Article on Ullman's Attempt to Start an Opera Company

"The formal renouncement of Mr. Ullman's engagements with Signor Brignoli and Susini puts an end to the mystifications which have so needlessly indulged in in regard to his plans for the winter. We are to have no Titiens [sic], and as matters look at present there is a chance that we shall have no Opera. We have plenty of singers here--some of them movelties--to composer an excellent company, but no one seems disposed to undertake the  risk of management. Mr. Ullman goes back to Europe, and Mr. Grau will touch nothing that does not offer him a certainty of profit. He made money last winter by his peculiar system of management, and he is not disposed to hazard it by giving the artists the salaries they demand. He says, and with truth, that so long as the directors of the Academy insist upon their present preposterously high rent for the building, it is impossible for any manager to get through a season without incurring serious losses. They must either abate their pretensions or the artists must play on joint account, which neither seem disposed to do. Thus matters stand for the present, and until those concerned get tired of doing nothing they are liekly to remain so. The only remedy for this periodically recurring difficulty is the construction of a new opera house, on a more economical scale than that of the present one, which is too large and too costly for the requirements of our public. With such privileges as these, reserved to themselves by the stockholders of the Academy, not to speak of the extravagant rent exacted, it is out of the question that any manager can pay his way. Abroad, Opera could not be carried on for a single season without a large subscription or a government subsidy. How, then, is it to be expected that without aid in any shape, and without full possession of the theatre--the stockholders receiving to themselves gratuitously all the best places--a manager can secure such foreign talent as will satisfy the public. We trust that the attention of some of our capitalists will be turned to this subject. We believe that no better investment can be found than that of a new opera house, costing at most from eighty to one hundred thousand dollars, and subject to no reservation of privileges. It offers the only solution that we can see to the existing difficulties."