"Opera" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for Le Solitaire, a romance written, I believe, by a certain Vicomte d'Arlincourt. Le Solitaire rules the imagination, the taste, the dress of half Paris: if you go to the theatre, it is to see the "Solitaire," either as tragedy, opera, or melodrame; the men dress their hair and throw their cloaks about them a la Solitaire; bonnets and caps, flounces and ribbons, are all a la Solitaire; the print shops are full of scenes from Le Solitaire; ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... of a very high order. He began as a landscapist on wood; he now chiefly devotes himself to the figure; and he seems to have the decorative art at his fingers' ends as a natural gift. Such work as "King Luckieboy's Party" was a revelation in the way of toy books, while the "Baby's Opera" and "Baby's Bouquet" are petits chefs d'oeuvre, of which the sagacious collector will do well to secure copies, not for his nursery, but his library. Nor can his "Mrs. Mundi at Home" be neglected by the curious in quaint and graceful invention. {14} ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... was! The car must have seemed a flying volcano. And it woke them up! The sleeping city poured forth its millions to gaze and wonder. Surely they had never heard such a thundering. Within five minutes we saw them on the roofs and in the towers. Many were staring at us through a kind of opera glasses which they had. Then from a dozen aerial pavilions the colors broke forth and ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... sing?" said Patricia, when at recess Dorothy questioned her. "I'm going to sing something from grand opera. It's called: ...
— Dorothy Dainty at Glenmore • Amy Brooks
... he always had acted like a poor prune when he was kidded by the flossy key pounders in the office, but almost any nut could see this was an entirely different case. Here was a regular person, all dolled up in a classy evening gown, with a fur-trimmed opera cape slippin' off her shoulders. And she was givin' ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... season of German Opera here, when 'Fidelio's' effects were going, going up to the gallery in order to get the best of the last chorus—get its oneness which you do—and, while perched there an inch under the ceiling, I was amused with the enormous enthusiasm of an elderly German (we thought,—I ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... ambition to be better known to you; you come out of the country I adore. And how does the dear Battist[8]? I long for some of his new compositions in the last opera. A propos! I have had the most happy invention this morning, and a tune trouling in my head; I rise immediately in my night-gown and slippers, down I put the notes slap-dash, made words to them ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... seems, are admitted to that degree. Of all the carriages that leave the arch of the Opera House, not one turns eastward, and when the little thief is caught in the empty market-place no one in black- and-white or rose-coloured evening dress blocks the way by pausing with a hand upon the carriage door to help or condemn—though Lady Charles, ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... goes on to speak in vague exalted words of the "equality" and "brotherhood" to which he looks forward in the new land; winding up with an account of his life in London, its daily work at the Colonial Office, his walks, the occasional evenings at the opera where he worships Jenny Lind, his readings and practisings in his lodgings. My poor father! He little knew what he was giving up, or the real conditions of the life to which he ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... list only those which offer the boldest challenge to a sane man's credulity—is uninterrupted down to our own day. A few of them may be mentioned by way of illustration. In one century we find Spanish priests demanding the suppression of the opera on the ground that this form of entertainment caused a drought, and a Pope issuing a bull against men and women having sexual intercourse with fiends. In another, we find an English tailor, unsuccessfully, allotting endless torments to all who would not accept his declaration that God was only ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... dramatist and actor, was born in Tothill-street, Westminster; and after having left school, is said to have been put apprentice to a bookseller. It is supposed he made his first appearance on the stage about the year 1657, at the opera house, which was then under the direction of sir William Davenant. He went over to Paris to take a view of the French scenery, and on his return, made such improvements, as added greatly to the lustre ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... am one of those persons whom the world has thought proper to designate by the title of Damned Authors. In that memorable season of dramatic failures, 1806-7, in which no fewer, I think, than two tragedies, four comedies, one opera, and three farces suffered at Drury-Lane Theatre, I was found guilty of constructing an ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... took up another, which was, at any rate, written in English. This he found to be Bishop Butler's Analogy. Putting it down speedily as something not in his line, he laid hands upon a third. This proved to be Patrum Apostolicorum Opera, on which he saddled his horse and went right away, leaving the Oxonian to his baking. This man must certainly be considered a rare exception. New Zealand seems far better adapted to develop and maintain in health the physical ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... well pleased; but he did not like it quite so much when the demon of restoration and renovation invaded his own quarters, such as the Butte des Moulins, and all that densely populated district through which the splendid Avenue de l'Opera now runs. The effect of all this was to drive the workman into the already crowded quarters at the barriers, such as La Gare, St. Lambert, Javel, and Charonne, where, according to the last statistics of the Annuaire, the increase was at the rate of 415 per 1,000. Of course the ill ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... cum Roberto filio Godwini milite audacissimo Edgaras Hierosolymam pertendit Illud fuit tempus quo Turci Baldwinum regem apud Ramas obsederunt: qui cum obsidionis iniuriam ferre nequiret, per medias hostium acies effugit, solius Roberti opera liberatus praeeuntis, et euaginato gladio dextra leuaque Turcos caedentis. Sed cum successu ipso truculentior, alacritate nimia procurreret, ensis manu excidit. Ad quem recolligendum cum se inclinasset, omnium incursu oppressus, vinculis palmas dedit. Inde Babyloniam (vt aiunt) ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation. v. 8 - Asia, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... after crime has been brought home to the Indian criminal both here and in London because they will sit in garden-chairs and let a man take their portraits. Nothing will stop them. They won't learn. They are like the ladies of the light opera stage. Well, let 'em go on I ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... opera-house at Lisbon is a large clock placed rather in advance, whose dexter supporter is old Time with his scythe, and the sinister, one of the Muses ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 560, August 4, 1832 • Various
... attached to his master, and had no prudential misgivings whatsoever. He had already been present at one or two affairs in which his party had been victorious, and war seemed to him twice more exciting, twice more delightful than the French Opera, ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... recitatives proceeding from a kitchen some eight feet square, that Katy was at great pains to satisfy her curiosity about it. By aid of the dictionary and much persistent questioning, she made out that Maria in her youth had received a partial training for the opera; but in the end it was decided that she was too big and heavy for the stage, and the poor "giantess," as Amy named her, had been forced to abandon her career, and gradually had sunk to the position of a maid-of-all-work. Katy suspected ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... rest themselves and play their games and go in when it rains. For it rains in Mo as it does everywhere else, only it rains lemonade; and the lightning in the sky resembles the most beautiful fireworks; and the thunder is usually a chorus from the opera of Tannhauser. ...
