The Press. — London, England, 1855-05-19 00:00:00

pusir. ROYAL ITALIAN OPERA. "IL TROVATORE." THE victories and vicissitudes of Verdi have greatly perplexed and sorely vexed the European musical critics. The purists and contrapuntausts, since the year 1842, when the name of the new composer was first heard, have gravely assured their respective circles that Verdi's operas were "unmitigated trash." The verdict of condemnation has been indeed stereotyped. For thirteen years readers of critical organs in divers countries have been periodi cally told that Verdi is an impostor. And yet in every capital in which the invectives of these classes have been strongest Verdi's name reappears yearly in the prospectuses of the opera managers. The annual annihilation of Verdi has been followed by his rapid resuscitation, to the dismay of the musical prophets. He has certainly been the most abused composer of any age. His triumphs have been the greatest, and his failures the most signal, of any age or country. What, then, is the cause of this contrarity ? Who is right ? The public are the critics. A re trospective glance at Verdi's career may help the cosmopolite amateur, who cares nothing for cliquism and coteries, who is not blinded by bigotry, who is not infatuated for great names, who is not bound down entirely to schools, whose love of art is uni versal, to arrive at a calm and important judgment as to Verdi's Teal pretensions. In 1842 Italy was startled by his first work at Milan. It was the Nabucco, known at Her Majesty's Theatre as Nino, and at the Royal Italian Opera as Anato. Ernani followed, and in 1844 this opera was performed at fifty theatres in Italy at one time. The stars of Bellini and Donizetti had set; the successor was a young man, if not with a new school, at least with a novel style. To Erna n i succeeded speedily Lombardi, Due Foscari, Joan of Arc, Alzera, Attila, Macbeth, I Masnadieri, Luisa Miller, Rigoletto, and finally Il Trovatore. The first opera produced in this country of the above-named works was Ernani, at Her Majesty's Theatre in 1845. The cast was not strong, Mme. Rita, Borio, Monani (in her decline) Botello, and Fornasori, being the chief singers ; but Costa was the musical director, and his skill secured a success. The next year Nino and Lombardi were brought out. This was a disastrous epoch in lyric annals. Puffery, premeditated impromptus, cliquism, clacquism, corrupt criticism, reigned supreme in the great temple of fashion, and the true votaries of lyric art revolted at the dictatorial attempt to force public opinion. This state of things operatical was doubt • less a severe blow to Verdi's reputation in this country. Ernani failed in 1847 at the Royal Italian Opera, owing to the reaction of inordinate praise of the new corner. His Due Foscari, although supported by Grisi, Mario, and Ronconi, was equally a failure. I Masnadieri, founded on Schiller's " Rad ber," supported by Jenny Lind, Gardoni, Coletti, and Lablache, produced in the presence of two queens, was quite a fiasco in the same year at Her Majesty's Theatre. Nabucco, magnificently mounted, with Mme. Castellan, Tamberlik, and Ronconi, as exponents, broke down at the Royal Italian Opera in 1850. Jerusalem, a refacermento of I Lombardi, could not maintain its ground in Paris, even with Duprez's vocal and dramatic genius. In the mean while Verdi held his position firmly in Italy, and Ernani has survived all hostile criticism in Paris, Berlin, Vienna, London, &c. Last season Rigoletto, originally produced in Venice in March 1851, met with a genuine financial success at the Royal Italian Opera, with Mme. Bosio, Ronconi, and Mario, but journalism either " hesitated dislike," or " damned with faint praise." The artists and the amateurs established Rigo letto despite of adverse criticism. To close this short summary of Verdi's ups and downs, the fact must be recorded that he is now in Paris superin tending the production of his new work, The Sicilian Vespers, for the Imperial Grand Opera, which will be heard in a few days. Will the most perverse detractors of Verdi venture to predict that he will be shut out from the Royal Italian Opera for the future ? There are the three brilliant representations already of his Trovatore to answer the question. This opera bas been quick in its arrival here. It was first played at the Apollo in Rome, Jan. 19th, 1853, with Mmes. Perico, Goggo ; Signori Baucarde, Guicciordi, and Balderi. It was transplanted to Paris Dec. 23rd last. The cast included Mine. Frezzolini, Mme. Borghi-Mamo, a new contralto of fame, Signor Gra riani, a new barytone, and M. Baucartle. The Em peror and Empress were present, and the reception was rapturous. It filled the theatre to the close of the season last March ; it saved its fallen fortunes. Borghi-Mamo having been prevented from continu ing her performance of Azucena, Mme. Viardot at five days studied the part, and created a sensation in it equal to that she had made at the French Grand Opera, in 1849, in Meyerbeer's Prophite. Leaving now the historical retrospect of Verdi's singular for tunes, it remains to be seen whether Il Trovatore THE PRESS. be the transformation of his early rugged style, and the opening of a new