The Sun.
London, England, 1869-02-06 00:00:00

NOTICE.

AMERICA.

C.1.2L2.3 BILL.

VICTORIA CLUB-THIS DAY.
LINCOLN HANDICAP.
100 to 12 agst Sycee (offered—take 9to 1)
ICO to 9 agst Monarch of the Glen (taken)
100 to 7 agst Lady Coventry (taken and offered)
100 to 7 agst Silenus (taken and offered)
100 to 6 agst Friday (taken)
100 to 6 agst George Osbaldeston (taken)
20 to 1 agst Typhoeus (taken)
20 to 1 agst Anlace (offered-25 to 1 wanted)
25 to 1 agst Hatclunent (taken and offered)
83 to 1 agst Blacklock (offered)
LIVERPOOL GRAND NATIONAL.
9to 1 agst Colonel (offered-10 to 1 wanted)
100 to 8 agst Harcourt (offered)
100 to 6 agat Fan (taken)
25 to 1 agat Despatch (offered—take 30 to 1)
30 to 1 agst Q.C. (taken)
33 to 1 agst Bishopton (taken and offered)
1000 to 30 agst Sultan (offered—take 500 to 10)
85 to 1 agst Alcibiade (taken)
1000 to 20 agst Pensioner (offered-1000 to 15 vented)
1000 to 15 agst Bristles (offered—take 1000 to 10)
1000 to 15 agst Billy Gladstone (taken and wanted)
CIIEB TER CUP.
1000 to 70 Palmer (offered)
100 to 6 Romping Gill (taken)
20 to 1 agst St Mungo (offered)
1000 to 30 agst Gondolier (taken and wanted)
50 to 1 agst Viridis (offered—take 60 to 1)
TWO THOUSAND.
9to 4 agst 'Wild Oats (offered—take sto 2)
9to 1 agst Pretender (offered)
THE DERBY.
15 t.) 2 agst Belladrum (taken to £400)
13 to 1 agat Pretender (offered)
25 to 1 agst Tborivaldsen (offered)
25 to 1 agst Martyrdom (offered)

RACING FIXTURES.
FEBRUARY.
16, 17 I Nottingham Spring... 23, 21
Lincoln
2,5, 26
li.crrow
18 I Derby Spring 2.5, 26
Mansfield
18, 19 J
Pontefract

MARCH.
Liverpool Spring 2,3, 4 West Drayton .........18, 19
Shrewsbury spring 5, 6 Baldnyle First Spring 18, 19
Downpatrick 9 II Margate ........................ 20
Warwick 9, 10, 11 Beverley ...................... 20
Hendon l2, 13 Durham... ............... 29, 30
West Somerset 15 16 Epsom,,,
Northampton 16, 17 ................. 3 0, 34.

THE FUIURE OF THE OPERAS.

Perhaps there was never a time of greater inte-
rest in regard to the destinies of the Opera than the
present. We make no exception for any period
during the past fifty years. The circle of events
reminds one of this same eventful time last year,
when gossip, with its innumerable tongues, was
busy with the operatic future over all the country.
It is now exactly a twelvemonth since than a mag-
nificent operatic speculation was given to the work!
on paper in the form of a " United Limited Opera
Company," with the usual apparatus of directors
and lofty promises, involving impossibilities to those
who are acquainted with the management of Opera
houses, to which boards and committees have al-
ways proved ruinous.
The public felt relief, and the friends of Opera
in this country rejoiced when this Stock-Exchange
scheme was relegated to that limbo to which all
ill-digested designs, sooner or later, revert. The
government of Opera is strictly monarchical. Di-
vided counsels never prosper with it. In this
" United Opera" speculation, as there was no sin-
gle responsible head, the enterprise must have
ended in contradictory objects, the attempt to
amalgamate which would very possibly have termi-
nated in the general upset.
But although the design on the whole could not
prosperously be carried to market (to nse the mer-
chantable figure), it does not at all follow that
there were not some very excellent ideas com-
prised in the scheme. Prominent in this regard
is the fact that we should have secured the union
of all the operatic talent in one establishment.
A source of inevitable disappointment has been
the fact that since the formation of a rival
opera the great talents have been divided be-
tween the two houses, that the operatic stars
(as was natural under the circumstances), could
never be brought to shine in the same hemisphere,
or under the same cope or roof. For years and
years Her Majesty's Theatre and the Royal Italian
"Opera, Covent Garden, have been labouring to un-
dermine, and eventually to remove, the ground from
under each other's foundation—to speak the fact
mildly—not simply to pronounce the plain word—
destroy. Now, the question may be fairly asked, is it
really necessary that London should have two Opera
Houses?—that is, in rivalry. Is it indispensable that
nightafter night they shouldfollow suit, merelyout of
opposition, in playing the same operas? It has
often happened, and it was conspicuously the case
during last season, that the same opera was being
played at both houses on the same evening, with
some special point at each of extraordinary attrac-
tion in which the other happened at the moment to
be notoriously deficient, and which was therefore
aprl aticsetde
wa tasa
hgearrdeattod_isnaigdhvtainntaag
artiste to be heard at the opposite establishment.
pe.artPiceurlharaPschaaragreteeart,
and the same night there would be an equally great

One time a celebrated opera has been pre-

pared at enormous expense for one operatic esta-
blishment, which in the lapse of a very few days
has been offered at the other. Now amidst all this

dealing out of the self-same cards, and the staking
of the trumps—perhaps of equal value at the rival

establishment, the experienced operatic eye has dis-

tinctly seen that the real interest of "art" in its
totality is completely overlooked—that strife and

ncoe
snset s
at
nadr e
croomb bpilneg t
etnhees operas r
a nodf itsth apossiblep l
ysingblee.-
cause two great places are doing battle, that the
magnificent forces on either side are being sacri-
ficed in alternately great, but as equally:alternately
outdone, charges. Now we speak in the interest
of art when we say that this ought not to be.
Moreover, there is no need this mutually de-
stroying system should be persisted in any longer
It would surely be better to conquer the public
approbation under one flag than under two —with
one operatic company than two independent ones.
No .I.' what a splendid cast for any of those trail -
scendent musical works which have delighted the
world would be possible in the hands of the manage-
ment that could make the choice in filling-in with
the great names from both Operas. We can only
imagine the irrepressible eagerness of the crowds,
titled and untitled, who night after night wouid fill
the fortunate theatre where all the great singers
could be heard at once--each in his or her ly.!st

character, and in the Opera, and in the part, that
is the talk of the world. We can imagine, in the

public interest, ti►hat such a representation would

be, and what au era would be created in the annals

of Opera.

1111 RD EDITION,

The Third Edition of " The Sergi " of last Evening was
published in tiinJ for delivery in town at 7.15 p.m.

SUN OFFICE, 6 O'CLOCK.

Messrs. Pope, Pee, and Al'Lan have received
the following per Atlantic cable :

WASHINGTON, Feb. 5.
A bill on this subject has been reported, and (be
committee on ioreign relations discharged fran
further consideration of Sumner's, Morton's, and
Doclittle's Bills upon Submarine Cables.
Mr. Sumner, from the committee on foreign re-
lations, reported a bill relating to telegraph com-
munication between the United States and a
foreign country.

It provides that whenever telegraphic communi-
cation shall hereafter be established between the
United States and any foreign country by means of
lines or cables, of which any portions are within the
jurisdiction of the United States, the same shall be
subject to certain stipulations and reservations.

SPORTING INTELLIGENCE—This Daj