A series of interviews published in the newspapers indicate that the
indifference of the stockholders to German music has been greatly
exaggerated; and the vote that was taken on January 27, 1888, stood
forty to nine in favor of continuing German opera, with an assessment
of three thousand two hundred dollars on each box. Not a few of the
stockholders would, indeed, prefer "Siegfried" to "Ernani," even if
"Ernani" could be depended on for as large audiences as Wagner's
opera, which is far from being the case; and I have myself heard some
of them confess that after repeatedly hearing Wagner's later operas,
they discovered in them a constant stream of melody where all had
seemed to them at first a mere chaos of sound. Some of the
stockholders, on the other hand, are so absolutely unmusical that they
do not know the meaning of the words "tenor" and "soprano," and if
blindfolded could not tell if "Faust" or "Aida" was being sung. (This
is a real fact that I might prove by an amusing anecdote, were it not
too personal.) To this class of stockholders what difference can it
make whether they have German or Italian opera? They merely go to the
opera because it is a very fashionable thing to do so, and because the
ownership of an opera-box confers on them a social distinction almost
equal to an order, or a title of nobility, in foreign countries.
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