only regret to see our theatres
so conducted as to involve an expense which is worse than useless,
in leading our audiences to look for mere stage effect, instead of
good acting, good singing, or good sense. If we really loved music,
or the drama, we should be content to hear well-managed voices, and
see finished acting, without paying five or six thousand pounds to
dress the songsters or decorate the stage. Simple but well-chosen
dresses, and quiet landscape exquisitely painted, would have far
more effect on the feelings of any sensible audience than the tinsel
and extravagance of our common scenery; and our actors and actresses
must have little respect for their own powers, if they think that
dignity of gesture is dependent on the flash of jewellery, or the
pathos of accents connected with the costliness of silk. Perfect
execution of music by a limited orchestra is far more delightful,
and far less fatiguing, than the irregular roar and hum of
multitudinous mediocrity; and finished instrumentation by an
adequate number of performers, exquisite acting, and sweetest
singing, might be secured for the public at a fourth part of the
cost now spent on operatic absurdities. There is no occasion
whatever for decoration of the house: it is, on the contrary, the
extreme of vulgarity. No person of good taste ever goes to a theatre
to look at the fronts of the boxes. Comfortable and roomy seats,
perfect cleanliness, decent and fitting curtains and other
furniture, of good stuff, but neither costly nor tawdry, and
convenient, but not dazzling, light, are the proper requirements in
the furnishing of an opera-house. As for the persons who go there to
look at each other--to show their dresses--to yawn away waste
hours--to obtain a maximum of momentary excitement--or to say they
were there, at next day's three-o'clock breakfast (and it is only
for such persons that glare, cost, and noise are necessary), I
commend to their consideration, or at least to such consideration as
is possible to their capacities, the suggestions in the text. But to
the true lovers of the drama I would submit, as another subject of
inquiry, whether they ought not to separate themselves from the mob,
and provide, for their own modest, quiet, and guiltless
entertainment, the truth of heartfelt impersonation, and the melody