— The Surprising Adventures of the Magical Monarch of Mo and His People • L. Frank Baum
... let your dress be subdued. It is offensive to put on your gayest attire to call upon a friend in affliction, and equally so to converse upon such subjects as balls, opera or similar amusements. Let the mourner decide whether to speak of the recent sorrow ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... been less preoccupied, if he had had more curiosity and had cared to see with his opera glasses what was going on in that atmosphere of light, he would have been charmed with one of those magical and fantastic spectacles, the like of which is sometimes seen in the great theaters of Europe. To the subdued strains of ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... conventionality gurgled out this morning; what's the good of mine, as it stands now, to its owner or to anybody else, I should like to know, except the dear old Progenitor? A mere bit of cracked blue china, a fanciful air from a comic opera, masquerading in black and white as a piece of sacred music! What good am I to anyone on earth but the Progenitor (God bless him!), and when he's gone, dear old fellow, what on earth shall I have left to live for. A selfish blank, that's all. But with HER, ah, how ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... about them, and scrambled for seats. There was a general preference for the part forward of the wheelhouse, because it was a few feet nearer New Jersey than the aft part. The rush to obtain these preferred places was like that of the opera-going world for the front row of boxes at a matinee. Ladies who obtained eligible seats, settled themselves in them, spread out their dresses, put their gloved hands in position, and smiled with a sweet satisfaction ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... wind of it! But if they are gone to St. Vitus, and fail in every point, what can one do? CE M. DE MIRABEAU, readers will be surprised to learn, is an Uncle of the great Mirabeau's; who has fallen into roving courses, gone abroad insolvent; and "directs the Opera at Baireuth," in these years!—One Letter we will ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... liberally; company after company was equipped, furnished with ample funds by the munificence of citizens who remained, and sent forward to Virginia, to make their breasts a shield for the proud old "Mother of Presidents." The battle of Bethel was regarded as part of an overture to the opera of Blood, yclept "Subjugation," and people watched in silence for the crimson curtain to rise on the banks of the Potomac. Russell Aubrey had succeeded in raising a fine full company for the war, as contra-distinguished from twelve-months volunteers; and to properly drill and discipline it, he ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... at once of a foreign element in it, something which stirred his somewhat slow-beating pulse, too, which seemed to bring back to him a flood of delicious memories, the perfume of his rose-gardens at evening, the soft night music of his wind-stirred cedars. She had thrown aside her opera cloak. The delicate lines of her bust seemed to have expanded with the unusual rise and fall of her bosom. A faint rose-tint flush of streaming colour had stained the ivory whiteness of her skin—her eyes as they sought his were soft, almost liquid. They met so seldom alone—and ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... colors are splashed on with a barbaric, almost a theatrical, touch. It's a regular backdrop of a country; its scenery looks as though it belonged on a stage—as though it should be painted on a curtain. You almost expect to see a chorus of comic-opera brigands or a bevy of stage milkmaids come trooping out of the wings any minute. Who was the libelous wretch who said that the flowers of California had no perfume and the birds there had no song? Where we passed through tangled woods ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... "It's like being in Paris, isn't it? Or, perhaps, it's more like being in a lovely old French provincial city, where the theater is the chief architectural monument. It's hard for me to understand why the French have encouraged that kind of architecture for their theaters and opera houses. It seems so unrelated to sound, which ought to give the clue to the building. The use of the word festival here is a little old-fashioned and misleading. It doesn't mean what we usually consider festivity. ...
