Theatre Royal, Covent Garden

“ Covent Garden theatre was partly rebuilt 296 in 1772, and wholly so in 1809, having undergone the usual death by conflagration. The new edifice was a structure in classical taste, by Mr. Smirke, the portico being a copy from the Parthenon of Athens. [269]
Actors have seldom been confined to any one house; and those whom we are about to mention performed at Drury Lane as well as Covent Garden; but as they were rivals or opponents of Garrick, and may be supposed to have made the greatest efforts when they acted on a different stage, we shall speak of them apart under the present head. ”

“ There is nothing more curious in all London than the transformations known to this once quiet spot. Drury Lane is close at hand, and Covent Garden Theatre is as well known as the market itself. The convent has become a play-house. "Monks and nuns turn actors and actresses. The garden, formal and quiet, where a salad was cut for a lady abbess, and flowers were gathered to adorn images, becomes a market, noisy and full of life, distributing its thousands of fruits and flowers to a vicious metropolis." ”

“ The season opened in due course, and the public gave ample support to the undertaking. I will not fatigue the reader by entering into details with respect to that season, which I began five days before the opening of the new Royal Italian Opera, Covent Garden, just rebuilt, in order that the singers might at all events give two public performances before the whole attention of the town would be centred on the new theatre. ”

“ Many old play-goers who are in the habit of associating the two theatres in their fancy, like twins, will be surprised to hear that the Covent Garden establishment is very young, compared with her sister, being little more than a hundred years old. It was first built by Rich, the harlequin, and opened in 1733 under the patent granted to the Duke's company. The Covent Garden company may therefore be considered as the representatives of the old companies of Davenant and Betterton; while those at Drury Lane are the successors of Killigrew, and more emphatically the King's actors. ”

“ I cannot, however, help observing that many large doors seem so obviously necessary in Theatres, that I dare not attempt to account for the diminutive size of the two through which the audience actually creep in the pit of Covent-garden Theatre. An alarm of fire in that house must end fatally, whether it spread, or was immediately extinguished [310:A] .
The amusements of the present day are very confined: the two Theatres and the Opera for the winter, and the Haymarket for the summer, are [311] the only established places of entertainment ”

“ Books of costumes are always at hand, so that a degree of historical accuracy is now attained in Opera costume, which materially assists the illusion; and no such anachronism is visible in Covent Garden as in a certain theatre across the Thames, where, instead of the Saracenic minarets of Cairo, this gorgeous Arab city is represented by pyramids, obelisks, and sphynxes. The painting-room of Covent Garden is a light and lofty apartment at the top of the house, and the name of Mr Grieve is a sufficient guarantee both for historical accuracy and artistic character. ”

“ Thus much premised, we sit down to give an account of a day spent at Covent Garden, devoted to a thorough examination of this vast establishment, from its extensive catacombs to the leads which overlook the panorama of London; persuaded as we are that the public has but an obscure idea of the capital, labour, and ingenuity expended in the production of what is visible to the eye of the audience. Access to the stage during rehearsal is strictly confined to the performers, although that is the least part of the exhibition ”

“ Covent-Garden is devoted to concerts, and hears the tragic muse no more. Even in the minor theatres, where tragedy is sometimes attempted, it can only be relied on for transient popularity. Its restoration was attempted at the Princess's Theatre in Oxford Street, but apparently with no remarkable success; and the tragedies of Othello and Hamlet, supported by the talent of Macready, required to be eked out by Mrs Candle's Curtain Lectures. We are no strangers to the talent displayed at many of the minor theatres both by the authors and performers ”

“ An English theatre is the very throne of pantomime; nor do I believe that the gallery and boxes of Drury Lane or Covent Garden filled on the proper occasions with holiday folks (big or little) yield the palm for undisguised, tumultuous, inextinguishable laughter to any spot in Europe. I do not speak of the refinement of the mirth (this is no fastidious speculation) but of its cordiality, on the return of these long looked-for and licensed periods ”

“ The ENGLISH OPERA HOUSE, the building of which is begun, will be ready to open in July next. The extended licence granted to this, and the unlimited privileges which, we have no doubt, it will soon enjoy, (as well, indeed, as the Haymarket) will enable it to meet the winter theatres on fair grounds. A theatrical revolution is at hand; smaller theatres are starting up in all quarters, and the overgrown ones must either shrink into a moderate size, or abandon every kind of dramatic representation except opera and spectacle.
In December Drury Lane filled while Covent Garden was empty. ”

“ England, to-day, is second to no country in the world as regards facilities for hearing good music, under conditions that are both favourable and tending to attract even the least ardent devotees.
The exception must, however, be candidly made of opera, which, at present under ideal circumstances is offered at Covent Garden theatre, it is true, but at a price that is quite beyond the means of the average individual, and then only during a few months that constitute the London "Season." ”

“ A private and separate entrance is not the exclusive privilege of royalty. The Duke of Bedford, as ground-landlord, and Miss Burdett Coutts, who has likewise a box in perpetual freehold, have separate entrances, just under that of the Queen's box, with drawing-rooms attached, which are small and low-roofed, but sumptuously fitted up. Such were the principal objects appertaining to the audience part of the house.
Returning behind the scenes, the two principal public rooms are the manager's room and green-room, which both suggested recollections of old Covent Garden in its British drama-days. ”

“ At the Opera on gala nights it is different—the play waits. When they enter, the band strikes up “God Save the King,” and every one stands up. It is a very interesting sight to see the huge mass of humanity at Covent Garden rise together, and see them all stand during the first verse in respect to Royalty. The Queen on ordinary occasions occupies the Royal box on the right facing the stage on the grand tier, and three back from the stage itself, so there are tiers of boxes above and one below; the Queen sits in the corner the farthest from the stage ”

