The Press. — London, England, 1856-06-14 00:00:00

, • 572 THE PRES S. _ _ Z,tt grams. LYCEUM THEATRE.-RISTORL IN Schiller's y Queen of Scots Rachel and Ristori have come into direct collision on neutral ground. The former has not included in her list of tragic parts any one from the Italian stage, and Ristori, on the other hand, has not yet embodied any character from the French tragedies, which have been the origin of Rachel's fame. In Medea Ristori threw down the gauntlet to the Hebrew tragedienne by the assumption of the Colchian sorceress, from whom Rachel shrank with dismay. But in the Mary Stuart of the German poet, as translated by French and Italian adapters, the two great artistes are actually in contact, and the standard of comparison becomes unavoidable. Which delineation is the Mary of Schiller? Is it the fierce, uncompromising, and determined declamation of Rachel—is it her withering scorn and interne irony which con vey to the mind's eye the doomed Scottish sovereign ? Is it in the exhibition of spite and malignancy, in the great scene between the two Queen's, that Rachel's reputation on Mary must rest? Or, on the other hand, is the conception of Ristori the tr.ie one—the portraiture presenting the imprisoned Queen, as a suffering injured woman, who has erred, and committed the crime of being an accomplice in the murder of one of her husbands, but who, from long suffering and misfortune, resigns herself to her earliest religious impressions? Once only does Mary, as depicted by Ristori, forget that she is a queen, and that only when, goaded to despair by the unrelenting hatred of the Tudor, she descends to a war of words, and humilates the jealous and proud Elisabeth. even in the presence of her favorite Leicester, who is made by Schiller the lover of the two Queens. In the two interpretations of the poet's text, it must be admitted there is a wide field for discus sion, and it would require a searching analysis of the tragedy for the partisans of Ristori and Rachel to uphold their respective themes. If Rachel may be pro- nounced to be grand in the climax of invective, which she reaches in the quarrel interview, Ristori, on the other hand, will be declared to be sublime in the devotional fervour of the scaffold scene. Rachel could not convey to the spectators that Leicester would prefer Mary to Elizabeth. The chivalrous love of Mortimer for Mary, when Rachel is seen, seems unaccountable; and the devoted attachment of Mary's followers is scarcely natural with Rachel's stern ap pearance. In Ristori, on the contrary, sympathy is felt from the commencement for Mary. Her queenly deportment does not remove the impression of the womanliness of Mary. Like Marie Antoinette, she exercises a potent spell over all those who approach her. The wild enthusiasm of Mortimer is justified, and the liking of Leicester, characterised as it, is by his courtly selfishness, and by his ulti mately cowardly and treacherous betrayal of Mary, is not a matter of surprise, with Ristori's fasci nations, which are not confined to the manifi cent make-up, nor to her finely chiselled features, but to the exquisite melody of the voice— the tenderness and pathos in every inflection of that melodious organ with which Ristori is gifted. How irresistibly touching were the tones when Mary is allowed to breathe for a moment the pure air in the park surrounding her last mortal home! Beet hoven in the glorious outbreak of the captives on leaving their dungeons is not more affecting than Ristori's soliloquy in this scene. Still more marked are the musical attributes of her ♦oice, in the con cluding act of the execution, one of the must affecting scenes ever witnessed on any stage. She is of the earth earthy, so long as her attendants surround her; even on the brink of the grave she affectionately Decal's the proofs of devotion of her weeping servants ; but when her confessor is alone with her, religious impulses only animate her. There is but one moment of distraction from her thoughts of the future—it is at the sight of Leicester, who attends with Cecil at the scaffold. The feelings of the injured and outraged woman return for a second, but the sight of the crucifix removes all earthly considerations ; and in a gaze— and such a gaze !—of heavenly resignation the exit to death is accomplished ; the axe gleams in the dis tance, the muffled drum rolls, the bell tolls, and the curtain descends on the unfortunate Mary Queen of Scots. To describe the sensations and emotions which this death scene presented would be vain. A more soul-stirring triumph was never achieved ; and it was the more remarkable because it was singly done. Nothing but the genius of Ristori could have suc ceeded in Mary Stuart, with such a rival queen as the representative of Elizabeth, and with such awk ward and ill-favoured lovers as the artists charged with the parts of Leicester and Mortimer. But the stage business was well managed, and the pantomime of the attendants in the last scene was expressive. Objection has been taken to this noble drama of Schiller that it is. not a good acting play. Mary appears only in the first, third, and fifth seta, the second and fourth being devoted to Elizabeth and her Cabinet Councils. We take leave to doubt whether this judgment be accurate. The action of the tragedy is to our minds admirable; but it re quires a powerful cast, and must not depend on a single artiste, however great may be her genius. No wonder that the unmodulated accents of the secondary actors and actresses created weariness but to hear Ristori is, indeed, redeeming for al; deficiencies. Her utter absorption and self-abanl donment were as conspicuous as in Medea. Her Mary is complete in the conception, and she never sacrifices this completeness to create special effects or to force points. Her head, and heart, and, ay, even her hands are at work; but the artifice of art is lost in the naturalness and spontaneity of the entire treat ment. Now, having been seen in translations from the French and German, it is to be hoped that her next part will be from the Italian stage. It may be added that her Majesty, who has re tained her box for the series of representations of Ristori, witnessed her Medea last Monday, and waited until the fall of the curtain to join graciously in the tribute of admiration of the audience. htstr. HER MAJESTY'S THEATRE. is not well qualified. Such a genius for composition, in the highest range of art, should not have been de. voted to the dry drudgery of teaching, or his time taken up in the direction of the doings of other was ters. Miss Arabella Goddard's mechanism in the reading of the beautiful concerto was perfe c t, b ut there was a lack of poetic feeling and want of deli. cacy in the general interpretation. On Wednesday night a new oratorio was produced at St. Martin's -hall called Enoch's Pr o ph ecy, t h e music by the Rev. Samuel 'l'. Greenhead, A.A., and th e words adapted from Montgomery's poem of "Th e World before the Flood." TnE revival of Lucrezia Borgia was evidently effected in great haste, and the ensemble suffered from the race against time. The Lucrezia of Mme. Albertini had some good points, but on the whole was a very unequal performance. With a little rest the vocalist may yet take a high position. There is brilliancy in her style, and she does not fail from lack of exertion, but rather from the excess of it. Mlle. Rizzi's Orsini was a mistake. Alboni ought to have resumed her original part, in which she has no equal. No doubt the directors tried hard to per suade her to play Orsini, hut failed, owing to the ambition of the ex-contralto, who fancies she must now be a prima donna assoluta. Managerial miseries behind the scenes are never sympathised with by the exacting public; but there are few posi tions more trying for the coolest diplomatist than the endeavour to persuade a singer to do good to the house, as well as to receive the good will of the audience at the same time, by strengthening a weak cast. Belletti's Duke was finely sung and in differently acted. On Thursday the Barbiere was given. Alboni and Belletti both sang and acted with great effect. Mlle. Wagner appears to-night as Romeo, but the Juliet, instead of being Piccolomini, as everybody desired who wished to test her powers in a second character, will he Mlle. Jenny Bauer,the clever English vocalist, who sung and acted so well as one of the vivandieres in Meyerbeer's Etoile du Nord, at the Royal Italian Opera last season, and who was the Catherine in the same opera at Drury lane Theatre, when the English version was so massacred. The Ballet continues to be well sus tained. Marie Taglioni and Boschetti, with MM. Charles and Vandris, appear in some graceful pas de deux, while the pretty ballet of La Manola continues to he included in the divertissements. On the same evening Mme. Jenny Lind Gold schmidt gave the first of her three farewell concerts at Exeter-hall, assisted by Herr Moritz Ganz, vio loncello ; Herr Leopold Ganz, violin ; Herr Gold schmidt, piano ; Mme. Viardot, and Signor Belletti. If to this brief record it be added that the "Musical Union," with Mine. Clara Schumann, he'd a meeting on Tuesday ; that Miss Bassani) and Herr Kuhe had their annual concert on Monday; that the Reunion des Arts assembled on Wednesday ; that the annual concert of the Royal Society of Female Musicians was given last night, it may be gathered that the Ascot week has been indeed busy in musical attraction. A LECTURE ON THE CHARACTER OF lAGO will be delivered on Wednesday evening next, at the Edward's-street Literary Institution, by Mr. Charles Cole. CRYSTAL PALACE.—ReIIItII of admissions for sit days, ending Friday, June 13, 1856. Number ad mitted, including season ticket holders, 36,769. AMERICAN DEMOCRACY.