— The City of Domes • John D. Barry
... nations in the manufacture of motor vehicles, and in the early nineties their products began to make occasional appearances on American roads. The type of American who owned this imported machine was the same that owned steam yachts and a box at the opera. Hardly any new development has aroused greater hostility. It not only frightened horses, and so disturbed the popular traffic of the time, but its speed, its glamour, its arrogance, and the haughty behavior of its proprietor, ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... raised heartier laughter than in an action some years ago where the issue was whether the plaintiff, who had been engaged by the defendant to sing in "potted opera" at a music-hall, was competent ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... never seen a comedy. When she asked to "see what it was like" (with the Abbe Gaudron's permission, be it understood), Monsieur Baudoyer took her—for the glory of the thing, and to show her the finest that was to be seen—to the Opera, where they were playing "The Chinese Laborer." Elisabeth thought "the comedy" as wearisome as the plague of flies, and never wished to see another. On Sundays, after walking four times to and fro between the place Royale and Saint-Paul's church (for her mother made her practise the ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... a theatre or opera house, the light fell in a soft and penetrating radiance from the center of the dome. Its source was not visible to either audience or actresses, and, in consequence, occasioned no discomfort to the eyes. The light ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... Archdeacon is getting so absent-minded. He read a list of box-holders for the opera as the First Lesson the other Sunday, instead of the families and lots of the tribes of Israel that entered Canaan. Fortunately no ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... a black velvet suit with yellow facings, and a tall straw hat running to a point. I seemed to have seen him a hundred times in comic opera. ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock
... together at all sorts of places, on a yacht cruising around Catalina island, on the links at a country club, a ball at the Ambassador, racing along the coast road to Santa Barbara in Gibson's expensive car, at the opera and supper later. Then thought of the patch on his own trousers. Oh, what ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... Long mirrors on the walls reflected, in an endless vista, the gilded columns that supported the ceiling. The fortune accumulated by Palmo in the restaurant was lost in an attempt to introduce Italian opera into the United States. Palmo's Opera House, in Chamber Street, between Centre Street and Broadway, ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... state of the stage at this epoch. Nevertheless, if only to avoid confusion in the future, it will be well to enumerate the several London theatres in 1728, the more especially as the list is by no means lengthy. First and foremost there was the old Opera House in the Haymarket, built by Vanbrugh, as far back as 1705, upon the site now occupied by Her Majesty's Theatre. This was the home of that popular Italian song which so excited the anger of thorough-going Britons; and here, at the beginning of 1728, they ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... again—to hear her voice. Every moment some one nodded to him, distracting his attention, but his eyes reverted immediately to the end of the hall. Men and women were passing out, down the broad staircase that ended in front of the intelligent portrait. The women in rich opera cloaks, the men in black capes carrying their crush hats under their arms, were all alike; they were more like every other collection of the successful in the broad earth than ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... beamed. The fat plantation owners gorged themselves and jabbered. The three-piece orchestra played light opera that the world had forgotten. The company became light-hearted as more frosty bottles of that exotic drink, arracka, were disgorged by the Persian Gulf's excellent ice-box. And all the while, speaking in light, soothing ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... to make any offer for 'Foscari.' She went up to town in the greatest hurry to try and collect some of the money owing to her from her various publishers, but, as Mr. Harness says, received little from her debtors beyond invitations and compliments. She meditates a novel, she plans an opera, 'Cupid ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... stopped near the gate and looked into the yard. The dog was asleep outside his kennel, three calves were walking slowly, one behind the other, towards the pond. A big turkey was strutting before the door, parading before the turkey hens like a singer at the opera. ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... grimy-looking, ill-shaven priest, there is not, perhaps, much temptation to enter, nor is the conversation of a kind one would care to join in; and there is but this, and the noisy, almost riotous, reception after the opera, where a dozen people are contending at "Lansquenet," while one or perhaps two thump the piano, and some three or four shout rather than sing the last popular melody of the season, din being accepted as gaiety, and a clamour that would ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... again without a night's rest in between. As for Wagner, that would be worse than straightening out an intricate account after a day spent in poring over a ledger. No. Music without any tune to it may be all right for some people, but comic opera is "good enough" for you. You like that coon song you heard the other night. How you would enjoy playing it on the pianoforte if you only knew how! But you don't, so you have to pay a speculator three dollars for a seat if you want to ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb
... terribly sorry but mother would stay. I couldn't get her to leave and it was all so awkward. How do you do, Mr. Westcott? Do you remember—we met at Treliss—and now I must rush back this very minute. We are dining at seven before the Opera, and father wants that music you promised him—the Brahms thing. Oh! is it upstairs? Well, if ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... so the pleasure of listening to it should be afforded at frequent intervals. Patients should be encouraged to absorb themselves in it. It is often possible to take insane people to opera, musical comedy, or concert. Vocal and instrumental practice at suitable intervals is of great value in fixing the attention, filling the mind with desirable thoughts and memories, and allaying irritability. Drawing and painting are of service ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various
