Emma Eames performed in Bangor century ago

October, a century ago, was a memorable month in Bangor’s theatrical and musical history. On Oct. 9, Henrietta Crosman – “greatest of American actresses,” claimed the Bangor Daily News – starred in “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary” at the Opera House. James O’Neill, reprising his signature role as the Count of Monte Cristo, appeared the following night and then Rose Coghlan in “The Duke of Killicrankie” the next.

All three actors were famous. Crosman’s career spanned stage and screen through the 1930s. O’Neill was the father of Eugene, America’s greatest playwright. Son immortalized Dad as the father character, James Tyrone, in “Long Days Journey into Night.”

These appearances by Broadway actors at the Opera House that October, however, were little compared to what happened up Main Street at the Bangor Auditorium, which a newspaper reporter had once called “Bangor’s cherished temple of music.” The ninth annual Maine Music Festival was featuring the state’s own Emma Eames, world-famous opera diva, during its annual three-day extravaganza.

Back then, opera possessed a quasi-religious aura. Singers such as Eames and Madame Lillian Nordica, another famous prima donna from Maine, were treated like goddesses. Queen City opera boosters had even built their own house of worship, the Bangor Auditorium, a mammoth, barnlike affair, 175 feet long and 82 feet wide, at the corner of Main and Buck streets next to the Maplewood Park fairgrounds, just to house this annual fall event.

William R. Chapman, a New York choral director and Maine summer resident, was the musical spark behind the autumn extravaganza. He had set out to create a “festival of choruses.” Hundreds of singers representing dozens of communities from Houlton to Augusta gathered in Bangor, and later Portland, where the festival was also held each fall, to provide a backup for the famous opera stars. The incomparable Nordica had gotten things going in 1897 and now the beautiful Eames would shake the rafters along with several other well-known vocalists.

“She is the one great star I have been trying for years to bring here,” Chapman told the BDN in January when his coup was announced more than eight months in advance of Eames’ performance. “I hardly think the people of Maine realize what it means to the world of art that their state has given nearly as many singers of international fame and reputation as all the other states combined.”

Born in China and raised in Bath, Eames had left Maine by the age of 17 to train in Boston and then Europe. Like Nordica, who had performed at Bangor City Hall the previous winter while on tour, she told a reporter who visited her in her “prima donna suite” at the Bangor House that she was glad to be home. Unlike Nordica, she did not say she was looking forward one day to taking a vacation in the Maine woods. One got the feeling she had a preference for New York and Paris.

“Think of it – I have been so long away from Maine! All these years of study in Paris, and all those longer years of work in the great cities … I almost feel,” said Madame with a move of her white hands, “as though when I walk along the street, I am surrounded by ghosts – the ghosts of other days.”

The reporter, who conducted the interview with fawning adoration, reminded the soprano that she had been “loyal to Maine,” unlike the famous actress, Maxine Elliott, who grew up in Rockland and allegedly never acknowledged her roots in the press.

The next afternoon, a reception was held at City Hall. There had been nothing like it in Bangor since the brilliant reception for Gov. John F. Hill five years before, the newspaper reported. A score or more of “society young men” served as ushers, while the speakers included Sen. Eugene Hale.

The festival began in Bangor on Oct. 5, on a Thursday evening, and consisted of five concerts, including two matinees, ending with a grand finale Saturday night featuring Eames when attendance was placed at 2,800. One could buy a ticket for all the concerts for $5 or a ticket for just Eames’ performance for anywhere from $1 to $3, the equivalent of about $60 today.

The Maine Music Festival ended in 1926, and the cavernous auditorium came down in 1967. But ghosts remained. Some months ago while browsing at an antiques store in downtown Bangor, I found a pile of Maine Music Festival programs lying on the floor in the basement. Thinking I might have some use for one, I paid the cashier $5 for the disintegrating 1905 edition, 20 times its price at the time it was issued, and the price of admission to all five concerts back then.

Paging through, I found the mysterious spirit who purchased it had penciled parentheses around one piece – “Waltz” from “Romeo and Juliet” by Charles Gounod, Madame Emma Eames’ first offering on that Saturday night long ago. This piece had special meaning for somebody. I like to think it helped prepare him or her for the long, cold winter ahead, and that this personage as well may have gone to see James O’Neill “himself” perform in something a little less lofty – and a bit warmer – on the coming Tuesday night downtown at the Opera House.

Wayne E. Reilly can be reached at wreilly@bangordailynews.net.