118 THE MUSICIAN ABOUT TOWN. 
ful sciences and arts in their countrymen, and not submit to be the 
dupes of humbug, more especially of foreign humbug. With the 
exception of the orchestra and the principal singers at the Italian 
Opera, and one or two of the dancers (for the majority of these are 
offensive posture-makers), the general management of that theatre 
is a disgrace to the country. In scenic effect, theatrical properties, 
theatrical illusion, machinery, and in all the minor details of stage 
direction and conduct, it is half a century behind Covent Garden ; 
with which establishment it will no more bear comparison than the 
old oil lamps of the last century in Grosvenor-square, can compete in 
brilliancy with the modern gas-lights in plebeian Oxford-street— 
With their individual power and collective influence, what might 
not half-a-dozen noble subscribers achieve in the way of reform at 
the Italian Opera, if they were so inclined? Under its present 
management, the stage business goes on with a perfect contempt of 
all scenic propriety and good order. The lessee appears to consider 
that the whole of his duty to his subscribers is comprised in the en- 
gaging of good singers and dancers, while the rest of the materiel is 
scarcely an affair of even secondary consideration: it may shift as it 
can for itself. The supporters of the establishment may rest satis- 
fied with at most two or three new operas in the course of the sea- 
son ; while, in the same lapse of time, at Covent Garden theatre the 
manager will have produced (and in a style of unexampled magni- 
ficence) half-a-dozen revivals from the highest classical school inthe 
art, with almost the same number of original dramas. What im- 
portant revival has Mr. Laporte brought forward this last or, in- 
deed, any former season? and what have been his new pieces? 
Since our last number went to press, a virgin opera has been pro- 
duced at Her Majesty’s Theatre. We have been favoured with a 
composition which had not previously for months been running the 
circuit of the Italian, Austrian, and Parisian theatres. Mr. Balfe’s 
* Falstaff” may not equal in merit the best productions of Pacini or 
Donizetti, but it was decidedly better music than four-fifths of that 
which we have heard in the same house from those fashionable 
composers. Yet “ Falstaff” (perhaps because it was the work of a 
native) was endured only for three or four nights. This gircum- 
stance was the more mortifying since the “ libretto” was positively 
respectable (for a modern opera), and the performers evinced a una- 
nimous interest in the success of the composer. The piece had not 
received sufficient rehearsal ; and we heard that Lablache expressed 
a wish to have more time to study, and give that full and rich de- 
velopement to the principal character upon which the very existence 
ee 
