_La Vestale_ was received by the public with enthusiasm. It is said to have been admirably executed, and we know that Spontini was difficult on this point, for we are told by Mr. Ebers that he objected to the performance of _La Vestale_, in London, on the ground "that the means of representation there were inadequate to do justice to his composition." This was twenty years after it was first brought out in Paris, when all Rossini's finest and most elaborately constructed operas (such as _Semiramide_, for instance), had been played in London, and in a manner which quite satisfied Rossini. Probably, however, it was in the spectacular department that Spontini expected the King's Theatre would break down. However that may have been, _La Vestale_ was produced in London, and met with very little success. The part of "La Vestale" was given to a Madame Biagioli, who objected to it as not sufficiently good for her. From the accounts extant of this lady's powers, it is quite certain that Spontini, if he had heard her, would have considered her not nearly good enough for his music. It would, of course, have been far better for the composer, as for the manager and the public, if Spontini had consented to superintend the production of his work himself; but failing that, it was scandalous in defiance of his wishes to produce it at all. Unfortunately, this is a kind of scandal from which operatic managers in England have seldom shrunk. Spontini's _Fernand Cortez_, produced at the Académie in 1809, met with less success than _La Vestale_. In both these works, the spectacular element played an important part, and in _Fernand Cortez_, it was found necessary to introduce a number of Franconi's horses. A journalist of the period proposed that the following inscription should be placed above the doors of the theatre:--_Içi on joue l'opéra à pied et à cheval_. Spontini, as special composer for the Académie of grand operas with hippic and panoramic effects, was the predecessor of M. M. Meyerbeer, and Halévy; and Heine, in his "Lutèce"[88] has given us a very witty, and perhaps, in the main, truthful account of Spontini's animosity towards Meyerbeer, whom he is said to have always regarded as an intriguer and interloper. I may here, however, mention as a proof of the attractiveness of _La Vestale_ from a purely musical point of view, that it was once represented with great success, not only without magnificent or appropriate scenery, but with the scenery belonging to another piece! This was on the 1st of April, 1814, the day after the entry of the Russian and Prussian troops into Paris. _Le Triomphe de Trajan_ had been announced; the allied sovereigns, however, wished to hear _La Vestale_, and the performance was changed. But there was not time to prepare the scenery for Spontini's opera, and that of the said _Triomphe_ was made to do duty for it. [Sidenote: A MURDER AT THE OPERA.]