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. Whether 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 Pantheon 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.]