page_title: Her Majesty's Theatre
section_title: Benjamin Lumley
hierarchical_section_title: Her Majesty's Theatre / History / Second theatre: 1791–1867 / Benjamin Lumley
context_page_description: Her Majesty's Theatre is a West End theatre situated on Haymarket in the City of Westminster, London. The present building was designed by Charles J. Phipps and was constructed in 1897 for actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who established the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at the theatre. In the early decades of the 20th century, Tree produced spectacular productions of Shakespeare and other classical works, and the theatre hosted premieres by major playwrights such as George Bernard Shaw, J. M. Synge, Noël Coward and J. B. Priestley. Since the First World War, the wide stage has made the theatre suitable for large-scale musical productions, and the theatre has accordingly specialised in hosting musicals. The theatre has been home to record-setting musical theatre runs, notably the First World War sensation Chu Chin Chow and the most recent production, Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera, which played continuously at Her Majesty's between 1986 and March 2020.
  The theatre was established by architect and playwright John Vanbrugh, in 1705, as the Queen's Theatre.
context_section_description: Laporte died suddenly, and Benjamin Lumley took over the management in 1842, introducing London audiences to Donizetti's late operas, Don Pasquale and La fille du régiment. Initially, relations between Lumley and Michael Costa, the principal conductor at Her Majesty's were good. Verdi's Ernani, Nabucco and I Lombardi received their British premieres in 1845–46, and Lumley commissioned I masnadieri from the composer. This opera received its world premiere on 22 July 1847, with the Swedish operatic diva Jenny Lind in the role of Amalia, and the British premieres of two more Verdi operas, I due Foscari and Attila, followed in 1847–48. Meanwhile, the performers had continued to feel neglected and the disputes continued. In 1847, Costa finally transferred his opera company to the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, and the theatre relinquished the sobriquet, 'Italian Opera House', to assume its present title, Her Majesty's Theatre.
  Lumley engaged Michael Balfe to conduct the orchestra and entered negotiations with Felix Mendelssohn for a new opera. Jenny Lind had made her English début on 4 May 1847 in the role of Alice in Giacomo Meyerbeer's Robert le Diable, in the presence of the Royal family and the composer Felix Mendelssohn. Such was the press of people around the theatre that many "arrived at last with dresses crushed and torn, and coats hanging in shreds, having suffered bruises and blows in the struggle". She performed for a number of acclaimed seasons at the theatre, interspersed with national tours, becoming known as the Swedish Nightingale. The secession of the orchestra to Covent Garden was a blow, and the theatre closed in 1852, re-opening in 1856, when a fire closed its rival. After the reopening, Lumley presented two more British premieres of Verdi operas: La traviata in 1856 and Luisa Miller in 1858.
  From the early 1830s until the late 1840s Her Majesty's Theatre played host to the heyday of the era of the romantic ballet, and the theatre's resident ballet company was considered the most renowned in Europe, aside from the Ballet du Théâtre de l'Académie Royale de Musique in Paris. The celebrated ballet master Jules Perrot began staging ballet at Her Majesty's in 1830. Lumley appointed him Premier Maître de Ballet (chief choreographer) to the theatre in 1842. Among the works of ballet that he staged were Ondine, ou La Naïade (1843), La Esmeralda (1844), and Catarina, ou La Fille du Bandit (1846), as well as the celebrated divertissement Pas de Quatre (1845). Other ballet masters created works for the ballet of Her Majesty's Theatre throughout the period of the romantic ballet, most notably Paul Taglioni (son of Filippo Taglioni), who staged ballets including Coralia, ou Le Chevalier inconstant (1847) and Electra (1849, the first production of a ballet to make use of electric lighting). Arthur Saint-Léon staged such works as La Vivandière (1844), Le Violin du Diable (1849), and Le Jugement de Pâris (1850), which was considered a sequel of sorts to Pas de Quatre.
  The Italian composer Cesare Pugni was appointed Composer of the Ballet Music to the theatre in 1843, a position created for him by Lumley. From 1843 until 1850, he composed nearly every new ballet presented at the theatre. Pugni remains the most prolific composer of the genre, having composed more than 100 original ballets, as well as composing numerous divertissements and incidental dances that were often performed as diversions during the intermissions of opera performances at the theatre. Throughout the era of the romantic ballet, the theatre presented performances by notable ballerinas, including Marie Taglioni, Carlotta Grisi, Fanny Elssler, Lucile Grahn and Fanny Cerrito, performing in the works of Perrot, Taglioni and Saint-Léon.
caption: Jenny Lind, The Swedish Nightingale, 1850
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