ON THE PRESENT STATE OF THE OPERA IN LONDON. 237 



struction been as efficient as that pursued in other conservatories, 

 self-interest would have prompted managers to secure the talent 

 matured within its precincts. It may, however, be feared that the 

 course of studies is not of the description to enable the pupils to keep 

 pace with the increasing taste for classical music. The present 

 dearth of great singers may be ascribed to the mistaken and perni- 

 cious doctrine that mere mechanical development of the vocal or- 

 gans will enable the student to cope successfully with the music of 

 any school. In the time of Billington, Bartleman, Mara, and Ca- 

 talani, whatever might be the elementary training of a singer, an 

 intimate acquaintance with Handel, Gluck, Mozart, and Winter, 

 was considered indispensable, because among these composers lay 

 the daily routine of their public performances. At that period a 

 display of mind was a safer passport to success than rapidity of exe- 

 cution, and in this manner were singers forced into greatness. 

 Sti/le has been gradually lowering in proportion as it assumed an 

 instrumental character. Italian vocal music has become more florid 

 and less difficult of comprehension, and the fashionable style of the 

 day may almost be denominated a series of exercises. It is infinitely 

 more difficult to do justice to an air, especially one of a grand and 

 imposing character, than to accomplish any accumulation of the flo- 

 rid passages that occur in Italian solfeggios. It may, however, be 

 hoped that a re- action is taking place ; certain it is that the demand 

 for classical music is rapidly increasing. Let the directors of the 

 Academy not remain behind ; let them prepare the pupils to answer 

 the demands of the public by acquiring an intimate knowledge of 

 the great masters on whom time has confirmed the suffrages be- 

 stowed by their cotemporaries. 



It is needless to expatiate on the advantages which young and 

 inexperienced singers would derive from habitually co-operating with 

 performers who have attained the beau ideal of their respective de- 

 partments. Let it not, however, be understood that I would advo- 

 cate the mistaken kindness which would seek to thrust tyros into 

 parts in which the audience has a right to expect the exhibition of 

 matured powers ; let it ever be borne in mind that the possession 

 of the highest talents will prove no exemption from the necessity of 

 undergoing a course of drudgery which, to the idle and the presump- 

 tuous, may appear a degradation, but which will eventually prove the 

 surest means of preparing genius for those daring flights which the 

 astonished world is apt to ascribe solely to innate and momentary 

 impulse. Any plan which would enable those Royal Academy pu- 

 pils evidently gifted with dramatic talent, systematically to obtain 



