Year: 1871

ltallan opera ana ITS management.


The steady decrease in the attendance at
the Academy of Music since the close of the
regular season Of Italian Opera and the apathy
evinced towards the late representations
given by the company must be attributed to
gross mismanagement, and not to want of
appreciation on the part of the public When
the director of the Nilsson troupe announced
a season of twenty nights his subscription
list was quickly fiiledup and the Elite of the
city did their utmost to make the enterprise
brilliant success. If the company had left
New York at the close Of the season, as was
originally intended. the same generous en-
couragement would have been extended to
them on their return. But the financial
prospects in Philadelphia not being at all
promising, as was shown BY the small amount
of subscription guaranteed by the unapprecia-
tive Quakers, the director made the serious
mistake of remaining in the metropolis until
the public have grown weary OF him and his
artists. New York was the goose that
laid the golden egg, and managerial
rapacity has succeeded in killing it.
The management Of Italian Opera
requires as much system, care, tact
and judgment as the direction Of the affairs of
nation or the position of general-in- chief in
the field. An impresario should have his en-
tire campaign mapped out in advance, and he
should allow nothing to interfere with it. But
when he fingers in city that has been so
generous towards him, clamoring for more
and depending upon transient patrons from
one representation to another, without any
fixed plan of operations, the impresario
offends the public and materially Injuries his
prospects for the spring. He has received
pretty strong hints so far in the shape of an
array of empty boxes at represen tations of
operas which were previously thronged from
parauet to dome, and the large profits accru-
ing from the regular season of twenty nights
are melting away with alarming rapid ty
during this irregular and chaotic term of ten
nights. This sort Of management is of the
rapacious order and tends to drive Italian
Opera back again into the Slough of Despond
from which Mile. Nilsson raised it.


When Albites gave his short season of opera
last summer bad as the company may have
been, yet he fulfilled all his promises to
the letter, and closed his season at
the time announced in the subscription.
The consequence was that he had crowded
and fashionable houses to the last, and left
favorable impression in the minds Of the pub
lie. Were he to announce season Of opera
again the subscription would be cheerfully
taken up in this city. On Wednesday next
we are told that positively the last perform
ance of opera will be given, prior to the
departure Of the troupe for the West; but
perhaps the operation Of feeling the pulse, or
rather purse, of the opera-goers in Pitts
burg (the first city in their route) may be as
unsatisfactory as in Philadelphia, and another
week decided upon for New York. The most
desirable article now required for Italian
Opera in this city is a competent manager,
and we trust that the stockholders OF the
Academy of Music will take measures in time
10 provide themselves with one. II is q very
scarce article, but not entirely extinct.


He COULDN'T DENY HIMSELF THE PLEASURE,
You KNow.-N is said that Mr.. Tweed was
present on Wednesday evening-or, rather, at
an early hour yesterday moming-at the ball
of the Michael Norton Association, and
mingled freely with his acquaintances. Know
We not that he has been one Of the boys who


Dance all night


Till the broad daylight


And 20 home with the gals In the morning.


AT HIS OTRIoE, Too.--It is reported that
Mr.. Tweed was at his Office, 85 Duane street,