The Times has had a sensible article on Opera affairs.
"The absence of competition (it remarks) has encouraged the extravagant demands of its proprietors, and to lower their pretensions is not an easy achievement; a promise having been originally given by a high personage (at that period the principal supporter of the Italian Opera) to the founder of the present building, that no licence should be granted to another house for Italian performances. That promise was made, when all circumstances concurred in showing that nothing but advantage could accrue from it to the improvements of the Opera itself, and to the gratification of its fashionable loungers. Things have, however, since then undergone a variety of changes, till they have almost presented the alternative, either that the public of this great metropolis shall learn to dispense with an Italian opera, or that they must submit to have one patched up in the manner best suited to the economical views enforced on the Impresario by the extravagant rent required."
A mixture of prodigality and mesquinerie has been the order of the day hitherto ; the prodigality will, probably, be discontinued, the mesquinerie made the ruling principle. The great performers have been paid exorbitant prices, the minor appointments placed on the narrowest possible footing. The improvement of the next campaign will, we are given to believe, consist in omitting the first extravagance, the other deficiency being left unremedied. We shall have no Pasta, and we shall have Castellis, Devilles, Giovannis, et us similes. With all the boasted success of the past season, the managers only shared 4000/. between them ; and they did not lay out one stiver on the properties of the theatre, an expense which is only postponed to next year—unless, indeed, they intend to conduct the theatre in the most beggarly conceivable style. By sparing this required outlay last year, they increased by so much their surplus of profit ; but the charge, or public disgust, must be encountered next season.
The Times observes " It has unfortunately happened, during a long series of years, that this theatre has been generally regarded as a foreign concern, with which national feeling was in no way to be connected; but this indifference has of late years been gradually converted into interest in proportion with the progress of musical taste, and it is with reference to that taste alone that all arrangements ought in future to be made. The modification in the attractive causes of the Italian Opera dates with the earlier displays of Madame Pasta's talents ; which, combining the most highly finished and cultivated vocal taste with dramatic powers of almost unequalled eminence, have gradually captivated attention, and finally rivettcd it to the stage."
We are confident that the writer of this paragraph would not consciously do an injustice to any individual ; and it is only ne
cessary to remind him, that the production of Don Giovanni by Mr. Ayrton first rendered the Italian opera popular in this country, and affected all classes with a relish for its beauties. Pasta has happily followed up this impression, and she has also profited by it, in no inconsiderable degree. It prepared the way for her success.
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