Edward Elgar and His World (59 page)

Figure 5. Walter Sickert,
Vesta Victoria at the Bedford
. Private collection of Richard Burrows

Although it would be a mistake to downplay the wide variety of social, political, and ethnic backgrounds represented by the individuals who made up the music hall audiences—London audiences in particular were notable for their diversity—music hall songs articulated a shared experience, creating both solidarity and camaraderie. The sense of solidarity is attested to by the audience's participation in refrains of their favorite songs, and the give-and-take between audience members and the “Chairman” who acted as a master of ceremonies, as well as with the stars themselves.
³⁰
There were a number of opportunities for an audience to interact with the stars, as these privileged performers appeared more than once during the course of an evening. Acts were paid by the “turn,” or appearance onstage, and only established stars would perform more than one turn a night. The second turn, usually scheduled for around 10
P.M.
, was always the most desirable, since it was then that the hall had the largest audience, as opposed to the first turn at 8
P.M.
and the third at midnight.

Another reason for the music hall's popularity among working-class clientele was the relatively cheap admission prices: a seat in the stalls by the Chairman's table cost two shillings, a seat in the gallery a mere sixpence. Furthermore, an audience member could get back in drink half the cost of admission. With prices like these, affordable even to a member of the urban working class, it is unsurprising that the music halls were hugely popular, sometimes with nearly a thousand people crowding into the theater.

But as the popularity of the music halls rose in the 1880s, so did governmental fears about the putatively deleterious effects of such raucous and risqué entertainments on public morals, and the variety palaces came under a closer scrutiny. Increased governmental intervention resulted in the growth of licensing laws and regulations controlling safety in the halls and the content of variety acts. The mid-to-late 1890s was a transitional period as these new regulations began to take effect. Music hall proprietors, fully cognizant of social pressures—and aware of the profitable potential of more genteel audiences—sought to gentrify their establishments.

Edwardian Reconfigurations

Hastening the changes that occurred during the second half of the nineteenth century, initiatives were made in the early twentieth by newly formed music hall amalgamates to avoid confrontations between theater owners and local governments over the issues of working-class rowdiness, temperance, and prostitution. The key to the success of these initiatives was modification of outdated formulas in order to appeal to a new middleclass clientele. Music hall proprietors shrewdly realized that the most important change needed to cultivate this particular audience was to attract middle-class women. If they could entice middle-class feminine spectators into their establishments, the families of these women would quickly follow. By this time, Stoll's Coliseum, like halls in London's West End, with its “round-the-clock variety” that ran from noon to midnight, was designed specifically to appeal to an audience that included large numbers of women with their families in tow. These respectable audience members were often suburban visitors to London who sought harmless but diverting entertainment on their excursions. Catering to this new kind of audience obviously had an enormous impact on the kinds of acts presented in Edwardian music halls: the Victorian working-class halls' emphasis on the comic solo was sharply reduced, if not eliminated totally, and replaced instead by an array of acrobats, dancers, animal acts, and extended spectacular features that appealed to patriotic sentiment—as in
The Crown of India.

Given the highly varied composition of the audience on any given night, a convenient fiction was thus perpetrated by the impresarios and amalgamates who had a financial stake in the success of the variety palaces: an imaginary audience consisting entirely of middle-class families. This construct, at odds with reality, proved powerful and successful. It was attractive to consumers of all classes who were invested in maintaining a facade of social respectability—especially the lower-middle class aspiring upward. The fiction flattered both the bourgeoisie and those who aspired to be so, and was invoked to determine the acts' content and, by extension, generate ideologies of representation and consumerism.

The result of these reforms was that widely mixed audiences from all strata of the urban and suburban population flocked to the music halls. This diversity was reflected by the wide range of entrance prices, which theoretically made seats available for every income bracket. Along with aristocrats and the bourgeoisie, working-class spectators of both sexes still attended the variety palaces, of course, as well as the grandees who had patronized the
louche
late-Victorian halls.

The theater's cleverly calculated appeal to a decorous, feminized middle class is evident in a brochure published and distributed by Stoll in 1906.
³¹
Lavishly illustrated, on heavy paper and embellished with gold, the publication concretized in its materials the goals of the management; it was cannily designed to convince a wide audience of the opulence, distinction, “culture,” and above all, propriety of the Coliseum (
figure 6
). But Stoll's genius in promoting this perception of respectability served a related function that further legitimized his claims. Stoll used his advertisements, along with promises of lavish remuneration, in order to woo performers, composers, and artists who normally inhabited the world of high culture, such as Elgar. Like a set of facing mirrors reflecting off each other, the prestigious cultural products of such creators further confirmed the essential respectability and high tone of the Coliseum.

