In an age before movies, TV, radio, and most assuredly lacking in the internet, the theater was the main entertainment venue and the opera was the main type of performing art.  Many of the letters by family members comment on operas they have gone to see, as they also comment on books they were reading, or pieces of music they were learning.  Sometimes, there was an element of comic relief evident, and the wry humor of the writer who knows they oughtn’t have laughed, but did, shows through.

Julie writing to Carlotta in 1875, from New Orleans:

“Saturday evening went down to L’Affricaine.  The soprano was sick- seven months in the family way- and in the third act when Vasca is looking at the mop, she stood on the other end of the stage singing, when suddenly without warning she fell over backwards in a dead faint. I thought it was part of the role but wondered how she could fall so awkwardly with her feet towards the audience- because her feet were Not her strong point. Then they came near crushing her with the drop curtain and it took six men to carry her off the stage. And yet she came out and tried again- and got on somehow till the last act, when she gave out and they had to stop the thing for good.”