On a January evening of the early seventies, Christine Nilsson was singing in Faust at the Academy of Music in New York.Though there was already talk of the erection, in remote metropolitan distances ‘above the Forties, ‘ of a new Opera House which should compete in costliness and splendour with those of the great European capitals, the world of fashion was still content to reassemble every winter in the shabby red and gold boxes of the sociable old Academy. Conservatives cherished it for being small and inconvenient, and thus keeping out the ‘new people’ whom New York was beginning to dread and yet be drawn to; and the sentimental clung to it for its historic associations, and the musical for its excellent acoustics, always so problematic a quality in halls built for the hearing of music.It was Madame Nilsson’s first appearance that winter, and what the daily press had already learned to describe as ‘an exceptionally brilliant audience’ had gathered to hear her, transported through the slippery, snowy streets in private broughams, in the spacious family landau, or in the humbler but more convenient ‘Brown coupe.’
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