As with singers, so with operas. I choose a work which, according to my judgment, ought to succeed, and cast it as well as I possibly can. It will not in any case please the public the first night; and I have afterwards to decide whether I shall make sacrifices, as with Faust, and run it at a loss in the hope of an ultimate success, or whether I shall cut the matter short by dropping it, even after a vast outlay in scenery, dresses, and properties, and after much time and energy expended at rehearsals.
When I brought out Cherubini's admirable Deux Journées (otherwise The Water Carrier) I was complimented by the very best judges on the beauty of the work, and also (how little they knew!) on its success. I received congratulations from Jenny Lind, from Benedict, from Hallé, from Millais, from the Baroness Burdett-Coutts. But there was not more than £97 that night in the treasury. Thereupon I made my calculation. It would have cost me £1,200 to make the work go, and I could not at that moment afford it. I was obliged, then, to drop it, and that after five weeks' rehearsals!
Some time afterwards I produced Rossini's Otello with a magnificent cast. Tamberlik was the "Otello," Faure the "Iago," Nilsson the "Desdemona." The other parts were played by Foli, Carrion (an excellent tenor from Spain), and others. All my friends were delighted to find that I had made another great success. I listened to their flattering words. But the treasury contained only £167 3s., for which reason Otello was not repeated.
In rebuilding Her Majesty's Theatre Lord Dudley did not think it worth while to consult me or any other operatic manager. He had the opportunity of erecting the only isolated theatre in London, and the most magnificent Opera-house in the world, for the shops in the Opera Colonnade and the adjoining hotel in Charles Street might at that time have been purchased for comparatively small sums. The Earl, however, as he himself told me, cared only to comply with the terms of his lease, which bound him to replace the theatre which had been destroyed by another of no matter what description, provided only that it had four long scenes and four short ones.
Messrs. Lee and Paine, the architects entrusted with the duty of covering the vacant site, acted after their own lights, and they succeeded in replacing two good theatres by a single bad one. The old Opera-house, despite its narrow stage, had a magnificent auditorium, and the Bijou theatre, enclosed within its walls, possessed a value of its own. It was let to Charles Mathews, when theatrical property possessed less value than now, for £100 a week; and Jenny Lind sang in it to houses of £1,400.
When the new theatre had been quite finished Lord Dudley was shown over it by the delighted architects. His lordship was a tall man, and his hat suffered, I remember, by coming into collision with the ceiling of one of the corridors. Turning to the senior partner, who was dying to catch from his aristocratic patron some word of satisfaction, if not of downright praise, the Earl thus addressed him—
"If narrow corridors and low ceilings constitute a fine theatre you have erected one which is indeed magnificent."
The architect, lost in confusion at being addressed in terms which he thought from his lordship's finely ironical demeanour must be in the highest degree complimentary, did nothing but bow his acknowledgments, and it was not until a little later that some good-natured friends took the trouble to explain to him what the Earl had really said.
CHAPTER XII.
THE NATIONAL OPERA-HOUSE—FOUNDATION DIFFICULTIES—PRIMÆVAL REMAINS—TITIENS LAYS THE FIRST BRICK—THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH THE FIRST STONE—THE OPERA AND PARLIAMENT—OUR RECREATION ROOMS.