Article on the closings of the Italian opera and opera bouffe seasons, as well as Tammany Hall

“Three places of amusement have lately closed their doors. The Italian Opera, the Opera Bouffe and the Tammany have almost simultaneously confessed their inability to contend with the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. We are sorry for the managers who have lost money in these enterprises, but it cannot be regarded as an unmixed evil that the enterprises should have failed. Mr. Maretzek’s season should not, indeed, be called an absolute failure. At worst it has been a succès d’estime. Lefranc was at first decidedly triumphant. No tenor within the memory of such New-York opera-goers as are under middle age bade so fair to have the public at his feet. But partly because of the lack of other attractions, Lefranc was persistently overworked, his voice has steadily suffered in consequence, and at the inglorious close his popularity was ebbing swiftly and surely away. Mme. Briol, a conscientious but unpleasant singer and actress, was incapable of sustaining the interest of her audience as a prima donna, and Miss Kellogg, charming young artist as she is, could not alone in this department support the responsibilities of the season. Mlle. Lami has done herself credit in the contralto parts, and, vocally speaking, has so little to desire as to make us regret unavoidable disadvantages in other respects. The baritone and basso rôles have been from the first unsatisfactorily filled, and although we gladly make exception in favor of Signor Reyna in Mephistopheles and in parts of William Tell, the conspicuous weakness of these particular voices has militated sadly against the general effect. The chorus and orchestra have been fair, the scenery and decorations shabby, and the variety given less than was expected. Once more the question whether New-York will support Italian opera seems to have been unfavorably answered. But are the public to blame for not sustaining performances so manifestly defective? We cannot say that they are. Yet Mr. Maretzek, with his twenty years of experience, say the public will not pay for a better order of things; that he must offer what he can see his way to afford, and take the chances of remuneration. Is the manager to blame for declining to lose his money for this public benefit? We cannot say that he is. Where, then, does the fault lie? As usual, probably between the two extremes. We believe that Mr. Maretzek underrates the present capacity and willingness of the public to pay a good price for a good operatic article; and that the public do not altogether do justice to the manager’s earnest desire to win their favor because it is so checked and restrained by his bitter losses in striving to gain it before. Perhaps the stockholders of the Academy have been less generous this season than many of them in other matters are accustomed to be. We would not, however, attach any censure on partial information, and will merely express the conviction that if New-York is ever really to have an Italian opera that will compare for excellence with those of the chief cities of Europe, it must primarily be built upon the contributions of wealthy and public-spirited citizens who are willing to pay very handsomely indeed to give the thing a fair start. And in so far as the need for this seems to be demonstrated by the late failure, our suggestion that it cannot be regarded as an unmixed evil is intended to have force. Touching the other cases, the reasons are different. The resuscitation of opera bouffe was at best a doubtful experiment, and, although we sought to do every justice to the enterprise of the managers, and to the singular merit of Mrs. Howard Paul as the Grande Duchesse, we never attempted to disguise our lack of sympathy with efforts to revive this species of entertainment. Perhaps it is better to have managed and lost than never to have managed at all, and as everyone acknowledges that Messrs. Byrne & Starr showed a good deal of courage and energy in their short-lived effort, it has probably not been made in vain. The epitaph of the Tammany may be more briefly written. The performances here were vicious, without being brilliant; coarse, without being alluring. We have certainly seen nothing in its life that so became it as the leaving of it; and unless the Tammany turns over a decidedly new leaf, we shall not be at all sorry to find its eclipse a permanent one.”