DOI issue:
July 5, 1884
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17757#0014
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[July 5. 1884.
A BEGGARS’ OPERA HOUSE.
The sale by auction last week of wbat the retiring newspaper
paragraph chronicling the melancholy fact described as ‘ ‘ the mate-
rials of the unfinished Grand National Opera House on the Thames
Embankment,” cannot but afford food even to the least artistic mind
for some rather disagreeable reflections. That after a six years’
i struggle, involving the sinking of something like £100,000 in hard
cash, the speculative element, that ought to have been equal to the
emergency in the first capital in the world, should have been con-
tented to look on and smile, while, to quote once more the paragraph
j in question, “ 157 lots, the principal portion of which consisted of the
iron girders and columns used in the formation of the pit and
box circles, originally costing, it is said, £40,000 ” were knocked down
for “the small sum of £218” is something not very far removed
from a national disgrace. Such an upshot is an artistic collapse.
There is a lack of proper spirit and enterprise about the whole pro-
ceeding which goes far to prove that, spite of all our new growth of
I Colleges, Academies, Schools, and what not other institutions crop-
I ping up in every direction, to turn out ready-made musicians by the
! dozen, we are not, after all, as our foreign friends are always insist-
| ing, really a musical nation. And there is solid ground for the
! reproach. Were it otherwise, it may be asked in all sober sense,
; whether London with its four and a half millions would be left
absolutely without any sort of permanent home for the Rational
Opera, and be willing to content itself with such scraps of native
talent as it can pick up in a season, that even the unflagging energy
and pluck of the one entrepreneur, par excellence, himself a foreigner,
j who has done more towards the permanent establishment of English
! Opera than any dozen other Englishmen, cannot afford to prolong
beyond a miserable four weeks out of the whole fifty-two of the
recreative year F
As a sort of mocking set-off, however, to this flitting and spas-
| modic “cultivation” of music in the Metropolis, it is satisfactory,
on the other hand, to know that all over the country clever fiddlers,
singers, and even composers, are being let loose on to Society to earn
their bread as best they may, though how tiny are to manage it
when the great focus of all musical talent is wanting at the centre is
a problem that will probably before long soon be suggesting itself for
solution. There is a sort of grim humour in the contrast, and it is
a notable, if not an amusing fact, that on the very day when, at one
end of the Embankment, the foundations of a great Rational Opera
House were being knocked down, possibly to a marine store-dealer,
for something less than the price of old iron, at the other, the students
of the “Guildhall School of Music ” were giving a flourishing con-
cert in testimony of the excellent training they had received within
the walls of that praiseworthy institution. This training, however,
they could not have received at all, but for the handsome endowment
to which its existence is due. There could have been no students or
training without subvention. And here is the pith of the whole
matter.
To ask, at least in these sober days, a British Government to step
forward, and, in the interests of one of the highest forms of recrea-
tive Art, furnish State aid to a Rational Opera House, would be
manifestly not only absurd but indecent. A British Government
knows where to draw the line in the matter of State subvention, and
it draws it very wisely—at cookery. But why, in the midst of all
this recent and quite commendable hubbub about musical culture
and progress, there are not a few enthusiasts to be found, wilting to
set some such great undertaking as a Rational Opera on foot, almost
amounts to a puzzle.
Perhaps, when the Royal College at South Kensington is fairly
settled down to its work, and sufficiently provided for, the matter
may come to the front, and those who have the weight and power
may carry it through. Anyhow, it is pretty well time that some-
thing should be done ; for that a vast Metropolis like London should
be worse off in the matter of national music than every other little
second-rate capital in Europe, is an artistic scandal and reproach
that even the teaching of School-Board infants by the million the
nature of a scale, and the inadmissible character of consecutive fifths,
will in no way remove._
A Time Bargain.—Engagement to evacuate Egypt in three
years.
ST IS ALWAYS WELL TO BE WELL-INFORMED.
She. “Who’s my Sister’s Partner, f/s-2-fis, with the Star and Ribbon?”
lie. “Oh, ha—ar—he’s Sir—Sir—dear me, I forget his Name—but, you know, he went somewhere or other to look
AFTER THAT SCIENTIFIC FELLER-WHAT WAS HIS NAME ? — YOU KNOW, WHO WAS LOST OR SOMETHING, OR ELSE KrT.LED BY SOMEONE!”
