WeGA, Rezeptionsdokumente, Digitale Edition
author: anonym
source date: 25. März 1826
language: en
availability: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

DRURY LANE.

[...] [...]

The announcement of Oberon at Covent Garden Theatre has, it should seem, induced the manager [Robert William Elliston (1774–1831), von 1819 bis 1826 Pächter des Drury Lane Theatre.] of this theatre to bring out a piece taken from the same poem. To fair competition we can offer no possible objection; but is it, we would ask, either liberal or wise to take such a method as this to attempt to diminish the attraction of a rival establishment? We had entertained a hope that the agreement which was signed by the proprietors of both houses, as to certain points of management, would (at least in many of its particulars) have continued in operation, as we are quite sure that a paltry, petty warfare like the present, can lead only to mutual ruin. We know nothing of the pecuniary circumstances of either theatre but from the newspapers; and, recollecting what we have lately read of a meeting of creditors on one side, and a chancery suit on the other, we think it would be much more desirable that each should look to its own peculiar preservation, than that, like two desperate and drowning men, they should try to suffocate and engulf each other. In addition to this, Mr. Elliston should remember that the opposite party possess ample means of retaliation. The forthcoming opera of Aladdin, if we are correctly informed, is a translation from the French. How easy, therefore, would it be for the manager of Covent Garden, who has all the scenery and properties at hand, to set some of his subalterns to work, and bring out an Aladdin of his own? With Vestris, Braham, | Philips, and Miss Paton, he would have no great trouble in making his adversaries hide their diminished heads.

[...]