The evening of the concert arrived; but the public as well as my own artists were debarred from entering the doors unless they first paid for admission to the Exhibition, the whole of the gate money having been pledged to some banker in Liverpool.
The concert gave great satisfaction, but the receipts only reached some £70 or £80; of which to the present moment I have been unable to obtain my share.
As I had to pay Mdlle. Fohström £50, Del Puente £40, and all the others in proportion, I found myself, counting the hotel bills, some £180 out of pocket.
The day after the concert we all reached London. As it was now the 18th of June it was too late to think of giving a London season; and my doings were limited to my benefit, which took place at Drury Lane under the immediate patronage of Her Majesty the Queen and H.R.H. the Prince of Wales. Mdme. Patti volunteered her services on this occasion, the Theatre, kindly placed at my disposal by Mr. Augustus Harris, being crowded.
CHAPTER XV.
BACK IN THE OLD COUNTRY—THE LONDON SEASON—SLUGGISH AUDIENCES—MY OUTSIDE PUBLIC—THE PATTI DISAPPOINTMENTS—THE "SANDWICH'S" STORY.
SHORTLY afterwards I organized a very strong opera party, determining, during the coming September, to revisit the English provinces, which I had rather neglected during the previous seven or eight years. I, therefore, arranged to visit Dublin, Cork, Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Birmingham, etc., etc., resolved on giving a series of excellent performances. Engagements were concluded with Mdlle. Alma Fohström, Mdme. Nordica, Mdlle. Dotti, Mdlle. Marie Engle, Mdme. Hastreiter, Mdlle. Bianca Donadio, Mdlle. Jenny Broch, together with Signor Frapolli, Signor Runcio, Signor Del Puente, Signor Padilla, Signor Ciampi, Signor Vetta, a promising young basso, and Signer Foli; my conductors being Signor Arditi and Signor Vianesi.
My performances were admirably given; which was readily acknowledged by the whole of the provincial Press. But during the seven or eight years I had been away a younger generation had grown up and the elder ones had gone elsewhere. Inferior English Opera seemed now to be preferred to my grand Italian Opera; and it was only after I had been playing three or four nights in a town that the public began to understand the superiority of the latter.
In Dublin we had to feel our way with the performances, which culminated on the last night with a crowded house. I was anxiously expecting the arrival of Mdlle. Fohström, who had been delayed in Russia through the illness of a relative. She made her appearance at Dublin in the latter part of September to one of the most crowded houses I have ever seen.
We afterwards visited Cork, where I fear, as in Mdme. Gerster's case some years previously, Mdlle. Fohström took the germs of typhoid fever, which developed some ten days afterwards. Whilst singing at the grand concert of the Liverpool Philharmonic the lady found herself scarcely able to move, much to the astonishment of myself as well as the Committee. She, however, got through her work, and came on to Manchester, where she lay in bed for nearly three months, which was, of course, a great drawback to our success.