The pamphlet stated that the Coliseum was built “to attract that huge class which believed the variety theatre to be in bad odour and would not in consequence visit it.”
³²
Much of the brochure is devoted to vivid descriptions of the beauty and tastefulness of the decorations, up-to-date stage machinery, and the Coliseum's restaurants and cafés. The pamphlet forcibly outlined the dramatic changes to the music halls, stating, “It would be very little if the atmosphere and environment had not undergone a similar process of purification. It was desired to make attendance at this playhouse as respectable as going to church.”
³³
The brochure further claimed that “the Coliseum is like going to a friend's house—everything is so homely and domestic and in good taste” (
figure 7
).
³⁴
Statements expressing Edwardian and Georgian ideologies of class and gender run through the brochure's text. Moreover, sharp distinctions along class lines between the old music hall—which was “only the resort of a class”—and the modern Coliseum, a “space sufficient for each of the little worlds that go to make up society, each to enjoy equal facilities and, in a way, equal accommodation”
³⁵
(
figure 8
). Finally, the feminization of this space was linked to the broadening of the audience's class base:

It must be noticed by all visitors to the Coliseum that its audience is largely made up of women and children, conspicuously in all parts of the house. Society ladies, sitting in the boxes and stalls with their children, have not been quicker to seize the opportunity which are offered for bright, wholesome entertainment than the wives of the artisan, who, with their numerous progeny, crowd the balconies, proving in the most conclusive manner that the pit is quite as eager and capable as the stalls of responding to a genuinely artistic appeal.”
³⁶

Figure 6. Opening illustration in the publicity publication
To the Coliseum.

Music was a serious and carefully considered part of the ideological program advanced by Stoll and the management of the Coliseum: “It will surprise the uninitiated to know what infinite pains are taken to promote in the public a love for good music.” A considerable amount of space in the promotional brochure was expended on describing the classically trained vocalists in the house choir, the organ and organist, and the quality of the music (
figure 9
): “It is not a music hall in any acceptance of the term; but a ‘music-theatre,' where high-class renderings of the greatest scores may be heard which, aided by the cultured interpretation given them, can be thoroughly enjoyed.”
³⁷
The pamphlet specifically mentioned opera scenes presented by the noted diva Alice Estey and a staged excerpt from Gounod's popular
Faust
that had recently been featured at the Coliseum.

Despite such claims, the frequency with which “serious” art music was programmed at the Coliseum was erratic. Stoll's commission of
Crown of India
represented an exception rather than the rule, and Elgar's music was, after all, commissioned to adorn the elaborate libretto rather than as a serious extended piece of music in its own right. At the Coliseum, like most variety palaces, art music was considered just one of the many building blocks used to construct the elaborate edifice of an evening's entertainment. Sometimes these classical selections were unexpected, as when Stoll staged scenes from
Parsifal
during the 1913 season, the first time extended excerpts from Wagner's music drama had been heard in London.
³⁸
In 1912, the year before this excursion into Wagnerian territory, the “Milan Opera” performed Leoncavallo's
I Pagliacci
at the Coliseum. More often, however, scenes and selections from longer works were scheduled as part of the rotation of turns within the three-hour shows, and light orchestral pieces were used as filler. Elgar's
Salut d'amour
, for instance, turns up occasionally on the list of an evening's offerings.
³⁹
It was mainly through the popular ballets that audiences heard music by serious composers, since spectacular ballets and pantomimes—of which
Crown of India
was just one example—were hallmarks of the Coliseum, the Alhambra, and the Empire. For instance, the new revue of January 1913, titled
Keep Smiling
, included an “Assyrian” ballet featuring music by Glazunov, Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin, Goldmark, Ravel, Arends, and Montague Ring.
⁴⁰

The quantity of art music played in the various Edwardian and Georgian music halls is less important than the belief, shared by management and audiences alike, that such high-class works belonged there. At the same time, audience and management seemed to agree that just a smattering of highbrow music was enough, and such pieces were squeezed in between the acrobats, shadowgraphists, sharpshooters, and comic singers. This unspoken agreement, too, helped to constitute the modern identities of the new music hall audiences.

Figure 7. “Domesticity” at the Coliseum one of the several tearooms.