Article on the Forthcoming Seasons of Max Maretzek and Tony Pastor

Part of the “City Summary.

“We are threatened with an overdose of imported opera—probably about half of what is promised may be performed; Italian opera directors have a happy faculty of putting on paper a great deal in the way of what they intend to do, who they intend to present to the notice of the opera habitues, and many new lyric gems they mean to offer the patrons of music in this great city; all of which is respectfully submitted, but not always fulfilled. Tony Pastor, who has opened his opera house in the Bowery, opposite Spring street, will no doubt be more successful with his troupe than Maretzek with his. Maretzek wields a heavy baton, but Tony is his own prima donna, tenor, etc., so that in his case there is no fear of ‘indisposition,’ or other ailments to which Max’s refractory people are so addicted. Already Tony has got the whip hard of Max, for he is in full song, with his house crowded every night. In fact, Tony Pastor’s entertainments take remarkably well on the east side, composed as they are of singing, dancing, gymnastic, [sic] minstrel, and various other performances; we notice a great many former patrons of the Old Bowery in attendance at Tony Pastor’s Opera House; the same class of people who visit the old theatre are of that sort who much favor those diversified performances which are now attracting such large audiences to the great comic singer’s opera house; Max, on the other hand, cannot look for much of this patronage; he must rely on his own set—a bad lot now that the war is over, contracts among the things of the past, shoddy of no account and coal oil precarious. We shall certainly bet on Tony Pastor’s Opera House in the Bowery.”