From "Chambers' Edinburgh Journal." THE ITALIAN OPERA IN LONDON. THE QUEEN'S THEATRE. having upon a former occasion devoted an article to the physiology of the Opera in Italy, it may not be uninteresting to say something now of the Queen's Theatre and its rival Covent Garden; in the latter of which the Italian lyric drama has fixed itself on the boards trodden so recently by a Kemble and a Siddons—a revolution in public taste for which mere fashion could never account, and the reasons for which we attempted to develop in the article alluded to. THE spread of musical taste in the British islands is a great fact which seems to be only dawning on the higher organs of periodical literature. One cause of this may be the state of insulation in which composers stand with respect to the professors of other arts and sciences; attaining, as they frequently do, to the very summit of musical The Queen's Theatre is situated at the power, in comparative ignorance of the sis- junction of the Haymarket with Pall-Mall, ter branches of knowledge. The two artists, and, considering the number of architectural for instance, who in vigor and prodigality of abortions in London, is a respectable edifice; invention have surpassed all others in our but seen from Cockspur street, its effect is century, were Scott and Rossini; but they marred by the cistern which stands on the stood in as little relation to each other as roof like a large trunk, or portmanteau on the Shakspeare and Rubens of the age of the corner of a table. Internally, it is of a James and Mary de Medicis. The ignorance horse-shoe shape, and is considered well of composers, however, may be matched by proportioned. It is of nearly the same size that of the literati; one distinguished mem- as the Scala of Milan and Covent Garden, ber of which body compares music to rope- which, however, fall considerably short of dancing, while almost all assign it a place the magnitude of San Carlo in Naples. The among the imitative arts. There can be no Queen's Theatre is acoustically well congreater mistake than this. Music is a feel-structed, and has the peculiar property of ing, of which sound is only the exponent; | lighting up beautifully for the ballet, in and it belongs less to the external than the mysterious and invisible world. The time is not distant, however, when music will be better understood. Already it is fully taken up by an aristocracy which, from various causes, maintains an influence upon tastes and manners unknown in the same body on the continent. Neither submerged by the people, as in France, nor converted into household and military officers, as in the rest of Europe, the nobility and higher gentry of England are able to make any thing popular they choose to adopt heartily. Their reigning passionmore especially that of the female aristocracy is at present music; and if we look back a hundred years to the unintellectual frivolity of the court of George II., and the reign of Beau Nash and the Bath waters, it will be admitted that society has lost nothing by the change. Already music is making its way downwards through every chink and cranny of society; and even in the lower-middle and humbler classes there is a perceptible gravitation to the greatest works of the greatest masters. The great central Propaganda or fountain-head, however, is the two Italian Operas in London; and which the appeal is principally to the eye; but there is no spectacle produced on the stage equal to the view from the centre of the curtain, when the eye is directed to the audience on a gala night-that of a crowded drawing-room, for instance, when the six tiers of boxes, hung with silk, are full of the beauty of a London season, the female aristocracy wearing the feathers of the morning. Between the orchestra and the pit are the stalls or reserved seats, all numbered, and let by the season as well as by the night. Some years ago the price of such seats was fifteen shillings a night; while by subscription, it was thirty guineas for sixty nights, each representation coming thus to only about half guinea, a saving of nearly a third to the Opera frequenter. There are now two Italian Operas, and the price is raised to a guinea, which will enable the reader to form an idea of the progression in the taste for Italian music during the last dozen years. As regards the classes who frequent the stalls, these are mostly tenanted by the easy bachelors of the aristocracy, and the opulent section of the middle classes; the counting-houses of the City furnishing larger contingents to the stalls than either church, law, or medicine-good incomes being rarely achieved in these until the period of marriage and middle age. When a lawyer does go to the Opera, it is usually on a Saturday night, when the pressure of the business of the week is over. Between the stalls and boxes is the pit, which differs from that of an English theatre in the higher price-varying, according to pressure of demand, from seven shillings to half a guinea -and in the prevalence of evening costume, as well as in the access to the box corridors: for those who receive tickets from subscribers to boxes usually go first into the pit, paying a visit to the family box between acts. In the days of George IV. dandyism, indignant letters from wearers of drab trowsers used to appear in the newspapers on their being refused admittance, as incorrect in evening costume; and even the owner of a white hat has been known to expostulate his way into the pit; but such differences have now died away. The boxes are not open at the sides, as in other English theatres, but, as in Italy, are partitioned, so as to secure perfect privacy of