United States or Zambia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
M. Pedro Gailhard has himself told me that he created a few additional posts as door-shutters for old stage-carpenters whom he was unwilling to dismiss from the service of the Opera. In those days, it was still part of the firemen's duty to watch over the safety of the Opera house outside the performances; but this service has since been suppressed.
The reader must try to guess for himself, for I promised M. Pedro Gailhard, the former manager of the Opera, to keep his secret regarding the extremely interesting and useful personality of the wandering, cloaked shade which, while condemning itself to live in the cellars of the Opera, rendered such immense services to those who, on gala evenings, for instance, venture to stray away from the stage.
Since then all sorts of other schemes have been tried by Viollet-le-Duc, Guimet, Lamoureux, Melchior de Vogüé and Julien Goujon, Gabriel Parisot, Colonne and Milliet, Deville, Lagoanère, Corneille, Gailhard, and Carré; but none of them achieved any success. At the moment, a new attempt is being made; and this time the thing seems to show every sign of being a success.
Afterwards it was refused in succession by Halanzier, Vaucorbeil, and Ritt and Gailhard, who decided to take it only after they had heard it sung by that admirable singer Rosine Bloch. But to return to Le Timbre d'Argent. I was again on the street with my score under my arm. About that time Vizentini revived the Théâtre-Lyrique.
Here the young singers who came from the provinces at eighteen found board and lodging, a regular life, and a protection from the temptations of a large city, so dangerous to fresh young voices. Bouhy, Lassalle, Capoul, Gailhard and many others who have made the French stage famous came from this pension.
I asked M. Pedro Gailhard the reason, and he replied: "It was because the management was afraid that, in their utter inexperience of the cellars of the Opera, the firemen might set fire to the building!" Like the Persian, I can give no further explanation touching the apparition of this shade.
The dressing-rooms emptied and the ballet-girls, crowding around Sorelli like timid sheep around their shepherdess, made for the foyer through the ill-lit passages and staircases, trotting as fast as their little pink legs could carry them. I have the anecdote, which is quite authentic, from M. Pedro Gailhard himself, the late manager of the Opera.
As opposed to this life, Gailhard holds up the pattern of Sir Thomas Grosvenor, who did "strive after being bettered with an Outlandish Breeding" by means of close application to the French and Italian languages, to fencing, dancing, riding The Great Horse, drawing landscapes, and learning the guitar.
Edward Leigh's Three Diatribes appeared in 1671, a year after Lassels' book, and in 1678 Gailhard, another professional governor, in his "Directions for the Education of youth as to their Breeding at Home and Travelling Abroad," imitated Lassels' attention to the particular needs of the country gentleman.
Word Of The Day