... to England should make him know the occasion he now had for it. He therefore had no anxious thoughts to interrupt the pleasures the place he was in afforded in such variety; he was every evening with the baron, either at court, the opera, the comedy, or some other gay scene of entertainment; was introduced to the best company; and his young heart, charm'd with the politeness and gallantry of that nation, and the little vanity to which a person of such early years is ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... Egypt, and in Eastern pilgrimages, imbibed the idea of one Deity, in which all things are absorbed. The unity of Asia, and the detail of Europe; the infinitude of the Asiatic soul, and the defining, result-loving, machine-making, surface-seeking, opera-going Europe,—Plato came to join, and by contact to enhance the energy of each. The excellence of Europe and Asia are in his brain. Metaphysics and natural philosophy expressed the genius of Europe; he substructs the religion of Asia, as ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... in darkness and the scene changed to the interior of the squalid tenement in which the pathos of the little story unfolded, and a characteristic song was sung. At length the scene changed to the throne room of the palace, where the plot resolved itself into happiness and the little opera closed with the ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... gilded youth and where there was a certain plain honesty in the bill of fare. His evenings were spent either before his landlady's piano or roaming about the outskirts of the city. His liking for Mozart's music brought him sometimes to an opera or a concert: these were the only ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... start for Florida at ten the next morning. Mrs. Carnarvon was going away to the opera, giving them the last evening alone. Marian had asked this of ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... bills in Paris, but the man in his native state of charming ignorance of materials; the man who always suggests a "gusset" as a remedy for too scant a gown, who calls insertion "tatting," and who, in setting out for the opera, will tell his wife to put on her "bonnet and shawl," although she may have on point-lace and diamonds. In his more modern aspect he tells you that a girl at the Junior Promenade had on a blue dress with feathers around her neck—which you must translate into meaning ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... 1609. Its principle is shown in Fig. 126. The rays transmitted by the object-glass are caught, before coming to a focus, on a concave lens which separates them so that they appear to meet in the paths of convergence denoted by the dotted lines. The image is erect. Opera-glasses are ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... Balzac"; and drove in a tilbury, behind a high-stepping horse, with a tiny tiger, whom he christened Anchise, perched on the back seat. This phase was quickly over, the horses were sold, and Balzac appeared no more in the box reserved for dandies at the Opera. Of the fashionable outfit, the only property left was the microscopic groom—an orphan, of whom Balzac took the greatest care, and whom he visited daily during the boy's last illness, a year or two after. Thenceforward he reverted to his usual indifference about appearances, his only vanity ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... came back. When he took up his abode on the Quai Malaquais, it came to pass that a thousand francs over and above his needs was altogether insufficient to keep up his share of a box at the Italiens and the Opera properly. When he lost twenty-five or thirty louis at play at one swoop, naturally he paid; when he won, he spent the money; so should we if we were fools enough to be drawn into a bet. Beaudenord, feeling pinched with his eighteen thousand francs, saw the necessity ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac
... pleased to discover would be played by the Montague girl. She entered in a splendid evening gown, almost too splendid, Merton thought, for street wear in daylight, though it was partially concealed by a rich opera cloak. The brother being out, Merton came forward ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... is as essential to put the reader into good humor, as a good prologue is to a play, or a fine symphony is to an opera, containing something analogous to the work itself; so that we may feel its want as a desire not elsewhere to be gratified. The Italians call the preface—La salsa del libro—the sauce of the book; and, if well-seasoned, ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... in?" she asked, and she seemed breathless. "It is Susan's night out, and Aunt Isabelle is at the opera with some old friends. Barry expected to be here with me, but he hasn't come. And I sat in the dining-room—and waited," she shivered, "until I couldn't stand it ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... time and money. Every one was politeness and kindness itself. But I missed the long evenings in Albanian or Montenegrin huts round the fire; the talk and the doings. The Austrian official who sighed only for the Opera or the Ringstrasse and thought himself an exile wearied me. But as I was not allowed to study the native I had to study him. I startled some of them one night when they asked me as usual, how I liked Bosnia, ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... to speak, for the air would have frozen on their lips, and they hurried to a corner where usually there were to be found sledges, whose drivers can endure any amount of cold, and who even sleep out at night at theatre and opera while waiting for their masters. Here Ivan found what he wanted, though the man's dull gaze seemed to question the propriety of taking two children to the pleasure-garden which Ivan indicated. The kopeks, however, ...
— Harper's Young People, December 9, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... to the Hopital Malesherbes, but at the Place de l'Opera Dean asked to be put down. The journalist promised to 'phone to the Grand Hotel if anything of interest came to light, and Arthur Dean went to make his report to Lars Larssen. It was already past mid-day, and ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... it immediately, because it was the only air the bullfinch whistled, and he had come to them with the reputation for whistling it. Both Egbert and Lady Anne would have preferred something from The Yeomen of the Guard, which was their favourite opera. In matters artistic they had a similarity of taste. They leaned towards the honest and explicit in art, a picture, for instance, that told its own story, with generous assistance from its title. A riderless warhorse with harness in obvious disarray, staggering into a courtyard full ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... operatically nearly related to Germont, pere, in La Traviata, was impressively dramatic, but decidedly disappointing in his one great song, which ought to be a certain encore. It may be true that an opera intended for a small stage does not stand a fair chance of success on a large one, and vice versa, as no doubt the LORD MAYOR's coach provided by DRURIOLANUS SHERIFFUS for the occasion would look absurd on the stage of the Opera Comique, while here when it comes round to the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 30, 1891 • Various
... know that the Dramatic Editor of the Paducah Paper went to a Burgoo Picnic the Day the Actors came to Town, and didn't get back until Midnight, so he wrote his Notice of the Night Owls' performance from a Programme brought to him by the Head Usher at the Opera House, who was also Galley Boy ...
