Phillipps had brought an English "Barber of Seville" forward at a
benefit performance for himself at the same Park Theatre at which
more than six years later the Garcia company, the first Italian
opera troupe to visit the New World, performed it in Italian on
the date already mentioned. At Mr. Phillipps's performance the
beneficiary sang the part of Almaviva, and Miss Leesugg, who
afterward became the wife of the comedian Hackett, was the Rosina.
On November 21, 1821, there was another performance for Mr.
Phillipps's benefit, and this time Mrs. Holman took the part of
Rosina. Phillipps and Holman--brave names these in the dramatic
annals of New York and London a little less than a century ago!
When will European writers on music begin to realize that musical
culture in America is not just now in its beginnings?

It was Manuel Garcia's troupe that first performed "Il Barbiere
di Siviglia" in New York, and four of the parts in the opera were
played by members of his family. Manuel, the father, was the Count,
as he had been at the premieres in Rome, London, and Paris; Manuel,
son, was the Figaro (he lived to read about eighty-one years of
operatic enterprise in New York, and died at the age of 101 years in
London in 1906); Signora Garcia, mere, was the Berta, and Rosina was
sung and played by that "cunning pattern of excellent nature," as a
writer of the day called her, Signorina Garcia, afterward the famous
Malibran. The other performers at this representation of the Italian
"Barber" were Signor Rosich (Dr. Bartolo), Signor Angrisani (Don
Basilio), and Signor Crivelli, the younger (Fiorello). The opera was
given twenty-three times in a season of seventy-nine nights, and the
receipts ranged from $1843 on the opening night and $1834 on the
closing, down to $356 on the twenty-ninth night.