ABSTRACT
The 1840s ended and the 1850s began with Henry Fothergill Chorley dissatisfied and disturbed by personal and professional changes. Chorley’s notices of the final years of Madame Grisi’s career began in 1853 when he stated that the her New York engagement was to be taken as an indication of her retirement, but on 15 October he retracted the news about America and in his yearly reflections on the season just passed. Chorley announced Gounod’s genius to the English reading public in ‘Musical and Dramatic Gossip’ for 26 January 1850. The year 1855 had been a remarkable one: the fourth act of Trovatore, which ‘has advanced Signor Verdi’s reputation as a composer’. During the winter months of 1855–1856, Chorley frequently noticed the performances of Jenny Lind-Goldschmidt, a concert rather than an opera singer, and he continued to regard her with some ambivalence.
