13 - Financial management

Summary

The financial records of the opera house at this period suggest that the general competence and flair of Brooke's regime was eventually rewarded by a positive balance sheet, once the crisis over Agujari had been overcome. The discovery of several bank accounts used by the managers has shed much light on the details of the finances of Italian opera in London in the 1770s, a subject about which little has hitherto been known for certain. Until the 1772–3 season, Hobart banked at Drummonds, where there had been an opera account for many decades. The Brooke–Yates partnership abruptly terminated this long association, opening an account at Hoare & Co., which they used for three and a half seasons (see Appendix 1a). For the 1777–8 season, their last at the King's Theatre, they opened an account with Mayne & Graham of Jermyn Street, but since this partnership went bankrupt in the early 1780s, the accounts must now be regarded as lost. In 1778 Sheridan and Harris returned to Drummonds, opening an account which lasted for the year of their partnership (see Appendix 1b). Jonathan Garton, treasurer of Covent Garden, became involved with opera finances that year, and his own, much larger account includes transactions clearly made on behalf of the King's Theatre (see Appendix 1c).