"
The winner of the prize was Fitz-Greene Halleck; and it was not at all
a bad poem, though too long to quote here.
The theatre was never a brilliant success. To be sure, such sterling
actors as Mr. and Mrs. John Barnes and the Hilsons played there, and
during a short season of Italian opera, in which Daponte was
enthusiastically interested, Adelaide Pedrotti was the prima donna.
And one of New York's first "opera idols" sang there--Luciano
Fornasari, generally acclaimed by New York ladies as the handsomest
man who had ever been in the city! For a wonder, he wasn't a tenor,
only a basso, but they adored him just the same.
Somehow it grows hard to write of Richmond Hill--a hill no longer, but
a shabby playhouse, which was not even successful. The art-loving
impresarios spent the little money they had very speedily and there
was no more Richmond Hill Theatre.
Then a circus put up there--yes, a circus--in the same house which had
made even sensible Mrs. Adams dream dreams, and where Theo Burr had
entertained her Indian Chief! In 1842, it was the headquarters of a
menagerie, pure and simple.
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