The Press.
London, England, 1858-01-09 00:00:00

utt.

HER MAJESTY'S THEATRE. —The performances
during this week at Her Majesty's Theatre have
attracted ureequal audiences. Indeed, the fashion-
able chronology of the country must be going to
utter destruction if we are any longer to estimate the
height of the season by the audience at the opera.
The Trovatore, the Traviata, the Lucia, and the
Figlia have been included in the performances of
this winter season, and have drawn enormous
houses. Mlle. Yiccolomini, Mme. Spezzia,
and a debutante, Madame Saunier, have each
appeared with success, while Giuglini, despite
the east wind, was never in better voice. The
operas are each and all admirably well performed,
and no better proof of the success of this attempt to
establish a winter opera season can be adduced than
in the crowd which on each of these occasions has
filled Her Majesty's Theatre.
THE NEW ROYAL ITALIAN OPERA-HOUSE is gradually
rising from the ruins. As yet everything is bricks
and mortar and scaffolding, and general incompre-
hensibility, but a little patient inspection soon ascer-
tains that an immense and lofty parallelogram of
brickwork raises its imposing sides against the sky,
and that a very few more feet of altitude will satisfy
the most important portion of the architect's design.
The façade in Bow-street seems to be almost com-
plete, and the side walls are so nearly finished as to
justify the raising of the first great girder, sixteen of
which are to support the roof. The interior semi-
circles of brickwork from which the several tiers of
boxes are to spring are finished, and the workmen
are now busy at the back wall, which yet wants a
good many feet of its proper altitude. The area,
although now nearly filled with scaffolding and long
derrick poles, piles of brick, waggons and horses,
and workmen passing to and fro, may yet be seen to
be of great extent; but the visitor is surprised when
he is told that the footlights will cut this whole
space exactly in two, and that a full half of the
inclosure, in the centre of which he stands, will be
devoted to the stage and its appendages. The
intention of the architect, we believe, is to give fewer
tiers of boxes and fewer boxes in each tier than in the
late theatre, the object of Mr. Gye being to get
greater space and better accommodation for his
patrons, even although at the cost of considerable
pecuniary sacrifice. The eit will be ten feet wider,
the same increase being given to the stage ; and by
a judicious alteration in the design, every one in the
boxes will be enabled to see the stage with ease.
The use of iron is substituted for wood, and every
other precaution taken to render the building as
nearly fireproof as possible. The works, which com-
menced on the 29th of September last, have been
carried on with great rapidity, and in their present
aspect afford every prospect of being finished by the
Ist May, on which day Mr. Gye is bound by his con.
tract to open the theatre. There are about 300 men
daily at work on the walls and roof, and simul-
taneously the Messrs. Lucas's large factory at
Lowestoft is fully employed on the interior fittings,
while all the ironwork is being constructed at the
fourelry of Messrs. Grissel. It is obvious that
progress may in the same way be made with the
scenery and decorations, PO that as we approach the
end of the work the rate of progress will exhibit
what, were we not aware of the above particulars,
would appear to he an almost magical acceleration.
Under all these favourable circumstances, we may
fairly anticipate that an early day will see Mr. Gye
comfortably installed in his newly-erected lyric
temple, and we trust rewarded by that amount of.
patronage on the part of the public to which his
energy and unwearied exertions for their amuse-
ment so justly entitle him.