Draper English Opera

“[A]nd on Saturday a grand matinee, consisting of A Night in Rome and the last act of the Doctor of Alcantara, will be given.”

indicates a matinee and an evening performance (at 8 p.m.). The AD only indicates the matinee. 

“At the French theatre, Fourteenth street, near the Sixth avenue, A Night in Rome, with the last act of the Doctor of Alcantara, will be played at a grand matinee, conducted in the usual good style of the establishment.”

“The two benefits of Miss Harrison and Mr. Eichberg last week at the handsome little theatre on Fourteenth street were eminently successful. The Doctor of Alcantara and a Night in Rome held the boards of English Opera the entire week, and despite the unreasonable height of the thermometer were very numerously attended every night.  Both operettas surprised us considerably.  Mr. Eichberg is a Prussian and a disciple of the music of the future. We expected to find in his compositions mysticism, heaviness and oppressive technique, which would have in English opera at least, consigned them to oblivion.  But instead of a foolish and useless display of his powers in this line he has, in the two operettas above named, judiciously confined himself within the limits of comic opera.  Reading the librettos over carefully he has introduced the lightest and most enjoyable music we have heard during the past long protracted season, in the most appropriate parts developing and throwing into relief the salient points of the subject. Of his interpreters it is hard to make any distinction.  Miss Richings is a painstaking, conscientious artist, who is always up to the standard of the most fastidious of the audience. Miss Harrison, Mrs. Mozart and Messrs. Castle, Campbell, Peakes, Seguin, Wylie and the rest of the company do full justice to Mr. Eichberg’s works, and are ever enjoyable. The management of the English opera commenced under rather unfavorable auspices, considering the lateness of the season and the fact that the public had become cloyed with the music of a nine months’ season, but the success of their enterprise ought to convince them that   English opera properly brought out is the American idea of music.  Italian and German opera, exotics at most, cannot be placed in competition with light, sparkling English operettas before an American audience and succeed well.  We hope, then, that the fall season will see English opera a permanent institution in the metropolis.”