epoch in his artistic existence, as it is affirmed by his adherents. The slashing and sneering diatribes respecting the Trovatore may be dismissed at once. They are too late. The public has decided against the opinion of professional anti pathies and dislike. The connoisseurs, the habitues of the opera, care "nothing for the cunnynge con trivers of wizard harmonies." They refrain from the calculation whether Verdi is to be classed amongst the Shakspeares and Mittens of music. He may not be the Dante of the lyric drama. He may be ranked as the master of historical art, the representative of music's inelodramatic attributes. The opera patrons and frequenters are content to recognise in Verdi the power to depict the varied emotions of the human heart. In the Trovatore the auditories have been found to be spellbound by the generally impassioned fervour of the composer's style. His lively and passionate imagination carries him through all defects of dramatic portraiture. His flimsy forms and artifices, his frequent sacri fice of sense to sound, his barrel-organ and quadrillish tunes, and as many more faults, defects, sins of omission and commission, as can easily be enumerated, are all forgotten by audiences (stern and uncompromising professors excepted) in his overwhelming energy, in the alternations of his striking and picturesque accents of fear, hope, joy, sense, and despair. Perhaps the last-mentioned passion has never been expressed in music more profoundly than by Verdi. True, he tries the powers bf physical endurance of his singers to the utmost verge; the pace is at times tremendous, killing for the voices—that is the affair, however, of the singers, not of the writer. It is for the interpreters to accept or refuse the dry bones of the drama, and the music breathed into it. Directorial despotism cannot com pel prima donnas and tender tenors to strain their voices to their destruction. The sweet but som niferous suavity of the older masters in Italy has given way to greater vigour of rhythm. The revolu tion may have diminished vocalisation in its tender • ness, but it has increased its intensity. Of all the objections to the Verdi school this affected com miseration for the singers is the most absurd. The truth is, that inferior artists have little or no chances of success in Verdi's operas, and hence the cry of the inferior order of singers. But great vocalists have been always too glad of the opportunities of display he affords them. Grisi, Bosio, and Mario, as the rumour runs, would have been too delighted to have sung the parts of Azucena, Leonora, and Manrico, but the characters had been alrea dy assigned to Viardot, Mme. Ney, and Tamberlik, and there has been every reason to be content with this cast. What theatre in the world but the Royal Italian Opera can exhibit such a double phalanx of operatic celebrities? The first act of the Trovatore, although carefully written, contains nothing remarkable. The explana tory narration of Ferrando (Tagliafico) is well marked, and the choral responses are characteristic. The aria dentrata of Mme. Ney has Verdi's recog nised peculiarities in the phrasing; the admirably articulated shake of Mlle. Ney in the adagio tells, and her arabesques in the commonplace caboletta are equally well executed. The serenade of the Troubadour is melodious and ear-catching. The trio finale is impulsive and vigorous, but common. The music develops itself more characteristically in the opening gipsy chorus of the second act. The Moorish melody of Azucena, so sad, so brooding, is exquisitely sung by Viardot. The succeeding pas sages descriptive of her mother's fate, and of the burning of her child, will never be effective, except sung by an artist of genius. The scene, therefore, from Viardot caused breathless attention and a morbid sensation—the highest compliment an audience can pay where every note, every gesture, must be heard and watched. Strange that one of the silliest of duets should succeed, between Azucena and Manrico, in this intensely exciting scene. The new barytone has the next triumph in the melody " 11 balen del tuo sorroso," a lively cantabile, in which Graziani is nightly encored. Some staccato choral effocts owe their origin to a scene in Rossini's William Tell; but the two blended subjects of the chorus of nuns and of the Count's follow. rs are effective. The finale of this act, in which Leonora's abduction by the Count is prevented by the Trouba dour, is carefully organised, but is not equal to Verdi's usually powerful writing of a concerted piece A soldiers' chorus in the third act is more pretty than spirited. The seizure of Azucena by the Count's adherents has some fine points, but the concerted piece will always mainly depend on the histrionic gifts of the representative of that arduous and diffi cult part. A nicely-voiced aria for the tenor and an elegant duettino follow, leaving the finale—one of remarkable vigour—for Tamberlik to display his won drous chest-notes. With the exception of the conven tionalities in the duo between Leonora and the Count, the last act is a masterpice. Anything finer or more intensely dramatic than the two duos, first between Leonora and Manrico, and subsequently between Azucena and