The Sun.
London, England, 1864-06-14 00:00:00

LITERATURE,

A Brilliant Managerial Career.

Reminiscences of the Opera. By Benjamin Lumley.
One vol., pp. 448. Hurst and Blackett.
_

During a full score of years Mr. Lumley was
Director of that great:Lyrical establishment in the
Haymarket, familiarly known to our fathers and
grandfathers as The King's Theatre, to ourselves as
Her Majesty's Theatre, An Operatic Manager at all
times is, in his way, somewhat of a Potentate. He
lives in the rarified atmosphere of what, by way of
especial distinction, is emphatically termed Society.
He floats upon the surface of the cream of the cream.
He is not simply an unit, but a very important unit
in the midst of the Upper Ten Thousand. Nor is
this all—his power, influence, prestige, whatever
you may like to call it, extends far beyond the
walls of his Grand Opera House, wherever that
may chance to be situated, whether in Pall-mall
or in Covent-garden. It extends far even beyond
the outer borders of Mayfair, of .Belgravia, of
Tyburnia—it extends beyond the Channel—it ad-
vances into the capitals of all the great leading
Powers of the European Continent—it penetrates
into the Cabinets of Statesmen, even into the
Cabinets of Sovereigns. Of all this, if attesta-
tion is required by the incredulous, the fullest and
the amplest attestation is certainly afforded by
these Reminiscences of Mr. Lumley's. As a reper-
tory of anecdote, we have not for a long while met
with anything at all comparable to these unusually
brilliant and most diversified Reminiscences. They
reveal the Twenty-years' Ditector of Her Ma-
jasty's, to us, in the thick and throng of all his
radiant associations. They take us luringly—as it
were led by the button-hole--behind the scenes,
in every sense of that decoying and profoundly
attractive phrase. They introduce us to all the
stars, now singly, now in very constellations. They
bring us rapidly, delightfully, exhilaratingly—as
we turn the pages containing them, that ia, con-
taining these charming recollections—to a know
ledge co intimate of what has really been doing
there in the Realm of Song, not only behind the
scenes and in the green-room, but iu the recep-
tion apartment of the director himself, that
we are au courant with all the whims
and oddities of the strange world in which he fills
so high and responsible a position. Reading Mr.
Lumley, we now know more than we have ever
known before of such Queens of the Lyric Stage as
Pasta, and Catatani, and Malibran, and °lasi,
and Sontag, and Piccolomini—ef such light-
footed fait i-s of the ballet as Taghoei,
and Fanny Eisler and Certto—of such prinzi
tenoti as Rabini, and Mario, and Gardoni.
and Giuglini— of such baritones us Ronconi
and TemburiLi, or of such bassi profondi as the won.
arous Scandigl and the mighty L ibiacne. Nay, Mr.
Lumley takes us out of the gyre of the footlights,
away from the clang of the orchestra into the di earn-
haunted preseLce of the great composers of the age,
bringing us face to face, as it were, among others,
with Rossini, and Meucleissofin, and Meyerbeer,
and 'Verdi, and Belie, and Donlzetti. Ho lets
us into the mysteries of his correspondence
in regard to the successful acquisition by him now

of an Italian, now of a German artiste, for whom
rival Operatic Managers, rival Ministers of State,
occasionally even rival Kings and Emperors are
contending—he lets us, we say, into the mysteries
of his correspondence in respect to such nego-
tiations, now with Count Cavour, now with
Prince Metternich. For—in his doings, in
his movements, in his negotiations, Sove-
reigns, Prime Ministers, Ambassadors, Governments
are turn by turn not merely vaguely and cour-
teously, but directly and profoundly interested! It
is pleasantly illustrative of the extraordinary variety
of people of eminence in different ways with
whom Mr. Lumley, as Director of Her Majesty's
Theatre, was brought into familiar communication,
according to a homely idiomatic expression,
"rubbed elbows," where we foci him mention-
ing, among a crowd of kindred incidents, the
circumstance of his standing iris a via once upon
a time with the Emperor Napoleon 111., then
Prince Louis Napoleon, in a quadrille with
Carlotta Grisi, Cerito 6.nd Taglioui, at the Great
Operatic Director's own well-known vi?la at
Fulham, " The Caancellor's !'"lnat ultra suburban
haunt of the Fashion, viLefe he used to collect
together on the "smooth shaven lawns," among
the flower beds and the shrubberies, all that

