Author: EBERS (John):
Title: Seven Years of the King's Theatre.
Description: London: William Harrison Ainsworth..., 1828. FIRST EDITION. Large 8vo, 220 x 136 mms. pp. [ v], vi - xxviii, 395 [396 printer's imprint], engraved portrait of Pasta as Desdemona, 5 other engraved plates of opera singers, recently rebound in half calf, marbled boards, red morocco label; a very good copy. In his short life, John Ebers (1785 - 1830) worked first as a bookseller, but in 1820, he and William Ayrton took overt the management of the King's Theatre, Haymarket. Ayrton left after a year, and Ebers took a four-year lease on the theatre in 1822. He was responsible for introducing several new Rossini operas to London audiences. Unfortunately, his theatrical and artistic skills were not complemented by business acumen, and he was made bankrupt in 1827; he then returned to the more dubious safety of bookselling. His book, however, is vivid and entertaining, full of information and insight into the perils and pleasures of managing an opera house. The Monthly Review for 1828 reviewed it at great length, beginning, "THIS book may be looked upon as the confession of a tradesman, who, having amassed a little fortune in the pleasant and respectable business of a bookseller, suffered his head to be turned by a taste for Italian music, and by an ambition to figure as the manager of the Opera. Mr. Ebers might have remained snug enough, all his life, in his shop at Bond Street, if he had been content with his original vocation; but choosing to ascend from being the mere vender of box and pit tickets for the King's Theatre, to the superintendence of the whole concern, he has completely sacrificed to his folly, the acquisitions of a life of honest industry, and in consequence has been obliged to seek the usual and pitiable refuge of the Gazette. The imprudence with which a man of staid and thrifty habits, like our author, suffered himself, after his first year's woeful experience, to be tempted onward in a career of ruin from season to season, is one of the most remarkable features of his volume. It would seem, indeed, that he depended in some measure upon the promises of a few noblemen, to give him effectual assistance-promises which, we need hardly say, never went beyond vague general expressions, and were uttered only to be broken. Perhaps also he conceived, that personal access to a few peers, and a familiar acquaintance with the stars of the musical and dancing world, conferred upon him a degree of importance, which was equitably purchased by pecuniary losses, however serious and embarrassing they might be. To this unhappy vanity we must add the influence of a fatal feeling, similar to that which actuates the losing gambler, when he lays down stake after stake, under the feverish hope that some brilliant gleam of good fortune might at length compensate him for his reverses. It is however but justice to Mr. Ebers to add, that whatever may have been the motives of his connexion with the Opera, he has sustained his disappointments with a degree of manliness and good temper, we might add, with a philosophical dignity, which cannot fail to awaken the public sympathy in his favour. He endeavours to make out no case for compassion; he conceals nothing that can tend to throw light on the history of the theatre during his management; and he discloses every thing fairly, without measuring the extent to which it may tell for or against himself."

Keywords: opera theatre prose


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