Silk and satin playbills and programmes were commonly produced in the 18th and 19th centuries to mark special evenings at the theatre, often lavishly fringed and sometimes even illustrated with an engraved image. This luxurious programme was produced to mark the opening on 27 December 1886 of the Queen's Theatre and Opera House, in Snow Hill, Birmingham, owned by Andrew Melville.
The opening was clearly a splendid affair. Grand productions of English opera were fashionable in the mid-1880s and Balfe's <i>The Bohemian Girl</i> featured over 100 performers. The Liberal politician Joseph Chamberlain, a former mayer of Birnmingham who had represented a constituency in Birmingham since 1876, was a member of the audience, as stated on the playbill. The vogue for English opera did not last long. By 1904, when the theatre was run by Walter Melville, one of Andrew Melville's sons, it was re-named The Metropole Theatre and became famous for its presentation of sensational melodrama.