—The same incentives to the permanent acsumulation of wealth do not exist in America which operate in England. No man cares to be the founder of a family in a country where all difference of birth is ignored, and it is im possible to entail his wealth upon a single represen tative of his family. The amusements of Americans are not so expensive as ours, and there are fewer of them ; nor is there any rank or society which neces sarily involves a heavy expenditure to the man whose home is in the Far West. Money is less valuable for its own sake, or as an ingredient in his happiness. The amenities of civilisation have no charms for him. He longs to exchange his insipid existence in an eastern city for the freedom of the woods, where his occupation has ever been reckless speculation, the excitement of which still forms his chief source of pleasure ; so he plays away his fort.une as soon as he has made it. His habits of life remain unchanged whatever be his pecuniary circumstances, and whether the last card was a trump matters very little to him, for he means to gamble all his life.—Oliphant's Minnesota. THE CHIEF GLORY OF DAMASCUS is In the splen dour of its private houses. No contrast could be greater than that between the exterior and the in terior. The irregular mud walls, and ricketty-looking projecting upper chambers, give but poor promise of splendour within. The entrance is by a mean door way into a narrow and winding passage, or some times a plain stablejard. Passing this, the outer court is gained. Here is a variegated pavement of black and white stones, intermixed with pieces of marble, variously designed. A fountain sparkles in the midst, shaded by evergreens and flowering shrubs ; and at one side is an open alcove, called a lewan, with a light and beautifully-ornamented arch, supporting the exterior wall. The floor is of marble of different colours, and a raised dais, covered with soft cushions of silk, surrounds the three sides. The chambers and halls in this court are all occupied by the master and his men-servants: here he receives visitors, and to this alone are strangers ever ad mitted. Another winding passage opens from this to the inner or chief court, called the harem, whose door is kept by eunuchs. It is when this court 14 gained that the splendour of the mansion first bursts upon the view.—Porter's Five Years in Damascus. ROYAL ITALIAN OPERA. THE great event has been the appearance of Mario as Manrico in Verdi's Trovatore. He sustaired his part in Paris during the last season with signal suc cess, but in that capital he had no Tamberlik to contend with. It may be safely stated that the re membrance of the latter will not be lost, even with Mario's undoubted triumph. The styles of the two unrivalled tenors are totally distinct. In Mario there is all the charm and tenderness of the most mellifluous voice with which man has ever been gifted, and in Tamberlik there is the vigour and power of the interesting dramatic singer. Mario captivates, and Tamberlik astonishes, his hearers. Both are consummate artistes front every point of view. The " Miserere" scene by Mario was indeed a touching wail, and in the energetic portions he came out with unexpected strength. Mme. Ney's Leonora is a magnificent piece of singing from be ginning to end. On Monday night a new prima donna, Mlle. Devries, is announced as Donna Anna for the revival of Don Giovanni, Gardoni succeeding Tamberlik as Don Ottavia. MUSICAL DOINGS. Swim's marvellous execution of Paganini's well known " Clochette " violin concerto in B minor, created an immense sensation at the fifth Philhar monic Concert. The composition is full of eccentri cities, but contains some delicious cantabile phrases, and some almost insurmountably difficult passages. Some of the classics took exception to the use of the side drum in the tutto, and yet they applauded to the very echo, in the Italian symphony of Mendelssohn, the " saltorello," or common Neapolitan gig with which that clever work winds up. In hearing Sterndale Bennett's charming pianoforte concerto in C minor, a production worthy of any name in any country, there was reason to regret that he should have accepted the part of conductor, for which he I Ste neg Varlet an (Litg FRIDAY RIMMING. Ties return of the Bank of England for the week ending the 7th of June shows the following changes compared with that for the week previous:— Increase in Circulation .. Decrease in Public Deposits Decrease in Other Deposits Decrease in Government Securities 929,988 Increase in Other Securities Increase in Bullion Increase in Rest 8,056 Increase in Reserve .. Bullion iu Both Departments Circulation, including Bank Post Bills This comparison, though not relatively so favorable ss those of the two preceding returns, is still one that is satisfactory in all essential respects. The bullion con tinues to increase, and large additions are made to the stock of notes. The notes now in reserve are nearly U