Manrico, is not to be found on the lyric SATURDAY, stage. In the first situation a massive tower is seen, from the interior of which is heard the wail for the soul of the dead. Above this undercurrent of voices, beautifully subdued, is heard Manrico singing a last farewell to his beloved Leonora, whilst she, outside the dreary walls, expresses her resolve to die or to release the prisoner. This duo is quite an inspire. tion of genius, and in spite of its length is always redemanded with rapture. The duo in the prison between the Gitana and the Troubadour is most touching. The orchestration is exquisite ; the pianissimo passages as the doomed Azucena sinks to sleep on her bed of straw are the perfection of vocal writing. The last duo, between the Troubadour and Leonora, is also in the highest order of fine feeling and consummate musicianship. Such music as is found in this act has been cast in no ordinary mould. It is a grand embodiment of varying ex pressions, which extinguish every annoj ing sensation at the clumsily-contrived catastrophe and its cupfull of horrors. The poet Cammorano, who concocted this story, after a Spanish drama by Antonio Garcia Guttiores, died shortly after the Trovatore was pro duced. He seems to have written his own death knell. If every eulogium has been apparently exhausted by critics on the mounting and execution of this opera, too much has not been stated on behalf of the directors, who have gone to every expense in a magnificent mise en scene, to Costa for his masterly guidance of the vocal and orchestral forces, to Mr. Beverley for the scenery, to Mr. Hams for the action and grouping, and to Viardot, Mlle. Ney, Graziani, and Tamberlik, for their immense exertions. Viardot is in excellent voice this season. The music of Azucena suits her; she evidently likes the part., and, consummate tragedian as she is, she has made a great sensation in the gipsy mother. Her make-up is a study; the statuesque management of the drapery evinces her artistic care and feeling for art. Mlle. Ney, as a vocalist, has won great glory by her Leonora. She has a noble voice, and her executive skill is of the highest order. The Trovatore was repeated on Tuesday evening, and on Thursday evening Purituni was performed with the powerful cast of Bosio, Lablache, Graziani, and that prince of tenors Mario, who, on his appear ance, was greeted with rounds of the most enthusi astic applause. He looked in excellent health, and his voice was as sweet, fresh, and full of power as ever. The " A to o care" and the " A una fonte afilitto" he sang with the most exquisite pathos and finish ; and in the duets " Ferma invan pretendi" and " Ascosa in bianco vel" he achieved fresh triumphs. Never, in short, had the great tenor appeared in finer voice, or so full of vigour and energy. Puritani is repeated tonight, and on Thursday next Grisi's first performance of her promised series will take place, as Leonora in Donizetti's opera of the Favorita. DRURY LANE. THE engagement of the Ita'ian opera company has been continued at this theatre, and the house was reopened on Wednesday evening with the opera of La Sonnambula, Mine. Gassier sustaining the part of Amino. The house was literally crowded in every part, and, from the attention which was paid to the performance, it may be said by an audience at least desirous of appreciating the beauties of an opera. The institution of a cheap opera in London may be regarded as a great event, and the projectors of this scheme deserve the patronage of the public. Not only is the opera well put upon the stage, but the singers and orchestra are both excellent, and to the public the opportunity is now offered of hearing some of the most exquisite inspirations of the greatest composers admirably performed for the most mode rate charges. We cannot speak too highly of this attempt to legitimate a cheap opera in London, and it rests entirely with the public to decide whether such an institution shall become one of our perma nent amusements or not. The closely crowded house upon Wednesday evening gave evidence that the feeling is in favour of the attempt, which, from the excellence of the means employed, is certainly fully deserving of every success. The comfort and convenience of the arrangements of the house also evince the anxiety of the lessee to leave nothing un done which shall insure patronage, and to all who wish to hear a good opera well performed in every part—for each character is thoroughly well sus tained—for a charge below that for theatrical perform. ances, we would recommend them to visit old Drury. LycEum.—Mr. Allcroft, the lessee of this theatre, has announced a short series of farewell operatic performances by Mme. Anna Thillon, prior to her final retirement from the stage. As an actress and a singer Mme. Thillon belongs entirely to the French school. Her genre is light comedy, and she has done a great deal to make the English public familiar with the operas of Auber, more than one of which, we believe, were written expressly for her. One of her principal parts is that of La Catarina, in the Crown Diamonds ; and this opera accordingly was chosen for her first farewell performance ou Wed nesday evening, on which occasion she acted with the