"I do not know whether it is the hall which makes good music; but, sapristi, what I do know is that I lost none of your work and found it admirable. That's the truth.
"Your
"CARLO."
The magnificent Opéra had been opened sixteen months previously, January 5, 1875, and the critics had considered it their duty to attack the acoustics of that marvellous house built by the most exceptionally competent man of modern times. It is true that the criticism did not last, for when one speaks of Garnier's magnificent work it is in words which are eloquent in their simplicity, "What a fine theater!" The hall obviously has not changed, but the public which pays to Garnier his just and rightful homage.
CHAPTER XII
THE THEATERS IN ITALY
The performances of Le Roi de Lahore were running on at the Opéra and they were well attended and finely done. At least that is what I heard for I had already stopped going. Presently I left Paris where, as I have said, I devoted myself to giving lessons, and went back to the country to work on La Vierge.
In the meantime I had learned that the great Italian publisher Guilio Ricordi had heard Le Roi de Lahore at the Opéra and had come to terms with Hartmann for its production in Italy. Such a thing was really unique, for at that time the only works translated into Italian and given in that country were those of the great masters. And they had to wait a long time for their turn, while it was my good fortune to see Le Roi de Lahore played on the morrow of its first performance.
The first house in Italy at which this honor fell to me was the Regio in Turin. What an unexpected good fortune it was to see Italy again, to know their theaters from more than the outside, and to go into their wings! I found in all this a delight which I cannot express and in this state of rapture I passed the first months of 1878. Hartmann and I went to Italy on the first of February, 1878.
With the Scala at Milan, the San Carlo at Naples, the Communal Opéra at Boulogne, the old Apollo at Rome—since demolished and replaced in popular favor by the Costanzi—with the Pergola at Florence, the Carlo Felice at Genoa, and the Fenice at Venice, the beautiful Regio Theater, built opposite the Madame Palace on the Piazza Castella, is one of the most noted in all Italy. It rivaled then—as it does now—the most famous houses of that classic land of the arts to which it was always so hospitable and so receptive.
The manners at the Regio were entirely different from those at Paris and were, as I discovered later, much like those in Germany. Absolute deference and punctilious exactness are the rule, not only among the artistes but also among the singers of the minor rôles. The orchestra obeys the slightest wish of the director.
The orchestra at the Regio at that time was conducted by the master Pedrotti who was subsequently the director of the Rossini Conservatory at Pesaro. He was known for his gay, vivacious melodies and a number of operas, among them Tutti in maschera. His death was tragic. I can still hear honest Pedrotti saying repeatedly to me: