Stalls were
first introduced at the Opera House in the Haymarket in the year 1829.
Dissatisfaction was openly expressed, but although the overture was
hissed--the opera being Rossini's "La Donna del Lago"--no serious
disturbance arose. There had been a decline in the public spirit of
playgoers. The generation that delighted in the great O.P. riot had
pretty well passed away. Such another excitement was not possible;
energy and enthusiasm on such a subject seemed to have been exhausted
for ever by that supreme effort. So the audience paid the increased
price or stayed away from the theatre--for staying away from the
theatre could now be calmly viewed as a reasonable alternative. "The
play" was no more what once it had been, a sort of necessary of life.
The example of the Opera manager was presently followed by all other
theatrical establishments, and high-priced stalls became the rule
everywhere. The pit lost its old influence--was, so to say,
disfranchised. It was as one of the old Cinque Ports which the
departing sea and the ever indrifting sand have left high and dry,
unapproachable by water, a port only in name.
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