Article on the forthcoming opera season

“’Tis now the very witching time of opera, when greenrooms yawn and song itself breathes out contagion to this world. Yes, it has come at last. The final prospectus has been printed, the ultimate placard hung up, and now we are to enjoy the sweet and fair substantialities. There is nothing to do now but fold our hands and enjoy the goods the gods have provided. We know everything about everybody. You cannot mention a single item in the lives of any of the principal warblers, from Nilsson down, but what we know all about it. We have studied their lives better than their librettos, and Miss Gushington is as familiar with Mme. Nilsson’s personal history as she is with her Lucia and Violetta. Let us hope that something of the calm of satisfaction is to follow this stupendous flutter.

 

Much of the scenery at the Academy of Music has an archæological value—that is to say, it is of importance in reminding us what the tastes of our ancestors were ages ago. There is, in particular a Swiss scene whose tenacity of existence lends a melancholy interest to its periodic resurrection and discourages the hope that it will ever permanently return unto the dust. All that we, therefore, feel justified in begging is that it may not be made to stand for more than one quarter of the globe during the same season, but that its representative value may be strictly limited to the locality intended by the artist. When we find the same scene doing duty for Nova Zembla and Terra del Fuego good nature would prompt us to praise the ingenuity of the stage manager, but good taste, which is an equally valuable gift, would suggest the procural of another scene, and this is a suggestion which those who have the management of such affairs at the Academy cannot afford to neglect.

 

Mme. Nilsson, who is, of course, to be the principal attraction of the Strakosch season, will be welcome in whatever impersonation she appears. The desire to greet her warmly is so great that no rôle, however worn, will materially dampen the ardor. And since this is unquestionably the case the necessity of bringing out any new work might well be questioned by any management that was without ambition. Mr. Strakosch is not only an impresario, but an ambitious one, and therefore intends to produce at least one absolute novelty, the ‘Aïda,’ of Verdi, which has not yet been heard in Paris or London, and only in some of the secondary cities of Europe. Whether or not the title rôle will be represented by Mme. Nilsson is not so much the question as whether the opera as a whole will be so offered as to deserve the plaudits of intelligent judges. The supporters of Italian opera would be doing discredit to themselves to reserve all the prestige they are capable of conferring exclusively for one favorite prima donna, however brilliant in gifts and fascinating in social graces. But this is a consideration at which we only hint, confident that ‘Aïda’ will be so rendered as to throw a shadow of glory over the management.

 

A week after the Academy of Music opera season shall have got under weigh [sic] a rival and not inexperienced impresario will have started a campaign at the Grand Opera House, with a prima donna who successfully bore the brunt of last season here, and a tenor who has lived sufficiently long to have afforded almost every other part of the world, excepting the United States, an opportunity of hearing him to repletion. With rivalship [sic] of this description the season will not lack exceptional piquancy.”