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General Age of Madame Vestris
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Birth
<a href='' >Williams, "Madame Vestris A Theatrical Biography", 4-11</a> Lucy Bartolozzi was born into an artistic, european family in England. Her grandfather, Francisco Bartolozzi, was an eminent engraver. Both of her parents were musical, and she received a musical education from them. From her mother and father, she also became fluent in French and Italian, as well as English -
Marriage to Armand Vestris
Armand Vestris was a leading dancer of the time and he held a position at the King's Theater. She used to be his pupil. The use of his name evoked glamour in both European and English theater. However, the marriage was not emotionally sucessful, eventually ending in a prolonged separation. -
Madame Vestris' Debut
She played Mme Proserpina in "Il Ratto di Proserpina" by Peter Von Winter at the King's Theater in the Haymarket. At this time, she was more well known as a singer than an actress. -
Giovanni in London
Madame Vestris plays Giovanni,a man so sexually hot that hell kicks him out to an even more wicked place- London! This play became a hit, mainly due to the force of Madame Vestris' personality. It had a phenomenal run, 35 nights in a season, and became a staple for the following three years. Moreover, this role gave Madame Vestris her fame within the theater and the public. (William 54-58.) -
Performance of "Oberon, or The Elf King's Oath"
Madame Vestris and Plache's professional relationship begins with this production.Planche wrote the libretto for this piece. Planche would later write pieces and design sets for Madame Vestris when she managed the Olympic Theater. In addition to his pictoral imagination, he had an "acute sense of history" that adds more realistic accents to Madame's high attention to details. (Williams, 68-69.) -
Opening Night At the Olympic Theater
At the opening night of the Olympic theater, Madame Vestris staged a two act burlesque called "Mary, Queen of Scots or, The Escape from Loch Leven" featuring Maria Foote. With this performance, Madame Vestris s started a new theater practice in Britain by allowing the scene designer ,Planche, to make the setting excluxively related to a specific play. He did this by finding, or making, all real, three dimensional, furnishings. -
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Madame Vestris' Management of the Olympic
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The Conquering Game
It is in this one act play that some theater historians think that "the box set first appeared in England." However, others contend that she may have made a modest advancement in realisitic settings, but nothing as revolutionary as the box set. -
Madame Vestris becomes Bankrupt
Madame Vestris' four year love affair with the young, broke, Honorable Edward Thynne was a huge drain in her income, both because of the loans she gave him and the tours she missed to be with him. Madame also was "easy pre for sharp practice"; her brother in law embezzled from her and tradesmen tricked her with bills. (William 126.) -
Madame Vestris marries actor Charles Matthews
Madame and Matthews, though invovled at the time, marry in order to have a more respectable appearance before their tour in New York. Surviving letters from Matthews shows that he genuinely cared for Madame, and that her second marraige worked much better than her marriage with Armand Vestris. -
Return from Tour in America
Upon the return from her tour in America, where the newspapers generally gave her poor reviews and focused on her scandals, Madame found that the Olympic was failing. Her absence during the tour led to a large drop in receipts, which led to debt. Rival theaters aggravated the debt at this time, because they had adopted variations of Madame Vestris' managing methods. -
Vestris and Matthews begin to run Covent Garden
Here, Madame increased the cheapest ticket price from a shilling to a shilling and a six pence by closing the top gallery, perhaps in order to impose good manners. (Williams 155.) -
"Love's Labour's Lost"- the opening night at Covent Garden
Though an admirable attempt to stage a Shakespearean play not seen since his time, this play was a poor choice for opening night. Reviews generally complimented the decor of Covent Garden theater, the scenery and the costumes, but it failed to win over the audience, especially those in the pit and gallery seats. (William 155.) -
A Midsummer Night's Dream opens
Madame Vestris, managing and playing as Oberon, staged this show in the second of three Covent Garden Seasons. This is a significant production because it establishes many Victorian stage traditions usd in following productions of A Mid Summer Night's dream. Main trends that the Vestris production began include: removing the arcane references, shortening and softening the lovers' quarrel in the forest, and cutting any shade of suggestive or unpleasant material. -
Madame Vestris' Farwell performance from Covent Garden Theater
Madame Vestris and Matthews fell behind on the rent; the proprietors of Covent Garden sued Matthews, which resulted in an eviction from the theater. According to the Morning Post, Matthews and Vestris actually met the sum required by a verbal agreement done with the proprietors, but failed to meet the written agreement. -
The Lyceum opens under the management of Madame Vestris
Though the attention to detail in decor and set design still showed Madame Vestris' involvement in the Lyceum, Matthews handled most of the management. Under his management, everything on stage "was eventually swallowed up by scenery" ( Williams 208),. This contrasted Madame Vestris' normal application of scenery, where it was closely related to the action. -
"The Day of Reckoning"
During the management of the Royal Lyceum, Madame performed and actively managed less frequently as her health declined. Here, she performs in a smaller role. Many comments in the press noted that she had "little to do". However, one review talked about "perfect acting" and "the contrast between the natural manner of (Vestris and Matthews)" (William 210.) -
Madame Vestris' Final Performance
She performed a part in "Sunshine Through the Clouds" in a Benefit to support her husband Charles. -
Matthews gives up the Lyceum Theater
The combined lack of capital, and Madame Vestris' absence due to illness forced Matthews to forgo his lease. He then began touring in the provinces to pay for Madame Vestris' medicines and nurses. -
Death
Madame Vestris struggled with a lengthy disease, thought to be a type of cancer for about two years before succumbing.
