The morning papers of Saturday, 3rd June 1843, announced accordingly that between the acts of the opera (_Il Barbiere di Seviglia_), Donna [_sic_] Lola Montez, of the Teatro Real, Seville, would make her first appearance in this country, in the original Spanish dance, "El Olano." Attracted by this advertisement, a critic, who afterwards wrote under the pseudonym of "Q.," called at the theatre, and was presented to the _débutante_. In her he recognised a lady living opposite his lodgings in Grafton Street, Mayfair, who had long been the object of his silent adoration. He dwells on her extreme vivacity, on her brilliancy of conversation, and on her foreign accent, which struck him as assumed. She was persuaded to give a rehearsal for his special benefit.
"At that period," he goes on to say, "her figure was even more attractive than her face, lovely as the latter was. Lithe and graceful as a young fawn, every movement that she made seemed instinct with melody as she prepared to commence the dance. Her dark eyes were blazing and flashing with excitement, for she felt that I was willing to admire her. In her _pose_, grace seemed involuntarily to preside over her limbs and dispose their attitude. Her foot and ankle were almost faultless. Nadaud, the violinist, drew the bow across his instrument, and she began to dance. No one who has seen her will quarrel with me for saying that she was not, and is not, a finished _danseuse_, but all who have will as certainly agree with me that she possesses every element which could be required, with careful study in her youth, to make her eminent in her then vocation. As she swept round the stage, her slender waist swayed to the music, and her graceful neck and head bent with it, like a flower that bends with the impulse given to its stem by the changing and fitful temper of the wind."[3]
On that eventful June evening, then, manager, critics, not least of all Lola herself, confidently looked forward to a striking success. The house was crowded, and many notabilities were present. There were the King of Hanover, the Queen-Dowager, the Duchess of Kent, and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. There was also Lola's old enemy, my Lord Ranelagh, who with a party of friends occupied one of the two omnibus-boxes--an admirable point from which to examine the ankles and calves of the long-skirted ballet-girls. When the curtain rose in the _entr'acte_, a Moorish chamber was revealed. On either side stood a damsel, gazing expectantly towards the draped entrance at the back of the stage. A moment later and there glided through this a figure enveloped in a mantilla. One of the handmaids snatched away this drapery, and the commanding form of Donna Lola Montez was revealed in all its glory.