[July 5. 1884.
A BEGGARS’ OPERA HOUSE.
The sale by auction last week of wbat the retiring newspaper
paragraph chronicling the melancholy fact described as ‘ ‘ the mate-
rials of the unfinished Grand National Opera House on the Thames
Embankment,” cannot but afford food even to the least artistic mind
for some rather disagreeable reflections. That after a six years’
i struggle, involving the sinking of something like £100,000 in hard
cash, the speculative element, that ought to have been equal to the
emergency in the first capital in the world, should have been con-
tented to look on and smile, while, to quote once more the paragraph
j in question, “ 157 lots, the principal portion of which consisted of the
iron girders and columns used in the formation of the pit and
box circles, originally costing, it is said, £40,000 ” were knocked down
for “the small sum of £218” is something not very far removed
from a national disgrace. Such an upshot is an artistic collapse.
There is a lack of proper spirit and enterprise about the whole pro-
ceeding which goes far to prove that, spite of all our new growth of
I Colleges, Academies, Schools, and what not other institutions crop-
I ping up in every direction, to turn out ready-made musicians by the
! dozen, we are not, after all, as our foreign friends are always insist-
| ing, really a musical nation. And there is solid ground for the
! reproach. Were it otherwise, it may be asked in all sober sense,
; whether London with its four and a half millions would be left
absolutely without any sort of permanent home for the Rational
Opera, and be willing to content itself with such scraps of native
talent as it can pick up in a season, that even the unflagging energy
and pluck of the one entrepreneur, par excellence, himself a foreigner,
j who has done more towards the permanent establishment of English
! Opera than any dozen other Englishmen, cannot afford to prolong
beyond a miserable four weeks out of the whole fifty-two of the
recreative year F
As a sort of mocking set-off, however, to this flitting and spas-
| modic “cultivation” of music in the Metropolis, it is satisfactory,
on the other hand, to know that all over the country clever fiddlers,
singers, and even composers, are being let loose on to Society to earn
their bread as best they may, though how tiny are to manage it
when the great focus of all musical talent is wanting at the centre is
a problem that will probably before long soon be suggesting itself for
solution. There is a sort of grim humour in the contrast, and it is
a notable, if not an amusing fact, that on the very day when, at one
end of the Embankment, the foundations of a great Rational Opera
House were being knocked down, possibly to a marine store-dealer,
for something less than the price of old iron, at the other, the students
of the “Guildhall School of Music ” were giving a flourishing con-
cert in testimony of the excellent training they had received within
the walls of that praiseworthy institution. This training, however,
they could not have received at all, but for the handsome endowment
to which its existence is due. There could have been no students or
training without subvention. And here is the pith of the whole
matter.
To ask, at least in these sober days, a British Government to step
forward, and, in the interests of one of the highest forms of recrea-
tive Art, furnish State aid to a Rational Opera House, would be
manifestly not only absurd but indecent. A British Government
knows where to draw the line in the matter of State subvention, and
it draws it very wisely—at cookery. But why, in the midst of all
this recent and quite commendable hubbub about musical culture
and progress, there are not a few enthusiasts to be found, wilting to
set some such great undertaking as a Rational Opera on foot, almost
amounts to a puzzle.
Perhaps, when the Royal College at South Kensington is fairly
settled down to its work, and sufficiently provided for, the matter
may come to the front, and those who have the weight and power
may carry it through. Anyhow, it is pretty well time that some-
thing should be done ; for that a vast Metropolis like London should
be worse off in the matter of national music than every other little
second-rate capital in Europe, is an artistic scandal and reproach
that even the teaching of School-Board infants by the million the
nature of a scale, and the inadmissible character of consecutive fifths,
will in no way remove._
A Time Bargain.—Engagement to evacuate Egypt in three
years.
ST IS ALWAYS WELL TO BE WELL-INFORMED.
She. “Who’s my Sister’s Partner, f/s-2-fis, with the Star and Ribbon?”
lie. “Oh, ha—ar—he’s Sir—Sir—dear me, I forget his Name—but, you know, he went somewhere or other to look
AFTER THAT SCIENTIFIC FELLER-WHAT WAS HIS NAME ? — YOU KNOW, WHO WAS LOST OR SOMETHING, OR ELSE KrT.LED BY SOMEONE!”