A collection of five playbills from 1818 and 1819 which have been bound together by a contemporary playgoer who has reviewed the performances of two major productions on successive nights at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden and Drury Lane. The playgoer has written on the playbill versos two long (400 words each) accounts of the earliest English-language production of Rossini’s opera The Barber of Seville at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden followed by Charles Kean’s performance as Shakespeare’s Macbeth at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.
On the verso of the playbill for the Barber of Seville (October 14th, 1818) our critic writes of the ‘satisfaction of the house at seeing their old friend [Robert?] Liston go through the various manoeuvres of his part as the Barber and champion of the piece who with Jones were the only two on whom the successful reception of the opera seemed to depend - The latter [‘Mr Jones’ as Count Almaviva] though was frequently in a very awkward situation, by being obliged to employ his servant (a little fat fellow with a voice more melodious than his own) to sing above all others, his love songs - but his address amply compensated for the deficiency’. The writer’s review of Macbeth (Thursday October 15, 1818, Drury Lane) begins with a fascinating note about his intention to ‘to visit in proper form, the other House’ - presumably Covent Garden - but then giving in to the lure of half price tickets ‘at old Drury’ (Theatre Royal, Drury Lane) to see Macbeth. He records how he asked his friends whether Macbeth was really being played by Edmund Kean whose ‘diminutive unhandsome figure added to his disagreeable voice, induced me to do this as I could not suppose the being who stood before me; was the one that engrossed so much of the public praise...’ There are further discussions of Henry Kemble’s performance as Macduff and the performance of Mary Ann Orger in the ‘Afterpiece’ and others as well as his problems seeing across the footlights and disagreement that he states with the verdict of contemporary theatre critics.
A remarkable survival
Broadsides:
Rob Roy Macgregor, March 31, 1818, Covent Garden, E Macleish Printer
Barber of Seville, October 14, 1818, Covent Garden, E Macleish
Macbeth, Drury Lane, October 15, 1818, Rodwell Printer
The Duenna, Feb 17, 1819, Covent Garden, E Macleish
Brutus, or the Fall of Tarquin, February 16, 1819, Drury Lane, Rodwell
