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On various occasions I also visited some not uninteresting theatres in London, strictly avoiding opera-houses, of course. I was most attracted by the little Adelphi Theatre in the Strand, and I frequently made Prager and Luders go with me. They acted some dramatised fairy-tales there under the title of Christmas.
But his greatest triumphs at this period were those which awaited him in the great opera-houses of London, where he sang the leading tenor rôles in the operas of Bellini and Donizetti. In his recently-published diary he gives some interesting details respecting Jenny Lind, then at the height of her fame and the very zenith of her powers.
Mildenburg played it as a mixture of Lady Macbeth and Queen Gertrude, Hamlet's mother. And when she sang fortissimo all the Strauss horses and all the Strauss men were as supine, tonally speaking, as Humpty Dumpty. Her voice is of a sultry tonal splendour. The two new opera-houses also theatres are set in a park, as should be art and opera houses.
A gambling-house, the keeper of which is able to maintain the royal expense of the neighboring court out of his winnings and also to keep open for those who are not ashamed to accept it, gratis, all for love, a concert-room brilliant with gold, filled with the best performers whom the world can furnish, and comfortable beyond all opera-houses known to men must be liable to a few such misfortunes.
Money is scarce in Holland, the people generally have little to spare, so grand opera-houses, such as are thought necessary in most European cities of any pretension to culture, are impossible, and the singers can seldom count on liberal fees.
Things are well managed in the great opera-houses nowadays, and it is not easy to get behind when anything is going on. The young girl felt a new sensation of awe and excitement.
Does not the sweat of the mason and carpenter, who toil in order to partake the sweat of the peasant, flow as pleasantly and as salubriously in the construction and repair of the majestic edifices of religion as in the painted booths and sordid sties of vice and luxury? as honorably and as profitably in repairing those sacred works which grow hoary with innumerable years as on the momentary receptacles of transient voluptuousness, in opera-houses, and brothels, and gaming-houses, and club-houses, and obelisks in the Champ de Mars?
It is a blend of Gothic and Renaissance, and, what is still more rare, the best of Gothic and the best of Renaissance. Above its façade is a civic belfry, flanked by two slender towers. Within the portal-vestibule rises a monumental stairway which must have been the inspiration of many a builder of modern opera-houses.
The Paris opera is kept afloat by means of an annual subsidy of eight hundred thousand francs, and the imperial opera-houses of Berlin and Vienna, although similarly endowed, are burdened with large annual deficits which have to be covered by additional contributions from the imperial exchequers.
So far as physical advantages were concerned, he was better fitted for a theatrical career than was the future creator of John of Leyden, as Roger was not tall and had a tendency to embonpoint. M. Ping, however, went to Italy, accepted engagements at the opera-houses of Rome, Naples and Milan, sang there with success for a few years, lost his voice, and finally disappeared.