— Fables in Slang • George Ade
... R. said he disappeared under a road bridge which led to a donga and jungle and native huts. He dodged a neighbour's butler who was brought out by the shouts, and got away. He had only just got into the house, for there were only some small silver things taken. It was like a scene from a comic opera when we got back, as our host and hostess with old fashioned lamps went along their line of white-robed servants. These were all dying to speak at once, but had each to wait his turn and give his account of how the thief had come in, how he was ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... were taken, little complimentary to the good faith of those to whom Spain must feel that she owes her very existence. In spite of these drawbacks, however, I contrived to spend a week in this city with much satisfaction. The opera and theatre opening on Easter Sunday, and continuing open during the remainder of our stay, furnished sufficient amusement for the evenings, whilst in walking or riding about, in examining the different churches and chapels, and in chatting with nuns through the ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... feel the tread of it, the words had to roll like thunder. It is an advantage to me that I am full of Wagner; I always hear the music with my poetry. (I shall be disappointed if some one does not make an opera out ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... a very foolish young man who did not know the ways of the world. The only persons of whom she had any experience who sent bouquets without a note or a letter were husbands, who were either making up a quarrel with their wives or going to the opera, and she had observed that on such occasions the difference between twelve-and-sixpence and fifteen shillings was regarded ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... particular reason why, after having left the Opera House, I should have retraced my steps and taken my place once more amongst the throng of people who stood about in the entresol, exchanging greetings and waiting for their carriages. A backward glance as ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the Golden Dog, which I shall sing to-night—that is, if you will care to listen to me." Jean said this with a very demure air of mock modesty, knowing well that the reception of a new ballad from him would equal the furor for a new aria from the prima donna of the opera ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... delighted with each other when a sudden interruption to the harmonious meeting was caused by the discovery that some of the savages had acquired the art of picking pockets. A snuff-box belonging to Mr Monkhouse disappeared, and an opera-glass in a shagreen case, the property of Dr Solander, vanished. To pass over a first act of this kind lightly would have led to interminable pilferings and quarrellings. Mr Banks therefore started up angrily and struck the butt of his musket violently on ...
— The Cannibal Islands - Captain Cook's Adventure in the South Seas • R.M. Ballantyne
... swept through Paris. To be atheistic became the mark of a good citizen. Gobel, the archbishop, and many priests, accepted it, and renounced the Church. Then a further step was taken. On the 10th of November the Cathedral of Notre Dame was dedicated to Reason, a handsome young woman from the opera personifying the goddess. Two weeks later, just as Danton reached Paris, the Commune closed all the churches of the city for the purpose of dedicating them to the ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... The Opera House Orchestra needed a supplementary violin. It was a very small post, but he took it, pretending not to be able to do anything better. However a chance soon came his way to show what he was capable of. One day the conductor, who always presided at the harpsichord, was absent, and ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... many acquaintances; Mainhall, indeed, knew almost every one, and he babbled on incontinently, screwing his small head about over his high collar. Presently he hailed a tall, bearded man, grim-browed and rather battered-looking, who had his opera cloak on his arm and his hat in his hand, and who seemed to be on the point of leaving ...
— Alexander's Bridge and The Barrel Organ • Willa Cather and Alfred Noyes
... Paris, with its grand ladies and its grand opera, with his vineyard and his nightingales. "Paris," he says, "has fine flowers and lawns, but she is too much of the grande dame. She is unhappy, sleepy. Here, a thousand hamlets laugh by the river's side. Our skies laugh; everything ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... number of sixty-four, and bringing them together in one perfectly arranged volume.... His work is one simply invaluable to the general reading public. Technicalities are avoided, the aim being to give to musically uneducated lovers of the opera a clear understanding of the works they hear. It is description, not criticism, and calculated to greatly increase the ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... these red houses were springing up, quaintly gabled, much verandahed, pointed, fantastic, brilliant. They made the whole neighbourhood of the Heath look like the Merrie England of a comic opera. Yet they were pretty in their way; many were designed by able architects, and pleased with a balanced sense of proportion and an impression of beauty and fitness. Many, of course, lacked this, were ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... to be the commencement of the New York gay season; and here is, at present, no lack of amusement,—two theatres, an Italian Opera, various public assemblies, besides the ordinary resources of balls and family parties: of these there are three or four taking place every week; and I do not think the New-Yorkers are ever seen to better advantage than in the exercise ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... savagely, and bestowing a thump on his unoffending opera hat, already reduced to the smallest ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... hesitated to take advantage of his kindness, until he reminded her that he had heard what she said to her friend. Before the third resolution was proposed his seat would be at his own disposal again. She thanked him, and without further ceremony took his place. He was provided with an opera-glass, which he more than once offered to her when famous orators appeared on the platform. She made no use of it until a speaker, known in the City as a ship-owner, stepped forward to support the ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
... capital and the tremendous solidity of a thoroughfare in Paris or London. When one compares the utterances which West and East have given to their dreams, their aspirations, their sensations,—a Gothic cathedral with a Shinto temple, an opera by Verdi or a trilogy by Wagner with a performance of geisha, a European epic with a Japanese poem,—how incalculable the difference in emotional volume, in imaginative power, in artistic synthesis! True, ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... had changed what he could not doubt had been her resolve, to corner him and speak to him gravely. She was to all appearances careless now, smiling so that he recalled, not for the first time since that night at the opera, what was written long ago of a Princess of Brunswick: "Her mouth has ten thousand charms that touch the soul." She made a tour of the beautiful room where she had received him, singling out this treasure or that from the spoils of a hundred bric-a-brac ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... remained obstinately in his prominent position even holding on to the partition. Merry and greedily inquisitive eyes were turned upon Semyon Yakovlevitch, as well as lorgnettes, pince-nez, and even opera-glasses. Lyamshin, at any rate, looked through an opera-glass. Semyon Yakovlevitch calmly and lazily scanned all ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... head of a small army, the troops of Cyaxares of Media; and, at the mouth of a twisting valley, suddenly sees before him the town of Sinope in flames, the shipping in the harbour blazing likewise, all but one bark, which seems to be flying from more than the conflagration. A fine comic-opera situation follows; for while Artamene is trying to subdue the fire he is attacked by the traitor Aribee, general under the King of Assyria, who is himself shut up in a tower and seems to be hopelessly cut off from rescue by the fire. The invincible hero, however, subdues at once the rebel and ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... part, and a pardonable and amiable weakness for descanting on the charms of my native village, compel me to assure you, that, notwithstanding the deprivation of opera and theatre, bal masque and the Bois de Bologne, I believe you will be surprised to find that the tone of society here is quite up to the lofty standard of the 'Society of Areueil,' or even the requirements ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... fashionable church, where the service commences at a late hour, for the accommodation of such members of the congregation— and they are not a few—as may happen to have lingered at the Opera far into the morning of the Sabbath; an excellent contrivance for poising the balance between God and Mammon, and illustrating the ease with which a man's duties to both, may be accommodated and ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... evening in early February, "as if the Grits were getting a little anxious about South Fox—high time, too. I see Cruickshank is down to speak at Clayfield on the seventh, and Tellier is to be here for the big meeting at the opera house ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... cerebellum when I was rescued by some kindly people, who tell me that they found me scorching down Hays Hill on a cushion-tired ordinary. They have since told me that I was singing "My name is John Wellington Wells, Hurrah!" and other snatches from a pre-Wenusian opera. ...
