agencies The nineteenth-century theatre newspapers, associated with publishing houses or agencies, were usually plain advertising paid pages. This fact poses considerable problems to anyone who wants to use newspapers to write the history of the Opera or musical criticism. It is clear, in fact, that most of these newspapers "were merely commercial". In a country where a large educated public was missing, the principle on which the theatrical newspapers were based was to live on subscriptions, largely by the same staff of theatres: impresarios, composers, dancers and especially singers. The purpose of these "subscriptions" to several newspapers was to speak favourably of themselves. The virtuosos are all "celebrated", to say the truth, in the réclames, that they insert personally or by a Brother or noble parent into the gazettes.