<\/p>
The phrase \u2018annus horribilis\u2019 might easily have been invented to describe the string of spirit-weakening events that struck Gustav Mahler<\/a><\/strong> in the year 1907. First, his ten-year tenure as director of the Court Opera in Vienna ended, crippled by ongoing disputes with management and performers and by a virulently anti-Semitic campaign against him in the press. Then, in July, his four-year-old daughter Maria died of diphtheria. Shortly afterwards, Mahler was diagnosed with a heart defect, heaping further anxiety on both himself and his wife Alma<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p> These hammer blows of fate might easily have felled the 47-year-old composer and conductor. But Mahler, a famously combative and dynamic individual, was by no means ready to capitulate. Anticipating his ousting from the Court Opera, on 21 June 1907 he had signed a lucrative contract with the Metropolitan Opera in New York, earning over twice his Vienna salary for a third of the work. On 12 December, Mahler and Alma set sail from Cherbourg, arriving in Manhattan nine days later.<\/p> The couple\u2019s first impressions of New York were mainly positive. The Met\u2019s management, keen to impress its illustrious new recruit, had installed the Mahlers in a lavishly appointed suite at the Hotel Majestic, with views over Central Park. \u2018Many rooms, two grand pianos, of course!\u2019 enthused Alma. \u2018So we felt at home.\u2019 When he went to the opera house itself, however, Gustav was somewhat less enthusiastic.\u00a0<\/p> Minutes into his first rehearsal of Wagner<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s opera Tristan und Isolde<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, he stopped the players, distracted by the chorus rehearsing close by in the lobby. \u2018All other rehearsals in this theatre must be stopped,\u2019 he declared. \u2018I can\u2019t hear my orchestra.\u2019 <\/p> He was also unimpressed with those who ran The Met on a day-to-day basis. These \u2018managers, producers, stage managers etc.\u2019 were, he fumed, guilty of \u2018absolute incompetence and fraudulent activities\u2019, making the outlook for the Opera \u2018bleak\u2019.<\/p> The performance of Tristan und Isolde <\/em>which took place on 1 January 1908, just 11 days after Mahler arrived in New York, was an entirely different proposition. The Met had chosen wisely in giving Mahler Tristan<\/em> for his house debut: his 1903 staging in Vienna, with modernistic designs by Alfred Roller, had been sensationally successful, redefining the art of Wagner interpretation. Roller had not accompanied Mahler to Manhattan, but the musical power and expressivity of Mahler\u2019s interpretation still swept all before it.<\/p>\u2018Many rooms… two grand pianos, of course! So we felt at home\u2019 <\/h2>
\u2018A performance remarkable in many respects\u2019<\/h2>