— The War of the Wenuses • C. L. Graves and E. V. Lucas
... as the train gradually slackened speed and came to a standstill. Everybody who was going in to town to the theatre or opera, began to ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... that it was the only thing that detain'd him, but as Pickle in the interim went to Sens, in his return to Paris, HE WAS SEASED WITH A FLUXION DE POITRINE which had very near tript up his hiells. Pickle, when he recover'd, went to the Opera Ball, here to his great surprise he met the P. who received him very kindly, and he still insisted upon foreign assistance, and the great assurances he had from England, and that he expected matters would go well in a very little time, ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... others help us and we happen to find pleasure therein, we answer to very difficult demands upon the imagination. In the opera the deviation from reality is so powerful that it seems silly to one unaccustomed to it. But we do not need the unaccustomed person. We need only to imagine the most ordinary scene in an opera, i. e., ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... particularly averse to gaining time. Owing to Wilberforce's great aptness, that allowed him to go ahead of his class, he gained one year then and there, and took the honors of the class that started one year ahead of him. There were twenty-three members of that class. The Commencement was in the Opera-house at Dayton in 1878, and on that occasion the President of the Board said, without discredit to any others, he felt called upon to make special mention of young Wilberforce, which he did in a handsome manner. This was not all; the Missionary Society wanted to send Wilberforce ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... time I introduce Billy, both Lu and her husband were much changed. They had gained a great deal in width of view and liberality of judgment. They read Dickens, and Thackeray with avidity; went now and then to the opera; proposed to let Billy take a quarter at Dodworth's; had statues in their parlor without any thought of shame at their lack of petticoats, and did multitudes of things which, in their early married life, ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... is much like the acrobat we see at the theatres, who, mounted on his parti-colored ball, faces one way while it moves the other. It must be a queer spectacle to those who, from the planetary dress circle of the universe, are watching us through their opera glasses. It must be still queerer to them when they hear us chanting a Miserere at the approach of an invincible line across the face of Time, as imaginary as the Equator, and when it is passed, filling the air with a Jubilate—the songs of the dying and ...
— Observations of a Retired Veteran • Henry C. Tinsley
... gnashing his teeth in lonely discomfiture at his exasperated creditors, and receiptless bills, in sultry St. Thomas? But, somehow, she is. What good Samaritan takes out his twopence and pays for her little apartment, for her stacks of cut flowers, for her brougham and her opera-boxes, is no concern of mine. But, somehow, there always are good Samaritans in those cases; and, let alone Samaritans, there are no priests or Levites stonyhearted enough to pass by these dear, little, lovely things on the ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... he exclaimed. "Seven o'clock! The opera—da geht's schon an! Excuse me, Fraeulein, I must go. Ah, here is ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... it not? I was so charmed, that I mentally promised her a new silk when she went into half-mourning, and asked her to go with me to the opera as soon as she got over that feeble tendency to tears which kept her ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... Augustine's various writings against the Pelagians, e.g. Epist. clvii. (Opera, ed. Migne, tom. ii. coll. 374 et seq.), ...
