Article on the welcome operatic activity of the 1869 fall season

“After having dwelt upon the gloomy prospect of being deprived of opera throughout the whole Winter, we now seem likely to be all but surfeited. English opera, as we have already had occasion to announce, can be now listened to at the French Theatre, where ‘The Puritan’s Daughter’ will be sung all this week. On and after Friday next, German singers will tenant the Stadt Theatre, commencing a brief season with Mozart’s ‘Magic Flute.’ The singers in question are Mesdames Rotter, Frederici and Johannsen, and Herren Himmer, Armand, Formes, Steinecke, Hermanns and Weinlich. And next week a full company of French artistes are to appear in ‘Le Prophète,’ at the Academy of Music. The names of the members of this troupe are before us now [sic, all names henceforth]. MM. Delabranche and Tabardi are the tenori robust, M. Geribank is the tenor di grazia and Mlles. Bleau, Audibert and Fauschetti are the prime donne. All are favorably known in France and Beglium, where they have been attached to the principal theatres. It is proposed that the season they are to begin on or about Monday shall endure six weeks, and be made memorable, we may add, not only by an excellent vocal rendering of the works produced, but by a (promised) superb stage dress for each. At the close we are to have German opera at the French Theatre, by a fresh troupe now being organized in Europe by M. Henri Wertheimber, and also a series of Italian representations at the Academy, under the management of Mr. Maretzek.”