THE OPERA IN ENGLAND: SOME NOTES AND

REMINISCENCES.

NE has only to read the memoirs of Lumley, Bunn, and other Opera managers, the various articles, reviews, and paragraphs written in their time, to see what difficulties the operatic impresario has from time immemorial had to encounter and contend with. Even from the time of Handel, and no doubt long before, the Opera manager's position has been a sort of Tom Tiddler's ground, which everybody has considered a legitimate arena for the exposition of his views, whether he knew anything of Opera or not.

Although the great majority of critics have, by their knowledge, integrity, and appreciation of the difficulties to be surmounted, encouraged those who are so bold as to enter into the lists of operatic management, by giving a fair and even generous support to their endeavours, on the other hand, an operatic manager has to deal with a small number of anonymous opponents who take sides either for or against any particular person who may or may not have enlisted their sympathies, for reasons best known to themselves.

To such a pitch has this come that an Editor of a fashionable weekly journal for men and women compares the performances of high-class Opera, with all the leading artists from the best theatres in the world, with the business of a pork butcher; that the critic of the paper admits that he never writes an impartial notice; and when another critic compares the Opera to an eating-house, it is no wonder that foreigners come to the conclusion that we are not an artistic or musical nation.

"A policeman's life is not a happy one," and anyone who courts the pleasures of being an operatic impresario must be an enthusiast of a very remarkable kind. Just as the bicyclist who rides from John o' Groat's to Land's End, or from Calais to far Cathay, with all the perils and unknown adventures through Siberian forests and the seething populations of

China, must be prepared for every possible obstacle that he may meet on the road, and, notwithstanding that he has crossed the two walls of China, is told by those who profess to know better that no such walls exist, so the impresario must be prepared for storms and dangers, and must emulate the amateur yachtsman who looks on the very dangers of the Bay of Biscay as the excitement which makes the voyage interesting; in short, he must run his opera house as the yachtsman keeps his yacht.

I have often been asked why I do not go in for yachting, or shooting, or racing, or some such sport-my answer has always been that where other men keep their yachts I keep an opera house; where others have their grouse and partridges I have my baritones and my sopranos, who give me quite as much excitement and perhaps leave me with a bit in hand.

A manager may make his plans and arrange everything in a manner that seems to make success certain, and yet at the last moment some coup de tête or more remunerative offer may turn his plans into a distinct failure. For instance, when Benjamin Lumley in 1852 had engaged Mdlle. Wagner and Madame Sontag, that which promised to be the most brilliant season was by the eccentric, unreasonable, and avaricious conduct of his artists turned into so disastrous a failure that the glories of Her Majesty's Theatre died from that moment, and the hopes and interests of its impresario were for ever ruined.

About this time the opposition opera house at Covent Garden, under Signor Persiani and Mr. Beale, was started. The pitfalls and disappointments that awaited the enthusiastic promoters of the scheme are matters of history; the large fortunes lost by them and later by Delafield, who dropped £100,000 in a very short time, were not enough to quench the enthusiasm of their successors, and although Frederick Gye, who reaped the benefit of the disasters of his predecessors by getting the theatre practically for a mere song, carried it on for some thirty years with everything in his favour, he finished up by owing so large a sum that the theatre had to be turned into a limited company, the syndicate being composed of gentlemen who made up for their paucity in numbers by the large sums they contributed to keep the affair going. They were well known in society-in fact, consisted of such men as Prince Hohenlohe, Lord Lathom, the Lord Chamberlain, Mr. Wynne, and others—and every influence that could be brought to bear was enlisted on behalf of the operatic venture; but although a very

large sum was found by these gentlemen and their friends, it came to grief in no less than two years.

Then came the time when the theatre was closed, except for a season of twelve nights with Adelina Patti, supported by a scratch crew, and after that came a season conducted according to Italian rules, ¿.e., a few of the well-known stars, and a lot of unknown artists, who were only too glad to sing for a " song" provided they got an introduction to the public.

It was during this season that I went to Covent Garden and heard a so-called performance of William Tell, in which one of the most marvellous scenes ever imagined by a poet or musician-I mean the second act, the meeting of the Cantons-was represented in the good old Continental fashion by some thirty choristers. No one who had seen this marvellous tableau when my father held sway on the stage at Covent Garden, in the sixties, could help sighing at the falling off and the absurdity of the situation.

I went another night to see the Traviata, and once more to see Lucrezia Borgia, and came away only astonished that even the small number who formed the audience could have been induced to take the trouble to go to see such a performance, and I felt impelled to try myself to represent Opera in such a manner as would be a credit and not a disgrace.

