Jullien, coming finally to the end of his resources, was obliged to call a council of war. It consisted of Sir Henry Bishop, Sir George Smart, Planché, Gye, Marezeck, and myself.
He talked wildly of the different operas he proposed to mount, and finally came to Iphigenia in Tauris, which, like many others, is promised yearly by the London managers. Impatient at my silence he turned upon me:
“Confound it all! surely you know that?”
“Certainly I know it. What do you want me to tell you?”
“How many acts there are, how many characters, what voices and, above all, the style of setting and costume.”
“Take a pen and paper and I will tell you. Four acts, three men: Orestes, baritone; Pylades, tenor; Thoas, high bass; a grand woman’s part, Iphigenia, soprano; a small one, Diana, mezzo-soprano. The costumes you will not like, unfortunately; the Scythians are ragged savages on the shores of the Black Sea; Orestes and Pylades are shipwrecked Greeks. Pylades alone has two dresses—in the fourth act he comes in in a helmet——”
“A helmet!” cried Jullien, excitedly; “we are saved! I’ll write to Paris for a golden helmet with a pearl coronet, and an ostrich plume as long as my arm. We’ll have forty performances.”
“Prodigious!” as good Dominie Sampson says.
Needless to say, nothing happened. Reeves, the divine tenor, laughed at the bare idea of singing Pylades, and Jullien quitted London shortly after, leaving his theatre to go to pieces.