I have adverted to the close connection between the literature and wit of France and its musical drama; to the direct court influences which also, since the time of Charles the Ninth’s proclamation, have had their share in determining its colour. To this day there remain features which distinguish the fashionable amateurship of its patrons from any similar encouragement of national or exotic art in England.

Les gants jaunes of Paris are better-instructed listeners to music than the corresponding class in London; if they are more despotic in the world behind the scenes, more rigorous in the arrangement of its im-morals, according to a strangely methodical rule and system, they are more intelligent before the curtain. I could point to a box in L’Académie Royale, , arranged with a Sybaritic luxury of gilt and damasked elbow chairs, and a tiny salon behind it for refreshment, or play , where, even on the hundredth night of an opera, long ere the dance is to begin, some two or three of its tenants may be seen from the very commencement of the performance. The rest, as a body, are far more deeply interested in the composition, far more capable of playing their own favourite morceaux on the piano, or of singing the motivi which severally suit their voices, than any number of our own fine gentlemen, who make an effort to drop into their places at our Italian Opera, to hear Rubini’s last song, or who begin to listen just before Fanny Elssler is to exhibit the first witticism of her dainty feet, or Cerrito to take her first butterfly flutter in air.

A freak of good-natured fortune threw me, on my first visit to Paris, into this dainty enclosure ; and, while I remember the courtesy with which the best seat was always pressed upon the shy silent stranger, by those with whom he could have little in common, and whom he has no better means than this of thanking, I cannot forget the intelligent alacrity with which the honours of the music, as well as of the house, were done , the really choice points of Meyerbeer’s, and Rossini’s, and Auber’s grand operas anticipated, as well as this magnificent scene, or that imposing procession, or the other exquisite pair of, ahem !, ankles. In fact, without some such fine intelligence and thorough interest, it would be impossible for the Grand Opéra of Paris to maintain its present custom of producing five-act works, each of which suffices for a whole evening’s entertainment. The only one of these ever tried in England, the “Robert” of Meyerbeer, was voted tiresome by those who would not take the pains to hear more than one half of it; while the same fate has befallen others of the earlier masterpieces of L’Académie, which lie in a smaller compass. “La Vestale” of Spontini, in every country save ours recognised as a first-rate work, has never been relished in England. Even the “Guillaume Tell” of Rossini, though aided by the combined talents of Persiani, and Rubini, and Lablache, , the last never more sublime than as its hero , was not allowed to take root among the cherished “Lucias ” and “Lucrezia Borgias” of the Haymarket. “La Muette” was most in favour as a ballet, though the barcarole and market chorus had their effect when sung at Drury Lane; “Gustavus” throve owing to the prodigal splendours of its masquerade, , which, by the way, with us was arranged in a Gothic building, all vaultings, and screen-work, and pendants ! , and to the power of mobbing it among the supernumeraries in domino, conveniently granted by the manager to the patrons of the legitimate drama. “La Juive,” again, was admired, because nineteen twentieths of the music were left out; a blood-stained criminal, fresh broken from the rack, being thrown in by way of compensation for the fine trio, “Pour lui, pour moi, mon pere,” and the touching “Rachel ! quand du Seigneur,” M. Halevy’s masterpieces in composition.

But, while I insist that it is with the singers and the spectacle, rather than the music, that our rich and fashionable playgoers, for the most part, concern themselves, let me not be misunderstood as undervaluing English amateurship in the mass, as compared with French. Our people, by time given and money spent and continuous effort maintained, are proving their zeal and their knowledge to an extent entirely unparalleled by our French neighbours. I need but instance our amateur societies and our provincial festivals. And, small as is our amount of mechanical cultivation, I believe our general knowledge to be at once larger and sounder than theirs, as I may have occasion to illustrate when I speak of the Conservatoire. Nevertheless, the presence of such gifts and graces among the arbiters of Fashion, as are to be found in Paris, is wanting to us: and the chance of our having a national opera would be largely increased, were Music restored to its old honourable place in the education of an English gentleman, and had he learned to think of its principles and to trace its boundary-lines, instead of “wondering with a foolish face of praise” at its outward and superficial attractions. Till the secrets of the art are better understood, till the due character and coherence of the lyric drama are in some degree considered, the Italian singers will always carry the day; and thus, in a land where government gives no assistance to the stage, that theatre, which requires the most liberal and intelligent patronage and the most unflagging support, to give it a character, if not an existence, , I mean our National Opera, , will be abandoned to scramble along disrespectably as it has hitherto done, maintaining itself on foreign resources, , or, as it now seems about to do, to perish utterly and for ever !

Quoted from: Henry Fothergill Chorley: Music and Manners in France and Germany. 1844.