that "the singers were frightful, the chorus almost as bad as those at the Italiens, and worse than those at the Opéra Comique; the orchestra weak and coarse." Further troubles came with the outbreak of the 1848 Revolution on 23 February 1848. The turmoil forced the closure of all theatres for several days. A condition of reopening was the donation of initial receipts for the care of the wounded. On 6 March Adam's company premiered the 1-act Les Barricades de 1848 (libretto by Édouard Brisebarre and Saint-Yves; music by Pilati and Eugène Gautier). All the theatres were presenting similar patriotic occasional pieces, and although the program also included Hervé's 1-act Don Quichotte et Sancho Pança, later described by Reynaldo Hahn as "irresistible buffoonery", audiences were sparse. Adam soon exhausted his sources of money. With massive debts he closed the theatre on 28 March 1848 and retired from his position of opera director. At the Théâtre Historique under Edmond Seveste (1851–1852) In 1851, the Opéra-National was revived, and on 1 May Edmond Seveste was appointed director. By the end of July he had taken a lease on the Théâtre Historique (72 Boulevard du Temple). Built by the dramatist Alexandre Dumas, the theatre had opened on 20 February 1847, closed on 20 December 1850, and remained unused. The entrance to the theatre was a long, narrow vestibule, squeezed between two other buildings, with a facade only eight meters wide. The auditorium, located in the back, was unusually wide (20 meters) and only 16 meters deep. It had an audience capacity of 1500–1700 and was thought to have excellent acoustics for opera. The theatre required minimal renovations for its new purpose: new paint of white and gold, some furnishings, and a drop curtain painted by Auguste Rubé. Four candelabra were fastened to the columns of the stage boxes and the busts of Corneille and Molière were replaced with ones of Gluck and Lully. A grand piano surmounted with a bust of Weber was installed in the foyer. Structural alterations were made to some ancillary spaces, including the conversion of stables used for horses in Dumas's historical dramas, into the musicians' green room. While work on the theatre was in progress, rehearsals were held at the Salle Ventadour. Alphonse Varney, who had conducted the orchestra at Théâtre Historique under Dumas, had been hired as the conductor of the newly revived Opéra-National. Of note among