conversation; and the box of a lady of fashion is the epitome of her drawing-room, where she receives a few select visits. The subscription nights are Tuesday and Saturday; and the box on the intervening Thursday night is the property of the manager, on which occasion the entertainments are usually abundant in quantity, to suit families who can afford the entertainment only occasionally. On such evenings, however, the performances are generally too long, and of a too miscellaneous and detached a character to please the habitual frequenter, who talks rather contemptuously of a 'long Thursday." The prices of boxes vary considerably, according to demand-from five to twelve guineas-during May, June, and July; but they are to be had on much lower terms previous to Easter, for the company of artists is not usually completed until the close of the Italian Opera in Paris. This regularity has been much broken in upon since the Revolution of 1848; but there can be no doubt that the Paris season will be henceforth made to suit that of London, as Mr. Lumley, the proprietor of the Queen's Theatre, has become the lessee of the Italian Opera in Paris. Towards the close of the London season boxes again fall in price, although the company is in full strength; because at the latter end of July, and during all August town is gradually thinning; so that just before the commencement of partridgeshooting, on the 1st of September, and about the period of the prorogation of parliament, a few representations are given at playhouse prices, and the London fashionable season is supposed to terminate. Thus the Italian Operas regulate themselves by the parliamentary session; the 12th of August—when grouse-shooting commences-hastening the 'massacre of the innocents," as the hasty legislation of this part of the year is called, and the approach of the 1st of September putting them out of pain, as there would be no chance of carrying on the business of the session after that epoch. A large proportion of the boxes are not let to families, but to booksellers, who relet them to third parties. This connection of the proprietors of circulating libraries with the Opera arose from subscribers handing over their box to their bookseller to be let on nights when they were themselves otherwise engaged; and this was some years ago a lucrative branch of business in the hands of Messrs. Sams, Mitchell, Ebers, and Andrews; although it has latterly been much divided, all the principal music-sellers, and even wine-merchants and other tradesmen in the large thoroughfares in the vicinity of the theatre, speculating largely on the rise and fall of Opera admissions, and being, as it were, musical brokers. For this reason there is no fixity in the price of boxes and stalls, exorbitant prices being demanded on extraordinary occasions—such as the production of an opera which has had great success in Paris or on the continent; or on any unusual combination of talent-when, for instance, a Pasta and a Malibran appear together in the same opera, as they did in "Semiramide," when the former played her great part of the Assyrian queen, and Malibran filled the fine contralto part of Arsace, The visit of a foreign sovereign usually creates a bumper. The writer of this article was invited to ac company a family to the Queen's Theatre on the night of the Emperor of Russia's visit; and the box engaged for the occasion, although a small one on the fourth tier, cost twelve guineas. It only remains to notice the gallery, one half of which is devoted to stalls at five shillings, and the other half, without stalls, | standing the enormous receipts, London is open to the public at two shillings and could support the expense of two Italian sixpence, the lowest sum of admission; and Operas; but the lesseeship of the Paris here may be seen the mustached foreigner, Opera is a great point gained for Mr. Lumwho enjoys and understands what he sees ley. On the other hand, the great prospecand hears; or the country bumpkin, who tive receipts of the coming year of Exhibimust not return home without being able to tion will assuredly prolong the career of say that he has been to the Opera. Prob- Covent Garden for at least another season. ably the heat sets him to sleep; but at all events he rarely sits out the second act, saying to his friend, after the conclusion of this renowned and unintelligible entertainment, "Ah, you never catches me in such a slow coach as that again!" Those who are in the pit get access ad libitum to the gallery, and the back of the upper seat is the best place in the house for hearing an overture or favorite air, although the features of the singers are undistinguishable. The expenditure of the British public on the two Italian Operas is consequently very large, but the expenses of the establishment are so great, that no lessee of the Queen's Theatre can be pointed out who has made a fortune. This Temple of the Muses is almost as well known to the public by the huge bankruptcies of Chambers, Waters, Ebers, Monk Mason, and by Laporte, as by the successes of Pasta, Malibran, and Lind; for when the expenses range from £700 to £1000 every time the curtain rises, it may be easily understood that a few months of scanty receipts involve an adventurer of small means in irretrievable debts and embarrassments, and if the defalcation continue for several seasons consecutively, it must ingulf a colossal capital. Mr. Lumley, the present proprietor, forms an exception to the list I have given; for he had the good fortune to get possession of the Queen's Theatre after these successive bankruptcies, at the expense of which the modern inordinate appetite for Italian