THEATRIC VICISSITUDE.
SUFFERING, from the terrible loss consequent upon the incantationso of " the Wizard of the North " at Covent Garden Theatre, Mr. Gye is about to retaliate on Anderson's former theatre : he is to • perform the conjuror's feat of putting the Royal Italian Opera, its audience, company, chorus, giant voice and all, into the Ly- ceum Theatre ; to which, by stress of circumstances, unable to secure Drury. Lane or the Haymarket, he is reduced. How he will get the Italian Opera in, or profit out of the house, a sympa- thizing public waits to see.
Music and the drama are undergoing sore trials and grave ex- periments just now. Norwich is debating whether it shall have another " festival" ; the " stars" eating up so much of the charity-funds, and the choral services being such effectual at- tractions though unaided by operatic stars. So again, while Opera is wandering to find an abode, a London cathedral adver- tizes its Sunday instrumental and vocal attractions. Neither Operahouse proper nor even Crystal Palace can compete; for they cannot, like the house over the water, " and some on this side, open on Sundays.
So—Kemble' Kean, Maeready gone—the grand drama is to be sought in "dramaticematie readings." On the stage it has sunk to raree show, even until it has become mingled with jugglery. Some friend of Rachel had been silly enough to set afloat a report of her "marriage "—after her reported death somewhere in South America ! Like her own ghost, she turns round and rebukes us for treating the world of art as if it were the ordinary world- " I have heard many clever people say," writes the tragedian, in the letter of which extracts are published by the Independence Beige, " that it is better to be maltreated by the press than to submit to its silence and its neglect. I have, then, to thank you once more for the notice which you have given me in the —. But why, my dear friend, have you occupied yourself for such a length of time with nothing but fancies of marriage, which you have invented in order to blame me ? and why suspect me-- again today of this inutility ? I have two sons, whom I adore ; I have thirty-two years upon my certificate of birth ; I have fifty upon my countenance—I will not say how many au reste. Eighteen years of passionate tirades upon the theatres ; hasty journeys to the ex- tent of every land ; Moscow winters • Waterloo treacheries ; the per- fidious sea ; the ingrate land,—behold things which soon age a little bit of a woman like me ! But God protects the brave, and he seems to have created expressly for me a little corner unknown to all the geographers, where I can forget my fatigues, my pains, my premature old age i Go, be just and kind, and accuse yourself of an inveterate love of teasing at my poor expense ; and then I will pardon you, especially as I hope to see you soon in Paris or in the country. By Jupiter, it is very genteel of me to
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act thus towards you. This letter is certainly not written by a ' great tra- gedienne,' but by a good girl, who calls herself—Boehm."
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