enclose some particulars of the work of a few of
the chief State and municipally aided operas of Germany and Austria, to show your correspondent " Whig" (Spectator, February 13th) the excellent results obtained abroad by State operas. I would also like to point out that the letting of an opera-house built by public money to any syndicate would be doing exactly the thing which chiefly contributes to inartistic results. People must realise that a subvention means money voted in order that the opera may be run independently of financial profit. The opera at present in London is run with the idea of securing some profit to the syndicate, and therefore at prices which exclude poorer people from obtaining anything like a comfortable seat. In order to show what is produced in the opera-houses abroad, it will perhaps be better to confine oneself to the month of January. During that month the Royal Opera of Dresden performed twenty-seven different works, including five by Wagner, two by Mozart, Berlioz's " Benvenuto Cellini," Beethoven's " Fidelio," Mehul's " Joseph," Gounod's " Faust," d'Albert's "Die Abreise," Rubinstein's "Der Damon," Weber's " Freischiitz," and works by Verdi, Massenet, Mas- cagni, Humperdinck, Auber, Meyerbeer, &c. In addition to this, three symphony concerts were given. The prices charged for admission vary, so perhaps it will be better to give the most expensive ones charged for the Wagner dramas :— Seat in the best boxes...
•••
Seat in box, third gallery Fifth gallery ...
Side gallery ...
The ordinary prices charged are from M.1 to 25 pfennige less. It is hardly necessary to state that the Dresden ensemble is the best in Europe. At the Imperial Opera at Vienna during the same month twenty-four different operas were performed, including works by Wagner, Tschaikowsky, Charpentier, Puccini, Mozart, Richard Strauss, &c. The prices are some- what higher, stalls ranging from K.12 (first row) to K.8, pit K.7 to K.6, top gallery K.1.20. During the same period at Munich fifteen different operas were produced, including works by Max Schillings and Hugo Wolf. The compara- tively small number of operas is owing to the fact that plays too are given at the Munich National Theatre. At the average German Stadt-Theater the same conditions prevail. During January Frankfurt gave nineteen operas, Hamburg twenty-two, Cologne twenty-two, and Breslau twenty-four.— Hoping these facts may be of some interest to " Whig," I
• •e •1111
M.8
M.6 and M.5 M.4 and M.3-50
M.1 am, Sir, &c., C. SYMONS.
95 Philbeach Gardens, S.W. •
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