Opera has been created; and by the sale of boxes in perpetuity, he realized about £90,000 of his capital. As regards the detail of the expenses, the principal items are the high salaries of individual singers. A highest-class female singer gets about £3000 sterling for a season, and a first-class male singer about £2000. The former, with concerts and her Paris engagement, may consequently realize a sum of between £6000 and £7000; but if she creates a sensation, (which, however, seldom lasts above a season or two,) much more. A prima donna of this description keeps her carriage, lives in handsome apartments, has usually all her family living on her, often including idle, sauntering brothers; but she spends her time on any thing but a bed of roses, from the constant apprehension of new candidates for public favor. Nothing can be more unreasonable than the outcry against the high prices given to such singers, their remuneration being in proportion to the sums which they draw to the theatre. During a considerable period of the freshness of their voice, their want of musical and dramatic experience prevents their occupation of the foremost rank; and, on the other hand, when in the plenitude of dramatic power, voice and beauty are often on the wane: so that the few years of heyday must pay for a laborious education, and provide for old age. Such is the explanation given by singers when discussing this popular fallacy, which puts one in mind of the Swiss innkeepers in the high Alps, who, when taxed with having charged exorbitant prices, answer that whatever may be the case in England, the year of the Alpine innkeeper consists of only two months. He has consequently been punctual "No gains without pains" is a law from in his payments, although the establish- which no one is exempt; neither the artist ment of an Italian Opera in Covent Gar- of genius, creating the sketch out of the rude den, supported by several of the very first embryo, and the picture out of the sketch, singers, unquestionably damaged the value nor the statesman, constructing his scheme of his property, and involved him in a of national policy from grains of heterogestruggle which had never been anticipated neous fact. From this law nobody is less at the period when he held the monopoly free than the operatic singer. When he has of Italian operatic entertainment. Last completed his elementary musical knowlseason it seemed very doubtful, if, notwith- | edge, passed the conservatory with éclat, pernatural machinery. The French school of ballet in the last century used to be pastoral; and in the days of the elder Vestris the ballet was confined to a few simple incidents, such as may happen in a village, with its lovers' jealousies, the unwillingness of a parent to give his daughter in marriage, and the arrival of the generous lord of the manor, who furnishes a dowry, pacifies the griping parent, and makes Colin a happy bridegroom, Afterwards the ballet became more varied and romantic, with considerable changes of scenery and costume, often taken from a popular tale, such as the "Manon l'Escaut" of the Abbé Prevost, or the "Paul and Virginia" of Bernardin St. Pierre, the two most popular French narratives of the latter half of the eighteenth century. The later French ballets are like the modern romances of the French school, more brilliant and varied, but much more artificial, and trusting too much to sudden surprises and changes. and gained success on the stage, he has to in dumb show, in which opportunities are go through the rehearsals, which, of all tire- | created for dancing, and frequently for susome operations, are the most tiresome: and little do those who see an opera after rehearsal know what this ordeal is. The theatre, partially lighted by open shutters, and aided by an unsightly gas-pipe run up in front of the stage, producing neither the gladness of day nor the artificial brilliancy of night; the orchestra and all the performers in hats, bonnets, and great-coats; and the business, like a crab, or the pig of the Irishman, going forwards by dint of going backwards, the musical director stopping every now and then to recommence from a previous point; in short, whoever has had the patience and the curiosity to sit out one opera rehearsal would never repeat the process. It may be said that the bread of the singer is earned by the sweat of the brow; and this was last season no metaphor in the case of Lablache, a man of twenty stone weight, wearing in the dog-days, in the opera of the "Tempest," a dress of hairy skins, with even his arms and hands covered with mittens, imitating the tawny hide and clawnails of the brutish humanity of Caliban. But the attention to historical accuracy of costume, and the faithful representation of The best dancers are highly prized, and the architecture of particular periods, is receive salaries not much inferior to that of interesting and instructive: thus what the the best singers. Taglioni, in the height of French school of ballet has lost in easy and her reputation, used to receive from 2000 to unconstrained development of plot, has been 3000 francs per night, or from £80 to £120 partly regained by an approximation to the sterling. Male dancers are paid less. Per- illusion of time and place. There is far rot used to receive £60 per night during more historical, geographical, and archæothe period of his vigor. But dancers are logical learning in a modern French ballet liable to greater vicissitudes than singers; than formerly. Nothing, for instance, can be by a false step they may be lamed for weeks more striking than to see, as in "The Girl of or months; and even the strain of a tendon