Year: 1877

.us Academy Of Music still stands vacant.
No one ventures to tempt disaster this year in
that unfortunate home of the MUSES.. Patti,
having lost her suit for a separation, has now
undertaken to prove in the French Courts that
she never was married, and consequently she
cannot come. Mr.. Fryer prefers to take his
German artists to Boston and the West
and South, and they will not sing for
us until they have travelled all around the
compass There is a report, to be sure, that
Nine. iii Murska is on the way, but that report
always arises when there chances to be a musi-
cal vacancy, and even if it prove to be true
i'm this instance it does not fOIb0de any very
serious operate undertaking. Perhaps it is as
well that we should spend one Winter in alb
stinence, meditatng on the follies Of the past.
aud trying to devise some better way of life
for the future. Beyond doubt the opera in
America has fallen very low, so low, indeed,
that the friends of art are half inclined to
acquicsce in its total extinction.


This long-cOniinued depression in the opera
as a popular amusement is the more TO be-
lamented because the opera, as q department
of musical composition, has shown of late years
Il remarkable vitality. \ little while ago it
used to be said that the lyric drama died with
Rosslni and Donizeti. The world is now
beginning 10 realize, however, that the capabi
ties of this form of art are yet hut half
devcloped New schools have arisen, and
under the impulse of fresh blood the opera
has renewed its youth and entered again upon
period of growth after a long interval OF
stagnatiOn. There is still confusion and dis
agreement in the tendencies of the best COM
posers of the day, but we look for more or
less disorder in all times of revolution. The
turmoil viii right Itself


Perhaps it is because neither managers nor
singers have learned to accommodate them
selves TO the new order of things that the
opera has dropped into such a miserable con-
dtion They are still managing and singing
as if this were the same public that foclied to
the opera-hOuses of past generation
when Belllni's pretty airs filled the pauses of
evening conversation, and the most popular
oneratc performances We're little better than
ballad C, ncerts in costume. The impresaro
had little to do in those days but collect two
or three good singers and put them upon the
stage with the faintcst apology for support,
and mere shadow of the scenic accessories
The singers had little to do but execute andante
and allegro, solo and duet, with their sweetest
voices and most bewitcling manners, while
chorus, orchestra and secondary artists scram-
bcd through the evening as best they could
1t is upon this principle that troupes are or
ganized and managed even yet, although the
spectators long ago became weary of the alb
surdties Of such travesty upon the
drama We do not mean to imply that
a majority of our audiences have become
converts to Wagnerism, any more than that
Wagner has forced his principles upon majority
of contemporary composers. 1t is nevertheless
true that the Hew German school does inllu-
encc consciously or unconsci0usly, the pre-
vaiug tendencies of musicians and the taste
OF the public. 1t is making the opera more
romantic and more dramatic and ii is demand
ing Of both the actor aud the composer more
poetry, more freedom, and mos truthfuncss.
Before such works can be prcsulted and such
expectations satisfied, we must get lid of old
traditions of management and old cOnyen-
tional methods OF Interpretation. We do not
look for any revival of the fortunes Of the
opera in tins city until they are committed TO
somebody who understands his time.