From 1862 to 1867, the theatre was managed by James Henry Mapleson, presenting Italian, French and German opera, including the British premieres of La forza del destino, Médée, Faust and The Merry Wives of Windsor and promoting such singers as Mario, Giulia Grisi, De Murska, Thérèse Tietjens, Antonio Giuglini, Charles Santley and Christine Nilsson. On the night of 6 December 1867, the theatre was destroyed by fire, thought to have been caused by an overheated stove. Only the bare walls of the theatre remained, and most of the adjacent shops in Pall Mall, and the Clergy Club hotel in Charles Street, suffered damage of varying severity. The Royal Opera Arcade, on the western side, survived with only superficial damage. With the destruction of the theatre, Mapleson took his company to the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. By the 1850s, with the era of the romantic ballet at an end, the principal personalities of the ballet, such as Perrot, Saint-Léon, Taglioni, and the composer Pugni, joined the Tsar's Imperial Ballet of St. Petersburg, Russia. Ballet in London went through a considerable decline beginning with the fire at Her Majesty's Theatre, a decline that lasted until the end of the 19th century. Third theatre: 1868–1896 A third building was constructed in 1868 at a cost of £50,000, within the shell of the old theatre, for Lord Dudley. It was designed by Charles Lee and Sons and their partner, William Pain, and built by George Trollope and Sons. The designers had taken over John Nash's practice on his retirement. The new theatre was designed to be less susceptible to fire, with brick firewalls, iron roof trusses and Dennett's patent gypsum-cement floors. The auditorium had four tiers, with a stage large enough for the greatest spectaculars. For opera, the theatre seated 1,890, and for plays, with the orchestra pit removed, 2,500. As a result of a dispute over the rent between Dudley and Mapleson, and a decline in the popularity of ballet, the theatre remained dark until 1874, when it was sold to a Revivalist Christian group for £31,000. Mapleson returned to Her Majesty's in 1877 and 1878, after a disastrous attempt to build a 2,000-seat National Opera House on a site subsequently used for the building of Scotland Yard. On the return of the company, all the fittings of the theatre had been removed, including the seats, carpets and even the wallpaper. £6,000 was