“ The only other place left, therefore, was the New York City Center, in West Fifty-fifth Street. Webster made a thorough inspection of this former Masonic Temple from front to back, but found the place entirely inadequate, with a stage and an orchestra pit infinitely too small, and the theatre itself quite unsatisfactory for a company the size of the Covent Garden organization and productions. As a matter of fact, it would be hard to find a less satisfactory theatre for ballet production. ”

“ So we came home, visiting, on our way, the site of Covent Garden Theatre, lately burnt down. The exterior walls still remain perfect, and look quite solid enough to admit of the interior being renewed, but I believe it is determined to take them down.
After a slight lunch and a glass of wine, we walked out, along Piccadilly, and to Hyde Park, which already looks very green, and where there were a good many people walking and driving, and rosy-faced children at play. Somehow or other the shine and charm are gone from London, since my last visit ”

“ The reader who recollects my previous notices of the enlargement of Drury-lane Theatre will perceive, from those and the subsequent, how rapidly population and the admiration of theatrical amusements have increased. Mr. Harris, [304] proprietor of Covent-garden Playhouse, found it necessary in 1782 to raise the roof eight feet, and make other alterations, to benefit himself, and accommodate the publick. It was then that the Theatre was adorned with those genuine ornaments in the Grecian style, which have lately given place to I know not what strange substitutes of painted deal boards. ”

“ Of course, the worst theatres are those which are known as the ‘good old’ ones. There is no such thing as good old. There is nothing but bad old, and the theatre is an example. It must have been that heathen god, Good Old, invented Covent Garden. ”

“ George Lambert, Rich's scene-painter at Covent Garden, says he, "being a man of wit, and of repute as an artist, was frequently visited by persons of note while at his work in the scene-room. In those days it was customary for men of fashion to visit the green-room, and to indulge in a morning lounge behind the curtain of the theatre. ”

“ She is said to be a good actress, a very great beauty, and a Roman Catholic, so there is something for all tastes."
August 18, 1815: "Among the improvements making at Covent Garden Theatre, preparatory to opening for the ensuing season, backs are fixing to the seats in the pit, so that each person will sit at ease as in a chair." ”

“ No pantomime was given, but Lun (Rich) played, 23 Jan., Harlequin in the ‘Cheats or the Tavern Bilkers, in a dialogue between Harlequin, Punch, and Scaramouch.’ Drury Lane showed hostile feeling to the new house, producing in rivalry the ‘Way of the World’ and the ‘Beggar's Opera.’ But Covent Garden held its own. Rich gave in all some 123 representations during his first season there, the theatre closing on 1 June. In spite of the augmented prices the receipts on the opening night were only 115l., and this was reduced on the second night to 61l. 7s. 6d. Ordinary prices began on 11 Dec. ”

“ Waters,” said he, after glancing at the introductory note I had brought, “and cannot possibly go into the business with the attention and minuteness it requires till the morning. But I’ll tell you what: one of the parties concerned, and the one, too, with whom you will have especially to deal, is, I know, to be at Covent Garden Theatre this evening. It is of course necessary that you should be thoroughly acquainted with his person; and if you will go with me in the cab that is waiting outside, I will step with you into the theatre, and point him out.” ”

“ If for instance at the Surrey or the Coburg you see two fellows quarrelling which is the master and which is the man, at the King’s Theatre you hear an elegant discourse on ‘the higher and the lower orders.’ A critic at Covent-Garden or Drury-Lane thinks Sadler’s Wells or the East London low: a critic of the self-same stamp, but one of softer phrase, pronounces the condemnation of the drama in good set terms as altogether exploded in the fashionable circles, and as flourishing most in our manufacturing towns and the semi-barbarous states of North America. ”

“ She remained at that theatre until the summer of 1805, when she joined the Drury Lane company, together with her husband. She left it with him in 1809. At Covent Garden she played with success a large range of parts, such as Rosalind, Viola, Lady Townly, Lucy Ashton, Desdemona, Beatrice, Portia, Lady Teazle, and Miss Hardcastle. ”

“ In the meantime he turned his serious attention to composition, and in 1778 produced his first English comic opera, The Flitch of Bacon, at the Little Theatre in the Haymarket, with so great success that he was immediately engaged as composer to Covent Garden Theatre, for which he continued to produce English operas and other dramatic pieces in quick succession until 1797, when he resigned his office, and devoted himself to compositions of a different class, producing a great number of very beautiful glees, some instrumental chamber music, and other miscellaneous compositions. ”

“ The large woman, in turn, was chasing Leonide Massine running at full tilt. The woman, obviously a crackpot, had accused Massine of stealing her idea for a ballet. Jackson caught the woman and disarmed her.
The London stage doorkeeper is really a breed unto himself.
I love opening nights at Covent Garden, when it becomes, quite apart from the stage, a unique social function in the display of dresses and jewels, despite the austerity. It is always a curious mixture of private elegance and public excitement. ”

“ Encouraged by success he at length decided upon the erection of a larger theatre, the stage of which should afford greater facilities for scenic and mechanical display, and accordingly built the first Covent Garden Theatre, which he opened Dec. ”

“ After the destruction of Covent Garden Theatre, where it had met for seventy years, the Sublime Society of Beefsteaks migrated to the Bedford Coffee-house, where it remained till the building of the Lyceum Theatre in 1809, in a special room 44of which it took up its abode till 1830, when the Lyceum also was burnt down. ”

“ Green has been at great pains to collect.
The spécialité of this very agreeable place is the olden music, which is sung here with great intelligence and spirit; the visitors are of the better and more appreciative class, and often include amateurs of rank. The reserved gallery is said to occupy part of the site of the cottage in which the Kembles occasionally resided during the zenith of their fame at Covent-Garden Theatre ”