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THE YEAR 1847. HER MAJESTY'S THEATRE. OPERAS. "La Sonnambula," "IPuritani," " Norma." Bellini. " La Favorite," " Lucia," " La Figlia dell' Reggimento." Donizetti. " Robert le Diable." Meyerbeer. " Le Nozze di Figaro." Mozart. " Nino," " Ernani," " I due Fos- cari," "I Lombardi," " I Masnadieri." Verdi. IJrintinal Jsin gtrs. Mdes. Sanchioli. Castellan. De Montenegro. Jenny Lind. MM. Gardoni. Superchi. Bouche. Coletti. Fraschini. Staudigl. Lablache. F. Lablache. BALLET. " Coralia." |) rinripal Mdes. Rosati. Marie Taglioni. Grahn. Carlotta Grisi. THE YEAR 1847. From this time forthduring some yearsthere were two Opera-houses. The secession of many artists, and of a large part of the orchestra and chorus, and that in the wake of their conductor, left Her Majesty's Theatre very bare.Possibly it was an inevitable device, that, as provision for expected performances, there should be a provision of promises,singular to recollect, now that their utterly unsubstantial basis is known. It was announced that M. Meyerbeer was to bring his "Camp de Silesie" to Londonthat opera which he has never allowed to travel beyond the barriers of Berlin,aware, it may be fancied, of its weakness.It was undertaken that Mendelssohn should, in the same season, produce his opera of "The Tempest."There was, thirdly, to be a new opera by Signor Verdi. Of these three promises, the last alone was" THE TEMPEST." 295 performed. It may be doubted whether anything beyond the merest preliminary negotiations had been entered into with the two great German masters. The subject of Shakespeare's delicious faery dream had always attracted Mendelssohn. So long, ere this time, as the date of his residence in Dusseldorf, he hadbeen in consultation with Herr Immermann on the...