Crotchets and quavers Author:Max Maretzek Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: REVELATIONS OF AN OPERA MANAGER, ETC. 11 LETTER I. TO HECTOR BERLIOZ, PARIS. New York, July 25, 1855. Mr Dear Berlioz :— When you take up this letter... more », open it, and turn to the signature, you will in all probability imagine that you are dreaming. You may remember, possibly, that when you quitted London after English opera had terminated for the nine hundred and ninety-ninth time it3 temporary existence, I promised to write to you. Jullien's management had given that highly respectable musical entity its nine hundred and ninety-ninth burial. As times go, all things considered, it was very respectably managed. You and myself had all the trouble of preparing the corpse for the coffin. Balfe, as the doctor, had penned the last prescription ; Sims Reeves, as a native apothecary, carried off all the glory attendant upon putting it out of the land of the living; while that purely mythical personage, " nobody," would seem to have pocketed the whole of the money its charms had wheedled from its scant admirers. Very certain is it, that none remained. Over seven years have since elapsed, but, one of your own French Proverbs says, " Vaut mieux tard que jamais" Accordingly, I sit down for the purpose of redeeming my promise. If you have not yet learned it, which it may be reasonably presumed in these days of almost universal Journaldom (a great traveller informs me, that in Timbuctoo they have already two newspapers) you have, let me inform you that immediately, or almost immediately after you left London, I accepted an engagement in the United States. Shortly afterwards, I myself, Max Maretzek, became a manager. Do not laugh and shake your head incredulously as you hear this, for let me tell you, it is to the full as easy to become a manager in America, as it is in your count...« less