THE MUSICIAN ABOUT TOWN. 295 
suaded to accept lower terms than they had ever taken at any 
previous festival. The fact is, had the band been equally unyield- 
ing with the foreign singers, the Gloucester festival for the present 
year must have dropped through altogether. The result of this 
conduct on the part of the band will be, that it will form a prece- 
dent for other festival committees to offer them char-work terms, in 
order that they may be enabled to meet the extravagant demands of 
the foreigners ; and in the event of the instrumentalists striking for 
their old wages, the committees will reserve a few good names to 
make a show in the bill, and fill up the orchestra with waifs and 
strays and academy boys, whose cue (and it is a laudable one) is, to 
consider remuneration a secondary object when barking for engage- 
ments. 
The theatres have hitherto made but little progress in musical 
matters this season ; for Drury Lane (which is now essentially an 
English opera house), with its excellent company of singers, its 
musical conductor, and first-rate band, has, in sea phrase, made no 
head-way atall. A system of puffing that would turn the stomach 
of a rhinoceros ; the vulgar style of dragging—not bringing—pieces 
out ; and the snow-storms of orders nightly showered into the house, 
have plunged this once flourishing establishment into the very mire 
of contempt. The season opened with Mozart’s Don Giovanni, in 
which Mr. Balfe was the hero, and he filled the part with much 
ability. Phillips's Leporello wanted bustle and humour ; qualities 
which Giubilei, with his Italian blood and associations, successfully 
infused into the character of Masetto. Miss Betts and Miss Poole 
were the Donna Anna and Elvira, and Mad. Albertazzi, whose ac- 
cession to the company. for a few nights was announced in corpulent 
type, performed the part of Zerlina. This undue exaltation of the 
lady’s name in the bills above the other characters in the opera, 
proved to be a detriment rather than a benefit to it. The manager 
did no more when he had engaged Malibran ; and the consequence 
was that exclusive attention was directed to Mad. Albertazzi, who, 
from the tameness of her performance, which was stagnant as a 
fish-pond, disappointed every one. Had she been set down for the 
part of Elyira, and Miss Romer (who has ten times her energy and 
vivacity) taken that of Zerlina, the cast would have been more com- 
plete. In the part of Annette in “ La Gazza Ladra,” Mad. Alber- 
tazzi was greatly successful. She has been educated in the modern 
Italian school of music, and, we suspect, is intimate with no other. 
Since the completion of her engagement, which occupied about a 
month, the company haye been repeating their old stock pieces, the 
