MADRID.
ITALIAN operas are performed here twice a week, alternately in the Teatro del Principe and in the Teatro della Cruz; thus the lovers of the opera are obliged to take boxes in both houses. None, indeed, but Italian operas are tolerated, and Rossini is the favourite composer. Hence piano-forte arrangements of his music are to be met with all over Madrid, and there is scarcely a female of the middle rank in life who has not acquired some degree of proficiency on the piano-forte. The guitar is almost entirely discarded. People alone of the lower class are now and then to be seen playing that instrument before their doors. Spanish music, too, is completely out of vogue, and the ladies invariably sing that of Italy, unless expressly entreated to sing a national air; so that the lively Spanish airs are now only to be heard in the mouths of the common people.