The Sun.
London, England, 1864-03-21 00:00:00

IMPORTANT INFORMATION.

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is confidently recommended to the Public as an unfail-
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Sold in note. ls. lid., 2s. 9d., 118., and 225. e fch. Also his
PiLULB ANTISCROPHULIE, confirmed by sixty years'
experience to be one of the best alterative medicines ever
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Sold wholesale by the proprietors, Beach and Barnicott,
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medicine vendors in the United Kingdom and Colonies.

Royal English Opera, Covent Garden,

Oa Saturday evening the management of Miss
Louisa Pyne and Mr. W. Harrison terminated after
extending over eight seasons. The performances
consisted of Auber's sparkling opera of" Fra Dia-
vole" and the " Beggar's Opera.," the latter being
compressed into one act. The applause at the close
of each opera was enthusiastic, and it cannot but be
regretted that a better result has not attended the
exertions of the joint management to establish a
national English Opera. The following farewell
address was circulated in the house during the
evening :

Ladies and G entlemen,-r-As we have announced, to-night
Opera at Covent-garden. Our art-stewardship is at an end ;
and although many persons may imagine that they could
have managed the estate better, we can at least say, with
mournful sincerity, that unlike some stewards, we have cer-
tainly not enriched ourselves. That there may have been
errors in our management we are not slow to admit; and
those who criticise the actors on the larger stages of our great
political theatres have, some at least, in evident kindness
and favour to our enterprise, condescended to point those
errors out. We have had the strongest possible motives for
trying to do our best, inasmuch as we have had to rely
solely on our own pecuniary resources; to depend on no
energies but our own ; and, in the end, to encounter loss for
no one beside ourselves.

It requires no very great stretch of memory to recal the
time when there existed no home for English Opera—no
theatre in which our native composers could secure a hearing
at the bar of public criticism for works which demanded a
large and well-trained body of artists to interpret them. It
is our boast to be able to say that such a home, such a
theatre we have furnished—such a body of artists we have
brought together.

bier Most Gracious Majesty the Queen accorded us her
patronage for a purely English opera— and such it has been
our study in every sense to make it, having produced,
with the exception of Meyerbeer's* " Dinorah" and Flo-
tow's " Martha," solely English operas, and employing
solely English artists.

This Row becomes a grcund of accusation against us, and
we are told that it has been most impolitic to exclude foreign
operas from our too exclusively English house. This may
be so in a pecuniary sense, but we have at least been faith-
ful to our original purpose, and if we have, in a mistaken
patriotism, lost the battle, we are the sole losers, while
many, during the past eight seasons, have highly profited
by our efforts.t
Of one most ungenerous inuendo we feel bound to take
notize. In announcing a scheme, •yet in embryp, for the
performance of English and adaptations of foreign operas, a
rather zealous partisan has said of its committee, " Its
members are noblemen and gentlemen of rank and distinc-
tion, placed by their social position above the reach of un-
worthy motives."

Now, whether the desire to establish a permanent home
for English opera in this country, on a scale to compete
with establishments devoted to the performance of foreign
operas, and thereby to elevate English art ; to open a geld
for the talent of native composers and native artiste, both
vocal and instrumental; to bring the theatres, behind the
scenes, into such order that the purest lady might visit it ;
to rule with strict discipline, without which order can never
be maintained in such an establishment ; to throw the whole
of our respective fortunes, time and talents into the service,
an I simply to desire out of it to obtain an honourable liveli •
hood for our respective families—be unworthy motives, we
willingly leave to the public to decide.

In the course of our eight seasons we have produced 15
operas and five operettas, together with 11 revivals, all ad-
mitted to be works of excellence, though all have not com-
manded the success of which competent judges have pro-
nounced them deserving. It is not too much to say that the
bulk of these works would not have been composed but for
the existence of the Royal English Opera; without it, if
composed, would have remained in the safe guardianship of
their composers.
We would respectfully submit that while dramatic art
appeals to the whole public, the operatic branch of it finds
but a limited audience, and that, too, the most intellectual,
the most cultivated, and the most fastidious. The managers
of great operatic establishments have no ultimate gauge or
standard but success, and must stand or fall by the taste of
their patrons. It cannot be urged in sober earnest that any
person, or any association of persons, will ever be found in
this country who will persevere in a steady course of failure
from the mere love of art.

It has been amongst the distresses of our management
occasionally to refuse works offered, but this has never been
done NV ithout due deliberation, in which we have invariably
taken counsel of others less interested than ourselves finan
cially, but equally interested with ourselves in the advance-
ment of art. In some instances the libretto offered might
have done good service to the columns of that admirable
caricaturist, Punch. But as regards authorship, we have
had to contend with difficulties of two classes—the mauifest
unfitness of many works offered for our acceptance ; and the
refusal of some authors to permit a perusal of their MS S
without a guarantee of performance.

Now, as no opera can be prodaced without several weeks'
rehearsal, to the exclusion of all else, and the outlay on
every new work varies from £2,000 to £3,000, while the risk
of failure is trebled if a story be unpopular, it can be well
imagined that under these circumstances we may have un-
wittingly offended many authors, and missed some works
which might have been successful.

Liberal offers have been made to every male singer of
eminence; and if these have been unwilling to join the
company, we surely c.ulnk)t be blamed for not having acelired
their services.
At the close of our career we may mention with pleasure

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