"How far have they got?" I inquired as I entered the theatre.
"Valentine's death scene," replied my friend.
"Valentine does not die, my dear fellow; Valentine only faints," I answered, I was thinking of course, of the new dramatic soprano, Mlle. Sandra, in Les Huguenots.
"You are evidently not an Opera-goer," I continued, "or you would know that no one dies in this work, except, of course, in the last Act. But that is always left out."
"Wrong again!" exclaimed Jones, with an amused look. "Augustus Harris restores the last Act. See his prospectus."
"Well, never mind that. Is Ella Russell singing the part of Queen Margaret as well as ever?"
"I did not know that Margaret was a Queen. I always thought she was of humble origin. The part in any case is being played by Mlle. Nordica."
Determined to be no longer the victim of mystification, I wished Jones good-bye, and hurrying in, found the curtain down. Afraid now to ask what was being played, I waited patiently for the next Act, and when at last the curtain went up, I found to my astonishment that some representation entirely new to me was taking place. Will-o'-the-Wisps on a dark back-ground. That was all I saw. I asked myself whether I had gone mad, or whether the Drury Lane Pantomime was being played a little earlier than usual. Then the dark scene gave place to a scene of great brilliancy. There was a throne at the back of the stage, and again my thoughts reverted to the Huguenots, and I fancied I could recognise Queen Margaret. But her features were not the features of Ella Russell. Besides, Ella Russell does not dance, not at least on the Operatic stage; and this lady did.
"This is Helen," said a gentleman in a stall on my right to a lady by his side. Here was at least a clue; and when at the same moment the baritone De Reszke stepped out of a group attired in the garb of Mephistopheles, I said to myself that the performance had been changed, and this was the last Act of Boïto's Mefistofele, with new details, or at least details that I had not noticed when the work was performed at Her Majesty's Theatre and at Covent Garden. Now dancing began in earnest, and I wondered much at the never-failing ingenuity of Mr. Augustus Harris, who with a score of first-rate singers in his Company, had nevertheless found himself compelled (probably at five minutes' notice,) to change an Opera into a ballet. It reminded me of a certain operatic Manager, who, being suddenly deprived of the services of most of his vocalists, announced in his programme, that in consequence of the departure of his principal singers, the music of Don Giovanni, would be "replaced, for that night only, by lively and expressive pantomime."
When, however, Mephistopheles De Reszke and Faust De Reszke both began to sing, I saw that my supposition was untenable.