was to be found most interesting, season after season,
in the West-end districts of the metropolis. The Re-
miniscences here recounted, in symmetrical order,
if not always with the strictest regard to chrono-
logical arrangement, extend over a period of two-
and-twenty years, beginning in 1836 and ending in
1858, within which interval lie the score of years,
already referred to, as marking the epoch of Mr.
Lumley's reign at Her Majesty's, as Director. These
twenty years, it would hardly be any extravagance

to assert, were, all things considered, the most
resplendent in the history of that superb establish-
ment. Remembering i►, as he does, in the palmiest
days of his very memorable management, Mr.
Lumley speaks of it, and we can't wonder in the
least at his doing so (bearing in mind, that is, what
his recollections must be) as " the noblest lyrical

theatre of Europe." Troubious though the history
of it has been from first to last, it has always been
profoundly interesting. It was so in the days of
Mr. Taylor, the first lessee of the King's Theatre.
Ir, is so still—with such artistes yet on the
boards as Titiens and Giuglini—under the skilled
and enterprising and undaunted direction of the
present manager of Her Majesty's, Mr. Mapleson,
From the hands o; Mr. Taylor who, by mortgaging
and selling the boxes, began the complications,
thenceforth trammelling the enterprise, year
after year, increasingly, the establishment
passed for a btief time into the possession
of Mr. Goold— thence through a series of dis•
tressing Chancery suits to Mr. °cold's executor,
Mr. Waters--and not long afterwards from the latter
to the banker Chambers. The father-in-law of the
popular novelist, Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, in other
words, that miniature Mudie of his day, Mr.
Ebere, first of the Library, later on of the King's
Theatre, held the latter for seven tolerably success-
fa:, at any rate not disastrous, years under his
management. He had taken the great opera house
at the beginning of those seven years from Mr.
Chambers, and at the end of them handed it over to
Mr. Laporte. From the management of the last-
mentioned Director, it 'Jas that the King's
Theatre, afterwards Her Majesty's Theatre, passed
into the possession, under the direction, under the
mastery of Mr. Lumley. Mr. Lumley, as the world
knows, originally having to do with the House and
its affairs, purely in his capacity as Mr. Laporte's
kegs! adviser—finally assuming the sole sway there
for twenty memorable years as, himself, in his
turn, Lessee and Director. As exemplars at
once of the delightfully interesting incidents
he here has to recount, and of his sparkling
vivacity of manner while recounting them, several
passages of the attractive work now under notice
tempt us to give them by way of illustrative quota-
tion. Torn away from the context piecemeal,
though they are, given thus though they necessarily
must be in a mere fragmentary snape, they will
serve to justify our commendation of the book as
one more than simply readab.e throughout. A
b.Jok as enthralling, let us say, as an anecdotal
talk over a cigar in a Richmond-hill balcony,
upon a summer's evening, with some most
agreeable companion, who, besides being an agree-
able companion, has a good deal to tell from his
own experience, and who, beyond all that, is a bril-
liant conversationalist. After this fashion, as be I

tween the puffs of our cigar, we listen to Mr. Lumley
white he thus recounts to us his vivid remembrance
of Jenny Lind's Debut

The brilliant appearance of the house inside was increased
by the presence of the Queen and Prince Albert, the Queen
Dowager and Duchess of Kent, who had all come to witness
the debut cf Jenny Lind. On the entrance of the newpfirna
donna as Alice, tl 3 welcome given to one who, though un-
known, had already won renown, was unusually enthusiastio.
For a few moments she appeared bewildered and " scared, '
but her self-possession returned. Her very first notes seemed
to enthral the audience. The cadenza at the end of her

opening air—the whole of whioh was listened to with a
stillness quite singular—called down a hurricane of applause.
From that moment her success was certain. The evening

went or, and before it ended, Jenny Lind was'establiehed
as the favourite of the English opera public. Voice, style,
tieecitieh, manner, acting--all delighted. The triumph