But the most incomprehensible part of the business is, that with all this enthusiasm, which certainly rather goes on increasing than diminishing, every one declares that he is _ennuyé à la mort_ at le grand opéra.
I do not mean that their being ennuyés is incomprehensible--Heaven knows that I understand that perfectly: but why, when this is avowed, they should continue to persecute themselves by going there two or three times in every week, I cannot comprehend.
If attendance at the opera were here, as it is with us, a sort of criterion of the love of music and _other fine arts_, it would be much less difficult to understand: but this is far from being the case, as both the Italian and the comic operas have more perfect orchestras. The style and manner of singing, too, are what no genuine lover of music could ever be brought to tolerate. When the remembrance of a German or Italian opera comes across one while listening to the dry, heavy recitative of the Academy, it produces a feeling of impatience difficult to conceive by those who have never experienced it.
If, however, instead of being taken in by the name of opera, and expecting the musical treat which that name seems to promise, we go to this magnificent theatre for the purpose of seeing the most superb and the best-fancied decorations in the world, we shall at least not be disappointed, though before the end of the entertainment we may probably become heartily weary of gazing at and admiring the dazzling pageant. I told you just now what Voltaire said of the opera, either when he was particularly enchanted by some reigning star--the adorable Sophie Arnould perhaps--or else when he chose to be particularly à-la-mode: but he seems more soberly in earnest, I think, when he says afterwards, "L'opéra n'est qu'un rendezvous publique, où l'on s'assemble à certains jours, sans trop savoir pourquoi: c'est une maison où tout le monde va, quoiqu'on pense mal du maître, et qu'il soit assez ennuyeux."
That little phrase, "où tout le monde va," contains, I suspect after all, the only true solution of the mystery. "Man is a gregarious animal," say the philosophers; and it is therefore only in conformity to this well-known law of his nature that hes and shes flock by thousands to be pent up together, in defiance of most _triste musique_ and a stifling atmosphere, within the walls of this beautiful puppet-show.