Chapters of Opera | Page 8

the manager and M. Malibran,
to whom, it is said, a portion of the receipts were sent every night.
Three other theaters which were identified with opera more or less

came into the field later, and by their names, at least, testified to the
continued popularity which a famous English institution had won a
century before, and which endured until that name could be applied to
the places that bore it only on the "lucus a non lucendo" principle.
These were the theaters of Richmond Hill, Niblo's, and Castle Garden.
The Ranelagh Gardens, which John Jones opened in New York, in June,
1765, and the Vauxhall Gardens, opened by Mr. Samuel Francis, in
June, 1769, were planned more or less after their English prototypes.
Out-of-doors concerts were their chief musical features, fireworks their
spectacular, while the serving of refreshments was relied on as the
principal source of profit. Richmond Hill had in its palmy days been
the villa home of Aaron Burr, and its fortunes followed the descending
scale like those of its once illustrious master. Its site was the
neighborhood of what is now the intersection of Varick and Charlton
streets. After passing out of Burr's hands, but before his death, the park
had become Richmond Hill Gardens, and the mansion the Richmond
Hill Theater, both of somewhat shady reputation, which was
temporarily rehabilitated by the response which the fashionable
elements of the city's population made to an appeal made by a season
of Italian opera, given in 1832. The relics of Niblo's Garden have
disappeared as completely as those of Richmond Hill, but its site is still
fresh in the memory of those whose theatrical experiences go back a
quarter of a century. They must be old, however, who can recall enough
verdure in the vicinity of Broadway and Prince Street to justify the
name maintained by the theater to which for many years entrance was
gained through a corridor of the Metropolitan Hotel. Three-quarters of
a century ago Niblo's Garden was a reality. William Niblo, who built it
and managed it with consummate cleverness, had been a successful
coffee-house keeper downtown. Its theater opened refreshingly on one
side into the garden (as the Terrace Garden Theater, at Third Avenue
and Fifty-eighth Street does to-day), where one could eat a dish of ice
cream or sip a sherry cobbler in luxurious shade, if such were his
prompting, while play or pantomime went merrily on within. Writing
of it in 1855 Max Maretzek, who, as manager of the Astor Place Opera
House, had suffered from the rivalry of Niblo and his theater, said:
The Metropolitan Hotel, Niblo's Theater, stores and other buildings

occupy the locality. Of the former garden nothing remains save the ice
cream and drinking saloons attached to the theater. These take up
literally as much room in the building as its stage does, and prove that
its proprietor has not altogether overlooked the earlier vocation which
laid the foundation of his fortune. The name by which he calls it has
never changed. It was Niblo's Garden when loving couples ate their
creams or drank their cobblers under the shadow of the trees. It is
Niblo's Garden now, when it is turned into a simple theater and hedged
in with houses. Nay, in the very bills which are circulated in the interior
of the building during the performances you may find, or might shortly
since have found, such an announcement as the following, appearing in
large letters:
"Between the second and third acts"--or, possibly, it may run thus when
opera is not in the ascendant--"after the conclusion of the first piece an
intermission of twenty minutes takes place, for a promenade in the
garden."
You will, I feel certain, admit that this is a marvelously delicate way of
intimating to a gentleman who may feel "dry" (it is the right word, is it
not?) that he will find the time to slake his thirst.
When he returns and his lady inquires where he has been he may reply,
if he wills it:
"Promenading in the garden."
It is not plain from Mr. White's account whether or not his memory
reached back to the veritable garden of Mr. Niblo, but his recollections
of the theater were not jaundiced like those of Mr. Maretzek, but
altogether amiable. Speaking of the performances of the Shireff, Seguin,
and Wilson company of English opera singers, who came to New York
in 1838, he says:
Miss Shireff afterward appeared at Niblo's Garden, which was on the
corner of Broadway and Prince Street, where the Metropolitan Hotel
now stands. Here she performed in Auber's "Masked Ball" and other
light operas (all, of course, in English), singing in a theater that was

open on one side to the air; for Niblo's was a great place of summer
entertainment.