. The Italy of the Italians. the company-system or no, and which so perplexesforeigners, who cannot understand that, besides paying fortheir seat, they still must pay for admission. These admissiontickets if used alone allow of entrance to the pit only, but ifanyone has friends in the house who have a box, armed withthis ticket he has free access to join them. It is really ameasure of self-defence, for as the theatres built on the above-named system have all their boxes pre-engaged in perpetuity,the managers were only able to sell the stalls (poltrone) andthe reserved seats (posti distinti), a
. The Italy of the Italians. the company-system or no, and which so perplexesforeigners, who cannot understand that, besides paying fortheir seat, they still must pay for admission. These admissiontickets if used alone allow of entrance to the pit only, but ifanyone has friends in the house who have a box, armed withthis ticket he has free access to join them. It is really ameasure of self-defence, for as the theatres built on the above-named system have all their boxes pre-engaged in perpetuity,the managers were only able to sell the stalls (poltrone) andthe reserved seats (posti distinti), and if the profits resultingfrom their sale were sufficient to cover outlay when the mount-ing was very simple, the illumination cheap and the preten-sions of artists and public far less than they are to-day, it iscompletely inadequate to meet the immense cost demandedby the mounting of a modern drama. And this, too, despitethe fact that staging in Italy has not yet attained theejftrava|ant proportions of England and Playhouses, Players, and Plays 143 But for these same reasons, and also because the best Italian actors, thanks to the higher salaries paid abroad, . are too often absent from their native land, Theatres^ louring in South America, Russia, or Egypt, these playhouses, above all in the smaller centres, are often closed, in some cases even for years at a time. If, however, some provincial theatres remain thus shut, there are an immense number where a select and varied repertory is performed by excellent artists and which are open at least for some months a year. Among this number are the Manzoni of Milan, the Pergola and Niccolini of Florence, the Costanzi of Rome, the Alfieri of Turin, the Sannazaro of Naples. At one or other of these, elegant and highly critical and cultured audiences judge all the premieres of Italian and foreign playwrights. Besides these aristocratic centres there also exist in thelarge cities a number of second-class theatres, frequented
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