With this object I began to look about and inquire as to what rising artists had lately shown promise in the various opera houses on the Continent. I felt that Opera could not depend solely upon those who had been before the English public so many years. I felt that there surely must be as good fish in the sea as had been taken out of it, the only question being to secure them, which I forthwith set about doing.

I must admit that I did not contemplate the enormous expense that this would put me to; third or fourth class artists could be had by the shoal, and at any price one would like to offer—many, indeed, would be willing to pay for the privilege of singing; but directly it became a question of the best of each opera house, the terms demanded were enough to dismay and frighten the boldest.

Another difficulty I had to put up with was the bad reputation that London had by this time made for itself with the Italian singers, for many had gone back without having gone through the formality of receiving the salary due to them, and although this was by no means a new experience in Italian towns, they would not think of risking the

perils of the ocean between Dover and Calais, and coming to so distant a land across the seas, without feeling that they were to be very well paid for the enormous risks they believed they would have to face in the Straits of Dover.

About this time South America, where the operatic season takes place in their winter (which in the southern hemisphere is at the same period as our summer), was in the height of its prosperity; money was abundant, profits were large and quickly realised, and money was freely spent, especially for high-class music. When I offered many an engagement I was confronted with the competing offers for the Argentine Republic or for Brazil. It was useless to point out that if they did not like the sea or to go so far from home, London must be preferable to towns that were almost at the Antipodes-they only knew that both were across the sea, and they could not distinguish the difference between Buenos Ayres or Rio Janeiro and Folkestone or Dover. They had heard of the perils of the yellow fever in Rio Janeiro, but it was useless to endeavour to explain the difference between that port and Doverthey knew that both were over the sea, and that was enough.

I had made many engagements, I had decided to give my Season, and what was more, I had publicly announced my intention of so doing. I had made up my mind to wipe out the old reproach that operatic managerial promises were like the proverbial pie-crust. I therefore decided, at whatever cost, to carry my scheme through.

I arrived in Madrid with a letter of introduction to Luigi Mancinelli, whom I wished to engage as my conductor, but when I explained to him my plans, and gave him to understand that I expected and was prepared for a loss on the season, and that I was doing this more as a matter of art and personal gratification than anything else, I made a very bad impression on him (so he has since told me), and it was quite on the cards that he would refuse to see me again, thinking that I was either one of the mad Englishmen he had read about, or else one of those chevaliers d'industrie who get a company together without intending to pay them should affairs go wrong.

In Italy it is a custom when singers make engagements that they should receive one quarter of the season's salary on the signing of the engagement, a second quarter on arriving in the town where they are to give the performances, a third when the season is half over, and the fourth quarter seldom if ever, although it is supposed to become due at the end of the season. Many artists have told me that it would be considered

very bad taste were they to ask for it, and very ridiculous for them to waste their time by waiting for it in the town when the season was over, and that in fact it might do them professional damage for other engagements were it known that they had insisted upon it.

Of course this does not apply to a few of the better theatres, where the manager is known to pay up in full according to the written engagement; in that case, however, very often a receipt will be taken in advance for some part of the salary, although it is never paid.

There are other systems adopted for reducing the face amount payable on an artist's contract. Some artists hold out for a certain sum, but if the manager is willing to insert their price in the contract, he may get a mutual arrangement by which twenty or twenty-five per cent. of the amount shall not be paid-on condition always that it is kept a secret and that nobody shall know anything at all about it. The curious part is, however, that the secret arrangement always leaks out, but the artist, like the ostrich, buries his head in the sand and thinks nobody knows anything about it.

A private letter is generally the machinery by which this arrangement is made, unless, indeed, it is endorsed on the copy of the engagement held by the manager, which is preferable, in case the letter should become missing, and saves many possible discussions.

The favourite arrangement, however, is for the manager to share a commission with an agent, the arrangement being that every artist shall be engaged through that agent, and pay six per cent. commission, which is to be equally shared between the manager and the agent, unless, indeed, the manager (as in certain cases I have known) prefers to take the lot himself, constituting himself manager and agent all in one.

I remember one gentleman who intended giving a season in opposition to my own offering to lay down his arms on condition that I would engage him as manager, agent, or representative, or under any other title I pleased, paying him so much per annum, but constituting him the sole person who should make the engagements, with my artists. This he informed me was very common, and the usual way of doing business. Should I agree with any artist upon an engagement, I must then inform the singer that he must make his engagement through my so-called representative, who would charge six per cent. for his valuable services, and, as he explained, would give me half, thus not only recouping me the salary he was to receive, but giving me a profit, possibly, into the bargain.