Venue(s):
Academy of Music
Proprietor / Lessee:
Max Maretzek
Event Type:
Play With Music
Status:
Published
Last Updated:
5 August 2016
“The suspension of the performances of Italian opera this week at the Academy makes a sort of lull in the amusement season, which began this fall rather early, and needed a little break before the approach of the engrossing gaieties of December and January. In fact, the second operatic season should not have followed so closely on the heels of the first. As it is, we can the better get along with the short vacation, as we have already had more of opera—both Italian and French—than we generally get at this time of the year.”
“Maretzek was forced to close the doors of the Academy of Music for the rest of the season because of the lack of support from the audience to cover his costs. He is currently working out a plan to reduce the costs by using a smaller budget. We hope the performers will agree with a smaller salary and that they realize that to keep the opera alive is in their interest.…
…Since the support of the upper class for Maretzek’s opera drastically decreased, he was forced to lower the admission ticket prices to what they were before the war in order to include the lower classes as patronage….
“We think that the example which Mr. Max Maretzek has set, of reducing the prices of admission to the Italian opera and the German drama at the Academy of Music, might profitably be followed by some of the other places of amusement in the City. If we cannot have the ante-bellum rates, we might at least have a compromise with the war rates now enforced.”