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Updated: June 20, 2025
In times of civil or international conflagration the dancer, the actress often play important rôles in world politics. Malvina Cavalazzi, the Italian ballerina who appeared at the Academy of Music during the Eighties and who married Charles Mapleson, son of the impressario, once told me of a part she had played in the making of United Italy.
As for the tradesman, he is no longer an expert any more than the critic or the impressario is. No longer a merchant, no longer a shop-keeper even, he is to-day a universal provider. Fifty years ago the nice housewife still prided herself on knowing the right place for everything.
Signor Lanari, an impressario of Florence, recognized the future success of the inexperienced young girl, and decoyed her into an engagement for six years on terms shamefully low, for Giulia's modesty did not appreciate her own remarkable powers. Alone and without competent advisers, she fell an easy prey to the sharp-witted farmer of other people's genius.
The clerical fauna was admirably represented. A Capuchin friar, long-bearded and dirty, with the air of a footpad, and an umbrella by way of a blunderbuss or musket under his arm, was talking to a Sister of Charity. "Undoubtedly religion is a very picturesque thing," murmured Caesar. "A spectacular impressario would not have the imagination to think out all these costumes." Caesar took the Corso.
Fetis says that it was on account of the sudden indisposition of Madame Pasta that the first public appearance of Maria in opera was unexpectedly made, but Lord Mount Edgcumbe and the impressario Ebers both tell a different story. The former relates in his "Reminiscences" that, shortly after the repair of the King's Theatre, "the great favorite Pasta arrived for a limited number of nights.
The fact that her instructor permitted her to appear, handicapped as she was by inexperience and stage ignorance, in rôles not only marked by great musical difficulty, but full of dramatic energy, indicates what a high estimate was placed on her powers. Mr. Lumley, the English impressario, was at this time scouring Italy for fresh voices, and, hearing Mlle.
Later these productions had to be given up for lack of money, and the King's Theater remained closed for a long time. Finally a number of rich men formed a society to revive opera in London. The King subscribed liberally to the venture. Handel was at once engaged as composer and impressario.
Notwithstanding the fact that she was well received and that she got through with the greater part of the opera with credit, her impressario, J. H. Mapleson, relates in his "Memoirs" that after the final curtain had fallen she rushed to tell him that it was all over and that she would never appear again.
But his rings, and his scents, and his affectations generally, covered a secret ambition. He wanted to be more than a tenor in the choir; he wanted to be an opera singer, and he entered into negotiations with a London impressario.
On the strength of this propitious beginning, the impressario, Merelli, made the young composer an excellent offer to write three operas, one every eight months, to be performed either in Milan or in Vienna, where he was impressario of both the principal theaters. He promised to pay four thousand lire about six hundred and seventy dollars for each, and share the profits of the copyright.
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