The theatre is one of the institutions of Mexico, and liberally patronized. On this subject Frank wrote the following:
"The Teatro Principal is not what its name implies, as it is not the principal theatre at all. It may have been so when it was the only one, but it certainly has not been of much account in late years. The most fashionable theatre is the Nacional. Italian and French opera are given there, and the place is open for one thing or another pretty much the whole year. It is the fashion to have the commencement exercises of the military and other colleges in the Teatro Nacional, and since we came here there has been a grand concert in the building.
"We went to the opera one night. The performance was fairly good, but nothing remarkable, and we came away with the impression that the Mexicans go there more to see and be seen than to listen to the performance. The ladies were in full evening costume, and the men seemed to be about equally divided between dress-coats and double-breasted ones. There are boxes on two balconies and also around part of the parquet. The prices for seats and boxes vary according to the attraction, and the house is said to be generally well filled.
"Most of the men left their seats between the acts, some of them to smoke cigarettes in the lobby, and others to call on their lady friends in the boxes or send packages of dulces (sweetmeats) to them. The pretty women in the boxes seemed to enjoy being stared at, if we could judge by the way they smiled when opera-glasses were aimed at them. Many of the men paid no attention to the performance, but constantly eyed the beauties, and eyed them with their lorgnettes instead of their natural organs of sight. They came back just before the curtain rose on each act, and then each man stood up and made a survey of the horizon of boxes, reminding us of the quartermaster of a ship at sea looking for a sail. They tell us that the Mexican belles feel slighted if they are not thus stared at, and there is a keen rivalry among them as to who shall be the recipient of the greatest amount of attention.
"We have been accustomed in other parts of the world," continued the youth, "to hear the voice of the prompter at the opera, but we were not prepared for it in an ordinary theatre where the performance was a play in dialogue and not a musical one. We went one night to the Hidalgo Theatre to see and hear a Mexican play. The prompter pronounced every sentence before the actor did, and it was heard all through the house. It completely spoiled the play for us, and we left before it was over. What we liked a good deal better was the arrangement of the office, where there were five or six ticket-sellers seated in a row behind a grating, so that there was no delay in getting places.
"They showed us a plan of the theatre in which the seats were marked by pegs in holes. We selected three places, paid our money, and then the ticket-seller drew out the pegs and handed them to us. The pegs were numbered to correspond with the places, and we handed them to the usher as checks for our seats. We found that we could buy seats for a single act or for two acts, or three, just as we liked, on the same plan as in some of the cities of Europe.
"In addition to the theatre and opera, the Mexicans inherit the Spanish love for the bull-fight. This form of sport has had its ups and downs in the capital. It was abolished in the federal district for some time, but was recently re-established or permitted, and now there are bull-rings at the northern end of the Paseo and in San Cosme. There is always a large attendance, but it is chiefly of the lower classes of the population.
TIVOLI GARDEN, SAN COSME.