— The Cell of Self-Knowledge - Seven Early English Mystical Treaties • Various
... to come to a sympathetic understanding of the place of the drama and the opera, to see what they have meant in the education of the race and what is the significance, to us, of the fact of the strong dramatic instinct in childhood. Naturally the subject can only be mentioned here and the suggestion be offered ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... twenty years before this time a Jesuit had noticed the retiring character of the Roman Catholic country gentlemen of England. "La nobilta Inglese, senon se legata in servigio, di Corte, o in opera di maestrato, vive, e gode il piu dell' anno alla campagna, ne' suoi palagi e poderi, dove son liberi e padroni; e cio tanto piu sollecitamente I Cattolici quanto piu utilmente, si come meno osservati cola."—L'lnghilterra descritta dal ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... forth, and with glowing face, and eyes fixed upon the stage, Selma seemed lost to all but the enrapturing sounds; even Frank's whispered words were unheeded. As the opera—'Lucia di Lammermoor'—proceeded, I saw that every eye was attracted to our box, and, bending forward to catch Selma's expression, I called Kate's attention to her. With her head thrown slightly back, a bright spot burning on ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... as our ladies now wear their nosegays or bouquets; upon their hips rested a quantity of cloth plaited very full, which reached up to the breast, and fell down below into long petticoats, which quite concealed their feet, and which they managed with as much dexterity as our opera-dancers could have done: The plaits above the waist were brown and white alternately, the petticoats below were ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... seen by the other eye. A stone's throw is a good standard of reference for greater distances. Cricketers estimate distance by the length between wickets. Pacing yards should be practised. It is well to dot or burn with the lens of your opera-glass a scale of inches on ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... mind is composed, and how it behaves when not disciplined by wakeful effort and external resistance. We see that there is no more natural order than in a dusty old attic. There is often the same incongruity between fact, idea, and emotion as there might be in an opera house, if all the wardrobes were dumped in a heap and all the scores mixed up, so that Madame Butterfly in a Valkyr's dress waited lyrically for the return of Faust. "At Christmas-tide" says an editorial, "old memories soften the heart. ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... into something too tense, too exciting, the atmosphere of the revival. Yet, though his fellow Christians blamed him for it, they sought it like a drug. He played on their unwilling nerves and they ran to be played on. He was their opera, their jazz. Breath came faster and eyes shone. The likelihood of a hysterical giggle was imminent, and some couples, safely out of range of Tenney's gaze, were "holding hands" and mentally shuddering at ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... Sullivan tradition. Say, who are these Gilbert and Sullivan guys, anyway? They get written up in the papers all the time, and I never met any one who'd run across them. If you want my opinion, that show down there is a comic opera!" ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... friend, and at once found for her a well-paid position as secretary for Felix Brand, his prospective son-in-law. Mrs. Annister also showed much kindly feeling for the girl and often had her stay overnight at their home for a visit to the theatre or the opera. ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... it will be eleven before the chief leaves. I wish you would go to that little shop opposite the opera-house; they have got wigs and all that sort of thing there. Please get me two old men's wigs and beards, and one set of those mutton-chop shaped whiskers, and a woman's wig. I haven't made up my mind yet what I am going to wear, but I want these things to choose from. I am ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... restlessness. It is curious to note what diverse causes produce the same effects. Cora Arthur was restless, very restless. The fruit of her labor was in her hands, but it was vapid, tasteless, unsatisfying. What her soul clamored for, was the opera, the contact of kindred spirits, the rush and whirl, the smoke and champagne, and giddiness of the city; the card-won gold, and painted folly that made the be-all and end-all of life ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... your money, Wally," she said, coming down the remaining stairs, "we'll take up comic opera." Curtseying low she simpered, "My lord!" and gave him her hand ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... their girandoles are lighted, their dinners served, their lackeys liveried, and their opera-girls vie in benefit-nights. There is no State in Europe where the least wise have not governed the most wise. We find the light and foolish keeping up with the machinery of government easily and leisurely, ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... "Sylphe des Salons." She devoured, without skipping a word, all the accounts of first nights, races, and soirees, took interest in the debut of a singer, in the opening of a new shop. She knew the latest fashions, the addresses of the best tailors, the days of the Bois and the Opera. In Eugene Sue she studied descriptions of furniture; she read Balzac and George Sand, seeking in them imaginary satisfaction for her own desires. Even at table she had her book by her, and turned over the pages while Charles ate and talked to ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... had passed out of sight under the lee of the yacht. A great rocket whistled skywards, and broke in a violet flare that lighted sea and shore. The fete was over, and people were crowding on board. The band was playing a selection from a comic opera, and a few voices were singing the ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... popular taste. In January he repeats to you Dan Leno's jokes, and gives you other people's opinions concerning the Old Masters at the Guild-hall. In June he recounts at length what is generally thought concerning the Academy, and agrees with most people on most points connected with the Opera. If forgetful for a moment—as an Englishman may be excused for being—whether it be summer or winter, one may assure oneself by waiting to see whether Longrush is enthusing over cricket or football. He is always up-to- date. The last new Shakespeare, ...
— Tea-table Talk • Jerome K. Jerome
... he was annoyed and disgusted, because this particular kind of blatantly vulgar bad taste was the sort of thing he loathed. It was the sort of thing which made duchesses of women who did alluring "turns" at music halls or sang suggestive songs in comic opera, and transformed into the chatelaines of ancient castles young persons who had presided at the ribbon counter. He saw as little as possible of his heir presumptive after this, and if the truth were told, Captain Alec ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... melody, and Caesar delivered an oration at Rome; at thirteen Henry M. Stanley was a teacher; at fourteen Demosthenes was known as an orator; at fifteen Robert Burns was a great poet, Rossini composed an opera, and Liszt was a wizard in music. At the age of sixteen Victor Hugo was known throughout France; at seventeen Mozart had made a name in Germany, and Michael Angelo was a rising star in Italy. At eighteen Marcus ...
— A Fleece of Gold - Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece • Charles Stewart Given
... and Opera far The full town he forsook, And changed his wand and golden star For Shepherd's Crown ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... ready, the fairies sat down at the tables, in pleasant little parties of four and six, while the band played the most admired fairy opera airs. But before the banquet was through, I am sadly afraid some of the gay young fellows forgot they were in the presence of ladies, they laughed so loud, and talked so much nonsense, and one of them came very near upsetting the table at ...
