Excerpt from Thirty Years Musical Recollections, Vol. 2 It would serve no good turn further to enter into the private history Of this musical event, with all its loops and turns - to recall the green-room tales and their contradictions, which agitated those who are concerned in such matters. - It is enough to have lived for a while in the caldron Of Scandal, without stirring its waters afresh. - The new theatre did not tumble down like a house of cards. The Officers of Justice did not enter with writs, at the eleventh hour, to lay the strong hand of prohibition on any acting or singing being attempted in an establish ment already known, said its solvent well-wishers, to be insolvent. The Lord Chamberlain did not refuse his license, as it was promised for him that he should do. The singers were forthcoming on the day of rehearsal, which took place in the midst of scafl'oldings, artificers, and every other apparent interruption and Sign Of incompleteness. At last, on the 6th of April, the Royal Italian Opera opened its doors with a fine performance of Semiramide, in which, besides the excitement of the first night of a new undertaking, there was an attraction of late increasingly rare - the appearance of a new singer of the highest class, Mademoiselle Alboni. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.