Event Comment: A Grand Serious
Opera;
the music by
Sacchini, with additions and alterations [by
Andreozzi and
Mazzinghi]. Under
the direction of Mazzinghi.
The dresses executed from original drawings of
Bartolozzi and
Tresham, by
Lupino. With dances analogous to
the Opera.
The Doors to be opened at 6:30. To begin at 7:30 [same throughout season]. Pit 10s. 6d. Gallery 5s.
There are a number of green boxes which may be taken on application to
Lee, at
the Theatre;
the entrance to which, and to
the Gallery, will be in
Oxford-street. Subscriptions will be received by Messrs
Wright and Co.,
Henrietta-street,
Covent-garden (only) where tickets are delivering daily; and such Ladies as have not compleated
their subscriptions to
their boxes are intreated to send
their names to
the office, in order to have
the tickets prepared, as no person can be admitted without producing a ticket.
The Nobility and Gentry are intreated to give particular orders to
their coachmen to set down and take up with
their horses' heads towards
Hyde-park.
The Doors in
Blenheim-mews for chairs only. By Command of
His Majesty no person can be admitted behind
the scenes during
the performance. "We fear that [
the Pantheon as converted into a
theatre] will gratify only
the eye. It must undergo still more changes before
the ear will be satisfied. Whe
ther it is that
the dome is too high and disproportioned to
the breadth, or that
the orchestra is sunk too low beneath
the audience we cannot tell, but
the sound does not swell and spread in equal volume; and it is
the most inaudible in
the best parts of
the Theatre:
the Pit and
the first and second tier of Boxes hear very indistincly...We found this to be
the complaint of every judge of music in
the place" (
Morning Chronicle, 18 Feb.). "
The Pan
theon has opened, and is small,
they say, but pretty and simple; all
the rest ill-conducted, and from
the singers to
the scene-shifters imperfect;
the dances long and bad, and
the whole performance so dilatory and tedious, that it lasted from eight to half an hour past twelve" (
Walpole [18 Feb. 1791], XIV, 377) [and see 19 Feb.]