— The Fairy Nightcaps • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... winter of 1875, while the Beecher-Tilton case was being tried in Brooklyn, she delivered her speech on "Social Purity" at the Chicago Grand Opera House, in the Sunday dime-lecture course, facing with trepidation the immense crowd which gathered to hear her. Even the daring Mrs. Stanton had warned her that she would never be asked to speak in Chicago again, and with this the manager ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... the ghost-seer was republished by Mrs. Crowe, in her Night Side of Nature. But Mrs. Crowe neither gives the facts of the trial correctly, nor indicates the sources of the narrative. The source was a periodical, The Opera Glass, February 3, 1827, thirty years after the date of the trial. The document, however, had existed 'for many years,' in the possession of the anonymous contributor to The Opera Glass. He received it from one of ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... was represented by a round transparent disc, lit from behind by a lantern hanging at the end of a string, whose oscillation revealed by turns first the luminary and then the transparency. This was enough to disgust him for ever with the theatre and the opera, whose motionless choruses, contrasting with the sometimes frantic movement of the music, left him with a memory of an insane and ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... of glitter and flutter and show? What do our New York dames of fashion seek after? To avoid family care, to find servants at any price who will relieve them of home responsibilities, and take charge of their houses and children while they shine at ball and opera, and drive in the park. And the servants who learn of these mistresses,—what do they seek after? They seek also to get rid of care, to live as nearly as possible without work, to dress and shine in their secondary sphere, as the mistresses do in the primary one. High wages ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... expense. In the chair sits a professor of music, at the harpsichord, running over the keys, waiting to give his pupil a lesson; behind whose chair hangs a list of the presents, one Farinelli, an Italian singer, received the next day after his first performance at the Opera House; amongst which, there is notice taken of one, which he received from the hero of our piece, thus: "A gold snuff-box, chased, with the story of Orpheus charming the brutes, by J. Rakewell, esq." By these mementos of extravagance ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... say that I bowed respectfully, laid down the hurdy-gurdy, drew the flute from my pocket, and, after a few flourishes, commenced playing one of the newest airs, or melodies, from a favourite opera. I saw the colour rush into Martha's cheeks the moment I had got through a bar or two, and the start she gave satisfied me that the dear girl remembered her brother's flute. I had played on that very instrument ever since I was sixteen, ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... lately,—is not worked, probably. He took a fabulous sum out of that celebrated corner in the Greenipluck Lead Company. Mr. S. drives his span, goes to Newport in the summer, is conspicuous at the opera, and loves to see Mrs. S. in gorgeous array. What more would you have? Does Skinflint ever think his candle is snuffy or burns dimly? Does he like that great red eye which gleams out of the flame, as though it foretold an unwelcome guest? Could it be young Spooney, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... diversion, or that a vague hope whispered to him that he might obtain some intelligence by so doing, Lacour, on the fifth night after his interview with the minister, went to a masked ball at the grand opera house, in the costume of an officer of the Fusilier Guard, which chance led him to select. Weary of the noise and confusion, sad and discouraged, he had withdrawn from the crowded circle of dancers, when some one touched him on ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... hoop. Junius thus denounces the Duke of Grafton's indecorous devotion to Nancy Parsons: "It is not the private indulgence, but the public insult, of which I complain. The name of Miss Parsons would hardly have been known, if the First Lord of the Treasury had not led her in triumph through the Opera House, even in the presence of the Queen." Lord March (afterwards Duke of Queensberry) was a lord of the bedchamber in the decorous court of George the Third, when he wrote thus to Selwyn: "I was prevented from writing to ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... of that good-humoured savant, as he sat on his Rosinante, armed with an enormous double-barrelled gun, loaded but not primed, some time, to no purpose, spurring the self-willed animal, and then spying through an opera-glass at the majestic animals ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... clear in his Pocket, and t'other an Estate that's mortgag'd to Threescore People; I have a House in Billiter-Lane, the Air's as good as Pickadilly. Cornish makes my Cloaths, Chevalier my Periwigs, I'm courted ev'ry Day to subscribe for singing Opera's, and have had Fifteen Actresses at my Levee, with ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker
... for satire. Their position, too, in practical life was one that they had continually to fight for. In such a temper they wrote and spoke and described one another. Pog- gio's works alone contain dirt enough to create a prejudice against the whole class—and these 'Opera Poggii' were just those most often printed, on the north as well as on the south side of the Alps. We must take care not to rejoice too soon, when we meet among these men a figure which seems immaculate; on further inquiry there is always a danger of meeting with some foul charge, which, ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... again, like M. Zamboni, see behind the man's profile the likeness of a young girl being embraced by him (Fig. 68). There is certainly some imagination about these. And yet, on the first suitable occasion, look at the Moon through an opera-glass, a few days after the first quarter, and you will not fail to see the masculine profile just described, and even to imagine the ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion
... of Turin is seen in the general survey of the town and its princely environs, particularly on the Moncaliere side. Our principal amusement was derived from Zuchelli's masterly performance at the Opera Buffa. The plot of the piece turned partly on the discomfitures and discontents of a supercilious English dandy, which part this singer performed with an immoveable countenance, which kept us in a roar of laughter, his grave rich toned ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... got her back on the platform, the Rube sold his farm, and within six weeks he was wearing more yellow diamonds and throwing a bigger chest than the husband of a grand opera prima donna." ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe |
