Maretzek Italian Opera: L’Africaine: Mazzoleni Benefit
Event Information
Venue(s):
Academy of Music
Manager / Director:
Max Maretzek
Conductor(s):
Carl Bergmann
Event Type:
Opera
Record Information
Status:
Published
Last Updated:
29 August 2018
Performance Date(s) and Time(s)
06 Mar 1866, EveningProgram Details
Performers and/or Works Performed
Citations
We notice with regret that the season is drawing rapidly to a close. The Director announces that hereafter the regular performances will take place only on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday—Tuesday (heretofore a regular night,) being set aside for the benefits of the artists. Signor Mazzoleni takes his benefit on Tuesday next. He has deserved well of the public, and will certainly be remembered according to his desserts. The ‘African’ is the opera selected for the occasion.”
Mazzoleni “has never sung better than this season.”
Mazzoleni is “an artist who is esteemed highly, and rightly so, by the public.”
“An exceedingly good house witnessed the performance of the ‘African’ last evening, which was given for the benefit of Signor Mazzoleni, and given better than we have heard it this season. For the sake of a few paltry subscriptions this work is now shelved, or performed at best on benefit and off nights. It is, nevertheless, the most popular item in the repertoire, and invariably attracts fine audiences. Large communities and small subscriptions cannot be reconciled. The small subscribers demand a change of opera, when the public requires none. The few govern the many, and the public suffer. Meyerbeer's opera, in this way, has been suppressed. It is not given because two or three hundred people are tired of it. It should be performed because two or three thousand people are ready to pay their money whenever it is announced.”