ON THE PRESENT STATE OF THE OPERA IN LONDON. 235 



in directing public attention. Why are the vocalists at a theatre, 

 supported by an immense expenditure of English money, to be 

 exclusively Italian ? Granting the impossibility of procuring from 

 any other country than Italy four singers equal to the principals of 

 the present corps, does it necessarily follow that IMad. Castelli, Sig- 

 nor Galli, Signor di Angioli, Signor Winter, and a host of equally 

 accomplished performers, are more competent to illustrate the beau- 

 ties of the parts allotted to them, than some of the natives of this 

 less favoured isle ? Why are artists of acknowledged talents, such 

 as Mrs. Seguin, Miss Betts, Miss ShirreiF, Miss Romer, Mr. Wil- 

 son, Mr. Phillips, finally why are the pupils of the Royal Academy 

 of Music, pertinaciously excluded from a field of exertion equally 

 calculated to form and mature their talents, and to bring rising 

 genius under the notice of the public ?* No satisfactory reason can 

 be assigned either for the preference or the exclusion : the system 

 militates alike against the interests of the public and the improve- 

 ment of British art. The inferior Italian performers are well 

 known to be inefficient in solos, and useless in concerted pieces. 

 Then how, inquires some ingenuous reader, do they succeed in ob- 

 taining an engagement } or why, on being found, after a fair trial, 

 incompetent, is that engagement renewed ? The manager and the 

 conductor are foreigners, and as long as the indolent, good natured, 

 and uninstructed public will pay for the privilege of listening to 

 performers who can neither sing nor act, so long will those who 

 hold the purse continue to pension their own friends and country- 

 men at the expense of John Bull. To the public, then, does the 

 blame attach of allowing the engagement of incompetent perform- 

 ers, and of sanctioning the exclusive performance of the operas of 

 one monotonous school. While the latter course is persevered in, 

 it is not material how the subordinate parts are filled ; but if Mo- 

 zart, or any other German composer, is to be justly appreciated, it 

 is indispensable that all the performers shall be artists who tho- 

 roughly understand the music. 



The privation of pleasure sustained on the part of the audience 

 is, however, a minor consideration, in comparison to the injustice 

 inflicted on the young singers of our own country. If the stage is 

 the only field in which a singer can hope to attain the first rank in 

 his profession, it is likewise that in which the greatest combination 



* While this is in the press. Miss F. Wyndham has been introduced first 

 in the opera bufFa, afterwards in the Italian opera. It may be hoped that 

 this precedent will be followed systematically. 



