Reminiscences of the Opera

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. In offering to the public a record of the administration, vicissitudes, splendours, and, I regret to add, decline, of the establishment known as Her Majesty's Theatre, I cannot be said to be travelling over familiar ground. For it is worthy of remark that, while many bygone periods of theatrical history have found their chroniclers, their panegyrists, their enthusiastic remembrancers, the space filled by the events of the opera-stage from 1836 to 1858, has remained without a comprehensive survey, without a careful retrospect of its many notable and brilliant illustrations.<br><br>To supply this void, to endeavour at once to preserve the memories of past grandeurs (already fading with the generation who witnessed and enjoyed them), and to furnish to the younger portion of the British public some conception of what opera has been, in its truly palmy days, I have employed my leisure in putting together this history of my twenty years' connection with, perhaps, the noblest lyrical theatre of Europe.