Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 4
1832-03-19
Morning clear but cold. I went to the Office as usual. Nothing of particular consequence in the time. I could not read a line yet my time did not appear to be adequately occupied. Busy upon a lease for one of the Tenants at my new Agency in Quincy. I then took a walk with Mr. Peabody to the North end to observe all the improvements that are making in that quarter. And from thence returned home.
I. Hull Adams returned from Quincy this morning to remain at my House until he goes away. Afternoon I continued my Spanish book with tolerable success.
We took tea early for the purpose of going to the Play. Our party consisted of Mr. Brooks, Mrs. Frothingham, Mrs. G. Brooks and her husband, my Wife and myself. The piece was Cinderella, that part performed by Mrs. Austin.1 It has been got up with much trouble and expense, and is performed on the whole with much better success than I could expect. The music took me back to New York and the period when I heard the Italian Company perform.2 There is a fascination in the style of Rossini though I should hardly think it would bear time and repetition. We returned home at eleven, highly pleased.
Rossini’s opera Cinderella [Cenerentola] with Mrs. Austin in the title role was performed at the Tremont Theatre preceded by a comic opera in two acts, Music and Prejudice, in which Mrs. Austin sang the role of “Alfred (an 264English Gentleman on his travels)” (Boston Daily Advertiser & Patriot, 19 March, p. 3, col. 5). On Mrs. Austin, beautiful and with a voice of great purity and range, see Odell, Annals N.Y. Stage
, 3:309–312 and passim.
That is, June–July 1826; see vol. 2:54–60.