had dedicated her life to the strict education of young girls. She spoke against the new vogue of children's balls, imported from France, saying that they were “no more than vanity contests and little theatres of luxuriousness.”

When we arrived, Mother Trincano took us on a tour of the school. We felt dwarfed by the huge corridors. We passed nuns escorting pupils who wore dark dresses with white cuffs and collars – the school uniform. In the library, a vast room with high, arched windows, I asked our guide if I would be able to read the books there. “Of course,” she answered. “But we will decide which ones are appropriate for you at your age.”

A wide stairway led to the dormitories. “This is your domain,” Mother Trincano said, showing us two narrow cast-iron beds with white coverlets. Beside each bed was a washstand with a porcelain jug and basin on it. “For your Saturday morning bath, you will wash with your nightdresses on.” We almost replied that this hadn't been the custom at our house.

The first nights that we slept at the convent, Cornélia wet her bed. I did my best to cover up these accidents, but it became impossible after a few days due to the smell, and soon, everyone realized what had happened. My poor little sister, humiliated and terrified, spent several days without speaking, and followed me about like a shadow.

Life at the convent suited me well enough, especially as I could play the piano and read my favourite books as much as I liked – including the stories of my beloved Comtesse de Ségur.

Music was my favourite subject. I was an exceptional pupil and won first prize every term in my first year. In my second year, I was barred from competition since I was on a much higher level than the other girls.

I even composed a hymn for Pope Pius IX and dedicated it to my great-uncle, the priest. I composed a triumphal march for my father, as a New Year's gift to him in 1860. That same year, on May 4, during a school recital, I sang another piece I had written, called Les martyrs. And on the occasion of Mother Trincano's birthday, I sang Travail de reconnaissance, which I had written for her. I became the star performer of the institution.

I experienced my first dramatic exaltation during a morality play that the school presented for Monseigneur Ignace Bourget, the Bishop of Montreal, who had come to officiate at our annual prize-giving ceremonies. Because I was not blessed with long blond hair like some of the other girls, I was not allowed to play an angel. I asked to play the role of the devil, who had to try to tempt Saint Anthony. The long-awaited day arrived. My hands were sweating and trembling as I waited in the wings for my cue. I hopped from one foot to the other, laughing and sobbing senselessly, wrinkling my black silk costume and fidgeting with my horned hood. My part was in the final sketch, which was intended to show the great piety of the saint as he prayed for strength to resist the Evil One's beguilements. But, instead of whispering to Anthony from over his shoulder, I began tickling his ears, pulling his hair, and shouting perfidious suggestions right into his face. The more the audience laughed, the more hysterical I became. Finally, the other students were obliged to drag me off the stage: I had lost all sense of reality.

The fever that had brought on this delirium lasted for three days. I remember hearing Mother Trincano saying to the doctor at my bedside: “The child is our most gifted music student; we would be terribly, terribly sorry to lose her.”

Nelly and I continued to spend our summer holidays with our brother Adélard at my grandmother Rachel's house. I could play the piano and sing as long as I liked, or play with dolls with my girlish aunts.² Throughout the school year, the only games we were allowed were outdoor sports – our obligatory daily exercise. During the holidays, we went on country picnics. We dressed in the conventional style for the occasion: flounces, lace pantaloons, and strapped shoes for the girls, and a sailor suit for Adélard. And everyone wore straw bonnets or boaters.

Our aunts would come dressed in the same manner. We rode in uncovered carts, loaded with butterfly nets, hoops, tablecloths, blankets, and wicker baskets. The picnic lunch consisted of meat pasties, bread, ham, cold chicken, cakes, wild strawberries, and lemonade. A veritable feast!

After eating, we would run through the fields while the women embroidered or crocheted and gossiped and the men fished.

In the evenings, my grandmother sang old Scottish ballads, accompanying herself on the piano. Occasionally, to make us laugh, she would bang down on the keys, making the begonias shake in their pot.

However, the holidays always ended too soon, and with them, the joyful romps in the countryside and the boat rides in the Chambly Basin.

That vision of carefree summer days seems to draw a curtain over my childhood memories. In August of that same summer of 1860, another stage of my life began, in which I would sing for a prince – my first crowned head.

1. The three Lavigne brothers mentioned here all achieved notable success in the music world; Émery once accompanied actress Sarah Bernhardt on tour.

2. Emma once told an English newspaper reporter: “I never had a doll of my own.”