Ghent," (reproduced, by the by, in London may reduce a man to a secondary or ter- by Mr. Bunn with great ability,) a scene tiary position as a dancer-fortunate, as was exactly taken from one of Teniers's wedding the case with Perrot, if he has the general pictures, with several hundred figures in the capacity, to become ballet-master. The exact costume and colors of the periodQueen's Theatre has still the monopoly of the from the drunkard with his red stockings ballet, dancing in Covent Garden being con- and clogs, to the cavalier in the splendid fined to the so-called divertissements, which costume of the period, not to mention are introduced either in the regular course the dwarf piper on the beer-barrel; so of the business of an opera-such as coro- that we feel as if we looked out of a window nations, marriages, and village festivals-or near Antwerp in the middle of the sevento relieve the tedium between acts. In teenth century. If the rehearsal of an opera grand operas, such as those of Meyerbeer, is a laborious business, that of a ballet is the Queen's Theatre cannot compete with still more so; for in the former case all the Covent Garden; but the ballet preserves to persons engaged, from the first singer at the former a feature of attraction peculiarly £100 per night, down to the chorister at its own. ten shillings, have the requisite musical A ballet may be characterized as a fable knowledge; but in the case of the ballet, a great number of persons are employed The musical director is of course an excepwhose business is merely to wear a costume tion. Mr. Balfe received from Mr. Lumley and form part of a crowd. These supernu- £1000 for the season; which, considering his meraries require much drilling, and are most position at the very head of his profession wretchedly paid, so that if they have a as an English composer, and the only one family, it is a difficult matter to keep soul who ever was universally popular on the and body together; and while the singer continent, is not extravagant. This sum and dancer of the first class often ends life apart, the orchestra costs on an average in a luxurious villa, surrounded by every somewhat more than £100 per night. But comfort, the last stage of the supernume- if the musician has not the large income of rary is too often that described by the bard the singer or dancer, he is less liable to of terrible realities-the parish pauper vicissitudes. He runs neither the risk of asylum, with "the moping idiot and the spraining his ankle nor catching a chronic madman gay." cold; and long after the age when singers and dancers are past work, the musician can ply his employment, which, occasioning a healthy excitement, conduces to longevity, unless when efforts are made in which the We now pass from the stage to the orchestra, which, however subordinate in the English operas of a generation ago, and even in those of Italy up to the middle of last century, now demands a degree of complete-organic laws of nature are violated; such as ness, variety, and excellence which forms a subject of solicitude to the manager. This has resulted from the great importance which the wind instruments acquired in the age of Mozart, and more especially from the influence which the school of Beethoven has indirectly had upon the stage. Although the latter composed only one opera, yet the full power of the modern orchestra was never developed until his symphonies were in certain wind instruments being played by persons having a tendency to pulmonary disease. So much for the Queen's Theatre; Covent Garden will, we hope, on another occasion, furnish us with a still more varied spectacle. From "Bentley's Miscellany." produced; and it is since Meyerbeer gave LITERARY MEN OF THE LAST HALF up his early disposition to imitate the Rossinian school of melody, and became the legitimate successor of Beethoven in his varied transitions and rich instrumental coloring, that he has been acknowledged as the first composer of the operatic school, in which the orchestra is predominant, and has produced a revolution of powerful influence in the elevation of the orchestra in the lyric drama. A few years ago the orchestra of the Queen's Theatre amounted to 54 performers, and it is now increased to 74, composed as follows:-14 first violins; 14 second do.; 8 tenors; 8 violoncellos, and 8 double basses; 2 flutes; 2 clarionets; 2 oboes; 2 bassoons; 4 horns; 2 trumpets; 4 trombones; and lastly, 4 drums. The position of the orchestral performer is in emolument much inferior to that of the singer even of the second or third rank; the highest sum I ever recollect being paid to a musician being £5 per night. The recipient in this case was Signor Dragonetti, certainly the greatest double bass in our generation. CENTURY.* MR. GILLIES, we believe, is chiefly known to the public as a skillful translator of German and Danish literature, and as the founder of the Foreign Quarterly Review, an undertaking in which he embarked upon the advice of Sir Walter Scott. He was born and brought up in an old country house in Scotland, and completed his education in Edinburgh; but he tells us that he was so disgusted with the habits of the city, that he was rejoiced at being summoned back, by a fit of sickness, to the bleak solitude of the county of Kincardine. His temperament appears from the outset to have unfitted him for the ordinary labors and conflicts to which men are exposed who have to fight their way through the world. His health was bad, he was subject to fantastical depressions of spirits, and had acquired eccentric habits and odd views of life. • Memoirs of a Literary Veteran. By R. P. Gillies. London. Bentley. |