lled before the curtain, he may deem himself
happy if his drama is played four times during the season; whereas
a popular opera will be given night after night for two months. An
opera, if it has any merit, may be the means of carrying the fame of
Italian genius to the farthest limits of the earth, but it is a chance
if the comedy which pleases at Venice will be appreciated in the
least degree at Rome or Naples, such are the variations in manners
and customs, especially amongst the lower orders, between one Italian
province and another. Hence, opera is greatly fostered and protected.
There are a dozen musical _conservatori_, public and private, in each
of the principal cities, for the training of singers, and prizes are
accorded to them out of funds especially set apart for the purpose
by the government, which also grants large annual subsidies to the
leading lyric theatres, such as the Scala at Milan, the San Carlo
at Naples, the Fenice at Venice, the Pergola at Florence, the Carlo
Felice at Genoa, the Communale at Bologna, and the Apollo at Rome. The
dramatic stage has none of these aids, the various companies have to
pay their own expenses, and, whatever may be the merits of the artists
who compose them, they scarcely ever obtain any special recognition
from the government. Although the smallest Italian city possesses its
theatre, and some of the capitals--Milan and Naples, for instance--at
least a dozen, there is no training-school for the stage in any
part of the country. Nor is there such an institution as the English
Dramatic College, where decayed artists can retire when their day of
glory is past and they have become poor and lonely. Each city has one
theatre, the largest and most magnificent, reserved exclusively for
operatic performances, and where the unmusical drama is scarcely ever
tolerated. I once saw Ristori act in Metastasio's _Dido_ at the
Scala for the benefit of the wounded during the war for Italian
independence; but this was the only occasion in fifty years on which
an actress had declaimed in that enormous edifice, and nothing
but patriotic charity would have excused such an infringement of
time-honored etiquette. When, therefore, the Italian opera-houses
close for the season, they are never reopened for the accommodation
of wandering "stars." The consequence of this is, that the drama is
banished to the inferior theatres, and whilst thousands of francs are
spent on the scenery of a new opera or b