One evening a card was brought to me from a young gentleman, the son of an old musical friend of mine, requesting an interview. He told me that he had been promised the secretaryship of the Grand Opera (meaning Her Majesty's and Covent Garden, united under the new arrangement) for seven years at a salary of £800 a year, provided he lent £200 for a month to my philanthropic friend, who had organized the whole thing. It appeared to me like a dream. I could not understand it; but still, as nothing astonishes me in this world, I took it as a matter of course, and later in the day went over to Wandsworth to call on Mr. Gye, in order to see how matters stood.
On my entering, Mr. Gye said how pleased he was to leave operatic management for ever, and that he wondered how he had found the nerve to continue it so long. Before I could say a word to him, he desired me to be seated and handed me a cigar, when he began to inform me of his plans for the future. He told me he had secured by private treaty a vast estate in Scotland of some 20,000 acres, with the right of shooting and fishing. He was arranging, moreover, to purchase a large estate in Oxfordshire. Various guns had been ordered, with fishing rods and other appurtenances. Steps, too, had been taken for the sale of the house in which he was then living.
I made two or three attempts to get a word in, but without success; and at last I had scarcely the courage to hint that the projected arrangements might, possibly, not be carried out.
I explained, however, that on the following Monday a small payment of £10,000 would be due to me; also that a further deposit on Drury Lane would become payable, and that I should make that deposit, as it was probable, nay, very possible, that I should be called upon to resume my position at Drury Lane, instead of Covent Garden. I at the same time recommended Mr. Gye at all events to be prepared to open Covent Garden, as it wanted but some three or four weeks to the beginning of the season. This he replied he could not do, as the deposit he was to receive would not be payable before some three or four weeks. He still, moreover, doubted all I had been telling him.
On the Monday following I attended at the Egyptian Bank, which had been specially hired for the occasion, and on entering with my order for the payment of £10,000, found one small boy seated on a very high stool, drawing figures on a sheet of blotting paper. On my demanding £10,000 the boy turned deadly pale and was at first inclined to run. I explained to him that it was not his fault if the money was not forthcoming, but I requested him, in the presence of a witness I had brought with me, to present seven letters which I already had in my pocket, each one containing notice to the Directors that, they having failed to pay me my money at the appointed time, my contract as general manager was at an end. I at once informed Gye of what had occurred, recommending him again to get his Company together and re-engage Costa and the orchestra, as my own prospectus was to come out the middle of that week.
From what I afterwards learned, the £200 my musical friend's son was to have advanced prevented some thousands of circulars from being posted for want of stamps, and the printer from delivering the remainder of the circulars he had prepared for want of a deposit. I must add that Mr. Gye repeatedly thanked me for my straightforward conduct in preventing him from being practically ruined.
Considerable changes were necessary in adapting the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, for Italian Opera. I was obliged to have sundry discussions with the Committee before I could be allowed to alter the floor of the pit and boxes, and to take about twenty feet off the stage, its removal enabling me to add some two or three rows of stalls. I had, moreover, to decorate, clean, and carpet the house from top to bottom, the outlay for which, irrespective of the rent, cost me from £3,000 to £4,000. A further difficulty presented itself, as there were some six or seven hundred renters who were at that time allowed free admission to any part of the theatre, and it was only by temporizing with their representatives that I ultimately made an equitable arrangement satisfactory to all parties.
The season opened in due course, and a magnificent Company I was enabled to introduce: Mdlle. Titiens in the zenith of her powers; Christine Nilsson, who had made such a prodigious success the previous season at Her Majesty's; also Miss Clara Louise Kellogg, Mongini, Fraschini, Santley, etc. The performances were really of the first order, and Mozart's masterpieces were given with such strong combined casts as to attract the whole of London. In fact, the success was such as to paralyze the efforts of the rival manager.
CHAPTER IX.
PROPOSAL FOR AN OPERATIC UNION—TITIENS IN DUBLIN—HER SERVICES AS A PACIFICATOR—AUTUMN SEASON AT COVENT GARDEN—THE COMBINATION SEASON—IMMENSE SUCCESS—COSTA'S DESPOTISM—AN OPERATIC CONSPIRACY—LUCCA AND HER HUSBANDS.